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UK treasury climate change report- implies?

UK treasury climate change report- implies?

UK treasury climate change report- implies?

(OP)
Based on the 700 page report issued today from the UK treasury, what tehcnologies are expected to ramp up in the next 5 yrs?

a) BS meters?
b) IGCC and CTL
c) common rail diesel cars ( ie, 75 mpg toyota Yaris)
d) nuclear next generation power plants
e) distributed gen using rooftop solar collectors
f)multifamily housing displacing single homes
g) mass transit

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Tax Gathering.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

does a BS meter measure Bull $hit ?

it'll be working overtime !!

to jmw's post i'd add ...
vast government controlled programs, going round and round, with little actually delivered

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Nuclear new build almost certainly. Otherwise it is going to get awfully dark in the UK, and that won't be a vote-winner for the self-serving reptiles in the Houses of Parliament. On the off chance any decent hardworking reptiles are reading this, I apologise for comparing them to politicians who are neither decent nor hardworking.

IGCC won't fly in the UK because we can't produce our own coal anymore after the numerous acts of industrial sabotage carried out by Thatcher's government in the early 1980's, aided and abetted by Arthur Scargill and the trade unions. IGCC is an interesting technology which I think may come to the fore for the independent power producers as the gas crisis deepens in years to come. The UK's goverment is rightly worried about not being self-sufficient in its power generation, and coal is one of the few resources we have decent reserves of. Unfortunately the last generation of miners are getting old now. Another generation and those skills will have gone forever.

----------------------------------
  Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

As someone pointed out recently: If the entire population of Australia stopped producing greenhouse gases entirely, in 3 months time China would have more than compensated for that difference. There is no point, from a global perspective, in any one group of nations deciding to limit greenhouse gas emissions, unless it includes a global solution.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Greg,
Tony Blair in recent statements has also said that the problem is global (obviously) and would require the likes of the USA, China and India to act too http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1935552,00.html I believe that Blair's comments on the matter is that it is better to lead by example and convince others than just do nothing 'cuz what's the point'.

China is in fact taking steps to reduce emissions and is being advised by the British (and probably others) http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2005/051221d.htm
I suspect that one area of technology/engineering that may advance is advising developing countries on using 'clean' technology. It's a step in the right direction.

Personally I see roof top wind generators being the next fashionable accessory to your home. They're already at local DIY shops in the UK and my guess this area of self sufficiency will boom in years to come.

corus

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Has anyone done a full cradle to grave analysis on whether that sop to environmentalism is a good idea /in practice/?

Is it not more likely that it is just a way of selling more 'stuff'?

I bet the wind generator is made out of aluminium (high energy content), plastic (made from oil), and copper (environmetally unfriendly mining practices).

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

I also bet that a wind generator will reduce the amount of C02 that power stations emit, and I also bet that it reduces your own bill from the power supplier.

In the UK at least it is becoming very popular to be environmentally friendly with even opposition (Conservative) politicans cycling to parliament (although a Lexus follows them to carry their briefcase). Other reminders we get are to switch off stand-by on TVs etc. All thsee small things add up when you take into account the whole population. As the govenrment says, it's a matter of changing people's attitudes to how they contribute to the envirnoment. Taxes are another option, however, it's not a matter of tax gathering as JMW says, but tax redistribution. Those who drive the SUVs are twitching nervously. Surely someone can invent a wind turbine that sits on top of your SUV?

corus

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

How about first start turning off the computers at offices when people go home?? Then the next step would be to switch off monitors instead of leaving them stand-by when you're going home.

It amazes me how many people leave their computers on, just because it's 'easy'.

Why take 2 steps, why not doing it all at once?? People don't like changes, small steps, one at a time...

Then again, let people exchange their old light bulbs for 'power-saver' lamps for free!!

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

I would suggest the government did a few things for itself like reinstating school buses and sending traffic wardens to be at the schools at start and end of day.

