However on climate action front

[Suff]

The UK has seen it's first coal free power generation day since the Industrial revolution began.

It is a step in a direction we need to go but won't be viable until we take much larger and more expensive steps to change the balance of the grid.

[Workingman]

Hmmm,

Chatham House reported, last year I think, that biomass was a bit of a red-herring. Burning a pelletised 50 year old tree takes seconds and does not take into account the energy used in making the pellets and transporting it, and others, across the Atlantic. Growing new replacements one-for-one is not, therefore, carbon neutral nor immediate. It is hard to argue with the logic.

For me, and it is only a personal view, we need more nuclear built on home soil, and we needed to start some years back. We simply cannot rely on what we now have once the coal fired plants close in 2025. I am also sceptical that there will be sufficient advances in carbon neutralish renewables in that short time.

As we have often said before, there are many other types of renewable energy to be harnessed, but unfortunately our politicians have put the solar and wind eggs in one basket so that there is no room for anything else - in their thinking.

Friday was good but still a bit of a publicity stunt in some ways.

[AliasAggers]

My personal view is that the problem is unlikely to be solved unless and until we take some steps to
reduce the amount of energy we now use in this modern society. Aliens viewing our planet during
the rosh hour would probably compare life here to a disturbed ants nest. We need to slow down
somewhat, me thinks.

[Suff]

Aggers, to do that you would need to look at the whole energy picture including fuel for cars and gas for CH. Moving those to Electric and then using smart technology to reduce the electrical power draw would be a good move. However our grid, at around 30% of the entire UK energy use, can't cope as it is. If we were to try and move Transport and homes to it, we'd need to at least triple the grid even with electrical efficiencies.

We do need to look at our energy footprint, but we need to look at all of it and that includes cement and plasterboard which are huge polluters. Ditto new Aluminium production which is incredible in energy use to make but quite reasonable to recycle and can be recycled 100% every time.

[Workingman]

It is not just climate change and the carbon footprint that needs addressing, the issues have moved on to other things - other forms of pollution and other forms of environmental damage. They are all coming together.

We need to stop digging up everything that we can. We need to stop chopping down everything that we can. We need to stop drilling and killing and mining and slaughtering.

And, yes, we do need to get recycling, and recycling a lot more. By that I do not mean the fortnightly pick up of a wheelie bin - I mean proper recycling. I predict that in the not too distant future we will be recycling on an industrial scale - scavenging if you will. We will be dismantling things piece, by piece to recover every reusable part. We will, out of necessity, limit the production of new raw materials, and in some cases we will have no choice because we will have run out of all but the most inaccessible of reserves.

Yes, we need to sort out the atmosphere, but we should not take our eye off the other things.

[Workingman]

It is not just climate change and the carbon footprint that needs addressing, the issues have moved on to other things - other forms of pollution and other forms of environmental damage. They are all coming together.

We need to stop digging up everything that we can. We need to stop chopping down everything that we can. We need to stop drilling and killing and mining and slaughtering.

And, yes, we do need to get recycling, and recycling a lot more. By that I do not mean the fortnightly pick up of a wheelie bin - I mean proper recycling. I predict that in the not too distant future we will be recycling on an industrial scale - scavenging if you will. We will be dismantling things piece, by piece to recover every reusable part. We will, out of necessity, limit the production of new raw materials, and in some cases we will have no choice because we will have run out of all but the most inaccessible of reserves.

Yes, we need to sort out the atmosphere, but we should not take our eye off the other things.

[Suff]

Recycling has to be a balance really. If we kill off 7bn people and only leave 2bn on the planet, then pollution which could be recycled is going to be much lower on the list..

CO2 pollution is the issue of our generation but we still don't seem to realise it. The US military have been up front about this in their threat assessment for a decade now. The greatest threat from CO2 pollution is war which spreads. Through desertification, food scarcity and pricing, water scarcity and large scale population moves which, eventually, force action.

We can worry more about recycling when we have CO2 under control because recycling will then be CO2 neutral. Greenpeace never get it when I say that recycling will give us the cleanest planet 2bn people have ever lived on... I'm not talking about the past but the future, they just don't get it...

[AliasAggers]

We need to stop digging up everything that we can.
We need to stop chopping down everything that we can.
We need to stop drilling and killing and mining and slaughtering.

I think that one of the problems facing the world is the ever-increasing level of global population.
Unless birth rate is controlled there will soon be far too many people for this planet to support.
What then? WW3 ?

[Suff]

I think WW3 is inevitable as technology reaches the areas which were never touched by WW2. Nuclear is just a word to them and also these areas which tend to be quite slow in development already see millions killed in sectarian wars. They have no real idea of what global thermonuclear war means nor the expectation that it might happen. So they just keep on with their wars and killing which spreads larger and larger every year.

These are also the countries most impacted by CO2 driven climate change. Both through their uncontrolled populations and also their weak technological infrastructure for power and water.

I hope I don't live to see it. I fear I will.