I have been DNA tested. One side of my family were early arrivals here ( not immediately after the ice age but pretty early we believe). the other side the jonny come lately angles, saxons and gauls ie invasive species taking over our land.
Ah but some of us came here shortly after the ice age. All you Anglo Saxons and Normans are jonny come latelys ie invasive species.
Pre which ice age? there have been a few.
So all the archaeological evidence points towards multiple homosapien colonisations of the UK with extinctions of homo sapiens (and other hominids) in-between when it became uninhabitable...
Not all that different to equines originating in the Americas, spreading to Eurasia, evolving to step ponies and being reintroduced to the Americas.. so really saying homosapiens didn't evolve in Europe is incorrect just as say Nepalese or Peruvian homosapiens have evolved a different mechanism to low oxygen (that is completely different to Kenyan and Ethiopian high altitude evolution) .. hence why grey squirrels are not such a big deal in the vast scheme of things...
Like many other things like preserving ancient heaths .. that were man made is really just picking a time.
Just for the record I've nothing against red squirrels or heaths... but they are both just a time and place.
Ernielynch
Yup. The question is how damaging are they to the ecosystem where they are nonnative. Grey squirrels certainly are and if rabbits pose a similar threat I would want a switch for them.
and here is the problem, you give a **** about your pet ecosystems... ecosystems are just what they are.. parts of them evolve and keep up, others don't be they introduced by man or not.
Red squirrels are dying because of squirrel pox virus that the grey squirrels have evolved to be unaffected.
It's inconsequential because it's just the continued evolution of squirrels as they diverge from their common ancestor just as millions of other species have before.
You are suggesting that it is difficult to know where to draw the line between plants scrambling to shade each other out and the melting of the polar caps, collapse of the Gulf Stream, etc. as if they are all perfectly normal natural phenomenons.
Do you know what the definition of an ice age is? .. it's having ice on the poles all year, its not "normal" in geologic time, it's what defines an ice age. That's not saying we aren't accelerating it but one way or another we are either going back into an ice age or a return to the higher temperatures and unless WE evolve then we will go the way of the red squirrels
Crosshair
Surely constructing things out of oil that was locked away in the ground is actually more sustainable than cutting down wood to build thing
Green tech needs to allow people to consume as much or even more with less emissions. As I say- nuclear power and almost infinite free electricity would be a good starting point.
The problem here is people who went to uni to do micky mouse environmental degrees... they have their own definitions of sustainable that mean **** everything else. They are the love children of the anti-nuclear tree huggers who caused the whole mess and continue to make it worse and the populist politicians.
The problem here is people who went to uni to do micky mouse environmental degrees… they have their own definitions of sustainable that mean **** everything else. They are the love children of the anti-nuclear tree huggers who caused the whole mess and continue to make it worse and the populist politicians.
Who died and made you the arbiter of degree quality?
What's your credentials?
I love the idea that those of us who have been fighting climate change are to blame for climate change.
The problem here is people who went to uni to do micky mouse environmental degrees… they have their own definitions of sustainable that mean **** everything else. They are the love children of the anti-nuclear tree huggers who caused the whole mess and continue to make it worse and the populist politicians.
It sounds like a yoghurt knitter stole your lunch money. Try and chill out. Hugging a tree might help.
It’s all just so depressing and dull and grey and negative and pessimistic and regressive 😴 👴🏻
Whereas the possibilities of imaging a future of energy super abundance are endless. Desalination plants, massive pumps and pipe networks to redistribute water around the country to restock over-exploited aquifers and rivers.
Heated greenhouses to grow currently imported food on your doorstep.
Slashed construction and transport costs allowing innovation and inspiration to flourish rather than corner cutting and penny pinching.
It really interested me to find out that BMW Motorrad sold 200,000 motorbikes in 2022.
By contrast, Royal Enfield in India produced over a million and sold 766,000!!!
A few crusty haired European bed wetters depriving themselves of holidays and possessions really is irrelevant to most global corporations.
So much to think about.
I seem to remember that pollution in some cities (Athens springs to mind) got so bad that drivers could only go out on certain days, according to their registration plate.
Nobody likes being told what to do and when to do it, but very soon we will have this thrust upon us.
Humans in the West have wasted food, bought unnecessary tat, chosen not to look after the wild, thrown litter and just taken the easy life for too long.
