Klaatu

Meaning they don't give in to "pressure" as easily as you suggest.

TelBoy

Oh God please stop quoting graphs and trends at me, i'm not a fekkin statistician!!

PeteBrant

What???

I didn't say they give in easily - I said that it is up to the west to apply pressure to force Chinese manufacturing to reduce CO2 emissions, and that such pressure has already been shown to be effective with RoHS/WEEE.

Klaatu

Please tell that to the IPCC and Al Gore. But to talk of 50 years worth of anecdotal observation (Yours), is pathetic. Put that 50 years up against a geological timeframe...and you'll get a much better picture of what actually is going on. Nothing, within the control of man that's for sure.

Klaatu

And how much pressure has the "west" applied to China regarding Tibet? ZREO! The Olympics are still going ahead! There was an opportunity, sadly lost!

Many in China are unaware of the student who stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Sq regarless of the pressure applied by the west.

So pressure works on China only in mfg/business? Funny!

coolangatta

Wow! This discusion is travelling 'almost' as fast as climate change
I'm no expert on this subject, that's certain, however I like to draw my conclusions from those who DO NOT benefit, (read benefit as 'shed loads of cash'), from being on the side of doom and gloom.

You mentioned 'the lovely planet on which we live'. Apart from some seriously horrid people, how is it less lovely because of the fossil fuels we are burning?

The facts stand for themselves, governments like to increase taxation (some is used in research), research scientists need funding, oil and gas are finite resourses, oil and gas companies want to maximise the profits from a dwindlind resource, oil and gas companies don't, in general, counter the carbon argument (how strange is that), the oil price rises on the back of all the 'talk', governments get more money which allows them to have a semblance of management. The circle is complete

Leslie

What a revealing post this is.

Les

TelBoy

Your assertion that it can't be catastophically relevant is equally (if not more) pathetic, with all due respect of course. You number crunchers just don't know what to do with the anomolies we've seen over the past decades. So you bleat on about geological timeframes. Hey, don't blame me for the shortcomings in your approach!!

TelBoy

Coolangatta, of course it would be an idiot who would deny that this whole debate doesn't benefit certain circles financially, of course it does. And there will be winners and losers, like anything. Whether the point is being stretched to maximise tax revenue well yes, there might be a grain of truth in that, but i don't see it as the undelying motive. Call me naive, but i think there's a real issue here, one that we can't let cynicism of who's making what out of it, get in the way of taking action.

Klaatu

Well, all I can suggest you do Mr T is study planetary science, physics, chemistry and computer science however, according to you you don't have the time. I suggest you do have time and plenty of it. You would be better off investing your efforts into actually finding out what you are talking about!

TelBoy

It's oh so easy to trot out replies like that isn't it, "Mr K". And where does it get us? Still standing with our heads in the sand, in my opinion. You carry on doing nothing, i'll take a different path. Everybody's happy.

Klaatu

What do you mean by "do nothing"? Like "do nothing" (Apart from rasing taxes to change behaviour) policies of Govn't?

What else, in your opinion, should people do? Not waste energy? Use public transport? Walk? Become a veggie?

I've been doing this for decades Mr T, have you just caught on in recent years?

But to believe, as you've stated requires faith, in AGW is truely ignorant of facts and reality.

TelBoy

See now your very last word is the crux of it. If i'm imagining this whole thing then sure, dismiss us tree huggers till your head caves in. But whilst i continue to see and experience what i do, i think it's breathtakingly arrogant to label the viewpoint as "truely (sic) ignorant". Let's move on.

PeteBrant

I'll ask you again, what has pressure applied in the business world, got to do with pressure applied in the political world?

And which one do you think will have the most impact on CO2 emssions?

Leslie

Since you are prepared to make such unpleasant insinuations, I think you should have the bottle to explain exactly what you mean.

Les

Blueblaster

I've skimmed a lot of this fast growing thread and loads of the anti-Climate Change brigade are just looking for someone else to blame. China is such an easy target for the un-educated. Apart from the fact that there are well over a billion of the little yellow chaps and chapesses who are we to deny them the benefits of industrialisation that we in the West have enjoyed for the last 100 years? This is a global problem that isn't going to go away so stop whinging - you sound like pre-pubescent teenagers.

coolangatta

TelBoy, thanks for your measured response. It's a refreshing change to the usual climate on NSR.
All I can say for sure is that; we have been brow beaten and 'convinced' by a dominant, bullying and almost completely unopposed argument.
It is unfasionable, and more to the point, not lucrative to oppose the 'carbon is killing the planet' clamour.
Debate must be measured. This debate can only be measured when the weight of those fat gits who profit from, and get that warm feeling from, the climate change issue are ignored or marginalised.

TelBoy

Is that your way of attempting to bribe me into explaining something you can't comprehend? LOL, jog on.

