Electric vehicles

[D_W]

I know we've drifted of topic about EV's, but I don't think that's a bad thing, as its highlighted a bit about renewable and usage. But a lot of this has been about personal consumption of energy, which although is important, its not the whole picture.

How many times have you walked through town of an evening, to be greeted with shops, closed for the day, but with fully lit window displays, or wandered into a 24 hour supermarket, with half a dozen customers in, along with 24 hour service stations and late night businesses, even off licenses, newsagents etc that's not accounting for glaring shop signage.

If we stepped back from this pervasive 24/7 culture, even if only to 18 hour culture, we forced businesses extinguish lighting and signage within 30 minutes of closing, that in itself is going to reduce load massively.

We bang on about personal usage, but given the growing levels of fuel poverty, do you really believe masses of the public really waste so much energy, when with prices rising continually rising most people are trying to save energy, not out of wishfulness for the environment, but purely out of necessity.

You can only use what you can afford,

I think there is more businesses and industry can do, but they must be forced into it, as consumers are priced into energy poverty, but businesses just up their prices to cover energy rises, but the consumer can only cut usage.

There is a diminishing return on consumer led efficiency, as we are already fast approaching the point that we just can't do more or we've done what we can within budget.

I don't think you'll find too many commercial shops turning off all of their lighting, because with that goes video surveillance.

 

[MikeJhn]

I wonder how much energy is used keeping Manhatten lit up all night, a nighttime view of the US is quite an eye opener.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The Great Reset. That's exactly what we need. All the European leaders have signed up (or been bought - same thing), so it's going to happen whether we like it or not.

Unless it's a conspiracy run by some of the world's wealthiest people, to make sure they continue to be wealthy...but that would just be a conspiracy theory, wouldn't it.

Here's a vision of the future via the World Economic Foundation: Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better

My idea of hell on earth, but perhaps that's just because I'm not a city person. Anyway, it's all for the collective benefit of the collective, so individuals should just suck it up.

 

[Jacob]

I am sure there were Luddites who expressed similar irresponsible nonsense when we had smog filled cities and people struggled to live past their forties.

Wouldn't have been the Luddites it would have been the "conservatives" of all persuasions, most resistant to change, then as now. The Luddites were anxious to preserve their livelihoods and the quality of their lives, not against change as such.

 

[JobandKnock]

And pray tell me, @Trainee neophyte, just how does that work for those of us who don't work behind a desk? Will AI and robots take over? Will we knock down listed buildings because it is just too expensive to program the robots to work on them? Will I have to hand all my tools to the state and get whatever broken, sub-standard junk they choose to send me to do a job? (A bit like most of the company-owned tools I've ever used - nobody owns them so nobody ever cleans, lubricates, services or generally takes care of them). It must be me, because I can see a few tiny holes in this idea. Gotta go now, my (publically owned) train is coming...

 

[clogs]

after reading the above.....
I'm gonna build an EV BOAT before all the tree's disapear under the waters......hahaha....
plus
I live 1/2 way up a small mountain, property value will increase as it will become beach front property....hahaha.....

 

[John Brown]

I think it would take a whole lot more "Damage" to make it unlivable for people - not that we're incapable. But we could very well have our attitudes adjusted by a giant volcano eruption.

At some point, the sun will take away our atmosphere - what happens between then and now (aside from near extinction events) is a matter of our own manipulation and us keeping ourselves playing with things. as we get in to carbon capture in the future, then it'll be something else. And something else after that, and so on.

It would be a fun thing to take up a pool to see if anyone can guess what the next crisis will be after carbon.

My money's on running out of working antibiotics.

 

[Sachakins]

My money's on running out of working antibiotics.

My money's on self destruction through nuclear armageddon.

 

[John Brown]

My money's on self destruction through nuclear armageddon.

Yes, but you won't be around to pick up your winnings.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Slightly off topic but worth a read.

