Thread: Climate

I try to be "aware" of how much and where I spend the Earth's resources that come my way, whilst still living a first world lifestyle - in NZ we are truly blessed.

I've made some modest changes to the way I think and live out of respect for the future of our grandkids, and encourage and assist others to do the same - for example if you're traveling somewhere to a shoot maybe, share the travel!

Those who evangelize these sorts of arguments (on both sides of the equation) get no respect from me.

Im the kind of person that likes to keep things simple. The simple problem is humans just cant help themselves and have to have a fuk with everything. So with this supposed warming the earths surface is basically a giant heat sink from the sun no amount of tax or govt policy is going to change that as much as the population thinks it will. If we think back there was still a lot of poloution as industry relied on burning coal etc. Without sounding like a tree hugger and getting back to this gaint heat sink nature had it all figured out on how to regulate it very simply....trees they shade the surface of the heat sink as well as insulate it. And then the know all fukwit human comes along has a fuk with it and upsets the balance of it all. Then we try and come up with a scientific explanation for this basic simple cause, and now we have all been convinced that if we hand over money to someone else they are going to fix it for us....

Here's a practical way to make an actual difference to the ridiculous waste that happens in this age: find local farmers and buy direct from them. Quit buying things that have been freighted 1000s of kms. Like bananas for example. Stock your pantry with things that dont have plastic wrappers and 2+ year best before dates.
If you look hard and are creative this doesn't have to be expensive. Boutique farmers markets products are usually too expensive I've found, so that might not be the best option. It doesn't have any downsides really, except you have to think a bit further ahead. Actually that's not a bad thing.
I know some people on here have been super extreme and even grow their own veges in the garden. It's a sad thing that this type of person is the exception, not the norm. If a family has a supplier of meat, milk, and their own vege garden, there's not much else you really need.

Originally Posted by Brad S

Here's a practical way to make an actual difference to the ridiculous waste that happens in this age: find local farmers and buy direct from them. Quit buying things that have been freighted 1000s of kms. Like bananas for example. Stock your pantry with things that dont have plastic wrappers and 2+ year best before dates.
If you look hard and are creative this doesn't have to be expensive. Boutique farmers markets products are usually too expensive I've found, so that might not be the best option. It doesn't have any downsides really, except you have to think a bit further ahead. Actually that's not a bad thing.
I know some people on here have been super extreme and even grow their own veges in the garden. It's a sad thing that this type of person is the exception, not the norm. If a family has a supplier of meat, milk, and their own vege garden, there's not much else you really need.

Tell my wife that. I’m sick of trying to grow a garden in the open, built a raised garden 4m x 1.2m, time for a green house over it. Verges are so cheap, right when I have a shitload

Some interesting reading on this thread , things feel like they are changing at the moment globally for extreme weather for sure but most of us won’t be here in 50 yrs to see if it continues on the same trajectory .

E Vehicles are a joke and the elephant in the room is where is all the power coming from to feed these things , in NZ we barely make enough power to warm out homes and water supply in the winter . The so called media will not confront that issue .

Overpopulation of the planet , there is just too many dam people ….open the borders we need more people /workers then we need more houses …. growth growth growth boils down to greed and money , by big business and government .

The reason there is no cure for Cancer is there is no money in a cure .

Also 3rd world countries now want to live a better life like the rest of the world , they can see what that looks like with smart phones and social media , take central Africa as an example there is no money in Lions and Elephant but there is in crops and farm animals .

These so called experts that come up with numbers and solutions , who actually checks their data , in 20 yrs they just go oh we got that wrong and move on , no accountability .

Originally Posted by Lucky

Some interesting reading on this thread , things feel like they are changing at the moment globally for extreme weather for sure but most of us won’t be here in 50 yrs to see if it continues on the same trajectory .

E Vehicles are a joke and the elephant in the room is where is all the power coming from to feed these things , in NZ we barely make enough power to warm out homes and water supply in the winter . The so called media will not confront that issue .

Overpopulation of the planet , there is just too many dam people ….open the borders we need more people /workers then we need more houses …. growth growth growth boils down to greed and money , by big business and government .

The reason there is no cure for Cancer is there is no money in a cure .

Also 3rd world countries now want to live a better life like the rest of the world , they can see what that looks like with smart phones and social media , take central Africa as an example there is no money in Lions and Elephant but there is in crops and farm animals .

These so called experts that come up with numbers and solutions , who actually checks their data , in 20 yrs they just go oh we got that wrong and move on , no accountability .

Only thing I'd disagree with there is we've got enough people, just not enough workers.

Originally Posted by Lucky

Some interesting reading on this thread , things feel like they are changing at the moment globally for extreme weather for sure but most of us won’t be here in 50 yrs to see if it continues on the same trajectory .

E Vehicles are a joke and the elephant in the room is where is all the power coming from to feed these things , in NZ we barely make enough power to warm out homes and water supply in the winter . The so called media will not confront that issue .

Overpopulation of the planet , there is just too many dam people ….open the borders we need more people /workers then we need more houses …. growth growth growth boils down to greed and money , by big business and government .

The reason there is no cure for Cancer is there is no money in a cure .

Also 3rd world countries now want to live a better life like the rest of the world , they can see what that looks like with smart phones and social media , take central Africa as an example there is no money in Lions and Elephant but there is in crops and farm animals .

These so called experts that come up with numbers and solutions , who actually checks their data , in 20 yrs they just go oh we got that wrong and move on , no accountability .

