Global Warming

[donna miller]

michele - 2007-03-13 9:42 PM

 

 

 

Why is it I cannot recycle Plastic because the Council told me that they have no machine to biograde it down

.

 

 

The reason many councils will only take certain types of plastic, is because they cannot make enough money from them.

The milk containers we all throw away on a daily basis are most commonly made of HDPE (High Density Polyethelene) the council collect all of these and bale them up for sale through export, the cost of washing,separating and processing these in this country, makes it an unviable proposition.

 

Unfortunately the general public do not have a good knowledge of recyclable plastics, so we tend to throw it all in together, again the costs to separate the various plastics are high and very labour intensive.Therefore councils have stopped taking a lot of plastic.

 

To give you an example, as I said earlier milk containers are usually HDPE, the tops are very often Polypropelene or LDPE, in this example, the 3 types of plastic can be mixed to a certain extent, however, lets say you throw in loads of yogurt pots, these are usually HIPS - High Impact Polystyrene. Or your shampoo bottles will be PVC or APET,If you mix shredded or granulated HIPS with HDPE, the material is useless for re-moulding, and so on with the other 7 main polymer or plastic groups.

 

The annoying thing is that the council keep on at us to recycle more, and yet offer no help as to how we should do it,

 

 

[Guest starspirit]

That is interesting Donna. You live and learn.

 

So why do we need all these different plastics?

 

Am I being naive if I say why can't all plastic bottles, cartons, containers etc be made from the same plastic - or at least reduce the numbers to two or three and make all their formulae compatible with each other for recycling?

 

[donna miller]

It would make life and our business so much easier if "plastic was just Plastic"

 

The reason for so many different types is because of the various qualities (for want of a better word).

 

I'll try not to bore you, but in short : Polycarbonate is used where strength is needed and a clear product is desireable, eg light lenses,cds etc.

Polypropelene is used for boxes and crates, it's flexible but brittle, thats why your buckets crack if you abuse them.

 

Nylon is used for bushes, handles and can be re-inforced with glass fibre for strength.And all polymers can be treated to be flame retardant.

 

And the list goes on. It's enough to make your head spin, believe me.

 

 

[Guest starspirit]

I believe you Donna!

But surely it should not be beyond the wit of mankind to develop a single basic type that will readily mix with other derivatives when recycled, they are all made from oil basically aren't they?

Like when we used to mix petrol, paraffin and engine oil to get TVO?

[twooks]

starspirit - 2007-03-14 1:39 PM

 

Like when we used to mix petrol, paraffin and engine oil to get TVO?

 

Is that like OVD ??

 

B-)

[Brian Kirby]

donna miller - 2007-03-14 1:08 PM It would make life and our business so much easier if "plastic was just Plastic" The reason for so many different types is because of the various qualities (for want of a better word). I'll try not to bore you, but in short : Polycarbonate is used where strength is needed and a clear product is desireable, eg light lenses,cds etc. Polypropelene is used for boxes and crates, it's flexible but brittle, thats why your buckets crack if you abuse them. Nylon is used for bushes, handles and can be re-inforced with glass fibre for strength.And all polymers can be treated to be flame retardant. And the list goes on. It's enough to make your head spin, believe me.

Well, just one teensy thing that would make the whole business a whole lot easier, is if the recycling code was printed at a size, and in a place, where it could actually be read.  A fair proportion of the stuff we get is identified in about a 4pt font, and its moulded into the plastic, so the raised print is the same colour as the background.

[howie]

Hi Brian. The one thing not mentioned so far is the increase in population.

Over the last 100 years or so we have seen this rise from around 1.5 billion to over 6 billion with the resulting global warming and consumption of natural materials. We cannot be to far off before we reach saturation point, and either we address this now, or Mother Nature will step in and do it for us. No sentimentality from M H i,m afraid, and this will mean a return to the status quo by whatever means she deems necessary.

[Brian Kirby]

Anyone picked up on the fact that not only Wunsch and Reiter have now distanced themselves from the programme, but all the graphs were wrong, some based on outdated infromation and others actually doctored to fit the programme maker's thesis.

So what we are left with is a minority group of scientists who claim that the GW majority is wrong, who cook their arguments and adulterate their data to prove it.  Hmmmmmmmmm.  Some scientists!  Snake-oil salesmen, more like.  I think their fox is very, very, dead!