I would also suggest a sensor system that switches stret lights off when no one is around. Actually, fewer street lights altogether.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

PS please see this article and follow the link to the analysis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml
which I also posted in the Kyoto and spin thread.

It appears from a Telegraph poll published yesterday that I am not alone in suspecting that the only outcome will be tax rises and that while the media has pursuaded everyone of the climate change scenario, (OK, about 86%) just under half think that taxes will do no more than raise more money for the government. (I will re -read the survey and report the real numbers... it isn't on their web site)

Poor sods, it means they believe the end of the world is nigh and that there is nothing we can do about it.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

The article shown by jmw is written by a Christopher Monckton, special advisor to the despot, and backer of apartheid and General Pinochet, Margaret Thatcher, and who is a member of a far-right group. See this site for his other views on the treatment of Aids patients : http://www.petertatchell.net/discrimination/boycott.htm

The Daily Telegraph is commonly known as the newspaper for the Consverative party in the UK, and commonly writes scare stories about tax rises. I'm not surprised that a poll amongst conservatives in the UK believe there will be tax rises because that's the kind of story they're fed every day.

corus

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Corus

True but given that we're now higher taxed than ever in the UK and Gordon Brown is a lover of high taxation particularly by stealth I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see even higher taxation.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Ibrox, if you look at this research paper from the House of Commons :
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-074.pdf then you'll find that the tax burden is pretty much unchanged in the last two decades of between 34 and 39%, it's highest (39%) being during the 1980s when the glorious Feurherlein, Thatcher, decimated the economoy, jobs, and lives. Overall the taxes paid in the UK now are in line with the 30 OECD countries and are below the average of the 15 EU countries (at that time).

Your case that we now pay more taxes under Gordon Brown probably comes from the pages of some Conservative rag you've been reading.

corus

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Quote:

sending traffic wardens to be at the schools at start and end of day

My daughter's school has one of those lollypop ladies at the busy crossing by her school.  Her job is to stop the cars while the kids cross the road.  The cars are typically 4x4 with one small child in the back - on the way to said school.  The kids crossing have just got out of a 4x4 parked nearby and now need to cross the road.  During school holidays there is virtually no traffic.

I would welcome a school-run ban/tax if it were possible to enforce/collect.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Corus

Perhaps you've been reading too much labour propaganda.

I don't read the "conservative" press nor do I pay much attention to the lies and BS the Labour Party put out.  Labour and tory are two sides of the same coin as far as I'm concerned.

Every year the day at we have earned enough to pay our tax bill gets later and later.  Fact not labour lies.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

You can find the survey analysis through the links at the bottom of the page and in it, it says:

Quote:

YouGov elicited the opinions of 1,618 adults across Great Britain online between Oct 30 and Nov 1. The data have been weighted to conform to the demographic profile of British adults as a whole. YouGov abides by the rules of the British Polling Council.

Still, should we decide the science (and the reference material) is all tainted due to the author?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

1,618 adults eh?  Why choose the golden section?  Maybe there is some science/maths behind these polls after all.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

jmw--

A poll of the same group would also likely decide that there is a real basis for astrology and that Nessie is alive and well...

old field guy

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Oldfieldguy,
You're probably right.

You know the rules of the "big Lie" ... say it often, say it loud and never answer criticisms.

Do you suppose these 1618 adults have done any internet research before they did the survey?

Belief depends not on what was said but who said it and how and how often.

If anyone wonders why Al Gore chose, unusually for a politician, to make a film rather than use the usual politician propaganda means, its probably because he has recognised the power of films in promoting the big lie.

Sadly most people now believe the multiple gunmen conspiracy theory about JFK's assassination simply because all they  they now know about it is what was in the Oliver Stone film.
The facts are irrelevant. What they knew or thought before is supressed.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Quote:

On Thursday, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, compared climate sceptics to advocates of Islamic terror. Neither, she said, should have access to the media.

