Interesting comments (and language) in this Economist article

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Gary Prentice said:

 A bit like banning cigarettes, recognised as being so harmful it makes sense just to make them illegal but the consequences of doing so are unthinkable.

but whilst it is unacceptable to ban them as some people won't learn and their rights to self harm are inviolate the practice has become expensive and socially unacceptable in public places because that right does not extend to polluting others' air space.

 

I can well remember yoofs  being tackled by  old fogeys for smoking in the Nosmo King sections of trains and the old guy being ridiculed, people don't do that now and it was that social imperative that made it possible to bring the law in.

[openspaceman]

10 minutes ago, Billhook said:

Or addressing human over population with birth control to combat all of the world's problems,  energy conservation, pollution, habitat destruction, global warming etc

If you look at Hans Rosling's work you will see the only way to address new excess births is to increase the wealth and education of the very poor, this isn't going to happen as fast as it was in Trump and Putins' new schemes.  Anyway it's the very rich that cause the most pollution per capita and the old, like you and me, that are the biggest burden on society.

[Gary Prentice]

What’s it feel like to be a burden on society? 

 

Far too too deep for a sunny Friday morning

[openspaceman]

11 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

What’s it feel like to be a burden on society? 

I could write in depth but you wouldn't read it, pearls before swine ?

11 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

 

Far too too deep for a sunny Friday morning

I'll get the bike out then, Honda or Kwacker, decisions decisions...

[Gary Prentice]

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

I could write in depth but you wouldn't read it, pearls before swine ?

 

?

 

 

 

I’ll get the bike out then, Honda or Kwacker, decisions decisions...

sounds like a plan!

 

[neiln]

Is there a balance that should be considered?  Impact of local pollution from stoves Vs benefit of contribution to reduced carbon emissions from fossil fuels?  It's comparing apples and pears, and very hard, but in a choice between gas/oil heating and wood heating the pros and cons should be considered.

[openspaceman]

44 minutes ago, neiln said:

Is there a balance that should be considered?  Impact of local pollution from stoves Vs benefit of contribution to reduced carbon emissions from fossil fuels?  It's comparing apples and pears, and very hard, but in a choice between gas/oil heating and wood heating the pros and cons should be considered.

Yes this is entirely the point but it's still worth burning wood as cleanly as possible to keep its impact as low as possible.

 

I think you should be able to to burn wood with 30% moisture cleanly but  it may just be that in any basic stove that it's difficult to burn sub 20% wood badly.

 

What is worth a thought is that Methane is a very simple molecule and relatively easy to burn just to CO2 and H2O yet domestic gas burners have a fan and a balanced flue yet we have  a complicated mixture of compounds like wood and expect it to burn cleanly in a basic box and simple heat exchange surfaces.

[westphalian]

the old, like you and me, that are the biggest burden on society.

Don’t forget the discharge from crematorium flues. Perhaps mummification to lower moisture content first

[neiln]

Oh I agree, and strive to burn very clean.  I virtually never see smoke from my flue and get very little soot from the yearly flue sweep.  Drying my own wood for 2 summers, splitting it small, burning it hot and fast.  However as one of those, I suppose, middle class London dwellers I could instead of burning about 8 cube a year, go back to gas bills that are 3 times the size they are now.

I started burning for the ambience, started processing my own wood to save money, found I liked chainsaws, axes and the stove, do it loads and save a lot.  I feel smug doing a bit for sustainable energy/carbon emissions but guilty about any pollution, even though I minimise that and know if everyone burnt as cleanly as I did the problem would be tiny and probably not on the agenda.

[Billhook]

12 hours ago, openspaceman said:

If you look at Hans Rosling's work you will see the only way to address new excess births is to increase the wealth and education of the very poor, this isn't going to happen as fast as it was in Trump and Putins' new schemes.  Anyway it's the very rich that cause the most pollution per capita and the old, like you and me, that are the biggest burden on society.

I agree that there is no way you can introduce compulsory birth control without being labelled a Nazi so in the end the planet will adjust.  Euthanasia for us old'uns would not be very popular!

Really the World is only big enough for a quarter of the current human population.

We will have to leave the problem to Gaia to solve, probably by war, plague or asteroid impact.