Climate Change Report

[Skyler]

Well my suggestions weren't there to be solutions or solve everything, merely to show ways we can improve the way things work and keep the environmentalists and others happier, while being more efficient.

I'm more worried about fossil fuels fading away than I am about the environment since the environment has and will change without our interference. Maybe we are contributing to that and maybe we have done and continue to do quite a few stupid things (deforestation etc.).

Some interesting points brought up, we should definitely be trying to adapt to a world that is changing in our civilisation and we should all be far more worried about oil/coal/gas than we are about the global warming thing, since without oil we are fucked but with a hotter or cooler world with higher sea levels, we are not so fucked.

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

I know it's been on here before and I know it's not 100% gospel perfection, but it is still an interesting read and can depress you

It comes up with some interesting points that most people don't touch on surrounding fossil fuels. We all have to remember that there is next to nothing in our lives that didn't involve oil in one way or another, from delivery, shipping, construction, raw materials etc. Every single thing we have uses oil somewhere and that is a limited resource.

Too many people think we'll just have to give up cars and switch to electric or hydrogen fuel cell powered cars when oil gets really low. They fail to realise that it will ruin economies, hurt food supplies, damage power supplies etc.

The depressing fact is that by the time oil reaches that point of no return where we totally realise it's going 'soon' people will want to all have electric cars and solar power and all the rest. But at that point in oil supply levels we will run it down even faster building these new things.

Electric cars are economical once they are setup, yet limited battery life, where does the electricity come from? (fossil fuels), how do they get built? (fossil fuel powered factories), how do they get delivered? (fossil fuel powered transports).

And yes I know this may not happen etc. blah but still I find it an interesting point to visualise what would happen once we realise it's really gonna run out very soon, scary too.

 

[TdC]

I'd like to see the total energy used in the manufacture, maintainance, and decommissioning of those solar panels.

tbh I'd like to know what a solar panel will save you in it's life time.


seriously, I'm not taking the piss. anyone know of a panel cost/benefit graph or something?

 

[tris-]

If noboby really gives a shit, why are we talking about it at all?

im not sure if you mean an individual or a mass scale. personally, i dont give a shit but still talk about it.

as far as im concerned, i will be dead in 100 years. i dont plan on having children, but who knows? personally i would like to live through such dramatic changes in our planet, sadly i wont see it. tropical storms and tornadoes in the north east doesnt sound bad to me. i guess it all comes down to how you view life and if you really give a shit about a billion new people in 100 years.

i personally couldnt care less. it probably sounds selfish and a tad obnoxious. but really, i couldnt. i will do my part to save electricity (like turning off lights, not use heating etc) but im not going to make a massive effort to reduce the amount of carbon i release.

 

[Ch3tan]

I've always thought campaigns and ads to combat emissions/climate change etc had it wrong. "save the planet by turning your tv off and not putting it on standby". They should be saying, save money and get a lower bill by using energy saving lightbulbs, turning off appliances etc. I bet that pointing out how much money people could save by being energy conscious would reduce the country's carbon footprint much faster.

 

[MYstIC G]

Electricity from the grid is cheaper for a reason.

Because it's mass produced?

Economics?

 

[Tom]

No, because its generated from cheap fuels using simple proven technology.

Solar panels use expensive metals and high technology manufacturing practices. And they don't tend to generate much return. They're good for powering devices to which it would be too expensive to run power (Continental telephone boxes use them a bit), but as a replacement for grid electricity they're just not cost effective in any number.

I would like to see more ground source heat pumps though, they're a very good idea and theres no reason not to install them.

 

[MYstIC G]

So, what you're saying (without apparently realising it) is that it is economics. You see if your cheap fuel goes up in price, then it's no longer cheap... so you're being a pleb.

As for proven technology, I have a 10 year old solar powered calculator, it works just fine and always has. Is that proven?

Economics demonstrates that if you manufacture more of something that something becomes cheaper. If it's in the planets best interest to use more solar power (which realistically it has to be considering that you find nature itself makes use of solar energy) then something needs to spark a surge in demand. Financial grants to those who want to install them are a perfect way of doing this.

