Climate change - the poll
Poll: Climate change - the poll
Total Members Polled: 248
Discussion
[Mods - please don’t move this to the climate change threads - only about ten people post on those threads and we already know what they think!]
In order to combat climate change we are experiencing a fundamental change to cars with the move from ICE to EV. (I understand the benefits of EV and for everyday cars I don’t have anything against them…but for me ICEs are a fundamental part of the driving or riding experience - partly why I like odd, noisy classic cars - so I will miss them).
The majority of those posting on the climate change threads are deniers or skeptics. Does that reflect the wider PH audience or have those threads become echo chambers?
I’ve tried to cover all bases with the options listed.
In order to combat climate change we are experiencing a fundamental change to cars with the move from ICE to EV. (I understand the benefits of EV and for everyday cars I don’t have anything against them…but for me ICEs are a fundamental part of the driving or riding experience - partly why I like odd, noisy classic cars - so I will miss them).
The majority of those posting on the climate change threads are deniers or skeptics. Does that reflect the wider PH audience or have those threads become echo chambers?
I’ve tried to cover all bases with the options listed.
On the face of it, I'm the person that environmentalists want to hate. I have 4 cars, none of which are fuel efficient. So, therefore, I may as well take your new baby and give it a drop kick. Because I'm killing the planet.
However, what's the realism? Yes, I have 4 environmentally unfriendly cars. Combined, the 4 of them travel around 5,000 miles a year. Someone in a Fiesta covering 15,000 miles will do more harm to the environment than my cars.
A point I like to raise, which has usually been met with silence, is that yes, I agree I have a few polluting cars. Okay, I'll sell them. So, instead of a few cars sat around doing f
k all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?
Sorry, this has nothing to do with the thread, but I needed it off my chest. Only so many times you can get stopped on the M25 for hours whilst the police are more interested in helping protestors, before you need a release.
It was very cathartic driving the works van when it needed a dpf regen, I drove it one gear below top to keep the revs high and the exhaust hot. Malicious compliance.
However, what's the realism? Yes, I have 4 environmentally unfriendly cars. Combined, the 4 of them travel around 5,000 miles a year. Someone in a Fiesta covering 15,000 miles will do more harm to the environment than my cars.
A point I like to raise, which has usually been met with silence, is that yes, I agree I have a few polluting cars. Okay, I'll sell them. So, instead of a few cars sat around doing f
k all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?Sorry, this has nothing to do with the thread, but I needed it off my chest. Only so many times you can get stopped on the M25 for hours whilst the police are more interested in helping protestors, before you need a release.
It was very cathartic driving the works van when it needed a dpf regen, I drove it one gear below top to keep the revs high and the exhaust hot. Malicious compliance.
Second Best said:
Combined, the 4 of them travel around 5,000 miles a year. Someone in a Fiesta covering 15,000 miles will do more harm to the environment than my cars.
You sure about that?Second Best said:
A point I like to raise, which has usually been met with silence, is that yes, I agree I have a few polluting cars. Okay, I'll sell them. So, instead of a few cars sat around doing fk all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?
The idea is that you should recycle them and buy something less polluting.k all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?I am not a believer in the climate change doom mongers, but I am happier that cars have become more environmentally friendly, you only need one older car to come past to realise how much car exhausts used to stink.
Second Best said:
On the face of it, I'm the person that environmentalists want to hate. I have 4 cars, none of which are fuel efficient. So, therefore, I may as well take your new baby and give it a drop kick. Because I'm killing the planet.
However, what's the realism? Yes, I have 4 environmentally unfriendly cars. Combined, the 4 of them travel around 5,000 miles a year. Someone in a Fiesta covering 15,000 miles will do more harm to the environment than my cars.
A point I like to raise, which has usually been met with silence, is that yes, I agree I have a few polluting cars. Okay, I'll sell them. So, instead of a few cars sat around doing fk all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?
