The government is giving a coat of greenwash to its decision to smash its emissions commitments by giving the go-ahead to a new generation of huge coal-fired power stations. The propaganda focuses on the idea that 25% (in fact the measure says 20 to 25% and we can guess which it will be) of harmful emissions must be captured and stored.
Or to put it another way, the most atmosphere polluting of all electricity generation methods will be pumping out a massive increase to British carbon dioxide emissions, with a 20% mitigation of that vast increase. The even more pathetic aspect of the greenwash figleaf is the claim that 100% of the carbon must be captured by 2025.
If we continue to increase carbon emissions until 2025, the value of any reduction thereafter will be minimal; the situation is urgent and needs to be addressed now, not in sixteen years time. It also relies on a non-existent – and many would say physically impossible – technology. It would have been less of a punt to claim that in 2025 they will be replaced by nuclear fusion.
The problem is that when you combust coal or oil, the carbon dioxide produced, even when expensively compressed to its maximum. has a volume several times greater than that of the original coal or oil. Ideas that you put it back in the hole it came from do not work. Keeping a gas compressed also involves high pressure containment. The idea that this will happen on a massive scale, and that any significant proportion of fossil fuel emissions can be stored, does not even make credible science fiction.
The UK has both abundant renewable energy resources and is a world leader in the technology to exploit them. The failure of the government to look to a major boost to the nascent renewable energy industry for this next wave of electricity generation, may in fact be one of the biggest disasters of New Labour.
One part of a sensible solution that is rarely mentioned is the use of hemp as a fuel. With a calorific content greater than that of coal and a twelve week maturation time it would be ideal as a replacement for some of our electricity generation. Add to this the facts that all sorts of materials can be made from the stuff from fabrics and contruction materials to paper (which doesnt require a raft of dangerous chemicals to make and is of a better quality than wood pulp paper) and highly nutritious foodstuffs then it seems a wonder that environmental organisations dont promote it more vigorously.
I can only assume that the drug aspect of hemp scares these groups off despite industrial hemp having no application as a recreactional drug due to its pitifully low THC content.
These are only some of the applications of hemp which could alleviate not only environmental but economic problems aswell.
Actually, it’s not science fiction, it’s well-proven technology, but not in the UK where the government were (as usual) slow on the uptake. Anyway, what’s the short/medium term alternative? Have you any idea how long it takes to build a fast breeder reactor, even if we buy from the French? Or how quickly you get voted out of power if you propose covering the local grouse moor with wind turbines? Or how little juice a wind turbine actually produces?
Individiual wind turbines are now available producing 8MW. A collection of 50 would give 400 MW. So wind farms can now be just as productive as conventional power stations.
Compressing CO2 is indeed an old technology – older than the fizzy drinks industry. But the sheer volume of the stuff from coal power stations is a problem which has not only not been resolved, it is not capable of resolution.
The carbon emissions we are AT THIS MOMENT pumping into our atmosphere is guaranteeing that we will exceed the magic figure of 2 degrees Centigrade that governments say they are going to limit global warming to. By the time we build (and produce power from) new coal-fired power and nuclear power stations, it won’t matter how ‘green’ they are. The climate will be reacting to the emissions the world has produced between now and 2020. We will be facing global warming of 4-6 degrees. Even the Environment Agency, on their coastal defence strategies, is allowing for a minimum 1 metre sea-level rise by the end of this century, with a ‘worst-case’ figure of 2.7 metres. That means in all probability (unless we stop all emissions now) a certain 2.7 metre sea-level rise. And that means that most of our nuclear power stations (which are by the coast) will be put out of action with ghastly results.
We have waves, tides and wind NOW. We need to use them NOW, and taxpayers’ money should be diverted to those technologies – NOW. We also need to face the fact that we have to change our behaviour, NOT scrabble around trying to find ways of carrying on as usual. It is possible – we don’t need to go out and commit suicide now – but we need to ignore governments and simply do the right things – or not do the wrong things.