Holy Ghost

**

the chinese won't give in at all though PB. they'll do what they want, how they want and they are expert at lip-service and double-speak - since when has a hugely powerful tyranny ever given in to pressure? the soviets only capitulated because the west (specifically NATO & the US - not the EU as it likes to think) bankrupted them with the unbearable extra rouble pressure of a largely-spoofed SDI initiative. we aren't going to be able to repeat it with the chinese.

the chinese will overtake the US as the world's biggest economy and biggest polluter in a few years. china already produces an estimated 5.1 gigatonnes of CO2 a year and the US 5.9. we cannot force them and we will not sacrifice the well-being of future commercial contracts on the altar of enforced 'climate responsibility'. they hold the whip hand and they know it. that's how they got the 2008 olympics, despite it being as morally repugnant as giving the ***** the games in 1936.

the only 'pressure' we can bring is through the promise of technology transfer for cleaner power generation. and that means sharing the holy grails of power - nuclear fusion and the commercial automotive hydrogen cell - when these inevitably become a reality over the next couple of decades.

when it comes to china, the west is in a bind. what we do to cut emissions (right or wrong, the point is moot - unless one is either an environmental fascist, the BBC or a scientist opportunistically holding out his hand for a taxpayer grant), pales against the emissions of a nation that is set to redefine the term 'superpower'. which makes the whole 'climate change' argument rather akin to counting how many angels can fit on the end of a pin.

sure we need to be more responsible - though not so we hobble the underlying capitalist mechanics of growth with the sort of quixotic initiatives that seem to spurt from the statist EU (that now shapes 80% of UK legislation) almost weekly. but until we can offer the chinese - and to a lesser extent the indians - the means to exploit their own industrial revolutions in a cleaner manner, our politicians are, i'm afraid, talking deliberately distracting, irrelevant and dishonest bulls**t.

TelBoy

Coolangatta, no problem, people need to realise there are two sides to the argument, even on something as divisive as this. I'm sure we've not seen or heard the last of it, not least on SN!!

coolangatta

I think I've answered your point.
See post post 96 above

Paul3446

Did you know that of all the CO2 in the atmosphere, 0.6% is caused by vehicle emissions?

That means every, car, plane, bus, train journey etc. that is made, anywhere in the world (and that's a lot of journeys) has contributed just over half of 1% to the total CO2 in the atmosphere.

Once you have your head round these figures, it puts into perspective the amount of difference it will make if you buy something like a Toyota Prius. It wouldn't make a jot of difference if everyone in the country bought a Toyota Prius, let alone one person!

PeteBrant

The Chinese economy will have to go some before it overtakes the US. Chinese GDP is $3.2bn or there abouts. the US GDP is £14bn; the Chinese economy will have to grow by roughtly 500% to catch up; assuming the US stagnates.

(Of course Chinas GDP will be affected by any US slowdown).

Lets be clear the vast majority of Chinas money is in Manufacturing. They produce goods for other countries; if those countries stop buying, for whatever reason, then the chinese economy suffers.

This is why the Chinese took on RoHS/WEEE at enourmous cost. Western customers demanded it.

And thats the pressure that gets applied - not through political channels, but through business.



I disagree.

TelBoy

Yep, heard all those lovely statistics too, Paul. I've also heard (and Mr K will love this), how infinitesimally small (on a cosmic scale) the difference in our distance from the Sun would have to be for life to have been impossible on Earth. So why can we discount 0.6% of anything Earth-related as being insignificant? Just because in human terms 0.6% of anything isn't much? That seems to be the jist of that particular argument, or have i missed something?

PeteBrant

What do you base that on?


Right, but some is private sector some is public.

Of course they don't counter it - The number one way to give the climate change camp all the credibility in the world if for BP to come out and say "Man man climate change is a load of bollocks".


The oil price has not risen on the back of "talk". It has risen due to a weak dollar, meaning investments are trandsfererred from currecny markets to commodities, thus increase the price, and, an increase in demand from India and China.


Nah

PeteBrant

This is what bothers me - Man made carbon emissions account for something like 3% of the total.

And that is supposedly proof that climate change *can't* be man made.

Thing is, If I over fill a glass of water by 3%, it will overflow.

What if the 3% is enough to tip the balance?

jonc

According to some we have already reached the "tipping point" and to quote the director for Friends of the Earth "If we don't take action soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control." Since when has humans been able to control the global warming? With this in mind why have the G8 nations agreed its reasonable to half CO2 by 2050. Where's the urgency? It gives those governments to squeeze a few more "green taxes" for another 42 years!

Paul3446

I'm not saying that the fact that all vehicle emissions account for 0.6% of CO2 is proof that it can't cause global warming.

Just pointing out to some people who probably assume that the figure is a lot higher, given the hysterical way that this subject is reported.

I'm no more a climatologist than anyone else on here. All I can do is look at the facts that I'm given and make my decision. The main thing that makes me sceptical is the fact that there is no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.

PeteBrant

Thats a fair point.

I think part of the problem, that fuels skepticism is the absolute refusal of any minister, to even discuss the issue. They have made thier mind up, and assert that the scientific community have made thier minds up too, when in fact there is a significant split.

Paul3446

Also, if you don't think this is a tax scam, bear in mind that 0.6% of CO2 is from cars, 1% of CO2 is from heating houses.

Now compare the tax on petrol, to the tax on heating oil!