Sorry, this has nothing to do with the thread, but I needed it off my chest. Only so many times you can get stopped on the M25 for hours whilst the police are more interested in helping protestors, before you need a release.
It was very cathartic driving the works van when it needed a dpf regen, I drove it one gear below top to keep the revs high and the exhaust hot. Malicious compliance.
Cars that exist only really pollute when they are being driven so if you are not driving them much then I don’t see a problem. A lot of carbon is emitted when a car is built, for EVs as well as ICE. If you wanted to be environmentally friendly keep your mileage low and put off buying a new car. However, what's the realism? Yes, I have 4 environmentally unfriendly cars. Combined, the 4 of them travel around 5,000 miles a year. Someone in a Fiesta covering 15,000 miles will do more harm to the environment than my cars.
A point I like to raise, which has usually been met with silence, is that yes, I agree I have a few polluting cars. Okay, I'll sell them. So, instead of a few cars sat around doing f
k all for the majority of the year, I'll sell them, claim environmentalism, then those cars are in the hands of other drivers, who may do 10,000 miles each. We've gone from 5,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Really want me to sell them?Sorry, this has nothing to do with the thread, but I needed it off my chest. Only so many times you can get stopped on the M25 for hours whilst the police are more interested in helping protestors, before you need a release.
It was very cathartic driving the works van when it needed a dpf regen, I drove it one gear below top to keep the revs high and the exhaust hot. Malicious compliance.
The more I see on the news and the more data I see, the more am convinced it’s hugely worse than we expect, and the change it happening slower, but even if we go to net zero now it would get worse and worse for year on year.
I think what people forget is the earth doesn’t care that’s it 2022 or 2023 it doesn’t magically reset January 1st and go “well slightly more CO2 (and other gases) so I can be warmer this year” it’s a hugely complex system where weather can affect other weather 1000s of miles away.
The UK and the west are extremely stable countries / area thus we have typically less to “lose” hence why I think we are a little bit “warming means nicer summer”.
My simple UK only view, I don’t want global warming to occur as it will increase humidity and rainfall.
My worldwide view, I think we are going to lose a lot of land, animals and people.
The answer I think isn’t electric cars, it’s probably realistically no cars, no consumption of masses of products that travel 1000s of miles to our shores. But I don’t want that, but it is at odds with my worry about climate change. Probably grew up in a world that was too materialistic , have/had it too good so I’ll miss it more.
Electric cars I doubt will make people healthier as it will be so cheap to run that people will hop in and be happy to drive 1.2 miles to the local shops. Baffling to see it happen now and people complaining about parking. But then again I can’t say anythign as I get motorcycles and cars out for a drive just for fun.
I think what people forget is the earth doesn’t care that’s it 2022 or 2023 it doesn’t magically reset January 1st and go “well slightly more CO2 (and other gases) so I can be warmer this year” it’s a hugely complex system where weather can affect other weather 1000s of miles away.
The UK and the west are extremely stable countries / area thus we have typically less to “lose” hence why I think we are a little bit “warming means nicer summer”.
My simple UK only view, I don’t want global warming to occur as it will increase humidity and rainfall.
My worldwide view, I think we are going to lose a lot of land, animals and people.
The answer I think isn’t electric cars, it’s probably realistically no cars, no consumption of masses of products that travel 1000s of miles to our shores. But I don’t want that, but it is at odds with my worry about climate change. Probably grew up in a world that was too materialistic , have/had it too good so I’ll miss it more.
Electric cars I doubt will make people healthier as it will be so cheap to run that people will hop in and be happy to drive 1.2 miles to the local shops. Baffling to see it happen now and people complaining about parking. But then again I can’t say anythign as I get motorcycles and cars out for a drive just for fun.
Edited by mintmansam on Thursday 23 September 08:17
The earth is 4.5B years old, we have been industrialised for 200-250 years, to suggest we can actually ‘damage’ the Earth is laughable.
