If fuel duty hadn’t been frozen for 12 years people might be making different decisions about what is economic to drive anyway

And the boroughs opposing ULEZ have done **** all to give people viable alternative transport options

All gets a bit chicken and egg but with thier budgets slashed, what should they be funding these viable alternatives with?

To the ops point, we have a reasonably well researched example from recent history of what it may look like,  the Arab spring has been attributed or was significantly exacerbated by climate change with prolonged droughts, crop failure, food inflation, human migration pressures and government failure to provide basic needs of its citizen leading to mass civil unrest. What followed was civil war,  regime change, huge uprisings in multiple countries and mass migration leading up to us getting those pictures of lines of refugees being used as evidence of the need for brexit and stoking populism. A decade later the effects are still being felt. So it’s reasonable to extrapolate from there as these events become more frequent, impact multiple areas at once, become more intense and last longer.

have you seen the lithium extraction process. The lots on the mines burn 150 litres of diesel an hour each. Then you have to burn the rich at 1100 Celsius before leaching it with sulphuric acid.

The amount of money been spent on research into what to do with the waste batteries that become unsuitable for their intended purpose within a very short period is vast. As is the hunt for viable alternatives to using lithium.

I agree that fossil fuel extraction is no solution but we haven’t yet come up with a viable alternative yet

Your proposal is to just sit on our hands and do nothing. The transition to a 100% renewable/ no carbon energy system will require a significant amount of resources but that will still be far less than another thirty years worth of fossil fuels. And many of the materials are or will be recyclable where as you can only combust your fossil fuels once.  Even moving the stuff around, shipping is 3% of global emissions, of that 40% is just moving fossil fuels around every year.

This is a good article on the potential for mass migration and impacts of heat on living conditions

https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-crisis-niche-migration-environment-population

For every 0.1C warming from where we currently are is estimated to move 140m out of favourable climate conditions for life and in to conditions that have been linked to issues including increased mortality, decreased labour productivity, decreased cognitive performance, impaired learning, adverse pregnancy outcomes, decreased crop yield, increased conflict and infectious disease spread

the amount of oil and environmental damage done to make batteries is phenomenal

As opposed to fossil fuel extraction, processing and combustion?

Some gloomy people in this thread, if policy makers think how some of the doom mungers think then no wonder we can’t have nice things

1.5C might be moving out of sight but sub 2 might still be possible and every fraction of a degree matters or we could just say it’s too hard and shoot past 3 which is terrible

a sentence with the UK reducing CO2 over any period is false unless you ignore the CO2 associated with imports. The UK now emits more CO2 abroad than ever with its food and goods imports

This is simply not true, even taking in to account offshoring manufacturing and food production the UK has still delivered significant reductions

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart&country=~GBRhttps://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart&country=~GBR

We are however stalling, we have the proven solutions to keep us on a 1.5C pathway for at least the next decade of required reductions but currently they are stalling due to government indifference despite environment ranking third in polling for people’s priorities after cost of living and the NHS. Look at what is happening in the US and EU and they are unleashing massive levels of state intervention in the markets and its working, huge investment is pooring in.

As olddog says the biggest impact an individual can make is campaigning for system change, all other actions help but for a long way behind in terms of impact.

@singlespeedstu I have a 35 inch inside leg, 6 inches of post showing

@blake I would say sizing is large. I am 188cm and long legged and have the seat pretty low

My dad has esophageal cancer so has the valve to his stomach removed so has to sleep sitting up as a result otherwise he’s up all night chugging pepto bismol

I picked up the vitus mach 1 three,  really can’t complain for £280 for nexus hub and hydro brakes, hopefully will do great duty going around town and might get converted to an ebike in the distant future

This chap thinks he has something to sink him once and for all
https://twitter.com/MarcusJBall/status/1533730751920885763

From today’s paper

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/02/tiktok-trends-or-the-pandemic-whats-behind-the-rise-in-adhd-diagnoses

Longeivity is not great in my family and it hasn’t generally been lifestyle related, so not great and think I just have to accept I didn’t win the genetic lottery but can still try and live a good quality of life while here.

Listening to Andrew Huberman’s podcast the other day they mentioned a Swedish (I think) study that looked at a cohort of 40 year olds and classed them as unfit/fit/very fit and then went and found them again when they were 80. The ones who were classed as very fit at 40 had achieved on average 9 years longer good cognitive function over the other groups. That seems like a good reason to stay healthy to me.

Also from today:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/01/research-may-reveal-why-people-can-suddenly-become-frail-in-their-70s

I seen 1.94 at Beith but the surprising thing was diesel was cheaper (every other station the diesel is dearer than the petrol)

Seen this for the first time today in Devon, had to do a double take but petrol was 181.9 and diesel 179.9

Father of ASD/ADHD/Anxiety suffering daughter currently sitting her GCSE’s. She has no friends, she retreats when left alone into online interactions looks for friendships that generally end terribly due to poor social skills and high expectations. I could shield her from that but think it’s better to equip her to navigate it as she will have to encounter it at some point. Secondary school has been pretty miserable but she is moving on to a much smaller, more supportive college that mainly takes kids with SEND or additional needs. We are hoping she might form some friendships here but the flip side of the smaller classes is you have a smaller chance of meeting someone you click with. My daughter has definitely struggled with not feeling normie enough for mainstream but not different enough for some of the groups that we have tried to get her to engage with and this is something we have tried to work through with her.

