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Are You Worried About Climate Change?

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dave50 | 08:45 Tue 10th Aug 2021 | News
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Is it acceptable for this government to ask us to make expensive changes to our lifestykes such as buying electric cars and scrapping gas fired central heating boilers among other things and enshrining in law that we must be carbon neutral by some arbitrary date when no other country on the planet has made such promises. Add this to the fact we only produce 2% of worlds emissions. Are we cutting our own throats to prove how virtuous we are while the biggest polluters of the world carry on as normal?
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//I can point to the fact that they [China] are doing a lot more than us.// They have the scope. China's emissions per capita increased by around 360% between 1990 and today. India's increased by a similar amount. There is not a cat in Hell's chance of those two countries reducing their emissions to the same level (per capita) as the UK. As usual the UK will be near...
16:30 Tue 10th Aug 2021
I don’t tho think the idea is to force people to buy electric cars - especially not at today’s prices. The idea is to force car companies to only make electric ones thus phasing out petrol and diesel ones.
Other lifestyle changes will also happen gradually.
//Dave we are not being asked to scrap our gas fired central heating boilers.//

Well actually there is a good chance you will be. The heat pump method is not great for this country which leaves the hydrogen boilers currently being prototyped by Worcester. Whilst these new boilers will run on either Natural gas or hydrogen with a simple change Natural gas boilers wont. And you cant have both types of gas going down the same pipe. So come switch over you will be forced.
Much of the attitude on here smacks of the lockdown attitude. Not a thought is given to those impacted the hardest.

No it doesn't bother me, I'm a millionaire, but the vast majority of the public are not and would be severely impacted by such changes especially the poor where it could easily lead to poverty.

Still if you lot are all right Jack thenpress ahead with your ideals.

Gromit, you know a lot about China it seems, why am I not surprised you are blowing the trumpet for the Commies?

And BTW, if you did live there (my nephew does) they dont all have LEDS !
Bit pointless selectively quoting youngmafbog just to give the impression of catching someone out/correcting them when what ladybirder actually said was in affect the same as you
"Dave we are not being asked to scrap our gas fired central heating boilers. We are being asked not to replace them with the same."
So its as and when you come to need to replace. Could be 10+ years off
No Bobb, I wasnt trying to catch any one out.

Why would you say that?


//No it doesn't bother me, I'm a millionaire, but the vast majority of the public are not and would be severely impacted by such changes especially the poor where it could easily lead to poverty.//
Do you have any grandchildren though and dont you worry about the state the climate could be in in 20 years ?
YMB- easy, because you corrected ladybirder by misquoting her
But if your now pulling back and saying she was 100% right after all thats fine
// Gromit, you know a lot about China it seems, why am I not surprised you are blowing the trumpet for the Commies? //

I know a little bit about China because I have bothered to look. So when people say it is pointless the UK trying to reduce our emissions because China aren’t, I can point to the fact that they are doing a lot more than us.
"'m a millionaire, but the vast majority of the public are not and would be severely impacted by such changes especially the poor where it could easily lead to poverty."

I don't disagree... it is very likely that the changes required on the scale required will be costly and painful... this does not make them less necessary or inevitable. We will simply have to change eventually, and the longer we leave it the more painful it gets... the idea that the world can simply go on using resources as it does now is a fantasy.

We did have time to do this slowly and easily but that time was maliciously wasted... the science of climate change was known about in the late 1970s at Exxon. In response rather than try to do something about the problem they spent vast sums of money on denialism, suppression, and misinformation... akin to the behaviour of tobacco companies suppressing information on the harm done by smoking. We are still living with the consequences.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
gromit: "I know a little bit about China because I have bothered to look. So when people say it is pointless the UK trying to reduce our emissions because China aren’t, I can point to the fact that they are doing a lot more than us. " - They have 20 times the population and about 30 times the emissions so whilst their figures are greater, they are not on a per capita basis. They are responsible for 30% of the emissions that are under the control of mankind we are just above 1%.
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/
Any climate activists should be looking at the big boys on this list.
there are climate activists in china... as well there should be.... it is an authoritarian regime though with very little respect for human rights and it treats dissidents the way that some tories would like us to treat XR protestors (or protestors in general).
fair enough untitled but there is no point is demonstrating in a country that can't do much if it wanted to.
we could eradicate our 1.03% and it would make burger all difference.
//I can point to the fact that they [China] are doing a lot more than us.//

They have the scope. China's emissions per capita increased by around 360% between 1990 and today. India's increased by a similar amount.

There is not a cat in Hell's chance of those two countries reducing their emissions to the same level (per capita) as the UK. As usual the UK will be near the top of the list of those taking action whilst the real culprits will pay lip service to the campaign. China has in train coal fired power plants which exceed the entire power output of the USA and is opening a new coal fired power station at the rate of near enough one a week. When they stop doing that, and the UK stops counting power stations that burn freshly felled timber produced on an industrial scale, I might think about buying an electric car.

Mankind will adapt as it always has, without the need for these latest hysterics. By the way, a changing climate does not cause forest fires, but it looks good on the front pages.
^^^

When they stop doing that, and the UK stops counting power stations that burn freshly felled timber produced on an industrial scale, as "renewable" energy"...
climate change does increase the extremity of forest fires new judge and damage the ability of forests to recover from them... and it's those things (extremity and recoverability) that are the problem.

I don't see any reason why the uk shouldn't do its bit, even if its bit is small... this is a planetary problem and if India or China don't adapt now then they will simply be forced to when the problem gets out of control... there is no "if" when it comes to taking action on climate change. Man-made climate change is a scientific fact and changes will happen one way or another... the question is only how bad you're willing to let the situation become first, that's all...
No. Climate has continually changed for millions of years.
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Rather than spending trillions on trying to stop the inevitable, wouldn't it be better spend billions on adapting to the changing climate?
They aren't mutually exclusive dave... most experts agree we need to do both.

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