Global Warming

[tomav84]

28 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

So what we gonna do with the cows. They produce methane which counts towards I think 14.5% of the green house gases. 

there will be much fewer of them because far fewer will need to be bred

if a cow makes 100 steaks now, you need 10 cows to produce 1000 steaks

if you can make 1000 synthetic steaks from 1 steak, then hypothetically 1 cow could make 100,000 steaks. so suddenly you need a LOT less cows therefore a lot less green house gasses. not to mention all the trees that can now be planted where we currently grow feed for all the cows we have today

[sidcow]

7 minutes ago, sne said:

Clothing industry and the way people think about clothes is also an area where a lot can be done. Takes a lot of energy and especially water to produce clothes. And by the looks of it a large part is discarded before it is even used.

Tragic report with a long read in link.

https://changingmarkets.org/take-back-trickery/

Yeah, fast throw away fashion really has to change. 

My daughter orders eye watering amounts of clothes from all these fast fashion online retailers and hardly wears any of that.. A huge amount of her wages is spent on in. 

[tomav84]

Just now, sidcow said:

Yeah, fast throw away fashion really has to change. 

My daughter orders eye watering amounts of clothes from all these fast fashion online retailers and hardly wears any of that.. A huge amount of her wages is spent on in. 

plus so much of what we return because we've changed our minds, or bought 3 sizes of the same garment to just send back the 2 that don't fit just gets burned rather than re sold

[allani]

3 hours ago, sidcow said:

Farmers can grow crops instead of grazing sheep or cows. It's a much better use of land. If there is more demand for cereal crops or legumes because people are eating more of them prices for those crops rise. If people eat less meat then farmers earn less from meat. 

A field full of crops absorbs CO2.. A field full of animals expels CO2. 

I will say this is one sacrifice I'm not willing to make though I don't actually eat that much meat anyway.  I do eat it but in small portions. I've been experimenting with plant based alternatives but I just don't think they are there yet. 

There is little reason why farmers can't do both.  There's plenty of opportunities to grow fruit (in particular) and animals in the same space.  We don't have fields of sheep / goats here in southern Italy for example - they just graze their way around the local olive groves.  It's good for the olive trees (keeps weeds down, adds manure to the ground, etc, stops farmers ploughing under the trees to surpress fire risk, etc), good for the sheep / goats as they get more exercise and a slightly more diverse diet, etc.  I've heard of similar situations where apple orchards have added pig farming - both the plants and the animals get healthier.  The danger is moving farmers from intensive animal farming to intensive vegetable farming can be just as damaging to the environment - just look at California where so much of the natural water resources are used irrigating fruit, vegetables farms and the issues they are having with wild fires (partly) because natural watersources have been drained dry.  Another example of intensive plant based farming can also be seen near us where our olive groves are under threat from a virus carried by an insect - it is almost certain that this has become an issue because trees have been planted too closely together (making it easier for disease to spread, meaning that trees are generally less healthy because they aren't getting enough airflow, water, etc) and because farmers have focussed on one or two varieties which means that whole areas can be devastated if a disease that impacts that variety hits (there are several varieties of olive that are - if not immune - better at resisting the disease).  Similarly, before moving here I lived in Kent and the summers were becoming almost unbearable because of the amount of rape being grown for oil - I'm massively allergic to rape pollen (not very uncommon) and there's been plenty of evidence to suggest that many people have either discovered that they have similar issues or have developed asthma / hay fever as a result of the sure volume of the crop being grown.  There are huge issues in America where intensive almond farming to meet the demand for non-dairy milk is threatening the existance of pollenators - in particular bees - because of disease and the fact that almond honey isn't good enough to preserve hives through the winter.

So for me "intensive" farming is the bigger issue rather than just moving from animal farming to plant-based farming.  We should also be looking at more ways in which multiple "products" can be farmed from the same land and also how things like crop rotation can be brought back so that we naturally return chemicals, etc to the soil rather than having to rely on man-made chemicals, etc.

[sne]

Southern Sweden has an issue with farmers pretty much only growing rapeseed which leads to a glut of food for insects over a very, very short period of time but then they starve for the rest of the summer. Number of insects have plummeted and that leads all kinds of problems. Especially bees are dying in droves. Growing different crops than just rapeseed would at least partly help with this problem.