I find the Op’s expectations of the school and other parents a bit much, neither of those parties have any responsibility to provide friendships. Obviously they shouldn’t prevent them forming or allow negative interactions to happen but not sure you should expect any more than that.

Does your son have any hobbies or interests you can foster? That’s probably the easiest route to forming connection with others

If you know what you are after, usedlens.co.uk is good as it searches all the main secondhand outlets

What’s your kit?

If you click his name under the photos it will take you to his flickr and shows you the camera, lens, focal length and settings for each photo

Tory candidate for Tiverton and Honiton byelection told to be invisible and not speak to media for best chance of winning lol
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tiverton-honiton-byelection-ben-bradshaw-b2088792.html

Maybe time to consider an electric blanket

The Times reporting that No10 has branched out in to editing, its most recent publication the Sue Gray report
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1530627345262219264

Polling suggesting Boris would lose his seat
https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1530269646443659264

Takes full responsibility and will therefore be blaming his whole team

As others have said Alpe d’huez and Col de Sarenne, Croix de Fer, the ride around the balconies is really nice as is the ride over Col du Solude but the surface gets bad towards the top

Canon R7 announced today looks a fantastic value proposition for action/wildlife

FT also reporting he asked Sue Gray if she still needs to publish the report in their meeting

Government advice on Vit D:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/

Yeah, it looks bad ‘ooh the noise is higher’ but what that graph doesn’t say is what that noise actually means, what it looks like and wether or not it’s acceptable to you.

I agree with that sentiment for most photography, especially with how good software is getting at dealing with noise. But, it can destroy all feather detail and is hard to recover and with how cloudy the UK can be or being in woods, having a high shutter speed and well stopped down to get a workable depth of field on a telephoto, you run in to high iso very quickly

all afternoon to spend in a hide, they work pretty well (see earlier in the thread).

As someone who spends more time than I should for someone my age in bird hides, I would add that the camera gear fulls in to two main camps. Birders who walk around with a telescope on a tripod and then either have a phone mount so they can do digiscoping – using their telescope as a lens for their phone or they will have either a Nikon P900/950/1000 or Sony RX10Mk? or photographers with DLSR or mirrorless setup as has been suggested in this thread.

I would add for the Op that using a long lens has learning curve, especially if you land up with a long prime, can take a long time to get used to even finding the bird in the lens let alone used to panning with it, dealing with stabilising etc.

It is a fun hobby though and I find it incredibly relaxing sitting and watching the wildlife and world pass by. A few recent snaps

Would really help if you posted a budget but assuming it is at the lower end, the best bang for your buck is a second hand D500/D4S and Tamron/Sigma 150-600 and a teleconverter. You can get all that from MPB for sub

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-digital-slr-cameras/used-nikon-digital-slr-cameras/nikon-d500/sku-1506283/

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-lenses/used-nikon-fit-lenses/tamron-sp-150-600mm-f-5-6-3-di-vc-usd-g2-nikon-fit/sku-1476162/

It will cost you £2k for the lens and body second hand. If birds in flight aren’t the main priority then I would look at the D850 which will get you a lot more pixels and better high ISO performance but worse autofocus.

7DMk2 + 100-400L + teleconverter is the other common setup

If money is no object then get a mirrorless set up like Z92 or R6 but with lenses you can easy go £5-10k+. If you want a smaller setup the Olympus OM1 looks nice but you have a small sensor so if you start chasing birds in the woods then you will suffer from poor high ISO performance. It is all trade offs.

I have been out all afternoon at a reserve and the best gear in the world wouldn’t make up for the fact that what I wanted to shoot (an avocet chick) was 50m away and it was a sunny afternoon over water, so you land up with a lot of atmospheric issues that still lead to disappointing shots, a long lens just lands up compressing all the haze

Got the Samsung linked above yesterday and happy with it, hoovered the day before with the old Dyson upright and yesterday with the new samsung and it picked up a lot of dust. I was put off Shark by bad reviews on longevity and customer service. My Dyson has lasted 16+ years but lots of people seem to be having Sharks fail after 2-3, time will tell how the Samsung fairs

Couple of good deals at the moment

this is a which best buy but you need work/uni access:
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/samsung-jet-70-turbo-cordless-vacuum-cleaner-violet-ps13267-delivered-at-samsung-epp-student-store-3934360

Refurb from Dyson
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dyson-v8-animal-cordless-vacuum-cleaner-refurbished-ps16999-at-dyson-ebay-3934144

TBF those end links are upsetting me

Ha, tbf I am looking for a leather strap for it already, in the end its a Seiko and at any price point they are never going to be winning praise for their straps but I would still rather it came with a metal strap I won’t use than not

It’s SPB197J1 Prospex Alpinist aka Mountain Glacier, it was somewhat controversial when it was released last year as they released the SPB199 which is identical but on a leather strap at a higher price and as a limited run, then released it cheaper, on metal strap which unsurprisingly upset a lot of people

New watch day

Welsh Labour should be strung up

And yet in the latest polling they are surging….

Also just to add a note of caution, if you are thinking of trying some Wim style breathing and going in cold water alone rather than a shower, read up on Shallow Water Blackout and understand the mechanism that causes it