News Orwell is spinning in his grave

[rynnor]

BBC - Mark Easton's UK: Perfect Storm 2030: Public attitudes

Serious double-talk here - those who wont play ball by sucking up the global warming line will find their freedom of choice disappearing - the light bulb is a test ground for the new ideas of forcing us all green.

"choice editing in product availability" - this is doublespeak for banning products they decide are not green enough.

This stuff is actually pretty scary -we seem to be sleepwalking towards totalitarianism - just a little closer everyday and with the record lack of political engagement by the masses its easier than ever before.

 

[Tom]

I'll believe the government is motivated by green values when:

I see them waive stamp duty for those people who wish to move for work reasons (ie, to be closer to work so they can commute by foot or cycling).

They stop rubber-stamping out-of-town shopping centres that have no other access but the car.

They build new trunk roads with built-in cycling facilities so that cyclists and 70mph traffic are safely segregated.

They get rid of the massive army of state-employed pen-pushers whose only reason for their existence is to give the government support at election time.

 

[Bodhi]

And articles like that are why the BBC are getting taken less and less seriously as a news organisation.

 

[throdgrain]

God help us all.

 

[Zenith.UK]

The first point is to deploy cynicism filters when reading anything from the BBC regarding climate change. They are the most left-wing, pro-environmental organisation in the UK second only to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. They say they present information in an unbiased way but that is a total crock... it is biased so as to skew any debate on the subject, rendering any meaningful discussion useless.

Now this isn't to say that I am climate-agnostic. I do accept that mankind has introduced factors into the environment that have upset delicately balanced feedback systems. I do however disagree with the BBC and Govt line that we can help save the world if we reduce our energy usage, reuse items and recycle our waste. The UK contributes 2% of the world's annual CO2 [1].

The UK CO2 contribution can be broken down roughly:
25% Manufacturing
25% Road transport
25% Residential
14% Commercial
11% of various others. [2]

To put it bluntly, anything we as a country try to do to reduce CO2 production is like pissing into the wind... the total effect is so small when compared to the larger picture of the whole world's CO2 production.

The bottom line IMO is all this talk about "doing your part" and recycling trash is to distract the general population of countries all around the world. It doesn't matter if we recycle 30%, 40% or even 50% of our waste, the CO2 levels already in the atmosphere will take many decades to be brought back to "normal" levels by natural feedback mechanisms. In the meantime even more CO2 is being pumped out, swamping those same natural feedback systems. It's called positive reinforcement and it leads to one likely outcome... runaway global warming, and everything that comes with it (desertification, water shortages, extreme weather etc).

Then there is the small matter of fossil fuel production. There is a hypothesis called the Olduvai Theory [3] which essentially states that once demand for fossil fuels outstrip supply, it is only a matter of time until rolling blackouts, power rationing and finally a breakdown of industrial civilisation. It's bleak reading, but it is only a theory. It doesn't necessarily have to be so harsh since we can come up with alternative energy sources that help fill the gap (solar, wind, tidal, hydro etc).


Any action taken now on CO2 is too little, too late. This train is already running full speed ahead and it's going to take a long time to stop, even with the brakes locked on full.
The glimmer of hope is that alternative energy sources can help prevent a complete, total breakdown of society in the future.


[1] List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


[2] BBC NEWS | UK | 'Scapegoat' claim over plane CO2

[3] Olduvai theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

</rant>

 

[SilverHood]

The thing about climate change, or whatever buzzword they're calling it these days, is that it's a collection of piecemeal problems stitched together. You know the gas they use to make flat screen displays? Nitrogen Triflouride (NF3)? It's 100 more harmful to our climate than CO2, and it's unregulated by the Kyoto treaty. We spend billions cutting CO2 by a few percent, and then pump out NF3 in larger and larger amounts, nullifying the CO2 gains, even reversing them.

Reduction of pollution, energy usage and emissions is worthwhile, but not at the cost of everything else.

Like Tom said, the government could do a lot more to encourage "being green", subsidies for insulation, solar panels, etc, green tax rebates for public transport users, and general economic advantage when presented with the option of being green or not.

Wouldn't be surprised that if people got too Green, then we'd see a green tax.

 

[old.Tohtori]

I've ben saying this for years; we're moving towards a hippie motherf*ckery land and your meat is next.

There's no regular bags at some shops, they're "green", only choice too.

etc etc etc...

I'm doing MY part by supporting thermonuclear car inventions and pushing every bit of glass, plastic, food etc into the same f*cking bag at home before chucking it in the bin.

If we keep this hippie crap up, we're more f*cked up in the end.

Lock a bunny, a vegan, a carrot and me in a room.

Eventually the vegan will eat the carrot 'cause he's hungry.
Now i have to kill the bunny so it doesn't starve to death

So to conclude, in short, Sam L Jackson style;

F*ck this motherf*cking green shit.

 

[rynnor]

I find the whole concept of the Government deciding what you can buy rather chilling.

Fine when it just banned dangerous items but when it bans lightbulbs you know the writing is on the wall for just about anything non-green.

Do we really want a Government that interferes in and seeks to control every aspect of our lives because that is indeed where we are heading through a drip drip of new legislation every day.

Just about every quango and council in the UK now has greater powers to carry out surveillance than most police forces around the world.

