Dimwits out and about again

[NutLoose]

Food not fuel, an admirable Idea, I take it she intends to walk from wherever she comes from to Lincolnshire etc due to no transport to pick up her veggies etc, that may be past their best because there is no fuel to harvest them.... Ahh and using a yacht to show their green intentions made from fiberglass and fibreglass resin and towed there behind their cars. It is a shame they got rid of those watercannon, a good squirt with flourescent dye would do the trick..




https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48987193

[VP959]

Their hypocrisy in using big plastic boats, towed around the country behind large fossil fuel driven vehicles, was something I noted last time this bunch were protesting. When challenged about it, they responded by saying that the pink paint they had used that time was water-based. That makes it OK then...

This time it looks as if they have a whole fleet of boats that they are clogging up roads with, and burning even more fossil fuel to make a point about the pollution caused by fossil fuel.

[Andy_S]

At the end of the day, this is as much to do with virtue signalling as the environment.

[LowNSlow]

Surely it's not beyond he wit of man to say "yes, you've been there for 4 hours, you've had your protest and now we are towing you away".

[SpringHeeledJack]

Originally Posted by Andy_S

At the end of the day, this is as much to do with virtue signalling as the environment.

It's a noble cause, but the need, almost pathological, to show everyone that you are concerned by the environment is hypocrisy of the first order. I'll wager 99% of them have smartphones, which need charging 1 or 2 times a day, data usage that uses surprisingly large amounts of energy when the whole is taken into consideration. There will be a few who live the simple life, but I'll wager that most will be travelling by all the polluting forms of transport to their summer holidays in the next month. When we're all electric in the near future, how will all that power be generated ?

[Andy_S]

Originally Posted by SpringHeeledJack

There will be a few who live the simple life, but I'll wager that most will be travelling by all the polluting forms of transport to their summer holidays in the next month.

True. The other thing that doesn't add up is that if - as the name of the group implies - they believe we are facing an existential crisis, then the UK should be way down their priority list.

[radeng]

Some threads ago, it was pointed out here that the average human exhales 30g of CO2 an hour. That is over a quarter of a metric ton of CO2 a year or over 15 million tons for the UK. Plus the CO2 exhaled by cows, sheep, pigs, cats, dogs, rabbits, goats, badgers, deer etc etc...…

So if they REALLY want to make a difference, they should never reproduce...….but I bet they bloody well will!

Plus a smaller population has a lower total energy requirement, helping things along....

Of course, if the recent report on solar weather is correct with its prediction of a Maunder Minimum within the next 50 years or so, reduced solar radiation may well lead to a mini-Ice Age….

[GLIDER 90]

Just another day out in London for these lot and some beers later on!! Just the same with the schools protesting the kids like it because its a day off school, why don't the schools protest at the weekend or in their summer break? More dimwits will be descending on London Heathrow Airport to protest later on this summer. When they have finished some will be jetting off on a late vacation abroad hypocrites!!

[Uplinker]

Originally Posted by SpringHeeledJack

It's a noble cause, but the need, almost pathological, to show everyone that you are concerned by the environment is hypocrisy of the first order. I'll wager 99% of them have smartphones, which need charging 1 or 2 times a day, data usage that uses surprisingly large amounts of energy when the whole is taken into consideration. There will be a few who live the simple life, but I'll wager that most will be travelling by all the polluting forms of transport to their summer holidays in the next month. When we're all electric in the near future, how will all that power be generated ?

I can’t remember where I saw it, so cannot quote, but the equivalent of quite a few power stations in the world are required purely to power the internet, and more to power all the radio masts, no doubt.

In an all electric society, at least hopefully the electricity will be generated on a large scale and as absolutely efficiently as possible. So gas and oil will be burned in exactly the correct stoichiometric ratio with near zero Nox production, and perhaps even carbon capture, unlike all our less efficient individual car engines and house central heating boilers, which could be chucking out loads of pollutants.

[Pontius Navigator]

Around 10% of the world's total electricity consumption is being used by the internet, according to a recent research report from Swedish KTH. The numbers have grown from 8% in 2012, illustrating the increasing effects of the internet'srapid growth.
Internet uses more than 10% of the world's electricity - Inside Scandinavian Business
https://www.insidescandinavianbusiness.com › ...