[CliveH]

The debate will go on and on in the he said that "Oh no I didn't" pantomime that always goes with these things.

 

As for the credibility of the data - I personally find it alarming that Mann, whose review data drives the IPCC is based upon his interpretation of other peoples work on tree rings. He ignores other data such as records of crop types grown as set out in historical data.

 

His "hockey stick" graph is very powerful. But when you put in random data you still get the same hockey stick shape. When you put back in the data he removes for his "model" (Mann describes this data as anomylous!!!) - you get a diferent result.

 

Snake oil salesmen?? - they all are when huge sums of grants are up for grabs.

 

But at least the debate is a bit more open than the doom and gloom merchants wished it to be. This is interesting in that it seems that far more people supported the programme than complained against it!

 

Interesting!!!!

 

 

"'Global Warming Swindle' sparks debate

Thursday, March 15 2007, 11:00 GMT

 

By Joanne Oatts, Media Correspondent

 

Ofcom and Channel 4 have received a mixed response over the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

 

The film featured the views of scientists and green campaigners who rejected commonly held views outlined in the media and in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth that carbon dioxide has caused global warming.

 

The compelling programme has so far provoked 144 complaints to Ofcom. Channel 4 said though it had received 758 calls and emails from viewers about the film, those in favour of the broadcast outnumbered complaints by six to one.

 

The show, which aired at 9pm last Thursday, attracted a healthy 2.5 million viewers and an 11.5% audience share.

 

Martin Durkin, who made the film, denied reports that featured scientist Carl Wunsch was duped into appearing in the documentary and criticized the BBC and Channel 4 News for "brainwashing the public" by taking a strong editorial line supporting the global warming theory.

 

[Brian Kirby]

None of which is in the least surprising.  People forget that the issue was first raised within the scientific community by scientists, years before politicians even got to hear about it, way before Gore was aware of it, a long time before any grants were available, and long before the IPCC was formed. 

The issue started when a small number of scientists observed that the rate the climate was changing was quicker than fossil records suggested had previously been experienced.  That is why we have the issue to discuss today.  They published their observations in the scientific journals (Nature etc) which were then replicated and argued over for a long time before theorys as to cause were evolved and similarly published. 

The causal theorys were then argued over and kicked around and, one by one, scientists came to agree that carbon dioxide is the most likely cause.  This has been going on for decades.  The first theory was put forward in the 19C!  It didn't get far, but it does indicate how long this issue has been maturing, on and off.

It was the scientific community who drew the issue to the attention of politicians, not the other way round, and the majority of scientists in favour is now overwhelming.  The detractors are, in reality, now somewhat akin to the flat earth society.

My point is that if the best argument the flat-earther's can put forward has to be based around misleadingly edited exerpts of interviews with other scientists, and deliberately inaccurate graphs, then they show by their actions that they don't have a sustainable argument.  These were the actions of rogues of a far blacker hue than any they were accusing of bad faith.  The programme was a disgrace and a travesty, and should never have got out of the production studio.

Which media correspondent was this, by the way?  She seems a rather unquestioning girl!  Might have been more appropriate to get the science correspondent to comment.  Didn't it occur to her that the complainants would be the ones who took the trouble to check the facts, who would then have discovered what a put up job the whole thing was.  Those in favour were just reacting to being told what they wanted to know.  As for Durkin, what would you expect him to say?  He's been "done" twice before for similarly distorting and misrepresenting facts.  If he gets done again, he'll loose his licence as a programme maker.  He's bound to take a "Who, me guv" attitude.

[CliveH]

In the 1970's we were all at risk from Global Cooling - again huge sums of money was spent, good things happened (CFC's banned sulphur removed from coal so smog disappeared etc.)

 

The point is that we lurch from one crisis to another - it seems that the collective human psyche needs a good crisis to focus on.

 

In the past unless someone or something was sacrificed that big warming ball in the sky might not appear tomorrow or the crops might fail.

 

Yes climatologists have noticed that the Earth is getting warmer. The issue is - are we outside of normal variation? So far the answer is no. The UK was hotter in roman times according to descriptive text. But Mann ignores that and selects the data to give him the straight temperature range of the "hockey stick" handle and gets £m's to do more research as a result.

 

The odd thing is that you can read on the NASA websites that Mars is warming as well.