As for red and grey squirrels, yes the greys need culling, they are preventing 'new forests' from growing, they eat the bark and the young tree ends up dying. They spread disease amongst the reds. Other species eg American mink and crayfish do untold damage to our ecosystems. This all impacts the environment.
Crossfire - it's great that you are seeing all this fabulous bird and wildlife on your patch, sadly it's in decline on the moors and wild places that I know well (been visiting for over 50 years).
It really interested me to find out that BMW Motorrad sold 200,000 motorbikes in 2022.
By contrast, Royal Enfield in India produced over a million and sold 766,000!!!
What are you drawing attention to here- overproduction by RE therefore waste of resources, if so, what is the BMW relevance. Just not sure if I've missed a point you're making.
I guess it’s just lag in registrations (I just googled both figures separately).
Just highlighting how insignificant we are really.
Considering it’s people who were largely on the Remain side of the argument where they were happy to belittle us as a nation- there are astonishing delusions of grandeur when it comes to their purchasing power.
Right - I am now sorry I defended crosshair - his satements have become more outrageous and offensive and slid straight to right wing memes. The mask has slipped
"Remain belittling our nation"
"bedwetters"
Lost all credibility
🤣🤣 Thank god for that.
It’s true though- on one hand we’re (apparently) parochial little Englanders with all the influence of a gnat.
On the other, by depriving ourselves of a steak or a package holiday- we have the purchasing power to move mountains (like those Yellowstone wolves 🤣🤣).
Behave.
For every one of you depriving yourselves there’s 100,000 Chinese or Indian’s with cash for the first time ready to take your place.
Whereas the possibilities of imaging a future of energy...
...it ain't fossil fuels. Even if we don't move to renewable sources, they're going to run out eventually. Not ****ing up the planet and technological advancement aren't mutually exclusive...in fact, them fire-rocks and dino-juice is about as old as "modern" technology gets. I really don't understand your stance, it's all over the place. Is it "welp, looks like we're ****ed: in for a penny..."?
For every one of you depriving yourselves there’s 100,000 Chinese or Indian’s with cash for the first time ready to take your place.
Sooo, we do nothing? Oddly defeatist position for someone claiming not to be a bedwetter.
Most people would say we should do nothing and I can see why. If the UK government put limits of things people can do and have (which they really need to do if any impact is to be seen on climate change) pretty much everyone in the country would be opposed to them and a good question is why are we screwing up our own lives when nobody else is.
The majority of the biggest impacting countries all need to be doing similar things to get everybody to accept them and to actually make a difference. We have seen how governments and countries work together though haven't we...
I never said do nothing- I said any changes need to come from the manufacturers.
With 100 new coal fired power stations set to be built in China- you're gonna need to don a rabbit skin thong and head to the woods with a spear in order to offset those bad boys and their influence on almost anything you buy (or don't buy and someone else buys instead).
I almost admire the naivety of it all (thinking you're more influential than you are)- it would be quite charming if team Armageddon weren't so condescending about people who have retained some logic and common sense.
The point I was actually making is that it’s nobody’s right in a free and equal society to tell another person that their consumption is the problem if you haven’t 100% eliminated your own.
@crosshair, you don't understand how society works.
If someone is caught drink driving, am I allowed to condemn them, even though I drove after half a glass of wine the other night?
Well, yes, because we have set a crude drink driving law that takes away people's freedom in order to safeguard society at large. I was well under it.
Living in a society means living by a set of rules that limit our personal freedoms so we don't harm others, and these laws tend to be crude because setting them to be completely fair for everyone isn't practical. Some people could drink 5 units of alcohol and drive as well as me after 0.5 units -- does that mean we should have never implemented drink driving laws because they are unfair?
In the case of ecological impacts the issue is more complex still, because offender and victim aren't directly linked. But the answer is in theory the same -- we have to do something, and that will involve tradeoffs.
I use drink driving as an example, as watching drivers of the 60s, before laws come in, is fascinating. There is the same liberty and unfairness arguments that you get today about sustainablilty and consumptions debates.
you don’t understand how society works.
Not everybody agrees that it should work the same way, not even within one country
Quite some gap between communist and right wing libertarian
The only way that analogy would be accurate would be if our streets were still filled with Chinese drink-drivers in speeding articulated lorries but the UK government was stopping me from having a sip of shandy before riding so much as a bicycle let alone driving a car.
