218 replies to this topic

[coldel]

First Tory canvasser I've ever met has just knocked on the door asking if they could count on our vote tomorrow (we're both postal voters).

 

I said we were both struggling and the first thing he asked was "What's your position on Brexit?". I said we'd both voted remain though neither of us were ardent remainers (though 'er indoors is becoming more so). His reply was a slightly disappointed "Oh". The only other thing he asked was "Have you met Ryan (Henson, our new Tory candidate), he really is a lovely chap". That was it. Nothing more. No attempts at persuasion. Hmmm, thanks for the deep and meaningful.

 

I dread this - already had the leaflet dropping started (despite putting on my letter box no leaflets please). Such a waste of time as they are programmed not to debate, only to play back pre-recorded text. 

[C8RKH]

I think a compromise is needed. All those who live in cities should have their cars nationalised. They should then be scrapped and recycled.  If you want to get about the city use public transport or walk or cycle or rollers or skateboard. Electric additive power to these forms (well apart from walking) are allowed.  Within 6 months we'd have the cleanest cities in the world, reduced environmental and health impacts. Happier and fitter people. Etc.

 

Then, those of us who live in the rural bliss of the countryside will be free to drive our hi performance gas guzzling cars at warp speed on near empty roads without having to deal with the dumbnut weekend city drivers. Our environmental impact will be negligible and we'll be happy too as we take pictures of our cars in people free, remote places with solar and wind farms in the background as contrast - old world meets new world.  City dwellers could then see these pictures to remind them what a great life they used to have.

 

Wind and solar is fine, but everyone avoiding, even on here, the facts about the mining for the chemicals needed to support. I guess it's not in their back yard, or spoiling their view, or killing little Johnny English or Sara Scot, so it's ok.  The big issue is around how you manage the whole scale shift to electricity for everything.  Yes, there is enough wind and the scientists tell us it will be a million or so years before the man in the sun swtiches the light off. But, our national infrastructure, our electricity grids, high, medium and low voltage, were not designed around  100 years ago for this type of intermittent generation. Ideally, we want and need a smooth profile (hence the move to store renewal energy in batteries or through Hydro schemes - which by the way the latter destroys huge swathes of environment for).  If every house on the street gets an EV and they are get switched on for charging at 1800-1900 each night then BANG! goes the sub station. The costs of the infrastructure upgrades are tens, if not hundreds, of £billion and it will take time.  The campaigners and the evangelists conveniently gloss over these issues and just assume that someone else will fix the issue. So at the end of the day, all of this renewable stuff is just glossed over and the masses just dumbly soak it up and think wow great, the new dawn has arrived and it's going to be clean, cheap, free, and easy and tomorrow....

[coldel]

That's all based on the assumption that as a technology we never advance. Fifteen years ago paying for something with your phone was inconceivable, a phone battery the size of a postage stamp lasting days just unbelievable, hell even an electric car driving 200 miles, surely not! The environmental impact of putting in hydro stations vs global rising water levels wiping out a large percentage of the world inhabitable surface? The confusion here is that renewables companies are aware they aren't perfect, its the opposition view being pushed that they are not aware of it that is false.

 

Battery tech is moving forwards with solid state batteries, alternatives to lithium-ion etc. and in 10 years we will be in a totally different place. Renewable is now capable of covering something like 15% of the power needs of the UK, and that's with sizable resistance to its growth, disbelief that climate change is here, coupled with the fact that we need to wait for fossil fuel power stations to expire before replacing them, so on and so forth. How many people die mining for fossil fuels, or in fact any tech that western Europe uses - do you feel guilty about using your mobile phone built in Chinese sweat shops? Will Cobalt even be needed in 10 years time? I never saw an argument for the slave like conditions to be used for all our cheap tech that we use in the west to be banned.

 

Scientifically renewables is a no brainer, cheaper, cleaner, long term availability, falling costs not rising. Sure its going to take a bit of effort to get there, but we have to really. 

Edited by coldel, 26 November 2019 - 02:35 PM.

[coldel]

Apologies, just realised I am battering on about renewable energy on a voting intention thread - apologies!

[C8RKH]

It's better than the drivel you get on the doorstep from the canvassers. Keep going!  Your hot wind is creating a lot of turbine energy!   

[coldel]

It's better than the drivel you get on the doorstep from the canvassers. Keep going!  Your hot wind is creating a lot of turbine energy!   

 

Hahaha oi !!