[Seal]

5 hours ago, sidcow said:

Farmers can grow crops instead of grazing sheep or cows. It's a much better use of land. If there is more demand for cereal crops or legumes because people are eating more of them prices for those crops rise. If people eat less meat then farmers earn less from meat. 

A field full of crops absorbs CO2.. A field full of animals expels CO2. 

I will say this is one sacrifice I'm not willing to make though I don't actually eat that much meat anyway.  I do eat it but in small portions. I've been experimenting with plant based alternatives but I just don't think they are there yet. 

People often forget that much (40% in the UK higher elsewhere, particularly in soya producing countries) of crop farming is used to grow crops to feed animals on farms to be fed to humans. So eliminating meat farming would quite significantly reduced the amount of overall farmland needed by FAR more than just the animal farming.

[LondonLax]

Yeah, often when people think of cattle farming they think of cows roaming around on grass pastures nibbling as they go. 

On a global production scale the reality is Amazon rainforest being cut down to plant soy beans which are then fed to cows in troughs who are sent all over the world to be made into burgers or other takeaway foods. 

[one_ian_taylor]

2 hours ago, allani said:

There is little reason why farmers can't do both.  There's plenty of opportunities to grow fruit (in particular) and animals in the same space.  We don't have fields of sheep / goats here in southern Italy for example - they just graze their way around the local olive groves.  It's good for the olive trees (keeps weeds down, adds manure to the ground, etc, stops farmers ploughing under the trees to surpress fire risk, etc), good for the sheep / goats as they get more exercise and a slightly more diverse diet, etc.  I've heard of similar situations where apple orchards have added pig farming - both the plants and the animals get healthier.  The danger is moving farmers from intensive animal farming to intensive vegetable farming can be just as damaging to the environment - just look at California where so much of the natural water resources are used irrigating fruit, vegetables farms and the issues they are having with wild fires (partly) because natural watersources have been drained dry.  Another example of intensive plant based farming can also be seen near us where our olive groves are under threat from a virus carried by an insect - it is almost certain that this has become an issue because trees have been planted too closely together (making it easier for disease to spread, meaning that trees are generally less healthy because they aren't getting enough airflow, water, etc) and because farmers have focussed on one or two varieties which means that whole areas can be devastated if a disease that impacts that variety hits (there are several varieties of olive that are - if not immune - better at resisting the disease).  Similarly, before moving here I lived in Kent and the summers were becoming almost unbearable because of the amount of rape being grown for oil - I'm massively allergic to rape pollen (not very uncommon) and there's been plenty of evidence to suggest that many people have either discovered that they have similar issues or have developed asthma / hay fever as a result of the sure volume of the crop being grown.  There are huge issues in America where intensive almond farming to meet the demand for non-dairy milk is threatening the existance of pollenators - in particular bees - because of disease and the fact that almond honey isn't good enough to preserve hives through the winter.

So for me "intensive" farming is the bigger issue rather than just moving from animal farming to plant-based farming.  We should also be looking at more ways in which multiple "products" can be farmed from the same land and also how things like crop rotation can be brought back so that we naturally return chemicals, etc to the soil rather than having to rely on man-made chemicals, etc.

One Straw Revolution is a great account of a Japanese agricultural scientist turned farmer's (successful) attempt to do this - great read. Not everything went right at first, but he learned over time to use very little inputs and labour to get great  yields 

[MakemineVanilla]

On 23/07/2023 at 11:07, sidcow said:

Meanwhile Rhodes burns. Tourists fleeing hotels. TUI and Jet2 cancelling flights. 

Nothing to see here. 

According to the Royal Society there has been no increase in wildfires.

https://royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/global-trends-wildfire/

Quote

Overview
Fire activity is on the rise in some regions, but when considering the total area burned at the global level, we are still not seeing an overall increase.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by MakemineVanilla

[sidcow]

10 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

According to the Royal Society there has been no increase in wildfires.

https://royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/global-trends-wildfire/

 

Yeah just Woke travel companies abandoning hotels this year for shits and giggles. 

