OT - Sceptical Environmentalist

OT - Sceptical Environmentalist

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craigalsop

Original Poster:

1,991 posts

274 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
Anyone see this program last night (11.20)? It made quite a few excellent points about how how little we know about global warming, and how little our changes are likely to make.
Also about how generally our environment is less polluted than it has been for over 100 years
One thing that the presenter said that I'm not convinced by - he said that cars today use half of the steel that a 60's car used.
If that is true, then why do cars (except TVRs) seem to get heavier every year?

cheers,
Craig

P.S. apologies if this is being discussed in a different thread

>>> Edited by craigalsop on Thursday 5th September 16:29

gtir

24,741 posts

272 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
Not sure about your questions, but I am an avid recycler; papers, bottles, cans, foil etc etc.

Its amazing how much less you throw out in the rubbish. I understand that the UK only recycles 10% of its waste, compared to 70% (or whatever) in Europe, and its quite expensive to recycle the waste, probably coz we have no infrastructure in place.

Unlike those bloody Scandanavians. hmmm, scandanavians!

granville

18,764 posts

267 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
A subject well raised, Craig.

Yes, I saw this prog and Professor Lundgren was quite right.

I think he dismissed much of the vegetablists' shouting and screaming on the basis of pusruing policies which were likely to be actually effective rather than simply sounded good and made one feel correspondingly more tree friendly than normal.

I was particularly taken with the ice segments from Antarctica which allowed a retrospective insight into air quality over the last 35,000 years. Bugger all evidence of imminent green house asphyxiation from what I could gather.

Time to de-cat the toaster then.

CarZee

13,382 posts

273 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
quote:
Time to de-cat the toaster then.
Your cat fits in the toaster? I can barely get ours in the microwave

ps Bugger - I missed this - what channel was it on (in anticipation of re-runs)? I looked at the book, but it's a rather heavy read.

>> Edited by CarZee on Thursday 5th September 18:18

toyracer

177 posts

268 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
did anyone notice how he never referred to absolute amounts of waste? the whole programme seemed like a george bush policy tribute show - fact is we still need to be a lot more considerate of how we manage waste - the amount of recycling in the UK is terrible compared to the rest of europe (with the possible exception of france).

plenty of room for improvement says i....

:getsoffsoapbox:

nonegreen

7,803 posts

276 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
quote:

did anyone notice how he never referred to absolute amounts of waste? the whole programme seemed like a george bush policy tribute show - fact is we still need to be a lot more considerate of how we manage waste - the amount of recycling in the UK is terrible compared to the rest of europe (with the possible exception of france).

plenty of room for improvement says i....

:getsoffsoapbox:



That was a pretty stupid remark really wasn't it? The programme was largely about examining global warming in a non hysterical / bottom lip quiverring way. It simply cast doubt on the "findings" of the smellies, especially those who have computers at their disposal. Unlike the "irrfutable evidence" rammed down our throats each week, Co GBBC etc, it did not anecdotally refer to chunks of the Dover Cliffs collapsing, then cut to traffic footage. Then claim climate change as the cause for floods last year, cut to more footage of traffic. FFS we are bombarded on a daily basis with this crap, at least this programme was presenting an opposing view with a reasoned set of arguments based on the CURRENT DATA going all the way back to the last ice age. This was a quality programme which is a far cry from the usual drivel which bases its evidence on computer models going all the way back to last Tuesday. They even did a waether forecast on radio gre4n a few weeks back telling us London was "gonna hit 40 degrees today" Then announced it was a prediction of the waether 80 years into the future or some such garbage.

As for waste disposal, all the guy dis was put it into perspective, 8 miles by 8 miles by 100 feet deep required for the next 100 years. The Duke of Westminster wouldn't even miss a area that small.

smeagol

1,947 posts

290 months

Thursday 5th September 2002
quotequote all
Quite agree quality programme, with informed information rather than cr@p statistics. I had an argument about green house effects with someone pointing out that the heating up could be just part of long term variance (based on the fact that satelites haven't been around long enough to be used for environment statistics). Wish I'd known about this programme back then, the ice cores certainly showed a very different picture.