 

But I expect that is down to us as well as we have placed a couple of vehicles on Mars. And they are 4x4's so we should DEFINATELY ban all 4x4's on Mars from now on. (lol)

[Dave Newell]

Where recycling is concerned why do we have to recycle glass bottles and jars by breaking them and remoulding them? Why can't we just return them to their respective companies to be re-used as .......glass bottles *-) ? Seems to me an awful lot of energy is spent on crushing, melting down and re-moulding glass to turn it back into bottles and jars..............which is what it was before we crushed it and re-moulded it!

 

Innit?

 

D.

[W3526602]

.......an awful lot of energy is spent on crushing, melting down and re-moulding glass to turn it back into bottles and jars,which is what it was before we crushed it and re-moulded it!.....

 

Hi Dave,

 

Good point. But that would be a lot easier if evertyrhing was made to a standard patern ... unless there were good reasons not to. So what is needed is the EU standard jam jar ....... or wine bottle.

 

When I was a sprog, the local Co-op would give me a farthing for every jam jar that I took back.

 

How would you feel if your NEW campervan was delivered with a set of wheels that had already had a couple of previous lives on white vans? Would crack testing and a repaint cost less than making new wheels from pig iron? Lets face it, very few wheels fail due to age. Same question for everthing else.

 

602

 

 

[Dave Newell]

Recycling wheels which are a safety component of a vehicle and a glass bottle are hardly comparable items so I'll assume you're exaggerating to make a point.

 

When I were a sprog the local shop gave me a tanner for every pop bottle I took back. The bottles were then collected by the truck delivering the next load so it was an environmentally responsible means of recycling the bottles. When the bottles were damaged to the point where they couldn't be re-used they were crushed and melted down and recycled that way but they would do service as pop bottles many times over before that happened.

 

I see no good reason why this couldn't be resurrected as a recycling practice, its got to be more environmentally responsible than sending out a special lorry to collect all the broken glass from the bottle banks that then has to be sorted, crushed, melted down before being made back into pop/wine bottles and jam jars.

 

D.

[CliveH]

This just in on the news update via Yahoo - the link is:-

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/17032007/344/climate-change-danger-overplayed.html

 

 

but the content is as follows:-

 

 

 

Climate change danger 'overplayed' Saturday March 17, 06:44 AM

 

Two leading British scientists have hit out at the "Hollywoodisation" of fears over climate change.

 

Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, have criticised peers who they accuse of "overplaying" the global warming message.

 

The pair placed the highly respected American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at the centre of their criticism.

 

The pair reportedly say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science. At a conference in Oxford they will say this damages the credibility of all climate scientists.

They think the "Hollywoodisation" of weather and climate only works to create confusion in the public mind.

 

The 2004 smash hit film The Day After Tomorrow blurred the lines between science and entertainment with its depiction of catastrophic consequences after global warming caused large areas of the Arctic ice shelf to break off and melt.

 

Professors Hardaker and Collier argue for a more sober and reasoned explanation of the uncertainties about possible future changes in the Earth's climate.

 

They criticised a strongly worded statement released by the AAAS at its last annual meeting in San Francisco in February which said: "As expected, intensification of droughts, heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and severe storms is occurring, with a mounting toll on vulnerable ecosystems and societies.

 

"These events are early warning signs of even more devastating damage to come, some of which will be irreversible."

 

According to Professors Hardaker and Collier, this may well turn out to be true, but convincing evidence to back the claims has not yet emerged.

 

 

 

 

 

Snake oil????

 

Maybe - on the other hand we may have been duped by the "Global Warming = Catastrophe" band of get rich quick charlatans who incidentally also got a lot of grant money in the late 1970's for predicting we were all going to freeze to death in a new "Ice Age".

 

Now I am not saying we should just carry on regardless!

 

But the science of the Global Warming = Catastrophe numpties is a lot closer to Hollywood than anything else. ;-)

[Brian Kirby]

I think Clive is reacting too much to the hype, and not enough to the underlying science.

Of course the science is being hyped, a large number of scientists can see where the data points, and are trying to draw the attention of the world's politicians, and peoples, to this.  They are concerned no-one will pay attention if they don't, and concerned at the implications if that proves the case. 

How would you grab the world's attention?  An unannounced scientific paper in nature?

Give them some credit for honesty.  Can they all be such cynics, and only the gainsayers be the good guys? 

