WorcsWuss

We all know the score Tony... even the infallible can be fallible occasionally

Anything which benefits my garden is alright by me And you're right Tony, we're just a bit of a recent skidmark on this lovely planet, if she wipes us all out it will be a great thing for her... I'm beginning to wonder whether these folks who want to save the world simply want to save themselves...? Because afterall, we're the most delicate thing on the planet, we can't survive anymore without artificial heat, light, food..... hell, I know people who can't survive without a mobile phone!!! We'll definitely be the first to go!

Decent engaging speaker but the point made in that talk sort of goes against everything we currently know. Human nature is to climb over each other to consume. If we did go out and solve all those problems what would be the single greatest difference from our current situation? Population growth would spiral even further out of control. I won't bang on any more about it because that's sort of the point made, but there's an interesting quote on that web page picked out from Lomborg's set which suggests our 'greatest problem is that we die'... Surely nature's biggest problem is that we don't die soon enough...? I must hold my hands up and admit my hypocrisy here... I have 3 kids and my wife & sister both survived cancer a couple of years ago thanks to the miracle of modern medicine. Make of that what you will!

That makes me feel something of a massive fairy.... and tremendously queasy... 'CLIP ON FFS, CLIP ON!!!!' I'm practically hyperventilating just watching it!!! Awesome comment from the Russian one...

Wouldn't all the trees die...?

I think you mean 'Treepedo' Dan.... A tree paedo would be something ENTIRELY different... ...' Hello young sapling, would you like to see my Silky...'

I think the difference between climate change and nuclear disarmament was that nuclear war was something which could be instantly started and instantly stopped by individual governments. I doubt very much that the women of Greenham Common influenced the movers and shakers that much, rather more that there were diplomats working tirelessly behind the scenes as much to protect their own families from total devastation as everyone elses.... Climate change is something caused [in part] by centuries of human development and activity which is intrinsic to the way we live at the moment. It could have been prevented had we the knowledge when we discovered fossil fuel [assuming for the moment that's responsible] to have left it in the ground and carried on living in caves, then we'd still be just another mammal. How we live can be changed, but slowly, it can't be 'turned off' nor can it be prevented, like nuclear war was, by a few governments reaching an accord.... It will take [likely almost] as long to change how we live and create a new basis for civilisation as it has taken us to create this one.... If we have time then great, I'm trying to work towards it myself in my own little way already, but if not then our fate is of our own making.

I'd like to say that my posts are all based in precisely the solid scientific fact you suggest and that that's exactly what I mean, but alas it's not, it's just 'my considered conclusion based on the select facts at hand' I'm afraid.... Although you have the jist of what I am saying bang on..! Not to mention the fact that really, China hasn't even really got going yet... something needs to be done.. the question is what? I don't think there's really anything I can change in my life which will make a difference, even if every one of us did the same thing. What's needed is something bigger, and possibly 'impossible'....?

Dexta's are super-fast! I was screaming down the road on ours and the exhaust shot out and landed in my lap... frightened the bloody life out of me and nearly burned a hole in my crotch...

Ref league tables, agreed, but they're all we have. Ref making nearly twice as much carbon as we should, agreed, but we, perhaps more so than anyone else bar a few western European economies, are going in the right direction Ref Chinese carbon generation figures, I wondered the same. Much of Chinese production is 'on behalf' of the West. So if my 'boycot' of Chinese [etc] made goods [as far as that is possible, even I have to accept there are some essential things such as a mobile phone which are only made there] was taken up by everyone, then perhaps generation figures would be more accurate if nothing else... Awareness is a good chunk of the battle. Once it becomes second nature to all of us to judge our actions against their consequences and have a wider understanding of the world around us, then there will be the power to make a collective change. But as long as it's 'just a few liberals & tree huggers' for whom climate change is their primary concern, there's still a long road ahead, and I just don't know whether we can all get down it in time to make a difference...

So there was life 'before Instagram'....!

Totally The culture barrier will make it doubly problematic in this instance as well....

I'm with you by the way Tony, things need to change. I just a little concerned that the opportunity may have been missed....

We did start it Tony, but only the bit we know about. And even if you or I devoted our entire lives to it, so long as the far east is discovering full fat capitalism, there is only one way for the world. It's not a case of shoulder shrugging, 'not my fault so I won't do anything'... It's the realisation that we have missed our opportunity to change things. That lies with China, India, Africa etc now. It's up to them to curb population growth, natural resource use and carbon output. The west have always meddled in others' affairs, and perhaps so much so that we are simply ignored now that it really matters....I despair that while we had the chance to shape the future, we threw it away in the quest for cheap consumer goods and copious quantities of exotic food piled high in our supermarket aisles.... And now a country of 1.4 Bn people... ONE POINT FOUR BILLION PEOPLE... has discovered what we're so fiercely protective of, and they want it, and they're sure as hell gonna have it, and they don't give a flying fig about whatever we say about responsibility... they're on the gravy train now and giving us a full two fingers thank you very much.....