I also don't recall anyone saying "scrap the national grid" so that's overkill on your part.

I agree about ground source heat pumps. Perhaps you'd be interested in this and more specifically the paragraph that states

How does it work?
The earth's surface acts as a huge solar collector, absorbing radiation from the sun. In the UK, several metres below the surface, the ground maintains a constant temperature of 11 to 13°C. In the winter this temperature is warmer than the air above it. GSHPs are used to extract this heat and transfer it to a building, where heat is required.

Are we done?

 

[Vae]

One thing you can rely on on this forum is Tom's utter refusal to believe that humans are responsible for climate change despite the immense amount of evidence in it's favour. I realise it's not 100% certain (as are the IPCC) but there is a huge amount of evidence in it's favour compared to little to disprove it.

I cba with a debate over the evidence as there's only so much bashing my head against a brick wall that i'm prepared to do and I get most of that at work.

Regarding the offsetting I do quite a lot of work with a couple of companies that are getting involved in the climate change situation. One trades EUA's (EU emission allowances) and invests in projects that generate CER (certified emission reductions) and the other is building a biofuel refinery to supply BP.

The offsetting system at the moment is flawed. Where people offset e.g. a flight by planting X trees the trees often die and the carbon is released again and anyway that only offsets one flight once. You'd end up reforesting the UK trying to offset carbon emissions.

Then there's the EUA trading scheme which in it's current stage is flawed. It's meant to be the case that each country (and each company of a certain size/type within that country to get to the country total) accurately assesses it's current emissions. In this initial stage all countries in Europe except the UK (The UK pretty accurately assessed it's emissions) overestimated their emissions (probably deliberately imo) meaning that there is a huge overallocation of allowances.

The idea is that companies that have excess allowances (in theory because they've reduced their emissions) can trade them to companies who have a shortage because there is a penalty associated with not reaching your emissions target. Over time (and with the second stage this should start working) the allotments of allowances are reduced forcing companies to reduce their emissions. If they don't complay they have to pay a penalty per ton they fail to meet the emission target by and still have to buy allowances from the market to cover this.

 

[Tom]

So, what you're saying (without apparently realising it) is that it is economics. You see if your cheap fuel goes up in price, then it's no longer cheap... so you're being a pleb.

As for proven technology, I have a 10 year old solar powered calculator, it works just fine and always has. Is that proven?

Yes, its economics. A good all-round figure for the installation of solar panels to a property for the purpose of generating power would be about £10,000. Would you be prepared to pay that? And then be prepared to replace them after 10-15 years? Even then, they won't provide the 60A that grid electricity can.

If you don't believe me, get a loan, disconnect your property from the grid, and install solar panels. You'll find yourself worse off, and 10 years down the line you'll be replacing your storage batteries.

They're great if you're building a property that has no connection to the mains, and the installation of mains electricity would be prohibitive. In that case, bring it on. Dig a hole for a reed bed, run your sewage into that. Get water from collected rain. I'm all for things like this, they're great. But for the average consumer who has already paid the inherent costs of being connected to the utilities (when they bought their house, its part of the price), there is no sense in doing these things. Solar powered roof heating has its benefits, but its still far cheaper to heat your home with gas or lpg.

I doubt that if solar panels were mass produced that they would get much cheaper. Whats important is the dust-to-dust cost of these technologies. Unless somebody clever invents solutions to the problems in manufacture and disposal of these technologies, the cost isn't going to go away. Did you know that over it's lifetime, a Jeep Wrangler with an internal combustion engine is the 3rd most energy efficient modern vehicle in the world, costing around £0.35 per mile to run? The Toyota Prius costs £1.87 per mile - thats more than a Range Rover.

BTW, the current drawn by your calculator is pifflingly small, and a solar powered home must have storage capacity using conventional batteries which would only last 10 years anyway, and contain a wide variety of harmful chemicals and esoteric metals. Witness the price of a car battery, a simple thing of which millions are produced annually, yet they're still very expensive.

