The Climate Crisis

[SydneyRover]

cheers for that billy

[BillyStubbsTears]

No problems SR. The boiling water tap is brilliant. Apart from the convenience, it uses about 10% of the electricity that you'd use if you had a kettle on 8 times a day for 2-3 minutes each time.

[SydneyRover]

Ok thanks I'll check it out, the only time I've seen anything similar here is a Zip heater which is just an after market v-small instantaneous water heater above the sink, normally in an office situation.

[River Don]

I have been watching Universe. Which is fascinating.
My wife refuses to watch it , simply because she cannot get her head around some of the things that are talked about On this programme.
I tried explaining to her that some of the twinkling lights in the night sky is light that is 4000 yrs old . The light originated when the Egyptians walked the earth 2000 yrs bc. And this is just the youngest stars.

I get the distinct impression, many of this world population see climate change the same way. They simply cannot comprehend what is happening. What has happened. What is fact. What is real. What exists. Because we only see what is In Front of us in our generation. In our 70-90 yrs ish.
we have no concept of the universe being billions of years old. We fail to recognise the big picture.
Our time here is limited.
Humanities time on earth is limited too.
We just don’t see it.
And we won’t.
Until it is too late.
I believe it already is.
My dad, age 74,  god bless him, sums up the general mood. “I won’t be around for it to bother me “

Quite poetic and profound NR.

I was once chatting with my best mate and his wife and I said something like, that happened about a hundred years ago, so not long at all. She looked at me puzzled and says, it's longer than I'll live, that's a longtime if you ask me.

She's very smart, much better qualified than me, in computing but it struck me what a short term view of the world that is. In the grand scheme of things, a century is just the blink of an eye. But some see it as a lifetime. Forever. If I say that we've only had mass market aviation for 50 years, going holiday abroad is a new idea, then there are many who think, well that's longer than I've been alive, it's the way things have always been and will be.

A big part of the problem with climate change is getting people to comprehend timescales.

[River Don]

Fossil fuels are the product of millions and millions of years. It's like a battery that has been trickle charged with the energy of the sun, through plants and organisms absorbing and storing that energy.

And we've released vast proportion of that energy and carbon in the space of a century, the majority of it in the last thirty years. On the planetary scale that really is the blink of an eye.

When you think of it that way, isn't it obvious that such a sudden, dramatic change is bound to have consequences? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

[BillyStubbsTears]

There's the old story about the senior Chinese Communist politician in the 1960s who was asked what he thought about the French Revolution. He pondered for a while, then said "It is too soon to tell."

Chinese leaders used to have a reputation for seeing the long game. I hope to God they do over climate change.

[normal rules]

Brexit supporters see the “long game”.
Sorry, couldn’t help it.

[sha66y]

Kids in the developing world have a tiny carbon footprint.

It's westerners with big cars, central heating systems, air con and a penchant for red meat and foreign holidays who are the main culprits.

Damn!
That’s me summed up, love my 2 holidays a year, love a good steak once a fortnight, drive a SUV and have just recently got a new boiler ……..
But I’m not so sure that these little luxuries are really affecting anything!
I mean ! what should I do as an alternative ?

[normal rules]

Kids in the developing world have a tiny carbon footprint.

It's westerners with big cars, central heating systems, air con and a penchant for red meat and foreign holidays who are the main culprits.

Damn!
That’s me summed up, love my 2 holidays a year, love a good steak once a fortnight, drive a SUV and have just recently got a new boiler ……..
But I’m not so sure that these little luxuries are really affecting anything!
I mean ! what should I do as an alternative ?

It’s an interesting question. I’d love to have my own wind turbine in my back garden.
But planning laws, nimby attitudes etc prevents this.

[River Don]

Kids in the developing world have a tiny carbon footprint.

It's westerners with big cars, central heating systems, air con and a penchant for red meat and foreign holidays who are the main culprits.

Damn!
That’s me summed up, love my 2 holidays a year, love a good steak once a fortnight, drive a SUV and have just recently got a new boiler ……..
But I’m not so sure that these little luxuries are really affecting anything!
I mean ! what should I do as an alternative ?