The Chancellor’s ‘greenwash figleaf’ is not green so much as shitty brown, or shitty Brown, whichever way you read it!
It seems that the government is attempting to satisfy both the green agenda and our energy strategy by pretending that carbon capture is viable.
I do not even see discussions about what the actual energy overhead on carbon capture would be? 10%, 20% maybe even 50% resources wasted. We had Ed Miliband banging about a 2% increase in bills. Doubt it.
Its all fantasy land or perhaps as Craig infers an excuse to press on with building coal plant.
A more sensible means of actually saving energy would be to develop means of mass energy/electricity storage. No more of a fantasy than carbon capture. I would estimate that we would need probably one third to one half as many power stations. We would actually save energy, reduce costs and emissions.
Furthermore, mass energy storage is an absolute must if generation from natural source such as wind is to become viable.
Carbon capture, what a joke!
I am going to be very very unpopular here but I cant believe that a group of supposedly clever people like you lot that see conspiracy in everything the Government do cant see that you have all been had by this global warming rubbish. Its just a blind a diversion to get more money and control us same as the terrorism threat.So its OK to introduce draconian and unrealistic taxes and laws as long as its for trendy causes like saving polar bears. Its all bollocks and the scarey thing is that we will probably all be skint and long dead before I am proved correct.
Yes, Stuart, you probably will be dead, and what will kill you will be the effects of global warming, not your inability to grow up.
Thanks for the insult lesley nothing like attack anyone that dosnt buy into your new religion. Blind faith that cant take critism is very very scarey
Stuart.
Wither you believe in anthropogenic global warming or not and I don’t, mass energy storage is a good idea.
Of course, it would reduce consumption and therefore profits for the energy companies. Perhaps this why you may not have heard of it.
Stuart
Go study astronomy. You don’t have to stick with it very long to get the standard model of the evolution of planetary atmospheres. Then ask yourself why you are being told that these laws apply to every planet except Earth. You might have a look at the people who’re telling you that, and you might note that they are not physicists. But when you have your answer we’ll be waiting here to hear it. Telling us that the laws of physics is some sort of collective illusion is fascinating, but maybe you should be posting to sites dealing with Zen, where such unthoughts have their unplace. The sound you just heard was one hand clapping.
Back to the point of Craig’s post. It will take time to put alternative electricity generation in place – we need to spend on this as if there was no tomorrow, because without it there is no tomorrow that any of us would recognise.
In the meantime and in the short term (and only in the short term) we can burn coal (carbon captured or otherwise) if we commit gigabucks to the clean alternatives. We urgently need to avoid the multi-thousand year toxic legacy of nuclear.
Tidal flow (*flow* – not rise and fall, not waves) is the answer, certainly for Scotland. It needs a lot of money and a lot of aggressive ambition. We need a peaceful Manhattan Project.
I’m with Stuart on this one: Man-made global warming is a nasty little hoax that is being played on us all, and the less “developed” countries in particular. For me it lost all credibility when Al Gore leaped on the gravy train and I have seen nothing since to change my mind (rather the reverse in fact).
Could the fact that coal fired is now “acceptable”, by what ever “method” they dress it up in, mean that they know that that there is no link between CO2 and so called Man Made Global Warming??
Not sure what you are getting at xsdogskin. I dont believe in wasting energy just as I dont believe in squandering the worlds resources so I recycle and dont waste energy. But To sign up to hugely expensive projects and make draconian laws relating to CO2 emmisions that basically equal taxing me and you more for everything to reduce CO2 by more than any other country in the middle of a recession based on dodgy science seems the biggest conspiracy of all. I bet if you offered huge grants to the currently pro global warming scientists to disprove the theory they would all find plenty of evidence saying it is sunspots or natural cycles. My theory and thoughts still stand People will always try and latch onto a cause and this Government is great at manipulating hype. Ever since the Cold War finished governments have tried to find something to control us hyping up the terrorism threat works well. But should that fail better have something else up your sleave
Try and get hold of “Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy” by George A. Olah, in which one of the proposals is that methanol be produced from electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to give a convenient (and long known) liquid fuel. Of course, that would just be putting off the moment when the CO2 escapes to the environment…
Personally I’m in favour of global warming, I hate the cold. Polar bears are nasty vindictive creatures that kill baby seals and get in the way of exploiting the oil fields of Alaska.