 

[Tom]

One thing you can rely on on this forum is Tom's utter refusal to believe that humans are responsible for climate change despite the immense amount of evidence in it's favour. I realise it's not 100% certain (as are the IPCC) but there is a huge amount of evidence in it's favour compared to little to disprove it.

Its not a question of refusal, because that implies that anybody who 'believes' has faith.

The arguments on the 'pro' side are mainly emotive. That irritates me greatly. I want to see well presented science, what we're currently seeing is estimates based on computer models which are only as accurate as the information they are fed.

When we're being asked to spend trillions of dollars to avoid a theoretical problem, I want to see some very sound reasoning as to why. We're not getting that.

Face it, governments don't give a shit. They see it as a means of raising tax revenue, pure and simple. They're all paying lip service to the socalist elements of the green parties who are more interested in telling people what to do and how to live than they are creating a sustainable environment for people to live in.


Show me good sound evidence, and present both sides of the argument. Demonstrate long-term thinking that excludes the vanity of humanity. Then perhaps I'll fall in line with the majority of people who haven't bothered to research their own facts (people in general, not your good FH selves). Until then, I'll happily continue to live my life as I want.

 

[TdC]

it's not 10/15 years tom. EVERY panel I've seen in a quick google had a guaranteed life of *at least* 25 years.

imo you're thinking too black and white. most of the explanations I had given to me ran along the lines of the following: you install PV plates on your structure, and whenever the power demand of the structure is *less* than the supply of the PV's the PV's are used exclusively and the *extra* is fed into the national grid. Whenever the demand is more than the PV's can supply, then the grid is used to supplement the PV's generation.

Look, don't get me wrong. Installing them seems a high initial outlay, and tbh I haven't been able to find a decent cost/benefit analysis from someone in the UK in your average house. Also, I have found that the average cost of a photovoltaic panel is 15 to 20% more than it should be due to silicon shortages, but this is expected to be cleared up in 2008. I also read that a ROI is expected of 3,5 years in middle europe tops, which seems nice enough tbh.

As countries are still building large scale solar panel plants, for example Spain is building one that will be the largest in the world once it's completed, I judge that at least someone in the government is thinking that the initial outlays are worth the benefits.

 

[MYstIC G]

The Sun: Batteries wear out shocker: Thousands collapse upon finding out they've bought something that doesn't last for ever!

Everything in life has a "design life" Tom, including me and you. As for cost, have you seen the price of a bottle of Coca Cola lately? Loads of things are expesive.

Make better points please.

 

[Tom]

I wonder who underwrites those guarantees, and if those companies will still be trading in their present form in 25 years time.

Why aren't people installing them? They're quite prepared to spend a small fortune on double glazing, and anybody knows that double glazed units don't even last that long. In fact, double glazed windows don't actually save any money at all, especially when you consider that the PVCu used doesn't biodegrade like wood.

If I believed that I could save money by installing solar panels, I'd do it. I've already researched the idea of having a micro wind turbine on my house but the power output of these devices is not enough to make it worthwhile installing them (unless you live on a Scottish hillside).

God, even when you look at recycling by local councils, the stink of disinformation is rife. "We're running out of landfill space, oh noes!" is the cry, but we're only running out of that space because the government has placed restrictions on landfill use. And the only reason they've done that is because people generally don't like living next to them. Theres no reason to recycle paper, because all paper comes from managed forestry. About the only things that you can recycle at a profit are glass and metal - so IMO the council should be paying me to come and collect these things. They don't get that opportunity though, as everything goes in the bin.

 

[Tom]

The Sun: Batteries wear out shocker: Thousands collapse upon finding out they've bought something that doesn't last for ever!

Everything in life has a "design life" Tom, including me and you. As for cost, have you seen the price of a bottle of Coca Cola lately? Loads of things are expesive.

Make better points please.

Batteries wear out not because they have a design life, but because they cannot disobey the laws of physics. Also, they cannot easily be recycled, which is a bit unfortunate for the proponents of electric cars.

Coca cola is a unique brand, and is priced accordingly. That price has little to do with the cost of manufacture and supply.

