life and death on our planet and pollution

[bodgit]

http://breathingearth.net/


just move your mouse over any country to find the facts

[glypo]

The life and deaths bit is cool. The whole CO2 bit makes me angry though, it's such a load of rubbish.

People spend their time making this stuff, and it is all plain ignorance of scientific fact. Even the IPCC can't agree totally whether humans are having an effect on the planet and even though it tends to be a majority nowadays they can't agree if the extent to which is even significant.

CO2 seems to be some magic gas, I can name plenty of others that are more important in the greenhouse effect. Has anyone even mentioned Methane recently? All the Nitrous gasses? Water Vapour?

The whole idea is a bit anthropocentric. In the Jurassic ages CO2 levels in the atmosphere were around 10 times higher then they are now , and life was much much more abundant then it is now. Natural climate change is very dramatic, why do people have to think that humans are doing anything. We are tiny in the grand scheme of things. And the fact that since 1998 the planet has been cooling and the Antarctic ice sheet is the biggest in recorded history tend to miss the headlines.

I find it incredibly frustrating. Some of the worlds largest challenges like a cure for Cancer, HIV AIDS, eradicating poverty, finding sustainable energy etc are so much more worthy and time and effort should be spent here and not on this complete myth. We can't fight nature, so we have to accept climate change is natural and will happen. Parts of the sahara desert were once sea beds (hence the salt) and in the middle ages you could grow grape vines and produce wine in Scotland it was so warm... paying green taxes will not change this.

I suppose I am most frustrated as the airline industry (where I work) gets so much stick - yet ironically it's one of the greenest modes of transport. (Media didn't tell you that did they?) With planes like the A380 doing something like 115 miles per gallon per passenger, and future aircraft promising even more, what else could people want? http://www.glypo.com/general/aivenviro.pdf for a report I wrote just last year when I was at Uni.

Sorry rant over. Great link minus the CO2 bit

[peetbee]

I agree with Glypo, I just couldn't have put it so eloquently

[DCM]

Originally Posted by glypo

I suppose I am most frustrated as the airline industry (where I work) gets so much stick - yet ironically it's one of the greenest modes of transport. (Media didn't tell you that did they?) With planes like the A380 doing something like 115 miles per gallon per passenger, and future aircraft promising even more, what else could people want? http://www.glypo.com/general/aivenviro.pdf for a report I wrote just last year when I was at Uni.

Sorry rant over. Great link minus the CO2 bit

ok, I agree with you, but you got to put things into perspective also....

When an Aircraft has it's full allocation of passengers and/or cargo, they are an extremely inefficient way of transporting people, when you go to the domestic flight market in America, where some are nearly empty, and none are really full, the economies of scale fall by the wayside.

Just like with cars, it is greedy to have a big car and just you in it.... but you add one or two more, and your carbon footprint drasticaly reduces.... says me who normaly has 6 in his car haha

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by glypo

Natural climate change is very dramatic, why do people have to think that humans are doing anything.

Its only so they can tax us for just about any amount they feel like, and to try and linit the amount of personal feedom of movement we have

[glypo]

Originally Posted by DCM

when you go to the domestic flight market in America, where some are nearly empty, and none are really full, the economies of scale fall by the wayside.

That certainly used to be the case, an awful lot of domestic airlines in the US have gone bust though as a result. So that is changing very quickly, especially with fuel prices and economic instability speeding it all.

Using actual figures for pollution though, the airline industry is responsible for just 2% of all manmade CO2 emissions yet in terms of media coverage (% of articles 2008) the media reports (blames) the aviation industry in over 15%. I have often seen on the TV people criticise flight, yet in reality other transport, manufacturing energy, construction etc are all much bigger polluters.

[DCM]

I agree, but for a lot of people, the way it is seen, it is an unnecesary use (who needs a holiday). We all know, that things got to change, but it has to be a global change, there isn't much point me driving more economicaly (except for my wallet) when the East is piling out the pollution.

I think, if the governments stopped hitting people with taxes, and started awarding with discounts, people would be far more willing to reduce their impact on the enviroment, and that goes from waste recycling, to energy saving in the house/car/work.

[Lee]

Agreed, the aviation industry is a minor contributor to global warming. When i think of the amount of gas that we burn off per platform all day every day it makes the amount of CO2 emmitted from cars and planes etc irrellevant.

I shouldn`t really say this but i have just handed my notice in, so im going too but on an oil platform, the production team would rather the world collapse than lose a teaspoon of oil, so therefore they will flare any amount of gas off in order to get the oil out of the ground, this can and is quite often 1000 litres cubed a minute!!!!

And gordon brown worries about people buying range rovers

[DCM]

drives me nuts how much I had to pay for LPG.... grrr

[SlowOne]

Let's not forget the energy it takes to make an aircraft. It uses some of the rarest metals on Earth, which take a huge amount of processing to become parts of the airframe, electrics, hydraulics, fuel and engines. When all that's factored in, it's maybe a different picture. I'm not saying aviation is as black as it is painted, but it's CO2 usage is not just flying.

And how I agree with Glypo - there are so many other things that vary, some of which we don't understand that well. What about solar flares, the Van Allen belts, and the oceans to add to Glypo's list. Oceans emit the largest amount of CO2 by far, dwarfing what man manages. What's the impact of that? And there is some very challenging thinking by people who refute Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" film about what he doesn't tell you.

I don't think it is a good idea to mindlessly consume the natural resources of the Earth, nor that we couldn't all consume a little less whether taxed or not. But to simplify the problem down to one thing, and then amplify the rhetoric to drown out anything else isn't a good way to proceed IMHO.

My response to the one-issue Green lobby, and all the CO2 maniacs is this...

If I do as you tell me to make the Earth cooler, what is the climate going to go back to? Will it be to the same as the 1800s, the 15th century when the Thames froze over, or the Ice Age? Please tell me what the climate will be when I've done as you ask me.

...and I have yet to have a reply that goes beyond "Um... er... oh... That's not the point." For me, it's very much the point...

Wonderful site Bodgit, thanks for the link!

[DCM]

Actualy, I know for a fact that the winters have got a lot milder.

Yes, there is the Carbon footprint in manufacturing an item, but the less you have to make and the longer they are in service, the less an impact.