[sidcow]

14 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

According to the Royal Society there has been no increase in wildfires.

https://royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/global-trends-wildfire/

 

And well done in seeking out a report which states there are no more wildfires than previously which seems to contradict all the top results on Google. 

I assume some anti oil and gas illuminati are paying to commission negative reports and keep them high in the Google algorithms. 

[LondonLax]

25 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

According to the Royal Society there has been no increase in wildfires.

https://royalsociety.org/blog/2020/10/global-trends-wildfire/

 

Also from that link:

Quote

There is strong evidence that the increase in fire activity we are seeing in many forested regions is indeed linked to climate change. Even the decrease in fire in tropical savannas that we just mentioned does not mean that climate change is not having an impact there too; actually, quite the opposite. This reduction has been in part attributed to conversion of savanna to agricultural land but, also, to shifting rainfall patterns that reduce the overall flammability of grasslands.

 

[CVByrne]

I don't get hating on Airlines because of Global Warming. People want to go on holidays to other countries and as long as there is a demand for that the airlines will supply it.

If we reduce the number of flights the prices would just go up and we price ordinary people out of holidays. 

[Genie]

22 hours ago, sidcow said:

I guess the other advantage of cutting down on meat is what we do the eat we can produce domestically instead of shipping it in diesel powered ships half way round the world in power sapping refrigerated containers. 

What about our new trade deal with New Zealand??? How will we cope???

[limpid]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

I don't get hating on Airlines because of Global Warming. People want to go on holidays to other countries and as long as there is a demand for that the airlines will supply it.

If we reduce the number of flights the prices would just go up and we price ordinary people out of holidays. 

Or we move back to where half of the price of your holiday was the flight so that it can be taxed based on the environmental damage done. When did a foreign holiday become a right?

Do you also think that season tickets should be priced so that anyone can afford them? Or cars? Or jewellery? A foreign holiday is a luxury purchase for almost everyone.

[sidcow]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66289489

Europe and US heatwaves near 'impossible' without climate change

Quote

The heatwaves battering Europe and the US in July would have been "virtually impossible" without human-induced climate change, a scientific study says.

Global warming from burning fossil fuels also made the heatwave affecting parts of China 50 times more likely.

Climate change meant the heatwave in southern Europe was 2.5C hotter, the study finds.

Quote

"This study confirms what we knew before. It shows again just how much climate change plays a role in what we are currently experiencing," said Friederike Otto from Imperial College London.

Climate scientists say decades of humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing global temperatures to rise.

Quote

A run of climate records have fallen in recent weeks, including global average temperatures and sea surface temperatures particularly in the North Atlantic.

Experts say the speed and timing is "unprecedented" and warn that more records could tumble in the coming weeks and months.

Dangerous wildfires in Greece forced thousands of people to evacuate hotels at the weekend. Experts say that the hot and dry weather created favourable conditions for fire to spread more easily.

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by sidcow

[sne]

No flights from Sicily. Both Catania and Palermo airports closed. Trains also not running and roads closed.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

We didn't get a choice, the government decided for us, when it came to the commitment to Net Zero: belief or scepticism matter little.

The nagging question is how much austerity will the population accept before they revolt.

Any necessary cuts in standards of living will hit the poor the hardest, and the government are making sure wages will not rise.

Several countries across europe have turned right politically and Spain missed having a right wing government by a squeak recently.

History suggests that when times get tough politics moves to the right, and historians still debate whether the austerity created by the Treaty of Versailles, was a major factor in the rise of the Nazis, which Keynes warned about in 1918.

The question everyone has to ask themselves; is how much are they willing to give up?

 

 

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

We didn't get a choice, the government decided for us

That is literally why we elect them

[Mic09]

22 hours ago, limpid said:

A foreign holiday is a luxury purchase for almost everyone.

Well, I think that a UK holiday is a luxury comparing to a cheap get away in Spain or Greece.

Prices for hotels in Cornwall vs Tenerife goes very much in favour of Spain. Let alone the fact that if you live in Manchester, the flight across Europe will often be cheaper than driving/getting a train to Cornwall.
 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Mic09