Make better points please.

 

[anattic]

You don't wish to accept the IPCC report or the significant weight of evidence indicating that industrialization has impacted on the climate? Fair enough - I think you're wrong, but I cannot prove it, any more than you can prove the converse. Nor will I argue for the replacement of fossil fuels: there is no need since time and economics will make that inevitable.

I think however not trying to reduce one's impact on the world is discourteous and plain lazy - it is just another form of littering.

Simple energy/material efficiency is trivially easy: make sure the doors and windows fit properly; fit curtains across external doors; make sure you have good insulation in your loft; switch stuff off when you aren't using it; reuse carrier-bags; only boil the water you actually need etc. etc. etc.

The list is almost endless. In many cases, it costs you nothing more than a moment of thought. All it takes is pulling your finger out.

(Slightly off-topic: I think the US green movement missed a trick after 9/11. A campaign pointing out that the terrorists were funded by people funded by oil-sales, and in turn by the US motorist i.e. "Be a better American, buy a bicycle" may have struck a chord...)

 

[Tom]

I have my loft lagged nicely. I have single glazed sash windows on my house. They've been there for nearly 100 years, the energy required to replace them with DG units is more than what would be saved by installation and subsequent refit after failure, and plastic windows look horrible. I don't switch things off as I have a digital room thermostat that takes account of air temperature, since all electrical devices convert the electricity they draw into heat my central heating runs for less total time. I don't reuse carrier bags as they're utterly shite anyway and tear very easily - I'd rather the supermarket issued cardboard boxes since nobody carries shopping home anyway, everyone drives. I use a local butcher for all my meat and lots of veg, as its locally sourced produce and cured onsite. I'd use my local market if they sold the fruit I like, but they don't. I boil as much water as I like as it heats the house, and the moisture saves the old wood in my house from drying out.

My point is that these things always require more than a moment of thought.

 

[MYstIC G]

Batteries wear out not because they have a design life, but because they cannot disobey the laws of physics. Also, they cannot easily be recycled, which is a bit unfortunate for the proponents of electric cars.

Coca cola is a unique brand, and is priced accordingly. That price has little to do with the cost of manufacture and supply.

Make better points please.

That means batteries have an inherent design life... *shock*

Your point about Coca Cola is pathetic and simply designed to gloss over something you don't have a better answer for.

Same old shit, different post. Keep up the good work.

NB: "They should be paying me" - sums you up perfectly, ME ME ME ME ME!

 

[Tom]

The life of a battery isn't so much a function of design, its a function of the anodes failing, and theres bugger all that can be done about that.

Batteries aren't a fashionable product. They're a tool designed for one purpose. You can pay more money and get a battery thats got a longer life because of higher quality materials and superior construction, and no doubt the higher price will in part contain an element of perceived worth, but thats not in any way comparable to a bottle of Coca Cola, and you know it. A bottle will cost no more to make than Asda Cola, so the difference in price is down to personal preference and brand value - and will have nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of manufacture and supply.

And whats wrong with ME ME ME? Why shouldn't I benefit if theres money to be made from recycling aluminium cans or glass bottles - the council certainly benefit, and they're benefitting from a product that I've paid for, and which will include the cost of recycling it! I should have the option to reclaim that money instead of it going into council coffers!

Do you work for nothing? Do you ask that your employer only pay you enough to pay your bills?

Do you have an oven in your house, to heat food? Why? Humans didn't evolve to eat warm food, all the food your body requires is out there growing in fields, or running around with fur attached. Why are you selfishly wasting energy to heat food when its not required? Thats pretty selfish don't you think? Do you need that big TV? Do you need nice clothes and things?

Its easy to pick fault with somebody else's lifestyle, but when people find fault with yours, wheres your defence? Are you going to get rid of all that nasty polluting unnecessary evil western lifestyle produce, and live on a commune?

 

[anattic]

Its easy to pick fault with somebody else's lifestyle, but when people find fault with yours, wheres your defence? Are you going to get rid of all that nasty polluting unnecessary evil western lifestyle produce, and live on a commune?