 

[DaGaffer]

The whole thing is entirely about future tax revenues. To protect oil stocks there needs to be a wholesale move to hydrogen/electric transport (because oil is increasingly too valuable to burn for transport, and if you switch the 70% of oil use currently used in transport, oil stocks will last a LOT longer, especially if done globally) but the government is shitting itself about the loss of duty revenue, so they need to set up the environment (pardon the pun) for an alternate tax system. Road pricing is one pillar of the plan (and it also plays to their nanny instincts) and so-called green taxes are the other. But to avoid widespread civil unrest, they need to make us want to be green, so they co-opt the media (particularly the good-old-beeb, who have the licence fee hanging over them like a Sword of Damocles), and stifle the contrary viewpoints.

The problem is, their concerns are valid; not about C02, that's just a convenient measure of "greenness" to beat us with, but the fuel tax shortfall is only one of many tax avenues that are drying up. The real "perfect storm" is a massive tax hole caused by oil and demographics. Add in the always possible loss of financial services revenues if London becomes less important as world trade moves east (I'd put that at no better than 50/50), and there's an economic timebomb just over the horizon.

 

[Malecheon]

Lock a bunny, a vegan, a carrot and me in a room.

Eventually the vegan will eat the carrot 'cause he's hungry.
Now i have to kill the bunny so it doesn't starve to death

Actually you could kill the vegan and then turn the rabbit into a carnivore and there will be enough for both of you to eat

 

[00dave]

I was hoping that this was a thread about a news report claiming that Orwell's corpse was actually spinning in his grave

 

[old.Tohtori]

Actually you could kill the vegan and then turn the rabbit into a carnivore and there will be enough for both of you to eat

I never thought of that, brilliant!

Though, i'd have to dispose of the rabbit before the vegan is done, since the wascaly wabbit would turn on me.

I was hoping that this was a thread about a news report claiming that Orwell's corpse was actually spinning in his grave

This gave me an idea;

If i can't get a proper viking send off, burning boat and such(sealaws are a b*tch ), then i'll create a solar powered coffin with a rotisserie in it.

Impale my body through it and set it on "light spin"

 

[Malecheon]

Though, i'd have to dispose of the rabbit before the vegan is done, since the wascaly wabbit would turn on me.

Order yours today:

 

[Scouse]

Here's an idea. Perhaps it's a good thing that they're going to force more consumer products to use less power?


/runs away

 

[Jeros]

I've ben saying this for years; we're moving towards a hippie motherf*ckery land and your meat is next.

There's no regular bags at some shops, they're "green", only choice too.

etc etc etc...

I'm doing MY part by supporting thermonuclear car inventions and pushing every bit of glass, plastic, food etc into the same f*cking bag at home before chucking it in the bin.

If we keep this hippie crap up, we're more f*cked up in the end.

Lock a bunny, a vegan, a carrot and me in a room.

Eventually the vegan will eat the carrot 'cause he's hungry.
Now i have to kill the bunny so it doesn't starve to death

So to conclude, in short, Sam L Jackson style;

F*ck this motherf*cking green shit.

Eating meat is right....in your opinon

 

[Scouse]

Eating meat is right....in your opinon

Actually, vegetables is murder.

The prevailing view amongst vegetarians (and many others) is that all life, whatever kind it is, is of equal value.

Many more animals (field mice and the like, to keep it "cute and furry") die when a vegetable crop is harvested than when a beef crop is harvested.

Therefore, to sustain a worldwide vegetarian diet would come at a greater cost in terms of actual lives lost than if we all ate teh beefs.

Of course, if cows are "more important forms of life" than the individuals of the countless varieties that exist in a field of wheat, yer bang on

 

[Reno]

Not quite.

Each animal consumes a multitude of it's weight in feed ( = vegetables) for every pound it gains.
Chickens are quite economical at a 1 in 2 conversion rate ( 2 pounds of feed= 1 pound of meat), porc is 1 in 4 iirc and beef 1 in 8 or 16.

Eating meat requires a lot more vegetables, than directly eating vegetables.

 

[Jeros]

Also the energy coversion rates are pretty interesting, more energy is lost as you move up the food chain

 

[old.Tohtori]

Eating meat is right....in your opinon

Oh, i thought i was speaking for nath.

Thanks!

I'm saving the grass of this world and doing my part for the nature, one cow at a time!

 

[Chilly]

Would you rather build your house from muddy clay or nice bricks?

 

[throdgrain]

This is across the board from the BBC, They only tell you what they want you to hear, or couch it in a way to make you think what they want you to think. I wouldnt be suprised to learn of close links between the goverment and the BBC.

Take the article the night before last on the news - there's a baby boom apparently, so we get loads of info, then plenty of pictures of happy white babies and mothers.

Then take a deep breath, and say very quickly, 24%-of-babies-born-in-this-period-are-from-mothers-not-born-in-the-U.K.

Lets have no discussion on how this will effect our country - because it will -
lets just ignore it, nay cover it up with pictures of white babies and carry on regardless.

It's like the people who made these PC laws, and the people who implement them, i.e the BBC, are deliberately clouding the issues so we can't see the truth. Or that they've realised they are wrong, but wont admit it.

 

[rynnor]

It's like the people who made these PC laws, and the people who implement them, i.e the BBC, are deliberately clouding the issues so we can't see the truth. Or that they've realised they are wrong, but wont admit it.

Much as I dislike the Murdoch clan he was right that having the BBC become the completely dominant source of UK news really is unhealthy - they must start slicing up that License fee and pay it to regional newspapers etc. else they wont survive and we will end up with one official news site...

About the only thing I use the beeb for now is the sports results - everything else comes with an agenda.

Edit - I dont think the BBC has any Journalists left - no-one reports the facts anymore its all spinning from a pre-chosen angle.