The Earth will just crack on whether we are here or not for the next 6B years or so, the only thing we are killing is ourselves.
The earth is alive and over time it changes, Pangea, heavy CO2 atmosphere, Ice Age, species rise and fall, it’s just a life cycle.
Everyone talks about going EV, reducing carbon footprint, etc, but the real root cause is the overconsumption by a population the planet cannot support.
Think of any balanced natural eco-system and it is always a pyramid, unfortunately in the case of humans it’s more like an upside down pyramid.
Population control is the only way to solve any climate crisis, but obviously that’ll never happen so we focus on addressing symptoms instead of the root cause.
Take Africa as an example, appx 40% of the continents 1.3B population live in poverty as of 2020, this population is expected to double by 2050, utter madness, greatest percentage of people living in poverty is Nigeria, greatest population growth … Nigeria.
Weren’t cfcs going to end the world in the 80’s, then acid rain in the 90’s? None of the so called climate experts have been right so far.
I’ll drive whatever car I please and not have any children, that’s a much bigger contributor than anything else I could do in my life.
The Earth will just crack on whether we are here or not for the next 6B years or so, the only thing we are killing is ourselves.
The earth is alive and over time it changes, Pangea, heavy CO2 atmosphere, Ice Age, species rise and fall, it’s just a life cycle.
Everyone talks about going EV, reducing carbon footprint, etc, but the real root cause is the overconsumption by a population the planet cannot support.
Think of any balanced natural eco-system and it is always a pyramid, unfortunately in the case of humans it’s more like an upside down pyramid.
Population control is the only way to solve any climate crisis, but obviously that’ll never happen so we focus on addressing symptoms instead of the root cause.
Take Africa as an example, appx 40% of the continents 1.3B population live in poverty as of 2020, this population is expected to double by 2050, utter madness, greatest percentage of people living in poverty is Nigeria, greatest population growth … Nigeria.
Weren’t cfcs going to end the world in the 80’s, then acid rain in the 90’s? None of the so called climate experts have been right so far.
I’ll drive whatever car I please and not have any children, that’s a much bigger contributor than anything else I could do in my life.
Baldchap said:
I love it!
"What's your unqualified opinion on something the overwhelming majority of the scientific community agree on?"
Let's see the data for anyone who disagrees with the science. Same goes for the antivaxxers.
The point is that the 'scientific community' don't agree on either the amount of C02 liable to be produced, the sensitivity of the climate system to that C02, or the precise effects of a given temperature rise even if it was known what it would be. Which it can't be because we don't know what the climate would be doing even without any man made C02."What's your unqualified opinion on something the overwhelming majority of the scientific community agree on?"
Let's see the data for anyone who disagrees with the science. Same goes for the antivaxxers.
There is plenty of room for debate. Suggesting the human contribution to warming, and/or the effects are being overhyped in certain quarters doesn't make me anti science any more than those who debate the precise effectiveness or side effects of vaccines are antivaxxers.
Dr Jekyll said:
The point is that the 'scientific community' don't agree on either the amount of C02 liable to be produced, the sensitivity of the climate system to that C02, or the precise effects of a given temperature rise even if it was known what it would be. Which it can't be because we don't know what the climate would be doing even without any man made C02.
Not exactly no, there is always going to be variation in the models, but the vast majority of knowledgeable people are happy that the answer lies within a particular set of bounds, and if we accept even the most optimistic of those bounds anthropomorphic greenhouse emissions are having a huge effect on global temperatures. I have enough understanding of the methods involved (although not of the data itself) to accept that the real answer lies somewhere in the range that the huge majority of models predict, and know of no scientific reason to believe they are more likely to fall towards the bottom end of that range than the top end. So on balance anyone other than a scientists who works in the field who doesn't accept something at least roughly around the current mainstream models is, quite frankly, not really any different than a flat-earther.
