Right, time to stop talking and start committing

[Thundery wintry showers]

Hmm... so once again, the general focus on economics helps to slow the rate at which the authorities do their bit for the environment (in spite of the fact that the new lights will, in the long run, save a lot of money). However, at least they are starting to put in the more efficient lights.

"Do as I say, not what I do"- it does seem to be the popular political slogan these days.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

The only way they could replace them quicker is to up our council tax even further. How many would like that?

[PersianPaladin]

The only way they could replace them quicker is to up our council tax even further. How many would like that?

I think they should get rid of lights all-together.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Oh god....not again....I agree.

[Rustynailer]

I don't like the Too many streetlights era we are in at the moment also with the advent of light sensors, the night is light polluted worse than it could have been when the minor road lighting went off at 12. The berk (whoever he is)who decided that the old fashioned timer could be thrown away instead of used alongside the light sensors for whatever reason, IMO has a lot to answer for.

My commitment this last month b/w is 100 tons of carbon stored indefinitely(av30/40 years)as millable timber for furniture Costing 10 gallons of petrol five gallons of mixed heavy oils and grease 10 gallons of diesel and finally 6 gallons of cooking oil as chain lubricant.

I wont comment on machine ware and tare/replacement as it is complicated and depressing

[Mondy]

Hope the wolf [pictured] didn't chew all those trees to the stump, Rusty

[Rustynailer]

Hope the wolf [pictured] didn't chew all those trees to the stump, Rusty :o

Believe it or not when i drag them out he chases the end When he was younger he bit one, he never has since though as it flung him far far away

[Thundery wintry showers]

The only way they could replace them quicker is to up our council tax even further. How many would like that?

...or spend the money they have more efficiently, or the Government provide some grants for councils to replace them quicker as part of the environmental budget/schemes that they shell out for. (This latter would however require either cuts in grants for something else, tax rises, or more efficient Govt expenditure)

None of the above are especially likely to happen- but the main point is, it's not quite as simple as it necessitating council tax hikes.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Ok, but if they spend their money more efficiently, they're sure as hell not going to use the savings on replacing street lights.

There's what could happen, and there's the real world. They're two very different things.

[Pickles]

There are controls which can be installed at an electrical junction point, far away from the street light itself, that will reduce the amount of power supplied to the lighting system. Ok, I can't think of any councils that use these controls off the top of my head, but one unit can control many lights on the system, reducing energy consumption by 20-25% without any noticable reduction in light output.

[Mondy]

..and i'll just repost this in here (from serious discussion) because as you all know i'm a little tyke.

What has surprised me (in the light of global warming hype) is the absolute abysmal showing the Green party managed.

Oh,and talking of the Green party, during the recent elections, it was noticeable the vast amount of "Vote for us" waste (paper) stuck to lamposts, bus shelters, windows etc. Hope they'll do the decent, green thing and remove said stickers - wouldn't want them visibly clogging up the environment i live in. Tsk

Edited May 6, 2007 by Mondy

[PersianPaladin]

..and i'll just repost this in here (from serious discussion) because as you all know i'm a little tyke.

Oh,and talking of the Green party, during the recent elections, it was noticeable the vast amount of "Vote for us" waste (paper) stuck to lamposts, bus shelters, windows etc. Hope they'll do the decent, green thing and remove said stickers - wouldn't want them visibly clogging up the environment i live in. Tsk

LOL. Talk about nit-picking.

[johnholmes]

hardly nit picking.

In some areas fly posting is illegal anyway.

Illegal or not, it and the plastic fasteners that are almost always left behind looks unsightly.

[PersianPaladin]

hardly nit picking.

In some areas fly posting is illegal anyway.

Illegal or not, it and the plastic fasteners that are almost always left behind looks unsightly.

I'm afraid it is nit-picking when SEVERAL parties do those things (I've caught Lib Dem's at it too in my particular area, along with Labour of course).

Edited May 7, 2007 by PersianPaladin

[Mondy]

I'm afraid it is nit-picking when SEVERAL parties do those things (I've caught Lib Dem's at it too in my particular area, along with Labour of course).

I think you miss the point, PP.

The Green's are seemingly hell-bent on improving the planet; enviromentally or just simply "cleaning the place up a bit". I do hope they used recycled paper, btw..

Lamposts, traffic lights, bus shelters, windows, billboards - all around this location are covered in Green stickers urging the population to make Britain a better, clean, fresh place...

Why then, after a disasterous campaign up here, are said offending flyers still evident? Not very green is it? Even Labour have taken down their material, albeit they did that with tail firmly behind..

[PersianPaladin]

I think you miss the point, PP.