I see no-one claiming here an entirely ethical or selfless lifestyle. I just see people with a willingness to aspire to it, and to strive for it.

Is that not worthwhile?

 

[MYstIC G]

All I know Tom is that you're talking shit again. The Coca Cola sample was simply to make the point that some things are expensive and that's life, nothing more. As usual you take every simple miniscule point and turn it into a crusade.

As Anattic states, I'm not claiming to be ethical and matter of fact I'm not picking apart your lifestyle (mostly because I don't care what it is). Your ME ME ME however, is a crock of shit because you're not on your own, you're surrounded by other people.

Oh, and you can bugger on about batteries all you like, bottom fucking line is that they last a certain amount of time, SO WHAT! That's the fucking way the cookie crumbles. How they're made, what they're made out of is all fucking irrelevant upon "Battery X lasts Y years".

Frankly 90% of the stuff you post seems, in my opinion, to comprise complete shit where you read between the lines and ignore the points.

gg wp

Oh, and just to be a cunny funt, I do only draw the salary that I require from the company I work for, so gg wp yet again.

 

[Tom]

What a superb reposte to all the points I made. Well done sir!

 

[TdC]

I wonder who underwrites those guarantees, and if those companies will still be trading in their present form in 25 years time.

tbh I don't know, but I read that marine grade panels are utterly element resistant and do not degrade. I read that someone living in middle europe, ie not in sunny spain eh, can get a ROI in 3,5 years, which leads me to believe that even if a panel lasts half it's guaranteed lifetime it will have earnt itself back >3 times

Why aren't people installing them?

I don't know. Because they're expensive? Because people dislike change? Because the council may have some silly law against installing them? Tbh I find it realistic that people resist installing them and will consider every other option there is before resorting to something "new" and "radical". I wonder if gas lights and electric lighting was distrusted at first, as I think it was. I bet your great-great-grandad had a discussion with mine in the pub about how he wasn't planning on going electric because the replacement of his pullman oil lamps by electric ones would only cost him

They're quite prepared to spend a small fortune on double glazing, and anybody knows that double glazed units don't even last that long.

it doesn't? last time I looked at my windows I didn't notice them fading away or anything. what do you mean?

If I believed that I could save money by installing solar panels, I'd do it.

so would I, and tbh I'd also do it if I'd only break even. sadly I am a bit of a thrifty person, so I would really like to make something out of it (even though I can afford to not). sadly, as I said, I've not yet managed to find a cost/benefit for a european house with them, which irks me a bit.

 

[MYstIC G]

What a superb reposte to all the points I made. Well done sir!

Oh, because of course (clearly I missed it), you have equally responded to every point.

30-Love, ain't you the man.

 

[Tom]

it doesn't? last time I looked at my windows I didn't notice them fading away or anything. what do you mean?

Give it time. The seals between the panes of glass break down with age, and allow moisture to form on the insides of the panels. Once that happens, you either put up with it, or replace it. You can't repair DG units. If the single glazed panes of glass in my windows mist up, I just open a window to let the moisture evaporate, or wipe it with a cloth. If the glass pane comes loose, I get some putty (made from 100% natural products) and stick it back in. I can even paint the frames whatever colour I like using linseed oil based paints. Thats why my windows are a nice glossy black, and everyone else's in my street are shiny white plastic. When they need repainting, I'm thinking of a nice powerful blue.

Also, the plastic used in the frames is not biodegradable, and on some cheaper frames its difficult to replace faulty panes of glass without damaging the frame.

Now chuck a wooden window frame into a field, and within a few years it'll be mush. Chuck a PVCu frame into a field, it'll still be there a few thousand years later (albeit buried under a foot of soil).


Now consider this. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, then its better to chop trees down. Build a house from trees, and provided you take care of that house you're actually storing all the carbon that tree absorbed, in your home. In the meanwhile, somebody plants a few more trees to replace the ones cut down for your home - they then get used to build another house, and the cycle continues.