Which is of course not to say that the way the scientific consensus is portrayed hasn't been corrupted for political means, although again I think that corruption has been as much (if not more) in the direction of down-playing the problem as up-playing it. Of course the strange thing about politics is that it's often the same person doing both things, sometimes in the same sentence. On balance I think Western governments are down-playing the problem overall; they are certainly not willing to take the measures that the broad modeling consensus implies are necessary.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 23 September 09:30
mintmansam said:
The more I see on the news and the more data I see, the more am convinced it’s hugely worse than we expect, and the change it happening slower, but even if we go to net zero now it would get worse and worse for year on year.
This is my view also. I'm also convinced that the damage that has already been done can't easily be undone. We've already burned through the majority of the planet's fossil fuels. The amount of CO2 released, along with other greenhouse gasses, can't easily be removed from the atmosphere. Combine this with de-forestation, and as a species we've made what amounts to one almighty f**k up. Edited by mintmansam on Thursday 23 September 08:17
But, the real problem is one that no-one really wants to mention. So I will....
There are too many people on the planet. These people have to eat, require heating / food (vegetarians apparently create less pollution - but no, I'm not going veggie). This heating and food manufacture causes pollution. The real answer is controlled population reduction. But that's not politically correct, and I'm probably not allowed to say it....
Edited by Magnum 475 on Thursday 23 September 09:41
Magnum 475 said:
We've already burned through the majority of the planet's fossil fuels.
If you look at how much carbon was in the atmosphere before life appeared on earth and how much is currently in living organisms or trapped in oceans (admittedly the latter isn't known particularly accurately), there's an awful lot unaccounted for! I doubt we've burned more than 5% of the total fossil fuel reserves in the earth's crust. I think you'll find that almost everyone wants to mention that there's too many people on earth, it's just no-one has a politically viable solution to the problem; certainly not one which will have results quickly enough. China tried and it wasn't exactly popular!
Edited by kambites on Thursday 23 September 09:39
kambites said:
... they are certainly not willing to take the measures that the broad modeling consensus implies are necessary.
Because those measures involve taking us back to the stone age. As has been intimated, the Earth is 4.5Bn years old. It mends itself as seen by the 'hole' in the Ozone layer. The increase in CO2 levels means that over the last 10 years there has been an increase in forest coverage on the planet for example, rather than a decline, despite deforestation etc. Edited by kambites on Thursday 23 September 09:30
The thread was started with an attempt to avoid NP&E style nonsense and to garner opinion so I'll avoid a rant. Mine is that conservationism is far more sensible and preferable than environmentalism. Preventing deforestation, reducing plastic in the oceans and putting an end to murderous activity such as The Grind in the Faroe Islands are the kinds of activity I support. The current energy crisis is a direct result of the eco loons deranged demands and their campaign has resulted in no real benefit to Earth. Demanding an end to conventional power sources, insisting we all use bikes and EVs etc is fine for the London set, but go rural, or to any developing or third world country and it becomes utterly risible.
Magnum 475 said:
This is my view also. I'm also convinced that the damage that has already been done can't easily be undone. We've already burned through the majority of the planet's fossil fuels. The amount of CO2 released, a long with other greenhouse gasses, can't easily be removed from the atmosphere. Combine this with de-forestation, and as a species we've made what amounts to one almighty f**k up.
But, the real problem is one that no-one really wants to mention. So I will....
There are too many people on the planet. These people have to eat, require heating / food (vegetarians apparently create less pollution - but no, I'm not going veggie). This heating and food manufacture causes pollution. The real answer is controlled population reduction. But that's not politically correct, and I'm probably not allowed to say it....
Forest cover worldwide is actually increasing. Largely due to the increased wealth all that energy use has created, though increase in C02 probably helps as well. Heating and food manufacture certainly causes pollution, but far less than it used to.But, the real problem is one that no-one really wants to mention. So I will....