The algorithm must be monitoring my threads as this popped up just now and I have to say- the background of this thread makes it even more hilarious 🤣 (And I hated Brand in his original incarnation)
"It's not MY VW Camper, it's my WIFE'S VW Camper" 🤣
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">I never said do nothing- I said any changes need to come from the manufacturers.</span>
For it to come from the manufacturer, the government needs to legislate, for the government to legislate they need public support. Manufacturers concentrate on profit and shareholders, not environmental concerns.
I almost admire the naivety of it all (thinking you’re more influential than you are)- it would be quite charming if team Armageddon weren’t so condescending about people who have retained some logic and common sense.
For political and manufacturing change to happen, individual change needs to be implemented first to drive it. Yes one individual has very little power, but millions of individuals do.
Unfortunately this is where our downfall ultimately lies, democratic society is too slow to put the changes in place that we need.
The EU seemed quite capable of implementing restrictive policies without any democratic consent 🤷🏻♂️
The EU seemed quite capable of implementing restrictive policies without any democratic consent
Apart from it being a democratic body?
The only way that analogy would be accurate would be if our streets were still filled with Chinese drink-drivers in speeding articulated lorries but the UK government was stopping me from having a sip of shandy before riding so much as a bicycle let alone driving a car.
Nope, your saying it's OK to drink and drive in the UK because the Chinese drink and drive in China.
The only way that analogy would be accurate would be if our streets were still filled with Chinese drink-drivers in speeding articulated lorries but the UK government was stopping me from having a sip of shandy before riding so much as a bicycle let alone driving a car.
The carbon footprint per person in China is the same as the UK, so I don't really understand your reponse at all sorry
@klunk No because they sell their products here.
If we stopped all imports then you’d be right.
Apart from it being a democratic body?
Where they have one person elections for senior positions and policy questions are altered at the last minute so the MEP’s accidentally press the “yes” button when they should now need to press the “no” button?
Sounds great 🎉
Not everybody agrees that it should work the same way, not even within one country
Quite some gap between communist and right wing libertarian
True, but our society is neither, we amble through everything and come up with some kind of comprimise that aims to balance individual freedom and harm
At first, the former tends to win out as we don't understand the harms
The carbon footprint per person in China is the same as the UK, so I don’t really understand your reponse at all sorry
The drink driving law analogy fails because we still import “dirty” produce from elsewhere.
So restrictive policies that only harm our own industries are counterproductive. Especially as shipping ain’t exactly green is it 🤣
Sounds great 🎉
That's the system, not the body.
Criticism of the system is good, because that's how things are changed.
@crosshair, you've actually nicely sidestepped my main point, which was that your argument...
The point I was actually making is that it’s nobody’s right in a free and equal society to tell another person that their consumption is the problem if you haven’t 100% eliminated your own.
...doesn't make any sense given how society works.
True, but our society is neither, we amble through everything and come up with some kind of comprimise that aims to balance individual freedom and harm
At first, the former tends to win out as we don’t understand the harms
And that is the problem. To deal with climate change we need to move the balance away from individual freedom and people clearly don't like that and won't support it. Well they won't until the climate is impacting their freedoms more than the government in which case it will then be "why aren't the government sorting this out for me"
It does make sense in the context of this thread. And it clearly made sense to John Kerry as he had to make his wife sell 'her' private jet to retain credibility.
"Knit me an essay from nettle-fronds in your roe deer skinned yurt and deliver it on foot and I'll listen to what you have to say about how I should turn my heating down. Otherwise do one you hypocritical turd 👋🏻" is basically the gist.
The climate change religion is now so strong that people only see what they want to see- which is usually telling people to stop doing things they personally are guilty about.
Who died and made you the arbiter of degree quality?
It's pretty simple, any degree claiming to be a science should be a science.
@kerley, that's why I linked the drink driving video. People were outraged that the drink driving laws were taking away their freedoms, only a few decades ago
@crosshair, ah, OK, I think I understand your argument now
I just kind of wish you'd cut to the point without all the esoteric mental gymnastics -- but prob my fault for engaging
It’s pretty simple, any degree claiming to be a science should be a science.
Explain further for those not as clever as you.
TJagain
I love the idea that those of us who have been fighting climate change are to blame for climate change.
It's not fighting climate change that has caused the crisis it's the rest of the stuff that gets tagged on.
Most people don't give a flying **** about the numbers of skylarks, red squirrels or whales any more than any other obscure remote subject - it's simply not on their radar and trying to connect the two is doing no good for perception and whilst we have lying organisations like Greenpeace full of grubby people its more negative than good.