The Green's are seemingly hell-bent on improving the planet; enviromentally or just simply "cleaning the place up a bit". I do hope they used recycled paper, btw..

Lamposts, traffic lights, bus shelters, windows, billboards - all around this location are covered in Green stickers urging the population to make Britain a better, clean, fresh place...

Why then, after a disasterous campaign up here, are said offending flyers still evident? Not very green is it? Even Labour have taken down their material, albeit they did that with tail firmly behind..

Perhaps they were being ironic.

Edited May 7, 2007 by PersianPaladin

[Polar Continental]

Afternoon all,

Well I think this thread looks an appropriate one to have a good moan in.

I have made my beliefs clear in other threads regarding AGW, GW, etc. so will not go in to that again, all I will say, I do tend to lean away from AGW, but that does not stop me from having concerns, so I try to do my bit.

But I sometime wonder if my efforts are a complete waste of time and effort.

What is the point from the powers that be, continually firing all this AGW information / propaganda at the general public, day in and day out, when we can do very little in our way, if the big guns don’t do something to stop their ridiculous massive wasting ways? Yes it is time to DO, for them now.

Is all this incessant AGW stuff broadcast just to justify slamming on a green tax? they must be racking their brains to think of something else they can lay another tax on.

The latest one made me laugh, Taxing the family Barbeque, how bloody ridiculous, how on earth are they going to police that, send a man in a van round, pumping out more fumes looking for some one having a tax-less barbeque, taxing a barbeque wont stop the emissions.

It is all well and good trying to get the everyday Joe blogs to reduce there waste and excessive use of power, by asking them to turn down their fire, reduce fuel usage by using public transport, I think many people do try and do there bit anyway.

But what about the biggest none greener. I get a mountain of junk mail every week, free newspapers, surveys, about 3 a week, charities asking for my money 3 time s a week, delivering free pens so you will fill them in, First I do not want extra pens, I got hundreds of them, I don’t wont free news papers, I don’t bloody read them, more bloody waste I have to dump, and as for the junk mail, well, I must have had a thousand acre forest delivered through my letter box in the last 20 years and that’s just me, and the authorities are telling us to be green, it makes me so bloody angry.

I am doing as much as I can possibly do to reduce my carbon footprint, as well as be as green as possible,

1 I recycle almost all my rubbish, like glass, cans, etc, now I only have to put out my bin for rubbish collection about once a month.

2 100% of all my garden waste goes back in to the garden, (I have a very big garden by the way) so I don’t have to use the brown bin at all.

3 I always cycle to work, about 6 miles a day.

4 I do have a car, but have recently opted for a much smaller car, which runs on diesel, so I have much reduced tax and insurance.

4 I never leave lights on unnecessarily.

6 unplug TV’s etc.

7 the only thing I have to leave on overnight is my laptop computer, which, needs to be connected to the Internet for my web site weather station.

But this is all a complete waste of time and effort by me if I get these idiotic companies continuing to send me titanic amounts of junk through my and the other 60 million peoples letter box's every day.

Paul

[HighPressure]

This is what really gets up my nose, note this bbc video from today 1.45 mins in politicians preaching to us and they must have a dozen black Range rovers there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_66...bw=bb&mp=rm

Talk about do as we say not as we do?

[PersianPaladin]

Its a case of lifestyle tho. We can go on and moan at the politicans as much as we want, but at the end of the day it is we who buy the cars and consume the fuel, we who buy the expensive TV's and shop at Tesco's and other big supermarkets, etc.

Yes, industry and companies do emit a large amount of CO2 too....but how do they make money? By selling their petroleum products to the consumer who will then use it. Airplane travel and automobile travel are used to excess...and this needs to be reduced a lot. It is true that petroleum is used also to manufacture arms and military equipment...something we can lobby our government on to cut down involvement in this aspect. Also, pollution from shipping is another problem and this is matched with the whole trasnational trade system which is hardly a very equitable and fair system for the most part; with most goods being produced in excessivley large numbers.

A case study in the impact of globalisation and over-consumption is the Amazon rainforest. If people would stop buying mahogany furniture, stop buying soya products, and stop consuming so much cattle-produce in both Brazil and international countries....then the Amazon would NOT be suffering as much defforestation and there would be less CO2 release as a result.

Also, too many things go obsolete too quickly and we live in a 'throw-away' society. Its time to be a bit more conservationist. We can't make people change their attitudes tho, so I guess we have to get political.

Edited May 8, 2007 by PersianPaladin

[jethro]

Its a case of lifestyle tho. We can go on and moan at the politicans as much as we want, but at the end of the day it is we who buy the cars and consume the fuel, we who buy the expensive TV's and shop at Tesco's and other big supermarkets, etc.

