The Big Ask

# 1 04-12-2005 , 03:54 PM

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This is a bit of a strange thread for me but one that I just couldn't just leave.

This is the link to The Big Ask's web-site set up by Friends of the Earth and basically is pushing to get climate issues passed as law. For anyone who was on the world wide march on December the 3rd (I was one of 8,000 in London but there were tens of thousands in over 30 country's including the US, Australia and Korea) this site will have special meaning.

It is mainly for the UK members here and tells you how you can E-Mail your local MP and find out what he is doing in Parliament.

This web-site is just not for the UK however, people from all over the world can come and find out how they can do their bit to avoid a total climate chaos situation.

Now that any scientist worth his stuff agrees that global warming and climate change is coming the question now has become, what can we do about it?

One final thing to mention, the site also has some interesting interview with Radiohead lead singer, Thom Yorke.

Thank you for your time.

www.thebigask.com

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Last edited by Tim_LIVID; 04-12-2005 at 03:59 PM.

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# 2 05-12-2005 , 09:31 AM

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the big question is not wether we can stop emmiting co2 and other stuff that contributes to global warming... i mean no matter how much my country, yours and others commit to it (even if kyoto protocol were a hundredfold more restrictive), there will be allways someone somewhere happily burning it unrestrained (read america, china, india and countless others (and in fact all the rapidly developing non first world, they want our living standards too).

So, now that we seem to be on top of hubbert´s peak of worl oil i care more about 2 questions:

1 will the ocean C02 sinks still naturally absorb (most) of the rest of the co2 we will ( make no mistake, if not you and me, somewhere someone will burn it until theres no more), throw to it by burning petrol with only (!) an increase in power and frecuency of hurricanes and stoms, a pair of degrees more in temperature and a few tens of thousands kilometers more of deserization... or will there be a cathastrophic event that changes civilization as we know it?

and

2 will we have enough biofuel, renewable energy sources and (reasonably clean) fusion (D-D and He3-D) to switch to an hydrogen economy when petrol runs out (instead of switching to coal? (in both cases avoiding a malthusian catastophe but with the coal option still emmiting (lots more)co2)

thats for my children to see, the other are just excuses for going to a concert

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 12:13 PM.

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# 3 05-12-2005 , 09:43 AM

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I see what your saying and they are both interesting points, but the fact of the matter remains. I we (as a society) don't cut our emissions by at LEAST 60% before 2050 then we will have reached the point on no return.

The methane in the ice caps would be released, the gulf stream will shut down and there will be nothing we can do about it. Some people actually think we have gone past the point of no return, but I like to have some bit of hope that the human race can save itself somehow.

But if 60% at the least is needed, what hope is there is we (in the the UK) can't even reduce by 3% since 1997 and actually end up increasing our emissions.

There are those who say that going Nuclear is the only way because it emits almost no CO2. That may be true, but there are other points to look at. For one, the is the risk of the radioactive waste that it produces that we are still not sure where to store. Then there is the the fact that climate change is happening now, and a solution is needed now. Nuclear power stations take about 10 years to be built and become operational so by then I fear it may be too late.

Remember what Thom Yorke said, this is a last ditch attempt from a dying industry so be prepared to hear all sorts just so they can try and save their skin. We need to start spending serious money in green energy and not just token gestures.

I would be interested to hear a US opinion about how they over the water are doing their bit.

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# 4 05-12-2005 , 09:55 AM

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the only honest answer in will global warming be just bad or a cathastrophe is "we just dont know" so most countrys will just not be willing to pay the price of being the first ones of stopping burning petrol and will do it while they can... the problem is that soon (50-60yrs) they wont be able to... it will progresively run out and (in the process) be unaffordable (to those that arent willing to go to war to assure they can still burn whats left)

the problem is that without petrol we will have a malthusian catastrophe if we cant find some other suitably convenient energy source... agriculture production relies heavily on energy to keep the levels of today, petrol its not just for powering your car, you console, your pc, your tv, your air conditioning, your freezer... so when petrol runs out we will starve unless using another energy source (heck we will do it even before it runs out as petrol prices will rise almost exponentially from hubberts peak on, and it looks we are in hubberts peak (or very close) right now)

the ideal path would be going hydrogen and obtaining hydrogen of He3-D fusion wich has a waste half life of only(!) 50 years (pretty good compared to the thousands of years of fission technology we use right now) yet the fist comercial fusion reactor is scheduled fo 2060 as a spinoff of ITER project and it will use D-D wich has better waste halflife than fission but still in the range of hundreds of years... no scheduled He3-D (comercial) reactors yet

btw hydrogen technology emits H2O vapors as waste, and investigations have shown that while it reflects some of the suns rays it mostly has a global warming effect (yet smaller and better than emmiting co2... not enterely clean... but maybe with the effects of the equivalent levels of co2 emissions you are demanding)

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 10:09 AM.

