大象传媒

So, in order to address a man-made computer model forecast that says in 100 years time the world might be slightly warmer politicians and vested interest groups make it more profitable for farmers to knock down rain forest to grow bio-fuels (which aren't necessarily as carbon efficient as we were first led to believe - just like wind farms which aren't as productive as first claimed) instead of the food the world needs now.

You couldn't make it up!!

John - I don't accept your premise.
James Lovelock is clearly not in favour of doing anything to reduce the amount of rainforest, and he is certainly not a fan of biofuels.

Biofuels are being mooted because many don't believe Lovelock's predictions, and just how serious an issue this is, and so think we can get away with the tinkering around the edges with things like biofuels.

The reality is that we are going down the biofuels route precisely because people haven't yet realised that the car is no longer sustainable as a mode of transport, and are willing to do anything to hang on it, even if the long term consequences are close to disastrous.

"The government has committed" us all to using biofuels.

No it has not. The EU has committed us all to using biofuels.

Once again, the 大象传媒 is obscuring the determining role of the anti-democratic and unaccountable institution that is the EU, which is now responsible for the bulk of legislation that affects our daily lives.
May I look forward to a broadcast correction?

The whole biofuels issue is pure insanity.

Anyone with a half decent mind can see that its a bad idea to cut down ancient forest to grow fuels which will spit out more carbon in the process than using the already limited oil stocks.

The way forward is to not think about oil substitutes, but oil replacements.

I recall reading that over 75% of teh active solar cells are used in Germany, because the government there gave industry heavy subsidy. Now there are people able to sell energy back to their national grid.

Its systems like these, which we need to be promoting, real future technologies, after all, burning things is so last century.

The 大象传媒 are as much to blame if not moreso than most of the media with their totally biased and one sided argument in relation to the plastic bag issue. The 大象传媒 have heavily promoted cotton, paper and hessian bags over many, many months and dismissed the unintended consequences that they were told would come about. More fuel usage, higher prices paid by the poorest for food, excavation of land to grow crops for alternative bags instead of growing food. Now the 大象传媒 are trying to wriggle out of their corner by blaming the government for dismissing scientic evidence. The 大象传媒 have been cuddling up to the plastic bag free campaigners to such an extent it should redress the balance now and tell the viewers the facts instead of fiction.

Global Warming is a problem of the future but people are starving now. Bio fuel just moves the problem but not solves it. We need to subsidise the price of rice and cereals for poor countries and also subsidise the growth of these crops to encourage farmers to grow more. Forget bio fuels until we have the capacity.
The most valuable thing we can do is to use the very large tax revenues from fuel to pay countries that still have forests to keep them so they are too valuable to chop and burn down as is happening on a huge scale.

It isn't biofuels per se, it is the IPCC agenda, in partnership with others, that has corrupted the public's understanding of human impact on world climates.

You've even got another Nobel Peace Prize Winner writing to Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, telling him to put the its house in order: either publish coherent rigorous analysis as to how CO2/GHGs are driving temperatures that they are supposed to be or desist from talking up their contribution and renounce previous hype/policy.

Remember global mean temperatures have not been rising for a number of years: renowned climatologists are making it utterly clear that global warming has not been occurring for at least 4 years; some put it at nearer 10: and you can't put that all down to the current La Nina, as has been has been tried by some at the Hadley Centre recently.

Yet scientifically illiterate numpties in the 大象传媒 upper echelons insist (to the self-acknowledged bewilderment of one Jeremy Paxman) on being constrained by a Royal Society headlock, key individuals from which have been part of the same milieu as the IPCC from the start; as indeed have personnel from the Met Office/Hadley Centre.

We desperately need media that, like the 大象传媒 Trust argued in its Wagon Wheel Report of last year, reflect the perspectives on climate change in the round, not just pseudo-consensus viewpoints, with a vacuum left from where any dissent is crying out to be heard.

Why not start by investigating the pool of talent that actually makes up the IPCC scientific Lead Authors, particularly of the WG1 Summary for Policymakers? And also the procedures used to determine their appointments: to ensure the breadth of expertise.