You're right there clearly is no alternative. Not until nature forces an alternative upon us.

[normal rules]

With global warming we won’t need to go abroad soon.
Palm trees in Balby next ?

[SydneyRover]

Here is an article about adding hydrogen to natural gas, it's far from plain sailing.

''Is hydrogen the solution to net-zero home heating?''

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/21/is-hydrogen-the-solution-to-net-zero-home-heating

[normal rules]

Speaking of hydrogen, are people aware than Sheffield has one of the very few hydrogen filling stations in the uk?

[SydneyRover]

''This future of cheap power is already here — at least sometimes.

Last Saturday in South Australia, renewables accounted for a staggering 135 per cent of total demand, breaking the world record for the proportion of solar and wind supplied to a large grid.

As a result of all this excess generation, the spot price of power fell to minus $35.95 per megawatt hour.

Energy generation was curtailed, batteries charged up, and the excess exported to Victoria, which is connected to the SA grid.

"It's a glimpse of the future," says Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University (ANU).

"The direction of travel in Australia for electricity prices is very clearly down."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-12-03/solar-power-how-cheap-will-it-get-household-electricity-bill/100664690

[SydneyRover]

What a great photo

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-09/how-nottingham-plans-to-become-first-uk-net-zero-city/100599878

[Ldr]

I wonder if anyone has thought of skinning electric cars with solar cells?

[SydneyRover]

This annual race has been running for some time and there is work going on for flexible panels even talk about power producing paint.

https://alicespringsnews.com.au/2021/11/19/solar-race-fingers-crossed/

[SydneyRover]

Despite the government's attempts to keep coal on life support .............

''''Australia’s coal-fired power plants likely to shut almost three times faster than expected, report suggests
Latest blueprint by Aemo says grid has already ‘outpaced all expectations’ and anticipates ninefold increase in wind and solar by 2050''

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/dec/10/australias-coal-fired-power-plants-likely-to-shut-almost-three-times-faster-than-expected-report-suggests

[ColinDouglasHandshake]

Nothing about climate change in the news for a while. Must have disappeared.......

[SydneyRover]

Nothing about climate change in the news for a while. Must have disappeared.......

It's not the hot topic at the moment cdh.

[Bentley Bullet]

Nothing about climate change in the news for a while. Must have disappeared.......

We're all gonna die of summet else at the minute!

[normal rules]

There’s plenty of new news on this. 26 m people across Kenya and Sudan starving, the killer tornado in us, claimed to be the biggest ever to hit Tennessee. Rainforests in a Indonesia being ripped up to create bio fuel. All being linked to climate change news.
Meantime in the uk, the daily mail has Shirley Ballas on the front page because she has hair extensions age 62. Oh and the Xmas party fiasco of course.

[Axholme Lion]

Nothing about climate change in the news for a while. Must have disappeared.......

Fake news. Just an excuse for us to pay more tax. I wonder what they're going do do when they've screwed every last penny out of us?

[normal rules]

The Thwaites  glacier is dumping 8 times more of its ice into the ocean than it was 10 years ago. Due to warming seas.
Doesn’t sound like much, but this glacier is the size of the whole of GB.

[normal rules]

The highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, 38C (100F), has been officially confirmed, sounding "alarm bells" over Earth's changing climate.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Tuesday verified the record, reported in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June last year.
The temperature was 18C higher than the area's average daily maximum for June.

[selby]

  You will be pleased to know that the world record for the amount of coal burnt in the world  was  reported to have been set just last week. Britain to it's shame hardly took part in this momentous moment.

[Janso]

  You will be pleased to know that the world record for the amount of coal burnt in the world  was  reported to have been set just last week. Britain to it's shame hardly took part in this momentous moment.

You're a very strange character.

[selby]

  Just thought ir was such an ironic fact that in the face of all the save the world popularity and the war against burning coal the world powers that be burn more coal than ever before in their quest for power.
  Say one thing do another comes to mind. The food and wine were good in Glasgow though, and most of the unwashed swallowed what was said.
 

[idler]

What percentage of that coal was burned by China and India though?

[ravenrover]

Don't forget the Yanks