Not a trendy POV I’ll grant you, but I’ll take a balmy summer over a frigid winter any day.
So I hope it isn’t all a hoax, burn petrol, melt the ice caps and find more, it’s win win.
Stuart.
Electricity demand varies on both a daily and seasonal basis.
We need enough power stations to cope with the peak demand. If we had energy storage, we would need far fewer power stations as the generation requirement would only be for average demand.
Power stations cannot be easily turned on and off, this is especially true for nuclear plant. Without energy storage, this simply translates to waste.
For generation from natural sources, for when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind blow, energy storage would make these sources a bit more viable.
The problems surrounding developing this technology are probably no greater than carbon capture.
So, why isn’t energy storage discussed? Well, carbon capture assures MORE consumption and more profits. Go figure.
Global warming: have I got my facts right?
Putting carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere creates a “greenhouse effect” which warms up the overall temperature of the planet?
In some cases, because this is resulting in the ice caps melting, the sea currents are getting colder, as are the countries around them (for example) the Gulf stream? Hence the term “climate change” instead?
Otherwise seas, which used to absord carbon dioxide, are now heating up and releasing it, speeding up the process?
Algae, which used to also absorb CO2, is being killed off by the increasing acidity of the seas (caused by pollution?) and instead the seas are becoming populated by jellyfish?
Humankind emits quite a lot of CO2, in fact, after the Industrial Revolution there is a huge spike in our carbon emissions. It is a prime contributor to the greenhouse effect?
If we weren’t spending all our money on fssil fuels, and if it hadn’t all been sold to aluminium corporations, we could buy cheap thermal energy from Iceland. And, if we hadn’t fallen out with the Scots, we could have run the pipeline from Iceland to Kent?
Otherwise people in England should start looking round for their nearest mill stream? I agree, at some point in the future, energy will be localised, with smaller “power stations” collecting their energy from water, wind, methane gases, hemp, solar power, solar paint and bicycles. But until we get there? The Icelandic pipeline seems to be not a bad solution. Standard disclaimer: it should, of course, be a nationalised one, not a corporate one.
?
Or maybe the pipeline’s just a distraction too…thank goodness for my solar powered lamp.
technicolour
That C02 causes an appreciable effect on global temperature via the greenhouse is yet to be proven despite what the alarmist tell you.
Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant and has no significent effect on the Climate of The Earth.
The entire Global Warming issue is a Massive Scam based on Political Control. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Science.
Whilst there are very serious environmental issues that need to be addressed – Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere are not one of them.
In fact the truth of the matter is that significantly increased levels of Carbon Dioxide will be extremely good for plant growth – and providing food for people and animals to eat.
Of course we do have a serious problem with exponential growth of the human population – but that can be resolved by Education – and eliminating Poverty and Wars.
People at all levels are being brainwashed by junk science by an extremely rich powerful elite (largely originated in the UK)
Politicans are incredibly vulnerable to such corruption because they did not do Science at school.
If there is Massive Finance available (Multi-Billions) to Convince The World’s Population that CO2 causes Global Warming – and we must stop it – or the World will Over-Heat – and we will all die – then you will believe it – unless you have been trained in Science.
It’s Bollocks.
Tony
Tony/opmoc: “carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and has no significant effect on the climate of the earth”.
Do you have peer-reviewed references for that? I think you will find that the only solid science that exists illustrates that excess release of carbon dioxide is causing the planet to warm up faster than it would have otherwise have done, and to say otherwise flies is the face of what mainstream scientists have been saying for some decades. The warming effect is doubly dangerous because it could trigger a feedback loop in which planet warming starts to accelerate – demonstrating how finely balanced it was to start with. The only conspiracy on this topic is that it has taken so long for it to come to the attention of the corporate media.