If the 大象传媒 could only drop its reverence for a narrow sliver of scientific opinion and instead look at what vested interests drive whose agendas - on the AGW alarmist/believer side of the fence as well as elsewhere - it might have a hope of living up to the Bronowskian rigour that once would have counted:

"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power."

"Dissent is the native activity of the scientist..."

The whole basis of this debate manages to distract us, the members of the species, from the true nature of the problem; it is not the planet that is unsustainable, but our production methods and our current organisational structures. We are all more than aware of the system that brings us our daily cup of tea or pumps electricity into our homes is the same system that brings us pollution, poverty and world wars.

Therefore, it is the system that imposes this perceived limit and not the planet itself. The planet does not have a limit, in essence, to how many people it can sustain, if there is joined up thinking; high rise food production buildings, maximisation of solar and other 鈥榞reen鈥� energy supplies, organise for humans and not for profit, irrigate the whole of Africa, create fields of plenty where there are dust bowls, desalinate the oceans, control the water flow. We do know about pipes, pumps and filters after all.

So the question is not one of an unsustainable planet, but an unsustainable system, and one that, by the looks of things just now, has seen its hay day long gone. There is another way folks, and we do not have to wait to be 鈥渄irected鈥� from above. Waken up, join, and work towards our common human goals, that is the only way to guarantee your survival and hence the survival of this species.

You鈥檙e not alone, there are 6,000,000,000 of us, at least that have a vested interest in all of us deciding on a better way:)

Peace

My brother-in-law was known in Bolton in the 1990s as the chip fat man; making bio diesel (duty paid) for his small fleet of vans that he used for his industrial window cleaning business.
I once asked him could the world convert to bio fuel? he said "no way"..apparently, he did the maths; not enough landmass on the planet to produce the required fuel that could match petroleum usage. He now says the best option for the planet is water powered engines, even though he is not fully convinced that global warming is all man made.

The ill fitting white suited reporter.

The Tim whewell report from the Congo was fascinating. The Chinese need for natural resources due to its phenomenal growth is inevitable and the African continent has an abundence of minerals. Business is business and since the "govt" of Congo ain't got plans of their own to build roads or railways just yet, they've let the Chinese build it for them in exchange for an X amount of minerals." thirty two hospitals and two universities" them Chinese are not daft are they..I enjoyed Tims quick adding up skills and his point was made; the Chinese are going to make a healthy profit (well actually a fortune) and whats wrong with that, only a fool provides a service or product at a loss and they would never come up with a ball-park-amount using slap-dash figures without using expected costings factored in. If you ever need an accountant...Tims yer man. Seriously though, a very good report.

Michael Crick mentioned something that reminded the rest of us that Nulabour are a bit light on heavy weights. Who could replace Gordon Brown? My suggestion may have ethical implications but hear me out..if it could be possible to fuse the brain of Frank Field on to the false charm of Tony Blair... they could be on to a winner... ooh!! if that were possible.

Mondays Newsnight was solid.

Of course using waste cooking oil is fine for biodiesel but don't forget it requires 20% methanol for it's production. Where does the methanol come from... Well you've guessed it.. from fossil fuels.
The main problem as I see it is that the 大象传媒 won't mention the POPULATION word.
The headlines last night proclaimed China as the world's worst polluter but remember it is the only country in the world that has attempted to limit it's population. Think of the pollution if it had not been reasonably successful!
We could let the population of the UK fall to (say) 40M if we cut immigration and kept to a reproduction rate of 1.8 children per couple. At this level we could grow our own food and fuel and not have to keep building new towns on (probably) flat agricultural land. In fact people would not need to buy a house in their lifetime.. just improve that of your parents/relatives that they would inherit. Transport, water and energy problems solved.

Business may have to learn to cope with flat graphs instead of boom/bust... but it's going to have to do this in the end... we can't grow forever!

The alternative is well show in the film"Solylent Green" just have a look.