The sea is getting the short straw with climate change

[Neilwood]

The sea is full of 'tyre reefs' that were pushed as a good environmental idea relatively recently. If you have a look at one (Queenie reef/13 steps/7th layby in Loch Creran is a good example), you'll see that it has a lot less life than any of the seabed surrounding it. Did nobody do any checks?

Do research? How dare you?!

[Chrisch]

The sea is full of 'tyre reefs' that were pushed as a good environmental idea relatively recently. If you have a look at one (Queenie reef/13 steps/7th layby in Loch Creran is a good example), you'll see that it has a lot less life than any of the seabed surrounding it. Did nobody do any checks?

It was felt by the tyre industry that this was a good idea and therefore no need to see if it worked. It was a brilliant plan to sea dump unwanted tyres and lie that it would be good for the environment. The crackpot idea goes back to the 70s.

https://www.iflscience.com/the-time-...elp-fish-61575

Like any lie that makes a huge amount of money it is half way round the planet long before any negative views can be discussed or objections debated. But it is and always will be, a lie. As the years have passed by the political class have come to realise that a lie is all you need to gain power and then you can lie to abuse the power to make money for yourself, friends and family.

[jturner]

"We need to stop kidding ourselves about unlimited growth, and about what technological advances can do for us."

We've been on the verge of viable fusion power plants for electricity generation for as long as I've been alive. I was born and raised near JET (ah, the old days of European scientific cooperation...!) and it was a hot topic at school (no pun intended).

As Edward Abbey, the guy who is considered the father of the environmental activism movement, wrote in the 1960's in Desert Solitaire (one of my favourite books): "An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human."

It's taking us a hell of a long time to learn that lesson.

Far too long. It's transparently obvious to anyone who looks beyond the buzzwords that a system that relies on expansion to work (and the more the merrier) is always going to run into problems when you reach the capacity of a system to sustain it. However, the implications are not desirable to the wealthy and powerful, and so clever people spend more and more time trying to squeeze more growth out of the increasingly constricted whole, rather than working on ways to encourage cooperation whilst rewarding effort and innovation. The ideas and theory exist already (eg participatory economics) and could be implemented and refined or at least trialed, but they usually come with costs that are undesirable to those with more than the average (eg loss of the principle of the right of inheritance).

The sea is full of 'tyre reefs' that were pushed as a good environmental idea relatively recently. If you have a look at one (Queenie reef/13 steps/7th layby in Loch Creran is a good example), you'll see that it has a lot less life than any of the seabed surrounding it. Did nobody do any checks?

Superficially, it does seem like a good idea though (inert objects, cheaply and widely available, and with shapes suitable for making a pile with nooks and crannies for things to live on and in), so I have some sympathy. Stuff seems to grown on them happily enough when they're used as budget fenders and quayside protection, so perhaps it works like that underwater... you can understand why people acted without checking long-term but now with the benefit of hindsight, the reality is clear.

Thank goodness all these marvelous new technologies that we're promised will save us from climate change will also have the benefit of hindsight and not fail to work or make things worse...

[notdeadyet]

Far too long. It's transparently obvious to anyone who looks beyond the buzzwords that a system that relies on expansion to work (and the more the merrier) is always going to run into problems when you reach the capacity of a system to sustain it. However, the implications are not desirable to the wealthy and powerful, and so clever people spend more and more time trying to squeeze more growth out of the increasingly constricted whole, rather than working on ways to encourage cooperation whilst rewarding effort and innovation. The ideas and theory exist already (eg participatory economics) and could be implemented and refined or at least trialed, but they usually come with costs that are undesirable to those with more than the average (eg loss of the principle of the right of inheritance).