If you yourself are less vulnerable to corruption (Presumably Because You Did Science At School) then you’ll have no trouble providing those refs. It is worth bearing in mind in whose service you are presently arguing, too; the only substantial body of people who “agree” with your position are the companies who stand to make a short-term profit from carbon-based fuels, and who have spent billions of USD lobbying against weak restrictions intended to protect the environment.
Over the last 10 years – I have personally witnessed the dramatic improvement and recovery of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean.
In 1997 – 1998 much of the coral reefs in the Indian Ocean were devastated by Global Warming.
I witnessed the results in 1999. Whilst it wasn’t complete devastation – there was very serious bleaching – of a great deal of coral. Much of the coral had been turned into a white graveyard – and was completely shocking.
But this is a natural effect – that happens cyclically and has – throughout history – it results in the most lovely white coral orginated sands on the beaches of the Islands of the Indian ocean. It’s almost like walking on talcum powder.
The Tsunami of Christmas 2004 – created even more of this almost white sand.
Yet even by Easter 2005 – the new coral was looking very healthy
In 2007 it looked like a young garden
In 2008 it looked like a beautiful well established garden
Now it’s like diving and snorkelling in an underwater heaven
I have underwater videos to prove that what I am saying is true – the most recent taken in high definition
But all the money is in “proving” that the Oceans are being devastated by Global Warming and CO2 causing ocean acidification – by extremely rich and powerful genocidal lunatics
They ain’t going to pay me to publish my results
No one pays me. I find the truth out for myself.
Tony
Jon,
I did Pure Physics and Maths at University in 1971.
At the time there wasn’t a political agenda based on the manipulation of scientific results.
The UK was still slowly recovering from the devastation of WWII.
I was lucky cos I was born after it had finished.
Sure when I was a kid – I played in bombed out mills
But I was free to gain a brilliant education without any political bias for free
My older brother nicked my metal globe of the World – and using proximity detectors – made it spin in free air – with an electronic circuit he built himself in hardware.
There were no computers available to anyone at the time.
Do you think I am making this up?
I ain’t fucking stupid.
I might be totally mad – but I have just got back home from sampling the Stingrays and Sharks with my Wife and Kids.
Who should I peer review my results with?
I am not lying.
If you don’t believe me that’s O.K.
My 18 year old daughter took some brilliant photographs at the G20 protests.
She is currently building an exhibit for her “A” Level Art and Photography.
Sure the World is Currently Fucked.
But it’s Fucked By The Idiots in Control of Us.
Your Brain is an Open Mind.
It is Receptive to Truth and Lies.
How do you know that I am Lying?
Or telling the truth?
And I am just a silly drunken old cunt posting on the internet.
Tony
Opmoc/Tony
“Of course we do have a serious problem with exponential growth of the human population – but that can be resolved by Education – and eliminating Poverty and Wars.”
I’m all in favour, but if “exponential growth of the human population is to blame”, then how will eliminating poverty and wars help? I mean, people die in them?
Alternatively, which populations would you like to see stopping breeding? And, through education, how? Education China’s way? Or the “we can’t afford a school uniform for more than 2.4 of them” Western way?
I thought Co2 (and other gases, including those of farting cows) did have an effect since they go up into the atnosphere and er create this kind of layer thing which stops heat leaving and therefore increases warming. Do gases not block/retain heat? Tell me more?
I’m still on the fence about global warming but tend to the sceptical side. A bit of research I did a while ago presented me with the following facts, and as far as I can acertain, they are facts. But who knows?
Before about 6000 years ago the earth was warmer than it is now, and there was no belt of deserts around the tropics, the Sahara, Arabian, Gobi deserts etc. These areas were populated and food was grown, there was food for everyone without having to trade in it, more or less. I could find no information on the state of the poles at that time except there seems to be an acceptance that they were largely as they are now.