 

[Tallen]

Give it time. The seals between the panes of glass break down with age, and allow moisture to form on the insides of the panels. Once that happens, you either put up with it, or replace it. You can't repair DG units. If the single glazed panes of glass in my windows mist up, I just open a window to let the moisture evaporate, or wipe it with a cloth. If the glass pane comes loose, I get some putty (made from 100% natural products) and stick it back in. I can even paint the frames whatever colour I like using linseed oil based paints. Thats why my windows are a nice glossy black, and everyone else's in my street are shiny white plastic. When they need repainting, I'm thinking of a nice powerful blue.

Also, the plastic used in the frames is not biodegradable, and on some cheaper frames its difficult to replace faulty panes of glass without damaging the frame.

Now chuck a wooden window frame into a field, and within a few years it'll be mush. Chuck a PVCu frame into a field, it'll still be there a few thousand years later (albeit buried under a foot of soil).


Now consider this. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, then its better to chop trees down. Build a house from trees, and provided you take care of that house you're actually storing all the carbon that tree absorbed, in your home. In the meanwhile, somebody plants a few more trees to replace the ones cut down for your home - they then get used to build another house, and the cycle continues.

You are right about DGU's, except that they are 100% recyclable. I worked on a government funded project to investigate the environmental, economic and socio-economic effects of flat glass and window/door recycling and it is very viable.

Glass from DGU's is much, much easier to recycle than single glazed windows as it shatters if struck correctly whereas single pane windows shard and are almost not worth recycling simply because of the health & safety issues. Also single pane windows are stuck in place with a silicon based glue or, in the case of the old aluminium panes, a silicon tape which bonds them very tightly. DGU's can be removed very easily and cleanly by comparison. The DGU frame is aluminium and the silica gell can even be recycled. "Taped" single glazed panes have zero recyclable worth as they are heavily contaminated.

PVC-U used in window frames is 100% recyclable and in the coming years will become economically favourable as oil prices increase. There are already companies stockpiling waste plastics that will become valuable in a few years and i know of several forward thinking companies who make all their products from recycled window frame PVC-U. I have even seen new windows made from recycled window PVC-U and you simply cannot tell the difference between this and virgin material.

The wood you use for window panes is non recyclable and often can be considered a hazardous material if it is treated, preserved or painted with certain paints, meaning it costs a fortune to dispose of and often ends-up being fly-tipped. Throw it into a field and you should get arrested for polluting the environment and fly-tipping hazardous waste. More expensive, "hard wood" framed windows are reusable but it's a very costly process.

I take your point about carbon footprints though, there are plans in many countries to build wood-fired power stations which are surrounded by open tract woodland which is harvested and replanted and the throughput is designed to balance the CO2 emissions.

 

[Bodhi]

Oh, because of course (clearly I missed it), you have equally responded to every point.

30-Love, ain't you the man.

It is 30 love yes, but not to you you blithering idiot. What the fuck does the price of a bottle of Coke have to do with anything (it's the same price as any other soft drink as well you ignoramus). Tom seems to be using facts, you're using "But tha BBCEEE told meh climate change was happening, and they don't get anything wrong!!!".


Seriously people get out of the fucking God complex. We can't change the climate any more than a cow can change the colour of the grass it's eating. Want to know why solar panels haven't taken off? Cos they're fucking WANK. They cost about eleventy trillion pounds in return for which you get about 3W, not really enough to power a house I'm afraid. Also, what use would it be in the UK with our 12 hours annually of sunlight? Wind power would be more useful for us, but in order to produce enough we'd have to cover the UK in wind turbines, and shred every bird in the land in the process. Wave power? Don't make me laugh. The only natural power that works is Hydro Electric, using dams and what-not.

Oh and I notice none of the liberal greenies have answered my question yet. If climate change is our fault who caused the Ice Ages? Who caused the earth to not have polar caps for much of it's history?

Answer them properly, I'll believe anything you say about climate change. But as no-one ever will be able to, I'll continue to think it's all a load of old bollocks.

 

[Calaen]

It is 30 love yes, but not to you you blithering idiot. What the fuck does the price of a bottle of Coke have to do with anything (it's the same price as any other soft drink as well you ignoramus). Tom seems to be using facts, you're using "But tha BBCEEE told meh climate change was happening, and they don't get anything wrong!!!".