BBC on EVs

Protest all you want about how EVs don't meet your personal needs, but ICE will become a dying technological backwater. In 10-20 years some companies will use them to deliver goods on the back of a wave of nostalgia - a little like using a horse and cart today.

 

[D_W]

My money's on running out of working antibiotics.

That could be an issue long before climate. People will say "terrible death by infection, but at least climate didn't cause it so it's not too bad" .

...except It's only a matter of time before someone tries to correlate antibiotic resistance to global warming.

 

[Droogs]

The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both

 

[Rorschach]

The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both

Yeah we are so stupid, just look at us in our houses with our cars and our mobile phones and our space ships. Stupid humans.

 

[alanpo68]

Yeah we are so stupid, just look at us in our houses with our cars and our mobile phones and our space ships. Stupid humans.

Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.

That is where the stupidity comes in.

 

[Jacob]

Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.

That is where the stupidity comes in.

Doubly stupid even from an utterly selfish point of view: population growth is often greatest in deprived/unstable communities.
It's one of nature's ways of ensuring survivors when the going gets tough, throughout much of the living world. Individual survival doesn't matter as long as species survival takes precedence.
Latest from China is that they have falling population and have suspended the one child rule. Life has become better for them on the whole so birthrates fall, as they have in many better off countries - leading to an ageing population in need of young carers!
https://www.economist.com/the-econo...ries-such-as-china-tackle-falling-birth-rates

 

[Rorschach]

Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.

That is where the stupidity comes in.

That's not stupidity, it's a difference in priorities, we all do that.

 

[D_W]

The only correlation DW is that people are stupid and have caused both

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7160571/
I'm sure there's money in this. When the scary story of temperatures rising runs out, then you go to different avenues. Sort of like Fender mentioned above - if the truth is that the ash borer and lack of allowing the mississippi river to flood has caused an increase in the price of ash, instead, a manufacturer makes a claim that they're switching use of wood for eco reasons and that the water level is rising in the swamps due to climate change (without mentioning that they're physically sinking instead).

We do appear to have caused the warming on earth, and we'll cause it to reverse when it's significant enough to do that.

 

[D_W]

Whilst some people have multiple houses, cars, gadgets, almost a billion people live in abject poverty. Whilst we can send men into space we cannot fund the basics like clean water for tens of millions of people.

That is where the stupidity comes in.

It's a bit more difficult to get relief through a war torn country than it is to get men into space. Solve starvation in sudan? Yes, just take a boat of food and money over, fill the boat with trucks to deliver it and drive right through the middle of the country. I'm sure it's as simple as that.

 

[Jacob]

That's not stupidity, it's a difference in priorities, we all do that.

It's a stupid thing to prioritise. Not to care for the rest of the world results in over population, see earlier post.

 

[John Brown]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7160571/
I'm sure there's money in this. When the scary story of temperatures rising runs out, then you go to different avenues. Sort of like Fender mentioned above - if the truth is that the ash borer and lack of allowing the mississippi river to flood has caused an increase in the price of ash, instead, a manufacturer makes a claim that they're switching use of wood for eco reasons and that the water level is rising in the swamps due to climate change (without mentioning that they're physically sinking instead).

We do appear to have caused the warming on earth, and we'll cause it to reverse when it's significant enough to do that.

You keep saying that, D_W, but the theory is, as I understand it, that the situation is more akin to thermal runaway in semiconductors, or a nuclear reactor getting out of control. There is a point of no return, and according to some scientists, we have either already passed that point, or will do do by next Wednesday. I'm not a climate scientist, but I do understand how it would not be as simple as turning the faucet off, milliseconds before the tub overflows, and frankly, I'm surprised that you don't seem to.
It's one thing to deny climate change ( and I don't think you fall into that camp), it's another thing to deny that it's anthropogenic (I'm not sure where you stand on that, but I think you accept that it's at least partially man-made), but it's entirely another thing to believe that we can wait until the last minute to take evasive action. Do you get forest fires in your neck of the woods? Easy to stamp out that small flame from a cigarette butt, let it go for a day or two, and it's a bit more difficult.