Then, about 6000 years ago, the earth cooled slightly. The main effect was that the air could hold less moisture, that’s a basic fact of nature. Rainfall reduced and the deserts formed. No doubt the ice caps increased but this didn’t result in a lowering of sea levels because the increased ice came from the freezing of the moisture that the air used to hold.
So, it seems a simple thought experiment to me to reverse that process, and warm the earth back up to the temperature pre-4000BC.
What I have never seen discussed by any global-warming pundits is that the air will hold more moisture. It’s a fundamental fact of nature and is what drives our weather systems and keeps life on the planet.
So, going back to the pre-4000BC situation, the extra moisture in the air, through nature’s equilibrium, will come from the melting of the poles.
There will be a greater circulation of moisture in the form of rainfall and evaporation, and maybe the deserts will start to become fertile again. No bad thing maybe, particularly if nature intends it.
Sea levels? Well, who knows? Maybe they will drop as more moisture is absorbed by the warmer air. I think it is a fact that the UN have regularly revised downwards their predictions for sea-level rises. And I never found any reference to major changes of sea levels over the last 6000 years or more. Just the possibility of the formation of the Black Sea.
And it also seems logical to me that more moisture in the air will result in more water standing on the land in the form of rivers, lakes and wetlands.
Here’s a little bit of belief to add to those ‘facts’.
It has been a natural process for man’s intellect and knowledge to result in the earth’s resources being used, and maybe wasted, in various ways. So we have arrived where we are today by a process of nature, which maintains an equilibrium of life on earth.
But now, (meaning since the mid-20th century), I fear, man’s intellect has reached the point at which it believes it can interfere with nature. It believes it can alter the metabolism of the planet, which itself is controlled by the sun (way out of our control).
A few people, the same ones who saw huge money-making possibilities in buying and selling imaginary investments based on the population’s need to consume more and more, now see a way to make similarly obscene amounts of money out of the belief other people have about the need and ability to change the earth’s metabolism.
It will continue until the next ‘Great Game’ comes along, and then be forgotten, or overtaken by ‘new science’.
There will always be people able and willing to grab power and wealth from the beliefs of others.
I’m sure it was here on one of Craig’s blogs recently that someone quoted that fundamental rule for observing what, in actual fact, is going on in the world: “Follow the Money!”
technicolour,
In order to understand a problem, you have to objectively analyse it without any prejudice or bias.
If you have someone paying you to produce a result that they want – you will not tell the entire truth.
You will emphasise the results of your research that they want to hear – and barely mention the results they do not want to hear.
If you just tell the truth – you will be fired – and someone else will be employed to achieve the required result to prove that the Result is True.
I Resigned – Because I would Not Lie.
Well I didn’t resign as such – I just wound up the management so much – that they REALLY HATED me – cos I told them what completely stupid fucking cunts they were (slightly more diplomatically).
They did their best to get rid of me for Free.
They Tried Total Humiliation
Like – I Go Back To Work After Christmas – and I suddenly have no desk of my own.
And this came from a Very High Level from within.
I phoned The Cunt Up
I said
You Will Arrange My Desk For Me By Midday – OR…
I got my desk back by Midday
CUNTS
Tony
I’d just like to add a little support to Tony/Opmoc’s points above.
I too did my engineering training from 1965 to 1970, and before that played on London’s bombsites.
The struggles of the country to recover from WWII, and the nature of childhood in those days, taught me to use my eyes and senses to observe what was happening around me and what happened to the things I touched and played with.
That led me, while still at school, about 1963, to be able to transmit the human voice over about a quarter of a mile by using a light source, (a good-quality torch), modulated by a microphone and amplifier, and the other end feeding a pair of headphones. No metallic wires. (Every street corner had an army-surplus store selling all manner of ex-WWII electrical gear, and the only limit on what you could make with it was your imagination).
Well, I and a few friends were absolutely fascinated by that, but none of us (aged about 14) wrote peer-reviewed papers about it, canvassed investors, or ever thought what fundamental changes the science contained in our little ‘game’ would have on future lives. Also, our teachers weren’t particularly interested in it, (they too couldn’t see a use for it), but, most significantly, positively encouraged us to continue our explorations using whatever our pocket money would buy in ex-surplus shops, and wherever our imaginations led us. There was no attitude that said, “this isn’t in the curriculum, so don’t spend any more time on it.”