Yes, industry and companies do emit a large amount of CO2 too....but how do they make money? By selling their petroleum products to the consumer who will then use it. Airplane travel and automobile travel are used to excess...and this needs to be reduced a lot. It is true that petroleum is used also to manufacture arms and military equipment...something we can lobby our government on to cut down involvement in this aspect. Also, pollution from shipping is another problem and this is matched with the whole trasnational trade system which is hardly a very equitable and fair system for the most part; with most goods being produced in excessivley large numbers.

A case study in the impact of globalisation and over-consumption is the Amazon rainforest. If people would stop buying mahogany furniture, stop buying soya products, and stop consuming so much cattle-produce in both Brazil and international countries....then the Amazon would NOT be suffering as much defforestation and there would be less CO2 release as a result.

Also, too many things go obsolete too quickly and we live in a 'throw-away' society. Its time to be a bit more conservationist. We can't make people change their attitudes tho, so I guess we have to get political.

Well said that man. It's no good the man in the street pointing his finger at industry, declaring they are the big sinners when it's the man in the street who consumes at an ever greater rate, the products of the polluting industry.

[HighPressure]

Well said that man. It's no good the man in the street pointing his finger at industry, declaring they are the big sinners when it's the man in the street who consumes at an ever greater rate, the products of the polluting industry.

Consumers cannot buy products that do not exist, they can get those that are on the shelf and its industry which competes with itself to put ever more items in front of the man in the street. I entirely disagree with you Jethro!

[Thundery wintry showers]

Surprisingly, I agree with much of what is said in the above three posts- even though there's an expression of disagreement!

Indeed, the end user does produce the demand- although I don't think it's as simple as demand driving supply; there is also an element in the other direction, namely that supply can drive demand.

On the manufacturers' part, while the end user has the power to reduce the demand for products, the end user does not necessarily have the power to increase the efficiency and reduce wastage within industry. There is a trememdous amount of inertia, and if consumers stop buying things, it may merely cause the industries to stop selling the things altogether, or shut down claiming insufficient profits, rather than take the step of improving their efficiency. I don't think the end user should take all of the responsibility. However, I'd certainly agree that the end users should not absolve themselves of all responsibility.

Personally I advocate that we all need to be making changes, both on a collective and individual level, and co-operating rather than passing the blame onto other groups. I also advocate that instead of relying on one or two views/ideologies on how to make changes, we need to make use of quite a large number of them, in conjunction with each other.

[jethro]

Consumers cannot buy products that do not exist, they can get those that are on the shelf and its industry which competes with itself to put ever more items in front of the man in the street. I entirely disagree with you Jethro!

I know you do, but hey, the world would be a dull old place if we all thought the same. Opinions are just that, neither right nor wrong, whoever expresses them. Let's agree to disagree eh.

Surprisingly, I agree with much of what is said in the above three posts- even though there's an expression of disagreement!

Indeed, the end user does produce the demand- although I don't think it's as simple as demand driving supply; there is also an element in the other direction, namely that supply can drive demand.

On the manufacturers' part, while the end user has the power to reduce the demand for products, the end user does not necessarily have the power to increase the efficiency and reduce wastage within industry. There is a trememdous amount of inertia, and if consumers stop buying things, it may merely cause the industries to stop selling the things altogether, or shut down claiming insufficient profits, rather than take the step of improving their efficiency. I don't think the end user should take all of the responsibility. However, I'd certainly agree that the end users should not absolve themselves of all responsibility.

Personally I advocate that we all need to be making changes, both on a collective and individual level, and co-operating rather than passing the blame onto other groups. I also advocate that instead of relying on one or two views/ideologies on how to make changes, we need to make use of quite a large number of them, in conjunction with each other.

Agreed, which is precisely the point I've been trying to make in another thread. The problem is caused by each and everyone of us, consumer and industry alike. We all collectively should be making a difference instead of expecting others to make the changes or pay for those changes.

[Filski]

I am not an expert on the subject but I am reasonably well informed. My background is in construction (landscape architect) and I have a strong interest in carbon cycles, land use and many other of the myriad of problems facing a commitment to change. In some ways I consider myself at the forefriont of dealing with the issue since I am in a position to influence how your future home is built, how it uses energy, how it uses water, etc. In a changing climate we eventually will need greater efficiency in our lives since there simply will not be enough for us all to consume. Firstly what you can do is better insulate your homes. This is the single biggest saving you can make. Roughly 1/3 of CO2 in the UK comes from heating, around 1/2 of energy consumption is related to heating in some form. I'll add more of my thoughts over time.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Another landscape architect? I've lost my exclusivity.