Or are we just hearing another dose of a "this will upset my life, so I'll just believe what sounds comforting", sort of objection.

[Guest starspirit]

That's a bit harsh Brian.

 

I don't think many of believe that we should totally ignore the depletion of natural resources at the expense of the environment but let's just try and get these two interlinked issues into perspective.

 

For a start where does science end and politics begin?

 

Any clever scientist can baffle us all by careful wording and economies of truth and any clever politician can always find an excuse for taxation by doing the same.

 

I know I should cut down but I worked bl##dy hard for 40 years to get where I am today (where ever that is) and I intend get my money's worth out of my retirement which includes running a van and two cars, keeping our home warm and doing whatever we want to do.

 

That said I've sold the Jag and bought a smaller car and I only have a 2.0hdi van so I reckon that I'm doing my bit.

 

Undoubtedly our climate is changing just as it was when we were recently heading for the next ice age and all I am saying is that we should be sceptical of governmental over reaction - especially when it comes to 'taking a lead' by making us pay more than anyone else - and especially when what extra we do pay does not go towards better preparing the UK for the potential but as yet unsubstantiated long term effects of climate change.

[Brian Kirby]

Ah yes, but there I agree with you Richard.  I too am concerned that our politicians are rushing into an "I'm greener thay you" beauty parade, without any thought for the workability of their ideas.  However, I am still with the scientists on the need.

We should have started when the Germans did, but now we're late and rushing to catch up, and of course to stir up something controversial, so as to cover something embarrasing.

We'll do what we always do, go off in fourteen different directions at half cock, spend a huge fortune, and then find that one half of the activists have just phased out what the other half have been working on!

[Guest starspirit]

Welcome to Cynics and Sceptics Unanimous, Brian

[CliveH]

Brian – you are showing the same inability to even think that you might be wrong that the doom-mongers rely on for their “religious zeal” like faith. I always have to laugh when someone says the science consensus is that Global Warming = Catastrophe and then compares those that ask questions to “flat earthers”. Either your knowledge of history is sadly lacking or your sense of irony!!

 

I too think your reaction is harsh considering all I am doing is asking questions and making you challenge what you have been told.

 

When the Global Cooling “We’re all gonna die!” hype was being banded about in the 1970’s the book “The Cooling” by Lowell Ponte was a best seller. In it he states:-

 

 

 

“Suppose we assume, as did weather scientists interviewed by writer Nigel Calder, that the chances of continued cooling and of an Ice Age dawning within a century are one in ten, odds likened by one scientist to Russian roulette. The odds are in our favour, but consider the stakes being wagered: if the cooling continues, we can reasonably calculate that potentially two billion people could starve to death or die of other symptoms of chronic malnutrition by the year 2050. Potentially, we could all die if global famines and embargos on scarce resources, both caused by the cooling, lead to a world war. We simply cannot afford to gamble against this possibility by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we should ignore the evidence and the theories suggesting Earth is entering a period of climaticinstability are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored.”

 

”Lowell Ponte in - The Cooling 1976"

 

 

Similarly other scientists jumped on the band wagon:-

 

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.

 

”Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day 1970"

 

 

and:-

 

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population.

 

”Reid Bryson, Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man, 1971"

 

 

 

Hmmmmm! – Anyone see any similarities here???????????????

 

 

 

But then it is funny how time can change one's mind. It seems that experience and common sense often brings about realizations of past mistakes. And so is with Mr Ponte who writes today:’

 

"But the Leftist press continues to quote bug and flower scientists about global warming - including doomsayers who three decades ago were predicting a fast-approaching, planet-freezing ice age. (I should know, being author of the 1976 Prentice-Hall bestselling climate book The Cooling.)

 

As you probably recognized, all such Leftist doomsaying - hothouse or ice age, wet or dry, population explosion or drastic decline - calls for the same remedy. We must have bigger government, more political regulation and control, higher taxes, and permit less individual and private sector liberty if we are to survive whatever is this year's fashionable danger."

 

 

 

It is always refreshing to see this type of realism in light of historic events - hopefully more of the doom and gloom crowd will awaken to reality and see beyond their wishful view of the world. I get annoyed that some simply accept the same tactics and dubious science as was used before to scare the pants off the population so that they accept :-

 

bigger government,

 

more political regulation and control,

 

higher taxes,

 

less individual and private sector liberty,

 

 

Therefore Brian – may I tactfully suggest that before you start slaging others off for being “flat-earthers” – you get to grip with the real science and not the hype.