It was a significant part of our education in using our own eyes and senses to learn what nature fundamentally does and can provide us with. It also led to my engineering career.
Now, my grown-up children have been educated by a completely different type of childhood and educational system, dominated, unfortunately, by TV, media, and the mobile phone.
Sadly, they are completely unable to use their own true senses to properly make up their mind about ‘nature’, and what goes on and what happens in the world. They are utterly dependant, not on what their own eyes ‘see’ in life but on what the media tells them. What TV tells them, the newspapers, and, yes, ‘peer-reviewed papers’. Papers reviewed by those peers that have been through the same educational mill as themselves.
So we have a generation of scientists, that seem to me to be characterised by arrogance, funded largely by big business (as are most of the universities it seems to me), that for me is summed up in the pronouncement made on TV recently by a scientist, senior enough to be on the TV (sorry, don’t remember who this was or what programme it was, but about 3 or 4 months ago) who blithely proclaimed, “We know about 90% of all that there is to know.”
Apologies in advance to any modern scientists upset by my views – they aren’t peer-reviewed.
Sorry, I just sent this anonymously, didn’t intend that…..
I’d just like to add a little support to Tony/Opmoc’s points above.
I too did my engineering training from 1965 to 1970, and before that played on London’s bombsites.
The struggles of the country to recover from WWII, and the nature of childhood in those days, taught me to use my eyes and senses to observe what was happening around me and what happened to the things I touched and played with.
That led me, while still at school, about 1963, to be able to transmit the human voice over about a quarter of a mile by using a light source, (a good-quality torch), modulated by a microphone and amplifier, and the other end feeding a pair of headphones. No metallic wires. (Every street corner had an army-surplus store selling all manner of ex-WWII electrical gear, and the only limit on what you could make with it was your imagination).
Well, I and a few friends were absolutely fascinated by that, but none of us (aged about 14) wrote peer-reviewed papers about it, canvassed investors, or ever thought what fundamental changes the science contained in our little ‘game’ would have on future lives. Also, our teachers weren’t particularly interested in it, (they too couldn’t see a use for it), but, most significantly, positively encouraged us to continue our explorations using whatever our pocket money would buy in ex-surplus shops, and wherever our imaginations led us. There was no attitude that said, “this isn’t in the curriculum, so don’t spend any more time on it.”
It was a significant part of our education in using our own eyes and senses to learn what nature fundamentally does and can provide us with. It also led to my engineering career.
Now, my grown-up children have been educated by a completely different type of childhood and educational system, dominated, unfortunately, by TV, media, and the mobile phone.
Sadly, they are completely unable to use their own true senses to properly make up their mind about ‘nature’, and what goes on and what happens in the world. They are utterly dependant, not on what their own eyes ‘see’ in life but on what the media tells them. What TV tells them, the newspapers, and, yes, ‘peer-reviewed papers’. Papers reviewed by those peers that have been through the same educational mill as themselves.
So we have a generation of scientists, that seem to me to be characterised by arrogance, funded largely by big business (as are most of the universities it seems to me), that for me is summed up in the pronouncement made on TV recently by a scientist, senior enough to be on the TV (sorry, don’t remember who this was or what programme it was, but about 3 or 4 months ago) who blithely proclaimed, “We know about 90% of all that there is to know.”
Apologies in advance to any modern scientists upset by my views – they aren’t peer-reviewed.
Global Hoax on global warming….mmmm, we need a proper debate, to many half truths on both sides.
Now, at the moment the Global Warming sayers have it for me….why…well if they are right the outcome is we’re fubar’ed.