All civilisations collapse. In around 8000 years of organised culture, not one has survived. It's extreme arrogance to think ours will go on in the same direction and extreme foolishness to not expect it to collapse as well. No-one in history made civilisation work and having 8 billion humans vying for resources controlled by a handful of people is only going to end one way. Maybe the do nothing approach is the right one. The sooner civilisation collapses the better. It's inevitable anyway so might as well get it over with. As the old saying goes, if you are going to fail then fail quickly. The big problem is that this is the first time in human history that any culture has been powerful enough to irreversibly change the global environment when it ends. It's like knowing the guest you can't wait to leave is going to piss all over your carpet before he goes.

[Paul Evans]

We've been on the verge of viable fusion power plants for electricity generation for as long as I've been alive. I was born and raised near JET (ah, the old days of European scientific cooperation...!) and it was a hot topic at school (no pun intended).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...fusion-energy/

Indeed

Chris thinks there's a will to put this right and enough time, Mark thinks that technology will sort us out, both completely deluded. Were fooked!

[Chrisch]

All civilisations collapse. In around 8000 years of organised culture, not one has survived. It's extreme arrogance to think ours will go on in the same direction and extreme foolishness to not expect it to collapse as well. No-one in history made civilisation work and having 8 billion humans vying for resources controlled by a handful of people is only going to end one way. Maybe the do nothing approach is the right one. The sooner civilisation collapses the better. It's inevitable anyway so might as well get it over with. As the old saying goes, if you are going to fail then fail quickly. The big problem is that this is the first time in human history that any culture has been powerful enough to irreversibly change the global environment when it ends. It's like knowing the guest you can't wait to leave is going to piss all over your carpet before he goes.

I am half of a mind we are in the final stages of the current civilisation. The rise of fascism is the precursor of a new paradigm.

..

Chris thinks there's a will to put this right and enough time, ..

There is a will but it is outlawed, ER and the like have a deep and impassioned desire but the likes of the Tory party want to imprison them rather than listen.

There is time if we act now. There will always be time until it is too late. If we do not do enough, soon enough, but do a bit (which is the current situation) then we will save a bit. The billion dollar question is which bit will we save and are you part of it? (the answer to the latter is no BTW).

[Paul Evans]

Do research? How dare you?!

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/art...r-study-finds/

Petro and Plastics lie to you? never!!

[notdeadyet]

I am half of a mind we are in the final stages of the current civilisation. The rise of fascism is the precursor of a new paradigm.

I genuinely never thought we'd reach the stage where I agreed with the latter part but I now do.

There is a will but it is outlawed, ER and the like have a deep and impassioned desire but the likes of the Tory party want to imprison them rather than listen.

People seem to have lost the ability (if they ever had it) to ask why those in power make the choices they do. Political and financial decision makers do not act altruistically, they act entirely from selfishness. Banning protest is easy to sell on the micro level. It stops you, the hardworking, ordinary citizen, from being inconvenienced and that's what's important, right? But the macro view is something completely different and absolutely nothing to do with making my life better. Every narrative that is sold to the public, you need ask cui bono? because no matter what they tell you, it isn't you.

It really depresses me how unable people are to to think critically and ask themselves if what they are being told is really the most likely "truth" and what evidence there is to support it.

The billion dollar question is which bit will we save and are you part of it? (the answer to the latter is no BTW).

I agree and it shouldn't be us that are saved. We will spunk billions so that we can drive electric cars to air conditioned supermarkets so that we can buy strawberries from Zambia in December and pretend we are saving the world. Neither a pandemic nor raging inflation stopped consumption on a scale that made Caligula look like a miser. We will be inconvenienced at worst and we will act like we it's the end of the world. The people that really do need to be saved are brown and poor and not here and as long as they stay not here we'll be happy throwing a few coins in the charity box in Waitrose.

[Paul Evans]

Do research? How dare you?!

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...cs-study-finds

I'll recycle all that plastic for you, apart from the 13% we dump straights into our waste water as micro granules....
But we only tell the truth......

[Paul Evans]

The people that really do need to be saved are brown and poor and not here and as long as they stay not here we'll be happy throwing a few coins in the charity box in Waitrose.

Have Waitrose stopped selling plastic bags?

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...sk-from-floods