There are too many people on the planet. These people have to eat, require heating / food (vegetarians apparently create less pollution - but no, I'm not going veggie). This heating and food manufacture causes pollution. The real answer is controlled population reduction. But that's not politically correct, and I'm probably not allowed to say it....
The notion that there are too many people is not one that no one wants to mention, but is one continually, even obsessionally, brought up by those who wan to ban things. The reality is that every projection shows population dropping by the end of the century, and increased population has actually been accompanied by reductions in the prevalence of poverty and starvation.
There may be some turning point which by startling coincidence is a population level we will reach in the next few decades but there's no evidence of it.
Magnum 475 said:
But, the real problem is one that no-one really wants to mention. So I will....
There are too many people on the planet.
That is a big one.There are too many people on the planet.
The other aspect I've never really understood is the need to press the nebulous climate change argument instead of, say, the primary arguments being for better air quality, energy security or cost control, etc. which ultimately seem to me to lead to similar measures being taken but are far more easily communicated in both the argument and the progress to the average person I think we're over that hill now but it's been far more painful than seemed necessary.
Jonmx said:
Because those measures involve taking us back to the stone age. As has been intimated, the Earth is 4.5Bn years old. It mends itself as seen by the 'hole' in the Ozone layer. The increase in CO2 levels means that over the last 10 years there has been an increase in forest coverage on the planet for example, rather than a decline, despite deforestation etc.
The thread was started with an attempt to avoid NP&E style nonsense and to garner opinion so I'll avoid a rant. Mine is that conservationism is far more sensible and preferable than environmentalism. Preventing deforestation, reducing plastic in the oceans and putting an end to murderous activity such as The Grind in the Faroe Islands are the kinds of activity I support. The current energy crisis is a direct result of the eco loons deranged demands and their campaign has resulted in no real benefit to Earth. Demanding an end to conventional power sources, insisting we all use bikes and EVs etc is fine for the London set, but go rural, or to any developing or third world country and it becomes utterly risible.
Thanks for saving me the effort of making a reply The thread was started with an attempt to avoid NP&E style nonsense and to garner opinion so I'll avoid a rant. Mine is that conservationism is far more sensible and preferable than environmentalism. Preventing deforestation, reducing plastic in the oceans and putting an end to murderous activity such as The Grind in the Faroe Islands are the kinds of activity I support. The current energy crisis is a direct result of the eco loons deranged demands and their campaign has resulted in no real benefit to Earth. Demanding an end to conventional power sources, insisting we all use bikes and EVs etc is fine for the London set, but go rural, or to any developing or third world country and it becomes utterly risible.
I despise waste in all its forms, that is the real killer of the environment. If the climate changes then it changes and we can deal with i. It will be much harder to deal with shortages of critical resources like silicon, steel, building sand and oil. The amount of resources we throw away in packaging or just plain old waste is ridiculous.
Scrappage schemes and trade-ins in the name of saving the environment makes me angry. Most modern stuff is simply not built to be repaired when we should be encouraging a repair and re use culture!
Instead most second-hand goods are massively undervalued. There is no reason why the majority of cars cannot survive 40-50 years as long as they are looked after properly, shedloads of old electronics can be revived with a bit of soldering and £5 in parts.
Jonmx said:
Because those measures involve taking us back to the stone age. As has been intimated, the Earth is 4.5Bn years old. It mends itself as seen by the 'hole' in the Ozone layer. The increase in CO2 levels means that over the last 10 years there has been an increase in forest coverage on the planet for example, rather than a decline, despite deforestation etc.
Oh we certainly can't do any harm to the earth - or even to life on earth in the long term. The whole "stopping global warming" thing is purely a selfish desire on the part of man-kind. At worst we'll cause the worst mass extinction event (including ourselves) that the earth has seen since complex life arose but life will survive and will come to flourish again, whatever we do. One can make a strong argument that the best thing we can do for bio-diversity in the long run is screw things up so badly that we go extinct and the earth can get back to some semblance of balance.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 23 September 10:01
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