Actually, what she probably meant were "climate change" sceptocs.
And the link to the follow up article is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/12/nclim12.xml
Do also follow the link to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/12/dl1202.xml

Corus, please have your coffee first.
I appreciate your comment that this author and the newspaper are not ones you would trust, though otherswill trust him more than, say, the National Enquirer, and that is indeed the problem we face with all reports both pro and con; that the author introduces bias and may be selective in what the report and how they interpret it. That applies to both sides of the argument.
Since we, and the public in general, are not climatologists, it is obviously important that we are able to "trust" the experts (just as many have to trust engineers).
Comments such as Margaret Beckett's are precisely what we don't want. What we do want to see is each argument resolved based on the science and data not emotion and guesswork.

Please post links to any adverse comments on these articles.  Let us assess each post as to the science Vs Rhetoric and emotion and try and find where the truth might lie. In the original Christopher Monkton article he linked to his "Calculations". I thought that he did well in presenting evidence and largely avoided the emotiovie rehtoric.

He may well have been selective in the evidence he produced  and in the sources he quoted but the only way we will know that is to see the response of the opposing lobby.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Science reporting in newspapers?

Has anyone ever read a newspaper article covering their own field of expertise?  Kind of puts things into perspective.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Realclimate.org has a thread on it.  It's worth mentioning though that Realclimate viciously attacks any people or evidence that link back to a Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age.  That is, after all, why Realclimate was founded - to defend the irrationally produced (some would say intentionally deceptive) hockeystick from the TAR Summary for Policymakers (SPM), which eliminated them to heighten the alarm that the changes we are seeing now are far beyond natural variability.  The SPM is not to be confused with the real science done by the real scientists though, who had no say in what the SPM reported.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

SomptingGuy--

Reading a newspaper article on just about any area in which I have some amount of expertise usually leaves me shaking my head in amazement and dismay at the ignorance and disinformation.  Worse than not knowing something is "knowing" something that just isn't so.  

It's especially bad in a democratic society when you realize that THIS is the information used by some of our electorate to make what they assume is an informed decision on their voting.

As somebody once pointed out, HALF the population out there is BELOW average...  And they'll take the word of a Hollywood celebrity on technical matters more rapidly than they will an expert who's devoted his life to the field.

old field guy

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

Quote:

leaves me shaking my head in amazement and dismay at the ignorance and disinformation

My point exactly.  I find myself swearing at the TV sometimes too.  Even the BBC.  Even BBC2.

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

SomptingGuy,
don't you mean "Especially the BBC. Especially BBC2".
And granted the comments about the press but in this case it is the web site article to follow up and especially the calculation file.

If on the latest link I posted you can read the correspondance file where you will discover a number of climatologists writing in support and with supporting information.
You will also find some ill-mannered Global Warmers who have lost the plot as regards discussing data and have resorted to being rude (one of whom even says he didn't read the article).

For those who didn't read it yet, it doesn't say that global warming isn't happening, just that a significant proportion is probably due to solar activity for which there is some good evidence. It also provides many references.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

The so called global warming crisis is the complete creation of green pseudo scientists and green politians on both sides of the water.
a) By destroying (i.e. exporting) our local industries with rules to improve our green credentials.
b) By trading with India and China using their fixed exchange rates rather than sorting things out with hard nosed common sense.
c) By fueling their economies by buying their "cheap" goods. (Not cheap if the true costs were included and currencies were allowed to float - they have become major economies so don't need the support of fixed currencies).
d) By borrowing the money back that India and China have made trading with us to buy more cheap goods thus growing their economies and energy consumption even more.
China and India are indeed swamping any energy savings we make.  However, it is trade with with us in the west that is paying for it.    

Definitely, the economics of the mad house.
  

RE: UK treasury climate change report- implies?

4Pipes:  a problem, definitely.  But one which can be fixed by tarrifs. Trouble is, just as there is no real political will to deal with global warming or the myriad other problems caused by wasteful fossil fuel consumption, there is no political will to do anything which might annoy China.  We'll continue to lose $10 in local production because some politically powerful people are worried about their $0.50 in trade with China- and its potential to grow to $1, netting them a huge bonus.

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