Calculate your carbon footprint

Peter Muehlbauer wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote
What a totally stupid and ignorant remark! I wish I could take you
to meet the people of Toll Bar, and let you spout such ****e! You
wouldn't last ten seconds mate!

Bill

Look, what AGW hysterics made of a human... a headless, nervous wreck.
Objective achieved...?

Given that Bill is cynical about AGW, I think that any hysteria surrounding
it is unlikely to be the cause of his present annoyance.

Bill Wright wrote:
"Pyriform" wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:
When the greenies point out the error of your logic you will be able
to tell them that carbon offsetting by planting trees uses the same
logic.

Without getting into the wisdom of carbon offsetting, the logic is
entirely different. The carbon in fossil fuels was sequestered over a
period of many millions of years and so burning them all in a matter
of a few centuries re-introduces it into the atmosphere at a higher
rate than it can be re-absorbed. Trees take carbon out of the
atmosphere *now*.

No they don't, they take it out during their lifetime, which is
typically 100 years. They take bugger all out each year.

For some values of "bugger all". Plants and trees gain mass largely as a
result of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. So they have a net uptake of
carbon "now" and for the next n years, where n is the growing period. It's
rather a lot of carbon.

The offset industry
claims that each tree saves the amount of carbon that it will save
during its entire life, which in view of the facts above it totally
dishonest and misleading. They also ignore the carbon costs of
actually planting and tending the trees.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. I am quite sure that the
offsetting industry is full of rogues. That doesn't alter the fact that the
underlying logic is entirely different from the claim that fossil fuels are
somehow "carbon-neutral".

"Alan" wrote in message
...
In message , Bill Wright
wrote


What a totally stupid and ignorant remark! I wish I could take you to meet
the people of Toll Bar, and let you spout such ****e! You wouldn't last
ten
seconds mate!

For **** sake it's a minor bit of local flooding that the press, as usual,
have made a major disaster. It may a bit of a problem for those affected
Well I just hope you get flooded sometime so you can find out what a 'bit of
a problem' it is. Would you like to have your irreplacable possessions
ruined -- your photograph albums and other momentos of your family's past?


but in the scale of world problems, and even the rest of the UK, it is
insignificant.
The cost will be significant in GDP terms.


All we are getting now is that the rest of us who have paid spent their
hard earned cash on household insurance should now pay for those who
cannot be bothered to do the same.
Toll Bar is a very poor area. You might be lucky enough to have the money to
buy insurance; many people aren't. Let's be honest, if money is very tight
most people aren't going to spend it on insurance. I agree that if the
goverment bale out (sorry) the uninsured it will make a nonsense of
insurance, but the fact is that one way or another the very considerable
cost will have to be paid. Some of these people have been made permanently
homeless, and since they live in social housing they have a legal
entitlement to decent accommodation. Just how this will be financed is a
detail at the moment.

If you are right wing you need to learn that those right wingers who are
fully-formed human beings never lose sight of basic
humanitarian considerations. Your posts are typical of the selfish
thoughtless immature rantings of a particulary odious Young Conservative.

Bill



--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

In message , Bill Wright
wrote

"Alan" wrote in message
...


but in the scale of world problems, and even the rest of the UK, it is
insignificant.
The cost will be significant in GDP terms.


Put this into perspective, it's a small fraction of the money that is
going to be wasted on a few highly paid professional sportsmen in 2012.


All we are getting now is that the rest of us who have paid spent their
hard earned cash on household insurance should now pay for those who
cannot be bothered to do the same.
Toll Bar is a very poor area.
ou might be lucky enough to have the money to
buy insurance; many people aren't. Let's be honest, if money is very tight
most people aren't going to spend it on insurance. I agree that if the
goverment bale out (sorry) the uninsured it will make a nonsense of
insurance,

Government ministers/officials were not talking about the tax payers
baling out the uninsured. They wanted insurance companies to do it in
much the same way as the £30/yr levy on anyone paying for car insurance
to bale out uninsured drivers! This kills my sympathy with those who may
have been affected stone dead!

but the fact is that one way or another the very considerable
cost will have to be paid.

Perhaps lottery money could be redirected into something worthwhile.

Some of these people have been made permanently
homeless, and since they live in social housing they have a legal
entitlement to decent accommodation. Just how this will be financed is a
detail at the moment.

Presumably in the same way that local councils in other areas have
managed to absorbed thousands of deserving refugees.


If you are right wing you need to learn that those right wingers who are
fully-formed human beings never lose sight of basic
humanitarian considerations.

Many of the people reported in the news were those in society who never
take responsibility for their own actions.

The press were also over-reporting the situation, often struggling to
find anything worthwhile to say. Reporter standing in field in
Wellington boots points to two foot of water. He then interviews the
farmer who admits that the field floods every year.

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

In message , Pyriform
writes
Bill Wright wrote:
"Pyriform" wrote:

Trees take carbon out of the
atmosphere *now*.

No they don't, they take it out during their lifetime, which is
typically 100 years. They take bugger all out each year.