 

 

[Guest starspirit]

Your ideas are worthy of thought Clive but you spoil it somewhat by the personal attack.

[CliveH]

 

 

I was responding to such language as:-

 

 

"The detractors are, in reality, now somewhat akin to the flat earth society."

 

"I think Clive is reacting too much to the hype, and not enough to the underlying science."

 

 

 

 

So I think most will see that no personal attack was intended from my end!!!

 

 

But I am answering a few points - such as those re-quoted above - from someone who seems determined to "poo poo" valid objections to the slavish “consensus”.

 

Like I have said before – I would have more faith in todays fashionable disaster scenario if it was not the exact opposite of the one that was going to kill us all thirty years ago!!

 

But if anyone is offended by my bluntness – then for that alone - I apologise.

 

[Guest starspirit]

When scientists, politicians and self styled experts - regardless of their credentials - place any information in the public domain, be it proven or theoretical, they leave their work and thoughts open to criticism and debate.

 

That is good and healthy and no matter how much one may agree or disagree with their thoughts it is good for all of us to air our own views and to openly discuss the various issues.

 

Everyone is entitled to air their views without personal attack (except politicians!) and whilst I too have my moments I do try not to personally attack anyone whose views I disagree with (unless they have a go at me first that is!).

[CliveH]

To be fair Richard - this is precisely my point.

 

Even the IPCC states that it is "Most Likely...." etc etc. whereas some of us look at their data interpretation and think "Hang on! - how the hell do you come to that conclusion??"

 

Then you read what the IPCC did to Prof Paul Reiter and you begin to understand what the House of Lords meant by the unhealthy "politicisation" (nothing to do with party politics) of the IPCC.

 

If anyone thinks the IPCC are "jolly nice chaps", totally trustworthy and that ACC is therefore a "done deal" - then I believe them to be gullible in the extreme.

 

This is all just history repeating itself. ;-)

 

[Guest Frank Wilkinson]

This is Durkin's response to those who traduced his programme:

On March 8, Channel 4 broadcast my programme. Since then, supporters of the theory of man-made global warming have published frothing criticism. I am attacked for using an "old" graph depicting temperature over the past 1,000 years. They say I should have used a "new" graph - one used by Al Gore, known as the "hockey stick", because it looks like one.

But the hockey stick has been utterly discredited. The computer programme used to generate it was found to produce hockey-stick shapes even when fed random data (I refer readers to the work of McIntyre & McKitrick and to the Wegman Report, all available on the internet). Other than the discredited hockey stick, the graph used by us (and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the standard, accepted record of temperature in this period.

/>/>/>/>

A critic claims that one of the graphs cited by us, illustrating the extraordinarily close correlation between solar variation and temperature change, has since been "corrected". It most certainly has not. The graph was produced by Prof Eigil Friis-Christensen, the head of the Danish National Space Centre, who says it still stands. But if the global-warmers don't like that graph, there are plenty of others that say the same thing.

No one any longer seriously disputes the link between solar activity and temperature in earth's climate history. I urge readers to look up on the net: Veizer, Geoscience Canada/>/>, 2005; and Soon, Geophysical Research Letters, 2005.

In the film, we used three graphs depicting temperature change in the 20th century. On one there was an error in the dates on the bottom. This was corrected for the second transmission of the programme, on More4, last Monday. It made no difference. Global-warmers can pick whichever graph they like. The problem for them remains the same. The temperature rise at the beginning of the century (prior to 1940, when human emissions of CO2 were relatively insignificant) was as great, most graphs show greater, than the temperature rise at the end of the century.

So what else do they hit me with? Prof Carl Wunsch, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who appeared in the film, later claimed he was duped into taking part. He was not.

The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.

During the post-war economic boom, while industrial emissions of CO2 went up, the temperature went down (hence the great global-cooling scare in the 1970s). Why? They say maybe the cooling was caused by SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced by industry. But they say it mumbling under their breath, because they know it makes no sense. Thanks to China/>/> and the rest, SO2 levels are far, far higher now than they were back then. Why isn't it perishing cold?

Too many journalists and scientists have built their careers on the global-warming alarm. Certain newspapers have staked their reputation on it. The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.