Berkeley Lab: It Takes 70 Billion Kilowatt Hours A Year To Run The Internet - Forbes
https://www.forbes.com › 2016/06/28
28 Jun 2016 · Netflix. A new report from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figures that those data centers use an enormous amount of energy — some 70 billion kilowatt hours per year. That amounts to 1.8% of total American electricity consumption.

and reams of sites but think of the environment and don't check unnecessarily 😀

[VP959]

Originally Posted by Uplinker

I can’t remember where I saw it, so cannot quote, but the equivalent of quite a few power stations in the world are required purely to power the internet, and more to power all the radio masts, no doubt.

In an all electric society, at least hopefully the electricity will be generated on a large scale and as absolutely efficiently as possible. So gas and oil will be burned in exactly the correct stoichiometric ratio with near zero Nox production, and perhaps even carbon capture, unlike all our less efficient individual car engines and house central heating boilers, which could be chucking out loads of pollutants.

It doesn't take much for a household to be zero carbon, but it does need energy storage. We generate enough electricity from a modest PV array in the roof to power the house, my car and export a fair bit to the grid. Overall we're carbon negative, in that we generate slightly more than we use, including running my car, over the course of 12 months. The snag is that we need battery storage to do that, and we don't have either enough storage, or enough generating capacity for about 4 or 5 months of the year, to be independent of the grid. We use the grid as a huge battery, exporting to it for about 7 or 8 months of the year and importing from it at times during the winter. We don't have gas, oil or any other form of fuel, just electricity. What we need is a large electricity storage system that will store all the excess we generate for around 7 or 8 months and then allow us to use that when there's little sun around.

Investing in energy storage, rather than very expensive new generation plants, may well be a better way ahead. Unlike power stations, energy storage can be scattered around the grid, so reducing the need for local distribution network reinforcement. Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk has shown that large battery systems can be designed, built and installed quickly. Flash to bang for the 100MWh system Tesla installed in Australia was far less than the 100 days he promised :https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-42190358.

[Saintsman]

I’ve just come back from a holiday in Cyprus.

Nearly every building has solar ​​​​​panels for hot water, but I don’t recall seeing any solar panels that produced electricity. You would think that they had the ideal opportunity to benefit with the sun being so prevailing.

The other thing I noticed was the huge amount of plastic bottles used for drinking water and I’ve seen similar in other ‘hot’ countries. It’s all very well these protestors saying we should cut down on single use plastic, but it’s not really going to make a lot of difference if the rest of the world are going to continue using a hell of a lot more than we are.

And on the subject of plastic bottles, I do remember the amount of discarded bottles left after the London protests...

[lomapaseo]

I can’t remember where I saw it, so cannot quote, but the equivalent of quite a few power stations in the world are required purely to power the internet, and more to power all the radio masts, no doubt.

no worries here, my Internet runs on ether

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by Saintsman

I’ve just come back from a holiday in Cyprus.

Nearly every building has solar ​​​​​panels for hot water, but I don’t recall seeing any solar panels that produced electricity. You would think that they had the ideal opportunity to benefit with the sun being so prevailing.

The Cypriots have had modular, two-panel and tank since the 60s. If the 50 year old ones on the SBA are anything to go by they are rusty as hell. As for electric solar panels the cost will be an order of magnitude greater. Also, given the practice of not completing the roof they may not be allowed panels lest tax has to be paid.

Also, compared with UK their lifestyle may use less electricity.

[NAROBS]

Some of the Cypriot hotels have Solar PV arrays

And it doesn't stop there:-

You Tube

70 tonne train running at 30 Mph

And for the older gentlemen:-

You Tube

And Red funnel, look-out:-

You Tube

Yep, the rubbish people are out and about:-

You Tube

N.

[nonsense]

Originally Posted by radeng

Some threads ago, it was pointed out here that the average human exhales 30g of CO2 an hour. That is over a quarter of a metric ton of CO2 a year or over 15 million tons for the UK. Plus the CO2 exhaled by cows, sheep, pigs, cats, dogs, rabbits, goats, badgers, deer etc etc...…

So if they REALLY want to make a difference, they should never reproduce...….but I bet they bloody well will!