For some values of "bugger all". Plants and trees gain mass largely as a
result of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. So they have a net uptake of
carbon "now" and for the next n years, where n is the growing period. It's
rather a lot of carbon.

Plants, though, generally give it all back within the year as they rot
down. Trees do absorb carbon over their lifetime, but you need a rather
large tree to offset the 6 (or 8, or is it 10?), tonnes of carbon (or is
it CO2?), each household is supposed to emit annually.

I don't know what proportion of a tree by weight is carbon, but I doubt
if it's more than 10%. To save 10 tonnes of carbon a year, you'd
therefore need a tree that put on 100 tonnes per year. Or, to put is
another way, a small forest.

--
Norman Wells
NG

Norman Wells wrote:
In message , Pyriform
writes
Bill Wright wrote:
"Pyriform" wrote:

Trees take carbon out of the
atmosphere *now*.

No they don't, they take it out during their lifetime, which is
typically 100 years. They take bugger all out each year.

For some values of "bugger all". Plants and trees gain mass largely
as a result of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. So they have a
net uptake of carbon "now" and for the next n years, where n is the
growing period. It's rather a lot of carbon.

Plants, though, generally give it all back within the year as they rot
down. Trees do absorb carbon over their lifetime, but you need a
rather large tree to offset the 6 (or 8, or is it 10?), tonnes of
carbon (or is it CO2?), each household is supposed to emit annually.

I don't dispute any of that. I was merely pointing out that the logic was
quite different than claiming that fossil fuels are "renewable".

I don't know what proportion of a tree by weight is carbon, but I
doubt if it's more than 10%.

You doubt wrong. It's about 50% of a tree's dry weight. The dry/green weight
ratio varies a lot between species, but if we take a fairly typical value of
0.75, that gives a carbon content of 37.5%.

"Alan" wrote in message
...
In message , Bill Wright Put this into
perspective, it's a small fraction of the money that is going to be
wasted on a few highly paid professional sportsmen in 2012.
Figures pleae.

Bill

"Pyriform" wrote
Peter Muehlbauer wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote
What a totally stupid and ignorant remark! I wish I could take you
to meet the people of Toll Bar, and let you spout such ****e! You
wouldn't last ten seconds mate!

Bill

Look, what AGW hysterics made of a human... a headless, nervous wreck.
Objective achieved...?

Given that Bill is cynical about AGW, I think that any hysteria surrounding
it is unlikely to be the cause of his present annoyance.

On one side it is really sad, what has happened there.
On the other side I can't sympathize with all the people, who knew from
the media in the 70s, that there is global warming, but still build their
houses in unsecure areas. Even if those areas are known from former floods,
they might think "That won't happen to me ... not me.".
So I don't understand why they are upset, when it happens anyway.
That's their own guilt, also the words sound hard.

How quick will such people shift off those events on GW.
That shows only, how good they were preconditioned by hysterical media reports,
and how weak their mind is, that they can't think clear for their own.

"JAF" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 13:19:47 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

trees are small at the
start of their life and therefore metabolise smaller quantities of
everything.

Trees metabolise *more* during their growth periods, the majority of which
occurs while the tree is still young.

Trees keep growing until they die surely. And since a bigger tree is, well,
bigger, the same percentage of growth will result in a greater mass
increase. I mean, think about a little tree that you've planted in your
garden. For the first few years the weight increase can be measured in
pounds. But think of that tree when it's 50 years old. The weight increase
each year will be much greater.

Bill

"Peter Muehlbauer" wrote in message
...

"Pyriform" wrote
Peter Muehlbauer wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote
What a totally stupid and ignorant remark! I wish I could take you
to meet the people of Toll Bar, and let you spout such ****e! You
wouldn't last ten seconds mate!

Bill

Look, what AGW hysterics made of a human... a headless, nervous wreck.
Objective achieved...?

Given that Bill is cynical about AGW, I think that any hysteria
surrounding
it is unlikely to be the cause of his present annoyance.

On one side it is really sad, what has happened there.
On the other side I can't sympathize with all the people, who knew from
the media in the 70s, that there is global warming, but still build their
houses in unsecure areas. Even if those areas are known from former
floods,
they might think "That won't happen to me ... not me.".

"Let them eat cake."

Here's a reality check for you. When you live in a council house you don't
get much of a say regarding where it's been built. The council allocates you
a house after a long wait and you're glad of it. The worst flooded houses in
Catcliffe and Toll Bar were council houses.

Some of the flooding was in places where houses should never be built, I'll
give you that. The fault here lies with the planners, who allow private and
council house building on flood plains.

And here are a few points of information for you. The worst flooding in
Bentley occurred in a place that has never, ever, flooded before.The reason
it flooded was because the government allowed the Coal Board to lower the
whole area by 2 metres in 1967. The worst flooding in Toll Bar occurred in a
place that last flooded in 1947. The areas of Bentley that were flooded in
1930 and 1947 were largely untouched this time. The Toll Bar floods were due
to the pressure gates at the end of the Ea Beck being unable to operate due
to the water level in the Don. By the time the pumps arrived it was too
late.

Bill