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# 5 05-12-2005 , 10:07 AM

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You are right, we need to stop our addiction to Oil and find another solution. As for running cars, well a village in Wales (I believe) came up with the perfect solution. They used normal oil for their local chip shop. It was made using a crop rather than fossil fuels. Another benefit was instead of the horrid smell of petrol fumes the whole village smelt of fish and chips.

The government soon put a stop to that though, for the simple fact that they weren't making as much tax on it as they wanted. Why would people go out and buy petrol at such stupid prices when they could go to their local supermarket and get a bottle for about 30 pence. Or even better, use the filtered left overs from a chip shop?

If our government was serious about saving the environment and at the same time saving our future then they would make this sort of thing legal. Nothing will change until people stop thinking about profit and products and start thinking about our future.

The news of this new power station that dragonfx talked about is good but as I said before 2060 is past the point on no return and action needs to be taken now. Climate change isn't going to wait for us the make decisions and set targets. It's not going to wait for us all to wake up and start changing the way we live from day to day.

That is why the problem is so hard the solve, because it involves everybody using less and giving up some of the luxuries we have all become comfortable with.

We have the technology to do the right thing but there are still a few powerful dinosaurs that are resisting that change that is needed. What they are forgetting in their blind ignorance is that climate change will get everybody, even them.

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# 6 05-12-2005 , 10:53 AM

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whatever, i think the solution is NOT in demanding laws for prohibiting anything BUT in demanding monstruous expenditures (both from govenments and enterprises) on R&D to speed the technology progress so we can have a better alternative asap.

By having a better alternative we can convince them to switch (being good both for the environment, the projects developers countrys and enterprises, and the technology receiving countrys) instead of try (by law or moral superiority) to force anybody to not continue doing something that they actually need to in order to develop or even survive.

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# 7 05-12-2005 , 11:00 AM

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I don't think that people realise that a huge amount of the problem could be solved if they just did simple things at home.

The general public know the risk but still go on regardless because they are waiting for the government to tell them what to do. The government is thinking that we will all will somehow wake up to the threat and do it our self and there is a big gap in the middle. It's can't be down to just one group to take responsibility and do take action. This problem is just too big, it needs everybody to change their ways or the change will be too little too late.

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# 8 05-12-2005 , 01:20 PM

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Agreed, we should be as energy efficient as possible and recycle and stuff... anyways the current model is doomed on the long term... its just a matter of how much more time well be able to stretch it...

A pair of months ago i went to see a model for an "ecologic"(read reduced energy consuption) house my former university was going to present to a challenge in the usa... it was funny that one of the engineers that designed it told me that the house had a 75% reduction in energy consuption compared to an average american house... but just a 30% compared to the average spanish house! and that counting that both have the same levels of electodomestics and usefulness of them!

i asked him about the cost of having solar cells installed on the roof... his response: they pay for themselves in ten years, the biggest cost is having a morocco organized band taking them from your roof and then reselling em! shit they stoled em twice! imagine we just made a way to make em cheap

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 01:23 PM.

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# 9 05-12-2005 , 01:47 PM

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That is the main point of my argument and in fact that of The Big Ask. We have the technology to make houses that have 0 carbon emissions and even generate all the electricity they need with things like solar panels on the roof and wind turbines but the government feels it is too expensive.

With a country like America it would be especially useful considering how much sunshine they get and how much energy they use. It is comforting to know that there are people out there working to make the change happen. That is why supporting to local environmental group, getting onto www.thebigask.com and getting on at your local MP is so important. It's only after we start making ourselves heard that the governments of each of our countries will take note and start doing what is needed.

Laws need to be4 passed because without them the people just don't have to motivation to do it themselves, and even if they did, there would not be enough of them to make enough. I’m not for 1 second saying that the people who are doing something should stop, it's just that the type of infrastructure that is needed to control things like huge oil companies and the aviation industry can not be done at the personal level. These sorts of controls can only come from government. The problem is that governments like the UK and the US get a huge amount of money from these people so why should they risk that for the sake of the environment?

Well it's the job of the people to remind them that their first duty is to us, they were put there by us and they are meant to be to protect us.

Respect to Dragonfx, but is he the only person who has a view on this issue. Being an issue that will one day affect us all I was expecting a little more of a debate.

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# 10 05-12-2005 , 05:08 PM

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BBC News Article about the Ocean

Possible idea to takle the amount of carbon we each produce

Disturbing report about the possible future of Africa

Warning to the 'Denial Lobby'

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Last edited by Tim_LIVID; 05-12-2005 at 05:34 PM.