 

Yes the doorstep knockers, with their leaflets, their inability to even acknowledge your questions unless of course it aligns with an answer they want to give. But still feel unsure on who to vote for...maybe I should be going for the Greens!

[PaulCP]

 

 

 

All the folks with the facts & figures, how are they getting their homes heated? How’s their food reaching the supermarkets?

 

 

Renewables, green energy etc. The point is there are viable alternatives.

 

Aye, that viable that the majority of them need either a subsidy, tax break, or a grant to make them viable (as does North Sea oil and gas to be fair).

 

My point is that everyone talks about these alternatives but no body ever provides any breakdown as to how "green" they really are. Yes, they energy they produce is in green, but what about:

 

1. Batteries and EVs - go to the DRC and other places where they mine the cobalt, lithium, and other rare earth metals and tell the parents of the child workers, with very short average life expectancies, contaminated water tables, and who are paid a pittance, that it's all OK as the stuff that they are mining, that is killing their children, means that people in the West can sleep at night knowking that they have a green, environmentally friendly car!
 

2. We do not, as yet, have a viable recycling process, at scale, to deal with the batteries that are being created. Guess what environmental disaster everyone could be talking about in 20-30 years time.
 

3. Wind turbines - wonderful things. A lot of them made in Malmo in Sweden, and other places that are not the UK. What's the environmental cost of making them, shipping them, the concrete (concrete being a massive pollutant) bases being excavated and laid, etc?  You never see this mentioned, just the "free green energy they produce" as if there a a zero impact, totally carbon neutral on day one
 

4. Biomass - wood fooking pellets, shipped in by the thousands of tonnes on oil burning boats that sail from Canada, the US and South America to transport fooking wood pellets to be burnt efficiently in the UK (as of course, we have no trees or forestry operations here) etc...

 

Aye, viable alternatives. My arse!

 

 

You forgot to mention the future environmental impact of decommissioning some of these “environmentally friendly” alternatives.

 

I’ve been objecting against an “energy battery storage facility” in our location based on the fact that it is not environmentally friendly nor green energy as the applicants want to planners to believe. 
Fact 1. The batteries will be charged from current means via power stations which use fossil fuels

Fact 2. There is no plan contained within the planning application as to how the lithium based batteries, which are stated to have a 20 year life, will be decommissioned and disposed of.

 

What do the local planning committee do? They ignore all the facts that have been presented to them by objectors and pass the application stating that “this council needs to support all of these environmentally efficient initiatives” 

Ignorance is bliss!!!

[coldel]

Im surprised they didnt give an answer, or they didnt give an answer that made sense. The disposal/recycling of batteries is a massive opportunity for tech companies. Repurposing expired EV batteries is already in play, although they cannot power cars, they can still be repurposed to less demanding tasks such as storing solar power - the batteries don't die, they just become less efficient. Also there is the value of the components and stripping them out and reusing them which again will create a huge growth industry in the coming years as legislation promoting EVs etc. pushes volumes higher.

 

I agree renewables arenot 100% clean there will be side effects, its not perfect by any stretch, but the issue is not that. The issue is that they are proven cleaner alternatives to burning stuff for decades which is in turn causing global potentially existential issues. 

[Jetpilot]

 

 

 

 

All the folks with the facts & figures, how are they getting their homes heated? How’s their food reaching the supermarkets?

 

 

Renewables, green energy etc. The point is there are viable alternatives.

 

Aye, that viable that the majority of them need either a subsidy, tax break, or a grant to make them viable (as does North Sea oil and gas to be fair).

 

My point is that everyone talks about these alternatives but no body ever provides any breakdown as to how "green" they really are. Yes, they energy they produce is in green, but what about:

 

1. Batteries and EVs - go to the DRC and other places where they mine the cobalt, lithium, and other rare earth metals and tell the parents of the child workers, with very short average life expectancies, contaminated water tables, and who are paid a pittance, that it's all OK as the stuff that they are mining, that is killing their children, means that people in the West can sleep at night knowking that they have a green, environmentally friendly car!
 

2. We do not, as yet, have a viable recycling process, at scale, to deal with the batteries that are being created. Guess what environmental disaster everyone could be talking about in 20-30 years time.
 

3. Wind turbines - wonderful things. A lot of them made in Malmo in Sweden, and other places that are not the UK. What's the environmental cost of making them, shipping them, the concrete (concrete being a massive pollutant) bases being excavated and laid, etc?  You never see this mentioned, just the "free green energy they produce" as if there a a zero impact, totally carbon neutral on day one
 

4. Biomass - wood fooking pellets, shipped in by the thousands of tonnes on oil burning boats that sail from Canada, the US and South America to transport fooking wood pellets to be burnt efficiently in the UK (as of course, we have no trees or forestry operations here) etc...

