COP26 - Good Cop or Cop out?
We already have the tools to fix the problem...
The bottom line is that unless China actively takes measures to reduce emissions now then the COP26 is just going to be a talking shop and we might as well not bother.
Are we facing an artificially created 'Climate Crisis'? Can we fix it? Yes we can...
The solution is that humans abandon their individualistic, nationalistic policies and start to work together as a collective species, putting aside religious beliefs and politics and strive for a common good. That's the theory. It could be achievable if the will was there.
But, here's what needs fixing...
Weather has been able to be manipulated for decades by humans which is a fact. 'Cloud seeding' to create rain in Deserts is nothing new.
Satellites can be used to start fires at ground level by use of lasers, as has happened in California - where fire investigations show houses burned but not the forest around in many cases. Satellites can possibly manipulate the weather too from above.
HAARP Weather control, in use for decades can also influence weather, so can keeping weather patterns localised and ramped up, to create localised hot, cold or wet conditions, thus 'creating' a climate problem. As in Greece recently.
The 'climate change solutions' on offer being promoted in the media to fix that but, someone is making a profit from that or have you not worked that out? Is it a simple case of 'create a problem, show you have a solution and divert attention from what is really going on behind the scenes'?
When the wind turbines don't work and its too dark or cloudy of Solar, Diesel generation is used to supply power as an adjunct to Nuclear. Did you know that?
The gulf stream affects weather - the holes in the earth plates allow heat from the earth's core to escape and heat the ocean able, causing bands of warmer water, this makes the weather change and move as the plates of the Earth close over and new places emerge allowing the warmth to escape. This is natural climate change.
The Earth is subject to the Sun. In AD0001, the Romans were able to grow grapes in Britain, it was warmer then than now and didn't have the fossil fuel burning we do with a 60+ million population. In the 1500's Grapes could be grown at Hampton Court Palace. It was again, warmer than now. The ice caps are artificial, as the fossil data will show you when the ground is uncovered.
Boris Johnson, the great history buff allegedly likened climate change to the fall of the Roman Empire. The empire fell through internecine warfare and a collapse in society not because of a few degrees of warming. Quite the opposite, when the cold came to Britain, the Romans left.
Clean and free energy has been available to humans since 1954
Yes we have had access to this since 1954 ask Dr Stephen Greer. We are kept into being an oil based commercial economy and to give away 'free' energy means you can't tax it or make money selling it.
But we would all benefit from this clean, free energy which exists and is being suppressed for the above reasons. Greed.
COVID19 and travel - the Zoom phenomenon
Covid19 has been a welcome game changer in some ways, we can now work from home in some cases blowing that myth out of the water that this was not possible (prior to Covid 19), which saves us travel costs, travel emissions, not having to associate with people we would rather not and being work better and more productively. We don't waste time travelling either. Or pollute.
So why not conduct COP26 by Zoom?
A big question and I am not really buying 'the need for face to face contact' argument, surely one to one appointments can be sought delegate to delegate by Zoom?
Or is that too simple? Lead by example, not dictate and do the opposite.
EV's - Battery Electric vehicles - are they a big swindle?
You might feel 'pious in your Prius' as you drive, but the real costs of Green motoring are literally costing the Earth's finite resources.
A Battery powered vehicle costs half as much again as a petrol or diesel vehicle to buy. With the right spares backup, the liquid fuelled vehicle could last 40 years. The battery one 7 years, before its battery needs replacing and the car is likely scrap as the battery cannot be replaced in the car without pulling the structure apart. So, you balance the damage done by making 6 battery cars to equal the life of 1 fuelled car. Do the math. 'Green' doesn't add up here.
But, the charging of the electric cars is the next issue, besides the lack of points that are available or work, is the cost of charging. Some tariffs can cost you the same to charge your battery giving you 200 miles of range if you are lucky, as a tank of petrol or diesel taking you 400 miles.
The real cost of charging, once there is a sizeable volume of electric road vehicles will hit hard because there is nothing stopping the battery chargers being changed to charge your wallet more to charge your battery. You will not be in control of the charging prices for what electricity you receive. Vehicle excise duty lost to your 'Green' car will be recouped by road pricing and through the charger. You will likely not have any option than to pay up or peter out.
China now holds control over much of the manufacturing and mineral resources concerned with motor vehicle battery production. What is to stop them raising the price a they see fit to whatever level they choose once the fossil fuelled cars are not on sale? Bet they didn't think that one through.
We could switch to synthetic petrol and diesel fuels which ARE carbon neutral. The folly of going down the battery vehicle route will soon become apparent. It grabs headlines and in time hit you in your wallet like an electric version of Dick Turpin. Highway Robbery for the 22nd century.
We can make synthetic fuels from Algae, we cannot make new Cobalt, Lithium or other rare earth metals and elements used in electric car batteries. If we can't recycle these car batteries we will have created yet another fiasco like the Fridge Henge. Why cannot people see through these simple things?
Liquid fuelled motor vehicles using petrol or diesel are the cleanest they have ever been and will get cleaner almost producing no emissions. This is the future. Battery may work in cities, it is not the answer for our needs.
The UK issue of emissions
The UK produces less than 1% of global emissions, China 25%. The place to reduce emissions is obvious. Recently a coal mine project in Britain was halted, it was to produce Coke for Steel making - British steel used by Volkswagen for instance, due to its quality, is well regarded. The mine isn't going ahead I believe, thanks to 'Green' pressure here.