All jokes aside, the single biggest thing anyone can do to help is to have less offspring. My consumption of resources will end when I end; if I had three children and they each had three children and so on, it would increase exponentially.

[Buster11]

Originally Posted by nonsense

All jokes aside, the single biggest thing anyone can do to help is to have less offspring..

That, surely, is the real problem long-term. How can people be deterred from breeding? In some parts of the world having a large family seems essential, if only to ensure there are enough kids to look after aging parents. Religion is another cause, and not only in the third world, as witness the lunatic anti-abortion movement in the USA and elsewhere and catholicism's position on contraception.

Stopping child allowances after, say, one child might be a way in 'developed' countries, but then that penalises the further kids spawned by feckless parents (often single parents). It looks as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse, - fire, war, flood and pestilence -, may be the only solution, but surely a better way has to be found. Most of the above is a statement of the bleedin' obvious, but still not, apparently, to some.

[golfbananajam]

Originally Posted by VP959

It doesn't take much for a household to be zero carbon, but it does need energy storage. We generate enough electricity from a modest PV array in the roof to power the house, my car and export a fair bit to the grid. Overall we're carbon negative, in that we generate slightly more than we use, including running my car, over the course of 12 months. The snag is that we need battery storage to do that, and we don't have either enough storage, or enough generating capacity for about 4 or 5 months of the year, to be independent of the grid. We use the grid as a huge battery, exporting to it for about 7 or 8 months of the year and importing from it at times during the winter. We don't have gas, oil or any other form of fuel, just electricity. What we need is a large electricity storage system that will store all the excess we generate for around 7 or 8 months and then allow us to use that when there's little sun around.

Investing in energy storage, rather than very expensive new generation plants, may well be a better way ahead. Unlike power stations, energy storage can be scattered around the grid, so reducing the need for local distribution network reinforcement. Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk has shown that large battery systems can be designed, built and installed quickly. Flash to bang for the 100MWh system Tesla installed in Australia was far less than the 100 days he promised :https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-42190358.

If only it were that simple to ignore the carbon etc used to produce everything that makes you carbon neutral, including your food. I trust that you only go as far as half the charge of your car will take you so that you're not reliant on the grid for addition electricity?

If you are going to brag about how good you are from a carbon footprint pov, then you MUST include the production and transport processes too.

[VP959]

Originally Posted by golfbananajam

If only it were that simple to ignore the carbon etc used to produce everything that makes you carbon neutral, including your food. I trust that you only go as far as half the charge of your car will take you so that you're not reliant on the grid for addition electricity?

If you are going to brag about how good you are from a carbon footprint pov, then you MUST include the production and transport processes too.

I wasn't in any way "bragging", simply illustrating that the energy we use personally (which is a fair chunk) can be made carbon neutral using technology we already have. We were building a new house, and just made a few changes, such as building it entirely from timber, using recycled newspapers for insulation, building in PV panels to the roof in place of slates, etc, to reduce both the house running cost and it's carbon footprint. The cost of those changes was pretty small, maybe 5% on the cost of the house, and after a few years that small additional cost has more than been repaid in savings on bills.

Also, the grid is getting better all the time, with reduced CO2 emissions year on year. Transport is an area where CO2 emissions aren't reducing as fast as they could be, but all we can do, as individuals, is seek to buy local products and use forms of personal transport that lower our transport carbon footprint.

The point I was trying (and failing, it seems) to make was that instead of towing painted plastic boats around behind big fossil-fuelled cars to make a point, this bunch would have a much more useful impact if they switched to trying to educate (ideally by example) that you don't have to go yelling on the streets to reduce our environmental impact, you can do a hell of a lot just by educating people, and helping them, to live a lower impact lifestyle.

[Saintsman]

Originally Posted by Buster11

It looks as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse, - fire, war, flood and pestilence -, may be the only solution,

I'm fairly certain that in the years to come, Mother Nature will address the balance by one means or another.