One point I noticed was that this was on cable and low popularity channel. Seems strange that the pro-green/stop cars etc. programmes are on BBC1 or 2 at a prime late evening slot time. odd that ehhh!!

waylander

35 posts

271 months

Friday 6th September 2002
quotequote all
Couldn't believe this was on BBC2. Not the usual brainwashed rubbish. Any greens watching would have been fuming.

It really put things in perspective. e.g. "Total Oil spilt from Exxon Valdez = Oil lost from speedboats in the US over 2 days" (checking those speedboats must have been a bit dull)

The climate in England a few hundred years ago was 2-3 degrees warmer than it is now, not too many cars around then...

I'd like to see FoE explain that one.




toyracer

177 posts

268 months

Friday 6th September 2002
quotequote all
quote:

quote:

did anyone notice how he never referred to absolute amounts of waste? the whole programme seemed like a george bush policy tribute show - fact is we still need to be a lot more considerate of how we manage waste - the amount of recycling in the UK is terrible compared to the rest of europe (with the possible exception of france).

plenty of room for improvement says i....

:getsoffsoapbox:



That was a pretty stupid remark really wasn't it? The programme was largely about examining global warming in a non hysterical / bottom lip quiverring way. It simply cast doubt on the "findings" of the smellies, especially those who have computers at their disposal. Unlike the "irrfutable evidence" rammed down our throats each week, Co GBBC etc, it did not anecdotally refer to chunks of the Dover Cliffs collapsing, then cut to traffic footage. Then claim climate change as the cause for floods last year, cut to more footage of traffic. FFS we are bombarded on a daily basis with this crap, at least this programme was presenting an opposing view with a reasoned set of arguments based on the CURRENT DATA going all the way back to the last ice age. This was a quality programme which is a far cry from the usual drivel which bases its evidence on computer models going all the way back to last Tuesday. They even did a waether forecast on radio gre4n a few weeks back telling us London was "gonna hit 40 degrees today" Then announced it was a prediction of the waether 80 years into the future or some such garbage.

As for waste disposal, all the guy dis was put it into perspective, 8 miles by 8 miles by 100 feet deep required for the next 100 years. The Duke of Westminster wouldn't even miss a area that small.



my "pretty stupid remark really wasn't it?" was an opinion - if you can't handle other's opinions why are you posting on a message board?

My comments were aimed at the lack of concern the show gave to actually being aware of waste and how it can still be effectively reduced. is the amount of packaging waste alone in the average home appauling?. should we not be encouraging more recycling and less landfilling and incineration in general?

just an opinion, of course

nonegreen

7,803 posts

276 months

Friday 6th September 2002
quotequote all
Toyracer you missed the point. The show was one of a handfull which appeared on non mainstream TV amid the hundreds of go for green media campaigns. We are bombarded with this stuff everyday. It was refreshing to hear the other side for a change. If you pick holes in this, pick holes in all of it.

craigalsop

Original Poster:

1,991 posts

274 months

Friday 6th September 2002
quotequote all
nonegreen - I may be wrong, but I thought that it was shown on one of the terrestrial channels (I do have cable, but I thought it was a pretty low channel, like BBC2 or similar)
I missed the first 15 minutes, but what I saw seemed pretty good.

cheers,
Craig

nonegreen

7,803 posts

276 months

Friday 6th September 2002
quotequote all
quote:

nonegreen - I may be wrong, but I thought that it was shown on one of the terrestrial channels (I do have cable, but I thought it was a pretty low channel, like BBC2 or similar)
I missed the first 15 minutes, but what I saw seemed pretty good.

cheers,
Craig



Christ I dunno I was pissed in a hotel room