How about a scenario where man has used crap to increase agriculture to sustain man - but we already know in the UK, that run off from the fields has affected the rivers - we also know that last year there wasn't one river in the UK that was safe to swim in. Is it really beyond the wit of man to then think that the pollution being pumped into the rivers affects the seas? Maybe, once they look into the micro bio mass in the seas more, they may just find that global warming and CO2 isn't the only thing that's killing the micro organisms that keep down CO2 - a vicious circle of pollution and crap that leads to higher CO2 that leads to more death of the bio mass. Just a thought.
Then think what countries as massive as China and India are doing - and they're the new industrialists. What pollution goes unreported? Our local privately own water companies got done (https://www.ft.com/content/518b21fa-9711-11e9-9573-ee5cbb98ed36) for allowing raw sewage into the water systems. What chance China? What chance Russia? South America? The whole world is doing it would you guess?
I think it must be me, but I see this stuff as interlinked - a vastly complex thing (like Brexit that was reduced to a yes/no on a ballot) that needs ALL avenues taken into account to really understand what is happening, being reduced to how much Co2 my car produces or how much methane that cow in the field opposite belches out.
Can I just throw into the mix the subject of woodland/forests ...... while we are all aware of the importance of the Brazilian rain forest we seem to ignore the huge forested areas of Russia "...Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_Russia makes interesting reading when considering its hitherto relatively untapped economic potential ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm not advocating inaction in this. It's a difficult problem isn't it? If CO2 'production' is the culprit, then it needs to be addressed. Fine. But if it is a symptom and we ignore any other culprit then we have just walked blindfolded down a one way street straight into a brick wall.
It just worries me that things get reduced to headline grabbing things '...eat less meat...', '...drive electric cars...' - much the same as Brexit got reduced to very simplistic ideas. Then everyone jumps on the bandwagon and 16 year old girls sail the seas.
The issues facing 'man' are immense - and it takes a unified approach to solve them _ the world has shrunk - China's problems with pollution as Greenland's. If c02 production can be reduced without any other detrimental effect then fine, but I don't think that at this point you can assume that any one of a myriad of causes could or should be ignored. Forest fires in Russia, fires across Australia and in America - do you recall the Indonesian fires a few years back as well?
Personally, and I know I bang on, but I think man is on the cusp of social change - or at least I hope it is. I really can't see how we put piddly things like national and business interests before the wellfare of the whole population/ecosystem. But how do you get out of a system that encourages consumerism, which leads to industrialism, which leads to bigger populations that leads to industrial agriculturalisation - that leads to excess, waste, pollution. Who decides? 60million in the Uk? 600 Million in Europe? 2 billion in India and China? The world is even too small for the United States of Europe - somebody at some point will realise we need a united world view.
End of sermon. I will now retreat to my yacht and flush my tanks into the sea just for the halibut.
I find all this stuff fascinating. Did anyone watch the Brian Cox (I think it was him) talking about one of the moons of Saturn and how it exhibited steam plumes? (I think I have this right) They posited that the plumes were caused by gravity - that gravitational pulls caused internal friction within the moon with lead to the heat excess being exhibited as the plume. We tend to 'forget' (and I live by the sea!) as well that our planet is subject to the same forces. So not only do we have a dynamo for a core, we then have the moon causing frictional heating internally - and what I didn't realise - as you tend not to bother looking at this stuff - is that the moon's orbit isn't consistent and has and does change over time (https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhelp/moonorbit.html). Fascinating how many rabbit holes there are.
Apologies for going on - my wife always said that I was like a dog with a bone - and she died of terminal boredom...So before I kill you all, I really will now sign off of this thread.
Please don’t sign off this thread @steveTu or have you run out of things to say. I think you’ve covered most points but do try to cover more. (Floggingthedeadhorsesmilie)
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
@steveTu I have not and do not disagree about waste or about food miles etc. I am not saying you should give up meat either. The thread was started I believe in response to the programme on TV. I said way back I am certain the programme makers had an agenda as they only showed industrialised "factory" farming. As always on these threads we have moved on from the initial discussion but I agree with others doing nothing is not an option just because we don't know everything. P.S. The historical ice cores tell us about the "natural" background processes you keep on about, volcanoes, microbes plants animals other than humans. It is clear that industrialisation had lead to a huge increase in the problems but that does not mean I advocate we all go back to hunter gathering & living in mud huts & caves.
@steveTu The Times article is behind a paywall so I can't read the whole, but from the gist of the beginning it seems that it's the regularity of testing river water that has fallen, and it is this that makes it unsafe to swim. This is unsurprising given the huge push for deregulation. I'm surprised, though, that this has fallen off the agenda while beach water testing seems still a high priority. Maybe the latter is seen to be more important for generating local tourist pounds. I imagine this gung ho deregulation will accelerate a pace after Brexit as it seems to be only the EU that dragged them to meet enforced eco targets in the frst place. I would be interested to read the whole article.
Not long got back from a holiday that took in Singapore 🇸🇬 ,they restrict the number of cars and are increasing the number of electric vehicles 🚗 and have excellent public transport but it only works because it is a very dense Urban area .
There are bad and good points about all this .one thing is done because it makes good. but that same issue causes more problems so can a happy medium be found ? Too many questions are answered with "get rid" ie ...... like landfill, but then what?????
Posts
Can I just throw into the mix the subject of woodland/forests ...... while we are all aware of the importance of the Brazilian rain forest we seem to ignore the huge forested areas of Russia "...Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_Russia makes interesting reading when considering its hitherto relatively untapped economic potential ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
P.S. The historical ice cores tell us about the "natural" background processes you keep on about, volcanoes, microbes plants animals other than humans. It is clear that industrialisation had lead to a huge increase in the problems but that does not mean I advocate we all go back to hunter gathering & living in mud huts & caves.
Madness?!?!
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Too many questions are answered with "get rid" ie ...... like landfill, but then what?????