According to the results I found for 09 in the Guardian [not a paper I normall read but they seem to care deeply about factual accuracy on this stuff...] we produced a touch less than Canada but with twice the population. 520m tonnes of carbon out of a global total of 30,400m tonnes, so 10th in the list at 1.7%. Which as the 8th largest global economy, with the 22nd largest population [62m against China's 1.4Bn] doesn't really seem too bad. Additionally our output has been reducing every year, while China's, India's etc have been increasing.... It seems the more we do to combat climate change at home, the less significant we become on the world stage....

Sorry, I can't help but turn off when I start seeing yet another slickly edited video on the subject, with pertinent music, a voice over by an eminent [always American] authority, footage of people happily living the modern way.... not saying it didn't have a point, just that it's the same one we always hear from 'that quarter'. Tony, I love mother earth, I appreciate her beauty and give thanks for what she gives us every day and lament what we as a species are doing to her. I also fear for my children, and when they arrive, my grandchildren. So perhaps the thing to do if we really care about our descendents and the planet is not create them in the first place. A few well to do middle class English people not breeding won't save the world, but our enlightenment could at least prevent our descendents from suffering the inevitable. A huge shift is coming, just like it has before. Early inhabitants of earth had ignorance to protect them, they never saw it coming. We can see it coming, we can predict its effects, we even think we can change it. But we can't, not really, not with the momentum man has gained over the last couple of thousand years, despite what scientists constantly prove or disprove, and that makes the tragedy so much worse. This is bigger than our feeble minds and bodies. My approach is to enjoy and appreciate what we have, while we have it. Look after that which surrounds us and spend time with those we love, because all we have is here and now. We're a flash in the pan.... don't waste your time here....

I disagree that Japanese stuff is 'more reliable' than Land Rovers. In certain areas they are more heavily built which translates into less propensity to shake themselves apart, but I think a well maintained Land Rover used properly is just as reliable as anything else, but with the added advantage of dirt cheap parts and Meccano like construction. I think us Land Rover owners just complain more and ask anyone who happens to walk past what they think when something breaks off / down / apart... Jap trucks just go straight to a garage... or a scrap yard...!

I LOVE the HiCaps, don't know what it is about them but I really want one, always have done!

Adjusts the seat...

Quite right... and making a nice queue to take it in turns as well....

Well that's a cheerful thought to take me home!

I'm ashamed to say I didn't watch every video Tony, not out of awkwardness, just out of time available, and I took your word for it that there would be a genuinely balanced opinion so my own view would be unlikely to have changed by the end of it... But like others I tend to agree that me personally and the UK as a Nation can have little effect on climate change at this stage. We perhaps could have if we'd shot the likes of Brunel, Telford etc at birth maybe.... We're a very clean little nation, but the key is in little. Climate change depends on volume and we're a low volume generator on the world stage and likely to become even less of a player in terms of T/Co2 generated as time goes by, unless you count that produced by China on our behalf as ours... It's also become painfully clear that other nations couldn't give two hoots what we have to say so we're unlikely to be able to influence our less considerate cousins. I recycle what I can, try to drive with a light right foot, avoid flying, turn my lights off and buy UK prduced or locally grown goods wherever possible. If there's anything more I can do to make a real difference to mother earth please tell me, because I'll gladly do it, but I maintain that even if every single person on our island ceased to exist tomorrow, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the global climate... So I don't think it's a lost cause because I can't be bothered, I think it's a lost cause because there are emerging economies driven by the greed which drove our own 100 plus years ago, only they don't have the excuse of ignorance and are merrily consuming resources and tainting our planet with little or no thought to the consequences... And regarding what keeps the core hot, that's simply lack of knowledge and understanding on my part, not deliberate ignorance....

I was wondering about this in a round about sort of way last night as I sat out enjoying a drink as the sun went down... We're sitting on a massive fiery core right? And have a hot shiney sun beating down on us? But this hot shiney sun can't contribute a great deal to keeping our hot fiery core warm, because if it did, the polar ice caps would surely not exist... and we'd burn off like sultanas in hot cross buns in a toaster.... So this fiery core must have a finite lifespan, otherwise we'd all be using Thermos' lined with soil, so my concern is not so much getting too warm as when the middle finally does go cold, the whole planet will become too cold to exist on. Although not in our lifetime.... And then I decided that it must all be magical and had another drink.... I'm a little bit skeptical about climate change because on the one hand, I don't contribute a fat lot to global warming, and 99% of houses in the UK going carbon neutral will still not scratch the surface of what China etc are knocking out, so I reckon for everyone in the west, it's just a bit money spinner for government and industry.... On the other hand, anything which finally manages to wipe us pesky humans of the face of the earth is probably only a good thing so when the time comes, I'll take my medicine....

That's brilliant, I'll use that one, far better than choking a CS round a stem... Adam, I forgive you....

BOOOM! There it is! I'll take that thank you very much Can't see that happening again in my lifetime....