Seriously people get out of the fucking God complex. We can't change the climate any more than a cow can change the colour of the grass it's eating. Want to know why solar panels haven't taken off? Cos they're fucking WANK. They cost about eleventy trillion pounds in return for which you get about 3W, not really enough to power a house I'm afraid. Also, what use would it be in the UK with our 12 hours annually of sunlight? Wind power would be more useful for us, but in order to produce enough we'd have to cover the UK in wind turbines, and shred every bird in the land in the process. Wave power? Don't make me laugh. The only natural power that works is Hydro Electric, using dams and what-not.

Oh and I notice none of the liberal greenies have answered my question yet. If climate change is our fault who caused the Ice Ages? Who caused the earth to not have polar caps for much of it's history?

Answer them properly, I'll believe anything you say about climate change. But as no-one ever will be able to, I'll continue to think it's all a load of old bollocks.

I dont believe it is our fault, although I do not doubt that we contribute to it. But like you say who actually gives a rats arse. unless all of the majoy players act then its pointless.

 

[Tom]

PVC-U used in window frames is 100% recyclable

Thanks for clarifying, I didn't know that was the case. Is the same true of UPVC though? I thought they were pretty much the same thing. I'm under the assumption that the USA banned UPVC?

With regard to your comments about single glazed windows, my windows are held in place by putty - which is completely biodegradeable and quite harmless.

The wood you use for window panes is non recyclable and often can be considered a hazardous material if it is treated, preserved or painted with certain paints, meaning it costs a fortune to dispose of and often ends-up being fly-tipped. Throw it into a field and you should get arrested for polluting the environment and fly-tipping hazardous waste. More expensive, "hard wood" framed windows are reusable but it's a very costly process.

Offcuts of wood I just chuck onto my fireplace. I wonder though if the energy used in the lifecycle of painted wood is greater or less than the energy used in the lifecycle of plastics for windows? I'd take a risk and guess that its much less. Plus, when looked after, wood can last well over 200 years.

Most of the wood that I've used in my house for DIY jobs is old wood that I've sourced from a local reclamation yard. Solid oak for some shelves I made downstairs that came from the door jamb of a big house. The floorboards in my bathroom are all offcuts of English Oak (although the fact they were half price had a lot to do with that) that were heading for the skip. The radiator in that bathroom is a shitty old thing that cost me a small fortune. I bought a 100 year old fireplace for downstairs, cost me nearly a grand but I think its worth it.


I'm as passionate about the environment as many other people. I've probably spent more time and effort reusing existing materials and taking care of things than most people I know who similarly would denounce my choice not to recycle waste (even though I compost all my food and garden waste in the back yard) or my choices in cars. I've not put those links in for my own vanity, but to show people I'm not full of shit.

 

[Tom]

I dont believe it is our fault, although I do not doubt that we contribute to it. But like you say who actually gives a rats arse. unless all of the majoy players act then its pointless.

And I bet the same people sitting in their homes eating freshly flown-in organic soil and drinking filtered tapwater are also watching DVDs on their Chinese made DVD player (thereby contributing to 'the problem').

How many people have actually tried to source local food? I have, and its very hard but possible. Its also expensive.

 

[MYstIC G]

It is 30 love yes, but not to you you blithering idiot. What the fuck does the price of a bottle of Coke have to do with anything (it's the same price as any other soft drink as well you ignoramus). Tom seems to be using facts, you're using "But tha BBCEEE told meh climate change was happening, and they don't get anything wrong!!!".

Same as before you fucktard, it's an example that any particular item can be considered expensive in comparison to its material value. I'm not discussing soft drinks either you spacker.

Additionally, learn to fucking read. My only real point is that solar energy should be better exploited. You and everyone else's opinion on climate change, who cares? Bottom line is that if solar was cheaper and you could whack a panel on your house/flat for £100.00 that would generate "some" electricity, you'd be a prick not to do it.

But then, you are a prick.