Disclaimer ... I actually do care and I'm grubby... but at this juncture, faced with an existential threat all that goes into the "nice to have box".
Greenpeace are STILL anti-nuclear... faced with a climate crisis they just continue spreading the lies and drivel.
The German green party is opening coal mines and coal powered stations .. in the last years we have to mitigate the climate crisis... because they are anti-nuclear and they realised renewables don't work alone...
I'm left with a limited number of interconnected explanations...
Greenpeace/Green Party do not BELIEVE in anthropomorphic climate change?
They think it's more important not to use nuclear and if millions die that is a good thing?
They are so used to lying they don't know any other way?
They think they can get their other agenda's pushed forwards using a proven scientific fact as to how it is going to kill millions and think they can latch on and if a few million of the worlds excess population die it's worth it.
or combinations of the above ???
Anyway, the other issue is populist government exploiting this apathy and ignorance leaving the electorate thinking that they are helping the existential threat by doing stuff that is "green" or "eco".
I've mentioned before the concrete and steel tower blocks ... that aren't needed and after all concerned made money they stuck in a green wall and called them carbon negative.
When Joe Bloggs buys his "eco" shampoo driving to the supermarket just round the corner in his "eco" car he's been convinced he's fighting climate change.
At the other end we in the west exploit this by outbidding developing nations on CLEANER energy... when we import LPG for example it puts up LPG prices in India for 1.5 BILLION people many of whom will then burn wood and dung to cook.
This completely undermines the Indian governments attempts to reduce their carbon emissions and brings us full circle in that as a developed nation we shouldn't be using gas power stations in 2023 because we should have a nuclear base load but thanks to fear mongering by the environmentalists we don't.
It won't be the climate change that'll get us, it'll be the war(s) over water and arable land that'll do it.
Anyway, that's a bit depressing, so I'll leave this here to cheer us up.
Explain further for those not as clever as you.
It's nothing to do with being clever or not...
In science you follow a scientific method, you don't get to make stuff up and manipulate results or extrapolate them to meet an agenda.
There is a simple example in this thread .. on skylarks. If you have an agenda to measure the skylark population you don't get to extrapolate their moving their nesting from location 1 to "skylarks have decreased in the UK".
In the same way you can't extrapolate red squirrels being replaced by grey squirrels as "devastating the entire ecosystem" without proving how grey squirrels are not filling the same niche and affecting "the entire ecosystem".
Nor can you then claim without any proof that grey squirrels or skylark nests are CAUSING climate change.
IHN
It won’t be the climate change that’ll get us, it’ll be the war(s) over water and arable land that’ll do it.
It might not affect us in the same way as places that become completely unliveable but it will still affect us badly.
However: The a great deal of the history of Europe for the last 3000+ yrs can be put into a context of Westward migrations from climate change at the fringes of the Gobi... and desperate peoples displacing others at least in terms of major changes
The drink driving law analogy fails because we still import “dirty” produce from elsewhere.
So restrictive policies that only harm our own industries are counterproductive. Especially as shipping ain’t exactly green is it 🤣
Which is why the EU is pushing to implement the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) which will place a tax on products from high carbon intensity production to level the playing field with production from areas that have moved to low carbon industry
Over a third of all shipping emissions is just moving fossil fuels around
It’s nothing to do with being clever or not…
In science you follow a scientific method, you don’t get to make stuff up and manipulate results or extrapolate them to meet an agenda.
@stevextc - you're just ranting. I want to see evidence to support your attack on the Mickey Mouse environmental degrees. What methodology did you use? Can you show your working? Was it peer reviewed? And of course we'll need verifiable evidence not just shit you made up.
. If you have an agenda to measure the skylark population you don’t get to extrapolate their moving their nesting from location 1 to “skylarks have decreased in the UK”.
Who is doing that?
when we import LPG for example it puts up LPG prices in India for 1.5 BILLION people many of whom will then burn wood and dung to cook.
Renewable and carbon neutral dung and wood versus CO2 and methane emitting LPG - the higher the LPG price for 1.5 BILLION people the better.
Renewables, stevextc, renewables and reducing consumption, anythjing else will exacerbate the mess we're in. More storms and landslides here in areas stable since the last ice age last night in places we'd cycled through hours before but kept moving. Those alertes on the phone sure are persistent.