And if they are wrong…..you can say I told you so.
one of the answers doesnt look to clever to me….you wanna play lottery on this one..I dont
I, and my colleagues are working on the carbon capture technology at the moment, although in our experience the first hurdle proves to be the dream capture step, which is not going all that well. Trouble with dreams; these normally reside in the quantum flux fields generated as per the Fleming left handed widget rule, that renders ricochet from the event horizon as per bollockixo-paralytic acti-inebriation desperato principle (mmmmmm crapsola) that dictates in case of running out of ideas, there always remains the straws to hang onto, and jargon regurgitated furthermore the more bizarre the notion of the conjectures forwarded the better.
The above can be explained in the terms of laymen, and lager louts, as in the last time anyone of you played scrabble, whilst under the influence, the combination of desperation of exertion of trying to remain coherent, and the urge to win, leading to the attempt in concoction of alphabet, that resulted in a made up word, which then elegantly was concluded in getting into an argument about; go and find it in the dictionary, as well as which dictionary is that you are holding in your hand?
As ever, the notions of ripping off the punter, that is explained away as the “unusual returns” by none other than the fantastic Mr. Greenspan, whom finally admitted; “we got it wrong” to the congress. Meaning normal profit margins will not do, and only enormous amounts of profiteering can remain the only acceptable mode of conduct for the big conglomerates, keeping these inefficient behemoths afloat on the backs of the punters, and toil and sweat of the great unwashed.
Hence the notions of creating the smoke and mirrors, and shoving a couple of pipes into the ground, and then adding ten pence on the units of electricity, and fifteen pence on a therm of gas, because the steel pipes for the gas company’s pipelines will be costing more, due to the high incidence of usage of the pipes in the carbon shoved into the ground project. Although the up side of it will be the water companies will be charging more, and justifiably so, for the soda water that will be running out of your taps.
This kind of pitiful scheming to fleece you the punter is then sold as the responsible protection of the environment, that is evidently being destroyed because you the punters have been breaking wind far too often, whilst driving your cars, and revving the engines of these cars. The fact that your guilt will be less if you all were paying more, and you will be even poorer no doubt will save the planet.
PS do me a favor before the righteous indignations of what will happen to our children, and how will the green planet remain green mantra is regurgitated, can anyone please let me know the direction of the spin of our pesky little solar system in the Milky Way, and furthermore direction of the of the traverse of Milky Way with respect to the Sagittarius and the emergent vector with respect to the center of the universe (you may reference this as per your own predilection, however must justify the need for any such choice).
PPS a case of little knowledge, and Missy me lad where is my washboard etc.
Now I’d like to respond to technicolour’s post above about population, particularly as, on less-scientific subjects, like politics, I normally agree with him/her.
Populations in ‘western’ countries are generally falling. I heard the other day the Scotish Parliament expressing worry about the falling population of Scotland.
It is in societies ravaged by poverty, and often ravaged by war, that populations soar.
The reason is simple.
If you have no land, no income to speak of, no reliable supply of food or water, no proper, and safe, home, no security from those who will bully you. And the resources of your country have been/are being stolen, and your corrupt government is supported by rich governments elsewhere in the world, you have only one option to provide yourself with some sort of protection, some sort of security in future years, some sort of means by which you will find food and water when you are no longer able to walk miles each day to find it yourself. It is the option that nature put you on earth for in the first place.
Have children.
It is the only way you can see to have someone who will look after you when you are old. Will help you die as nature intends, naturally, not through starvation or thirst or someone stealing your home when you are too old to survive such a thing.
And the greater the danger of your children dying early, the more you will have.
It’s called Nature.
So yes, eliminating poverty, and wars, and corruption, and inequality, and one country stealing the assets of another, will reduce population growth.
Enabling populations to become as ‘westernised’ as today’s ‘western’ populations, will, statistically, result in the world’s population falling. Children will be less necessary for future security.
It is, really, the only humane, and natural, way to reduce world population growth.
The alternative is the barbaric policies of China.
I wonder, in 50 years time, who will support the elderly of that country?
The young of that country, in 50 years, seeing the state of things, will initiate a baby-boom that will dwarf today’s growth in numbers.