So that means the jobs and the production will go to China which opens 1 coal fired power station a week and uses Coal in their Steel production. An industry which overproduces and 'dumps' cheap steel on the market.
Our British furnace might have been partly powered by renewables or nuclear which would be less damaging to heat up. Go figure. The UK Coal use would be minimal compared to China.
The UK has reduced CO2 output by over 40% it is now time others did the same before the UK is forced down by using hobbling measures whilst other major nations pollute and do little or nothing. The UK is just looking stupid by trying to set some mythical example it has no real hope of achieving because of costs for one reason.
Burning Wet wood is banned on domestic Wood burning stoves. Yet, a power station can burn wood chips which are wet and this is 'Green' despite as a result producing enormous amounts of CO2 - likely more than efficiently burnt coal would produce.
Plus these wood chips are from American forests being felled to feed this situation. Add in the shipping from the USA and the Green dividend looks questionable. Who thought this was a great idea? Dunces cap awaits... You could not make this up.
British manufacturing
Covid has ramped up transport costs especially from China and this means that Britain is now viable in some situations as a manufacturing base again. But we are hobbling ourselves by introducing stringent carbon neutral and net Zero carbon policies foisted on us by eco zealots whilst China still creates large global emissions unchecked.
Promises from China of mending their ways need to be put in place now not some arbitrary future date.
We cannot have 'real carbon neutrality' - we all breathe out CO2 for a start. Go figure.
We live in a commercial world, we consume, we have done since the time of the Atlanteans.
At the time of the Dinosaurs the climate was far warmer than today so that the large dinosaurs could exist and the proportion of CO2 the atmosphere contained was far greater than today - the fossil record of plants shows that too.
In year zero a millennium ago Grapes were grown in Britain as they were in the 1500's - if it was that warm then, it was warmer than the '1.5 degrees catastrophe' that people say will cause problems. Its called science. The sun dictates how warm this planet is.
Heathrow airport expansion
Do we need this? Of the Heathrow airport expansion - 'Good for business' Mrs May said - but not good for the environment. Covid has knocked a lot of air travel on the head. Most of it was a luxury and not necessary. Our environment has benefitted from less air travel. We can keep that dividend.
E10 Ethanol Petrol - Dump this 'not Green' fuel for Synthetic fuels - these are not the future.
A big con - E10 Petrol is not green at all.
E10 is less volatile than the old unleaded petrol meaning you need to use more fuel to gain the same performance how can this be 'Green'? The Ethanol in E10 combines with water to damage fuel system parts in some engines. It is worse performing for your engine than E5 by a long while. we proved that in an old car from 1930.
The Ethanol in the E5 and E10 is derived from Sugar Beet cultivation, which makes its own CO2 problems and denying sugar and food growing land to local populations, potentially creating local food poverty problems too.
Factor in clearing CO2 absorbing trees for growing this Beet and it just looks like more lunacy on a plate. It will be like Palm Oil all over again, clearing fertile ground, often forested areas to make a product that is not needed.
Creating a big carbon footprint of making the Ethanol and delivering it too is lunacy.
Untreated (with enhancing additives) E10 fuel older than 30 days will need to be disposed of as its usable volatility diminishes, so do councils have the facilities at their waste management plants to collect and store this hazardous fuel in great quantities? Treated with additives, E10 fuel can last 3 years plus and remain usable.
Millions of litres of untreated fuel as a consequence, are likely to be ending up being wasted each year from surplus unused fuel purchased for use in garden machinery alone. A percentage of all the Fuel having to be delivered to petrol stations may have to as a consequence, be 'dumped'. This is hardly green. This is stupidity on a grand scale.
Wild Boar introduced illegally as 're-wilding' measures in the 1980s create the same amount of CO2 that 1 million cars do, as their foraging releases CO2 stored in the earth.
Rather than the 350,000 cars worth of emissions reduction the RAC claims E10 fuel introduction will make (a figure which I am personally not buying), why not get rid of the Wild Boars, a much bigger problem? Do the math, 350,000 against 1,000,000. And the E10 fuel that will need disposal.
We are no longer in the EU, let us dump E10 and go back to E5 a better fuel that causes less problems and is more Green and more efficient. A compromise but worth it. On this note, petrol and diesel engines burn more cleanly than ever. They can only improve but not by E10 and Adblue which drastically reduces Diesel vehicle economy.
China and production
China has become the big manufacturing base of the world, it has become a commercial consumer society itself and raised the standard of living of their citizens in recent decades.
But it also makes a lot of crap we consume and don't need to consume, because our markets create artificial demand for this stuff as part of our 'consumer society'.
We can do without the single use plastic stuff produced for 'Secret Santa' and 'Halloween' events, which are just commercial opportunities. This is the stuff that gets sent to landfill sometimes unused. Why the hell are we doing this?
Developing countries
Countries that are not currently at 'western' levels of development - should these be encouraged not to develop and given aid not to advance? Can the world's resources cater for their new needs and materials demands if they advance? Do they need to develop?
Since 1970 our world population has almost doubled. That's part of the problem.
As a planet run along commercial lines, unless we find ways of doing that in a better way, we will not make any progress towards the ideals that this sort of conference aims to employ.
We will also run out of resources. Like the elements needed for batteries, whilst Algae we can use to make synthetic fuels is infinite. Go figure.