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# 11 05-12-2005 , 05:59 PM

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Originally posted by Tim_LIVID
BBC News Article about the Ocean

Originally Posted by

Yeah... heard about it... if they are right it cant be stopped, even if all the world stopped at once of producing co2 the global warming effect would continue for decades... they may be very easily wrong, it is very hard to tune nonlinear systems... and it is nearly imposible to tune any complex non linear system so that it mimics real world...

well! in the worst case i always wanted to have in spain the temperature and rain of france... well have the one of finlad... now is the time to buy some more houses to sell when you northerns decide to move here en masse with ice in your asses XD user added image

Possible idea to takle the amount of carbon we each produce

Originally Posted by

yeah its an old theme of political economy that of externalties... i think ive even ranted and raved about it before here... you could as well ask people to give you a quarter pounder of his own meat... it would be asyer than making people internalize their externalties

Disturbing report about the possible future of Africa

Originally Posted by

i do believe it is happening... now to what extent...

Warning to the 'Denial Lobby'

Originally Posted by

hey they even institutionalized creationism... what more can i say...

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 06:07 PM.

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# 12 05-12-2005 , 06:13 PM

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Originally posted by Tim_LIVID
BBC News Article about the Ocean

Originally Posted by

Well I have a fear that is going to happen and like you I feel that is has gone past the point on no return. On the other hand it is hard to predict nature and we have had other predictions that haven't come to form. However we are getting more and more similar reports from different sorts so we know something is going to happen, were just not sure what or how bad it will be for us.

Possible idea to tackle the amount of carbon we each produce

Originally Posted by

I am starting to like this idea, we need to something to make us think how much we personally are contributing to the destruction of the environment and if this is the answer then I think we should get behind it.

Disturbing report about the possible future of Africa

Originally Posted by

This is more bad news at a time when we could do without it. Not only will this mean millions dead (which is reason enough to take action now) but this sort of thing will start to effect India and other nations which produce food for other nations. Then when it starts to produce the same effects in the (for now) lush green farming lands of the US then the problems are just going to increase.

It's seams painfully ironic that the people who have contributed the least to global warming will be the first to suffer.

Warning to the 'Denial Lobby'

Originally Posted by

Just the thought that we are giving people who try to deny the reality of global warming seams to me to be genuinely evil. It's in the same vein of people that say the Holocaust didn't happen or that the world is flat.

We should be past this stage by now. Why are people wasting time arguing IF global warming is going to happen and start focusing their attention to combating the problem.

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# 13 05-12-2005 , 06:13 PM

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hey what about venice and some countrys on very low very small islands(of which name i cant remember) going underwater altogether? sure that for them global warming isnt a joke... that one is good to make a point

now
what was the tencency of the temperature graph prior to the industrial revolution?
up,
did we made it steeper up?
yeah
but would it have reached its current height (and the foreseeable 100yrs) naturally? most probably... just more slowly... earht was alrready changing, there are cycles on it... changing them its order of magnitudes harder that influencing them, and weve barely influenced them
mother nature aint sweet... or at least not all the time...

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 06:37 PM.

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# 14 05-12-2005 , 06:18 PM

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Well unfortunately the beautiful city of Venice won't last much longer if current trends continue, also where I live will eventually go under water. Even London is in danger. There are countless small islands that will be lost to the sea as well as having our coast line altered.

The US has already had a little taste of the power of global warming with Hurricane Katrina. Sciencts don't think that they will get more, just more powerful as the effects of global warming continue to increase.

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# 15 05-12-2005 , 07:05 PM

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Originally posted by Tim_LIVID

This is more bad news at a time when we could do without it. Not only will this mean millions dead (which is reason enough to take action now) but this sort of thing will start to effect India and other nations which produce food for other nations. Then when it starts to produce the same effects in the (for now) lush green farming lands of the US then the problems are just going to increase.

It's seams painfully ironic that the people who have contributed the least to global warming will be the first to suffer.

Originally Posted by

now that belt if extended to the right seems to me to encompass the greatest oil producers doesnt it?

for india they wont get much in the belt, those that are in just have to make more dams and use hydroponics and ****ing forget about making so many golf courses... oh they dont have the money to use the tech... dang i forgot we (europeans and americans) are drowning them in subsidiced export food cheaper than they can produce yet as we displace their industry and make anything but fair trade with them they still dont have the money to afford it anyways! oooh what a pity... lets sell some weapons to them so they can kill each other about diamonds or whatever they have there... thats humanitarian indeed well help world hunger and make money at the same time...

now think about externalties...

Last edited by dragonfx; 05-12-2005 at 07:20 PM.

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