 

Aye, viable alternatives. My arse!

 

 

 

 

What do the local planning committee do? They ignore all the facts that have been presented to them by objectors and pass the application stating that “this council needs to support all of these environmentally efficient initiatives” 

Ignorance is bliss!!!

 

 

I dont know the answer to this but are the councils also required to meet targets like the car manufacturers?

[C8RKH]

The fundamental issue, which everyone, and I mean everyone, ignores is that there are just too many people on this planet of ours and the population graph is only going in one way. Painful reality check time.

[C8RKH]

So, I'm no conspiracy theorist but my phone popped up this story via google. They're watching us...

https://www.theguard...limate-friendly

[Ivor]

The fundamental issue, which everyone, and I mean everyone, ignores is that there are just too many people on this planet of ours and the population graph is only going in one way. Painful reality check time.

Thought population growth was stalling? But apart from that fully agree, it's a fundamental problem, we UK cannot feed our population, yet we continue to grow , as for growing biofuel crops, when we cannot feed the world, my mind just boggles

[coldel]

 

The fundamental issue, which everyone, and I mean everyone, ignores is that there are just too many people on this planet of ours and the population graph is only going in one way. Painful reality check time.

Thought population growth was stalling? But apart from that fully agree, it's a fundamental problem, we UK cannot feed our population, yet we continue to grow , as for growing biofuel crops, when we cannot feed the world, my mind just boggles

 

 

I don't think anyone is ignoring it, there are so many issues that are facing the human races survival on Earth. But aside from Chinese style 1 baby 1 family what can you do? Science is enabling humans to be more resilient to natural dangers, living longer. A quick google shows the population rate slowing each year coming down to 1% so I guess something is happening naturally to curtail it. 

[sford]

 

The fundamental issue, which everyone, and I mean everyone, ignores is that there are just too many people on this planet of ours and the population graph is only going in one way. Painful reality check time.

Thought population growth was stalling? But apart from that fully agree, it's a fundamental problem, we UK cannot feed our population, yet we continue to grow , as for growing biofuel crops, when we cannot feed the world, my mind just boggles

 

 

There seem to be a lot of solar farms popping up on farm land, more so over the last few years. This has got to have a knock on effect that there's less food farmed. 

[techieboy]

Well, after Andrew Neil's latest performance, I really hope for Johnson's sake he's squirreled away in a bunker getting coached (ideally by hypnosis or something) on answers to all of the Islamaphobia/Letterbox, Russia dossier, trust issues, Jennifer Arcuri, trade deal questions he's going to get hammered with. "Get Brexit Done!" answers or bluff and bluster to any and all questions just aren't going to cut it with Neil. I think he runs a real risk of losing votes if he performs as he did in the head-to-head.

 

Really can't be that hard to come up with some acceptable answers to some of the inevitable questions, to head off the inquisition.

[SteveA]

 

There seem to be a lot of solar farms popping up on farm land, more so over the last few years. This has got to have a knock on effect that there's less food farmed. 

 

 

There is also a very big and ultimately more immediate problem for the human race around farming. Over farming land is stripping the nitrogen from the soil and due to the fact it doesn't get chance to regenerate (because we need so much food so farm it continuously) there is a growing issue of land no longer being useful for growing food. Also the fact that instead of using farmland for food a great deal it is being used for bio fuel production which only accelerates the issue.

 

Over population is a massive problem.

[coldel]

If only we had some sort of agreement with a large land mass which could provide food for us without tariffs and checks, that given our relatively small size vs population size, where we rely on food imports, that we had some sort of arrangement where we could just get food in and focus on using our land space on things we are good at... 

[Jetpilot]

Yeah great idea, probably a good idea to offer them our fishing grounds in return 

[coldel]

In return for theirs    

 

Anyway. We should be eating more plants etc. that's a good call. I wouldnt be surprised if climate gets called out at some point, some parties are weaker on this than others and is an easy hit if they want it. Whether the general voting population takes any notice...

[C8RKH]

If only we had some sort of agreement with a large land mass which could provide food for us without tariffs and checks, that given our relatively small size vs population size, where we rely on food imports, that we had some sort of arrangement where we could just get food in and focus on using our land space on things we are good at...

So that'll be the US then, certainly not Europe. Europe food production is massively inefficient.