The problem is, when I was younger, I only new about problems in Masterton and when extraordinary, New Zealand. Didn’t hear much about the rest of the world. Now if more than two people are shot in the USA, their bodies arnt cold before I know and also the calibre used. That’s what’s changed

Originally Posted by Lucky

Some interesting reading on this thread , things feel like they are changing at the moment globally for extreme weather for sure but most of us won’t be here in 50 yrs to see if it continues on the same trajectory .

E Vehicles are a joke and the elephant in the room is where is all the power coming from to feed these things , in NZ we barely make enough power to warm out homes and water supply in the winter . The so called media will not confront that issue .

Overpopulation of the planet , there is just too many dam people ….open the borders we need more people /workers then we need more houses …. growth growth growth boils down to greed and money , by big business and government .

The reason there is no cure for Cancer is there is no money in a cure .

Also 3rd world countries now want to live a better life like the rest of the world , they can see what that looks like with smart phones and social media , take central Africa as an example there is no money in Lions and Elephant but there is in crops and farm animals .

These so called experts that come up with numbers and solutions , who actually checks their data , in 20 yrs they just go oh we got that wrong and move on , no accountability .

Agree with most of wtt he at you say - especially the ‘too many people on the planet’ thing, that is the crux of most of the other problems.

Most people that preach the climate change fear porn haven't sorted their own lives out. They still eat McDonald's, drink soft drink, wear their fancy new in-fashion designer clothes (holey jeans), use the smelly bus or their electric car, and go on overseas vacations.
Be quite good if these people did some naval gazing instead of protesting and forcing their theories on other ordinary productive people.

Originally Posted by Maca49

The problem is, when I was younger, I only new about problems in Masterton and when extraordinary, New Zealand. Didn’t hear much about the rest of the world. Now if more than two people are shot in the USA, their bodies arnt cold before I know and also the calibre used. That’s what’s changed

And they have stood trial on a forum

BATTERIES !!!
What is a battery?' I think Tesla said it best when they called it an Energy Storage System. That's important.

They do not make electricity - they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.

Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?"

Einstein's formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.

There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.

Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium. The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.

All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old, ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery's metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.

In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones properly.

But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive embedded costs."

Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it, embedded costs and operating costs. I will explain embedded costs using a can of baked beans as my subject.

In this scenario, baked beans are on sale, so you jump in your car and head for the grocery store. Sure enough, there they are on the shelf for $1.75 a can. As you head to the checkout, you begin to think about the embedded costs in the can of beans.

The first cost is the diesel fuel the farmer used to plow the field, till the ground, harvest the beans, and transport them to the food processor. Not only is his diesel fuel an embedded cost, so are the costs to build the tractors, combines, and trucks. In addition, the farmer might use a nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas.

Next is the energy costs of cooking the beans, heating the building, transporting the workers, and paying for the vast amounts of electricity used to run the plant. The steel can holding the beans is also an embedded cost. Making the steel can requires mining taconite, shipping it by boat, extracting the iron, placing it in a coal-fired blast furnace, and adding carbon. Then it's back on another truck to take the beans to the grocery store. Finally, add in the cost of the gasoline for your car.

A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.

It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just - one - battery."

Sixty-eight percent of the world's cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?"

I'd like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being 'green,' but it is not! This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.

The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.

Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades. Sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.

There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become apparent. "Going Green" may sound like the Utopian ideal and are easily espoused, catchy buzz words, but when you look at the hidden and embedded costs realistically with an open mind, you can see that Going Green is more destructive to the Earth's environment than meets the eye, for sure.

If this had been titled … "The Embedded Costs of Going Green," would you have read it?

Greetings All,
Thanks for all your posts of all types. My intent with this thread was to encourage people to think about climate change an what it may mean for us. To finish I gathered some data for Hawkes bay where I live. Currently we have significant coastal erosion in the area north of Cape Kidnappers. Land and houses have been lost. This area was not lifted in the 1931 quake. General sea level rise in NZ is estimated at 210mm since 1900. Sea level in NZ has risen between 100 and 120 metres since the middle of the last glacial period. The East Coast of NZ is sinking. The sea rise data shows a combination of land sinking and sea level rise to raise apparent sea level by an additional 620mm by 2,100.
NIWA gave two scenarios for temperature rise for Hawkes Bay. The first was based on reaching zero carbon (my interpretation of a rather long description) which showed an increase of 0.8 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. For the do nothing option the increase would be 1 degree Celsius by 2050 and 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. These figures are averages for the ranges given in the NIWA data. The last 3 degree figure is a bit of a shock. Current world average temp sits at 17.2 degrees Celsius. 20 degrees Celsius is mentioned in some data as the boundary of an ice age, where we are now, and a warm period where all ice melts and sea level is a great deal higher than it is now, enough to inundate much of the land we currently live on. It would take a long time to happen but once started little can be done to stop it.
To those of you that have bothered to read tis post thankyou. Most, if not all of us will not see 2100 and many will not make 2050 either but our descendants will.
Regards Grandpamac

When we talk about preserving the climate for our future generations I look around me and cant help but think will they even notice? They seem too occupied with being fixed to a screen soaking up all the garbage social media feeds them..

Originally Posted by blip

When we talk about preserving the climate for our future generations I look around me and cant help but think will they even notice? They seem too occupied with being fixed to a screen soaking up all the garbage social media feeds them..

Unfortunately it also applies to many in the current generation as reading a few of the posts in this thread will show.
GPM.