You may think I have gone mental within the space of a day, but I watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' for the first time at it really hit home.If your a sceptic, I would just say watch the film and be ready to change your mind.

Anyway onto this offsetting thing, I had heard about it before but never thought I needed to do anything...after all I don't drive currently (learning) and I live with my parents. But then I thought about how much time I waste on my computer and how much electricity it uses. So I checked our electricity bills and took a percentage of that and donated it to www.co2balance.com I don't have much money, but I plan to have donated £75 for this month by next week (paypal needs to clear it, £35 already donated)

The idea is basically that I am going to make monthly donations to the site to make my PC carbon neutral. Offsetting is not a solution however, its just something small you can do to help the enviroment until the governments start to enforce green legislation.

The reason I put this in here is that I saw the thread on how many laps and miles people have driven in LFS, and its a lot. It might not be for everyone but if you do want to do something, however small, to help the enviroment then I would suggest this. Perhaps for the younger people here who can't make any big changes and just want to make a contribution.

Oh and my stock cup team is now carbon neutral and I will use any leagues I enter to promote these sites.

www.co2balance.com
www.climatecrisis.net

You didn't happen to catch the excellent Channel 4 documentary last night ("The Great Global Warming Swindle") then?

One of the major points explored in the documentary was taken from "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore mentions the complications linking global CO2 and global temperature and that they are obviously inextricably linked. However, what he doesn't say is that it's an increase in global temperature (driven primarily by the sun) that causes an increase in global CO2, not the other way around. I urge anyone (no matter what side of the fence you're on) to see this documentary if you can.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

...just something small you can do to help the enviroment until the governments start to enforce green legislation.

Might take a while so my bet is on extinction happening first.

Bigger worry (to me): We (Earth) runs out of oil in 30 years...


http://www.topgear.com/content ... 2006/04/stories/03/1.html

Just one man's take on it. But its a pretty common time (30 years) of oil. Not fun to think about. Just my personal opinion, but once you take away all the oil, the earth Has to become more green. My only true prayers are that civilization, as we know it, can survive the upcoming transition off of oil.

Our biggest impact to global warming is not the amount of green house gasses we put in to the atmosphear but our practice of destroying vegitation and posining our lands, rivers and oceans.

The eruption of Krakatoa (sic) introduced more green house gasses in to the atmosphear in that once single event then all of humanity has since the start of the industrial revolution. It true that any we add is extra on top of the existing levels, but the tempture of this planet has been far warmer and far cooler in the past.

The biggest issue right not is not what we are adding to the envirenment is what we are taking away and as someone else said what the sun is doing. The sun has historicly followed a heating and cooling cycle that spans I think 14 years. The last heating cycle did not stop. The sun is putting out more solar radiation each year. Combine that with humanities constant destruction of vegitation on this planet through land development, de-forestation, and strip mining and now the planet is becoming drier and warmer.

The result is increases temps accross the board and more sevear weather patterns across the globe. So yes the planet is heating up, no we are not soly responcible for it and no there is little we can do to alter the pattern. About the best thing you can do is plant a tree. When the city too down the tree in front of my house the average temps in my home increased 10F-20F the following year. No joke. Vegitation traps cool moisture near the surface, stops eroasion, and buffers against winds. Removing it is a major factor many people have no yet looked at as a source for Global Warming.

I actually saw the documentary before watching An Inconvenient Truth, I studied History a lot at school and college...they always teach you to argue for both sides, compare the facts and then write a conclusion. After watching both, I have to say that An Inconvenient Truth produced more scientific facts in a space of 10 minutes that that whole show did.

You have to ask yourself if its just a coincidence that the rise in temperatures and co2 directly coincide with population growth and technological advancement. Also why the temperature rise is so much larger than has been previously seen.

EDIT: Gimpster I couldn't agree more on the vegitation and destructions of the earths natural resources, hopefully projects like the ones I am donating to will go some way to help by planting new forests.

BTW I don't want a big debate on the matter, if your on the fence then fair enough because I was too yesterday. Its just an idea for those who want to do something but don't know what they can do.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Bigger worry (to me): We (Earth) runs out of oil in 30 years...


http://www.topgear.com/content ... 2006/04/stories/03/1.html

Just one man's take on it. But its a pretty common time (30 years) of oil. Not fun to think about. Just my personal opinion, but once you take away all the oil, the earth Has to become more green. My only true prayers are that civilization, as we know it, can survive the upcoming transition off of oil.

Oil is an inefficient form of hydrocarbon. We can grow corn and soybeans and produce as much E86 or Bio-Disel as we need. We can extract H and O2 form water with electricity collected from the sun and wind. And we can generate as much electricity as we need from the sun, oceans, rivers, geo-thermal or nuclear fision as the planet will ever need. Oil is not needed.

Moved to off topic.

Quote from Gimpster :

Oil is not needed.

Common misconception. You're correct oil is not needed for locomotion, but mineral oil is the most effective lubricant discovered, something which isn't easily replicated in man made lubricants - which are still largely oil derivatives. I'm more concerned about this tbh. Less lube means more parts will need to be replaced. Bumclouds.

Lets not forget that fresh water is actually pretty scarce as well.

Quicksilver,

Donating money to a foundation like that is not the most efficient means of helping to offset you "Carbon" costs. Any orginization will have overhead and some of the funds have to go to pay opperation costs and even more then has to go to offset their "Carbon" costs and in the end only a fraction of your donation accualy does any real good.

Why not instead take that money and do something worth while with it your self. Build a garden, plant trees, clean up an abandioned lot and turn it in to a green space with your neiborhood. Why let someone else be responcible to offsetting your personal "Carbon" costs.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Bigger worry (to me): We (Earth) runs out of oil in 30 years...

Don't these "OMG we're running out of oil in X years" warnings get updated with a new random number every few years or so? I really wouldn't trust these predictions - not that I'm saying we're NOT running out of oil, just the numbers seem pretty inconsistent.

@Topic: I don't know what to believe about the CO2 "problem". Of course, pumping the air full of it is not good, but I have my serious doubts that the global warming (that definitely exists) is purely, or even partly, caused by us. The earth goes through ice ages and warm phases all the time, so while something is changing, it doesn't mean we can actually do anything about it. Or that it is necessarily a bad thing at all. I think it's mostly mankind being afraid of change in general, which is why any uncontrollable change is made up as being apocalyptic all the time. Things change, life adapts. It's been like that for millions of years. Life will survive it this time, too.

Now, I'm deeply believing in science, but never forget that "knowledge" can change very quickly. There's a reason they call everything a theory, you know. But it's still better to investigate things and draw your (maybe wrong) conclusions from that, rather than making up bullshit reasons. But that's a different story for a different thread.

For the simple reason that I can't, I get just over £100 carers allowance. I don't work because I have to stay at home at look after my sick mother, which basically leaves me very little time to do anything else.

I know its not an ideal situation, we already have quite a big garden, even a tree! So the best I can do is recycle, make sure I don't waste anything, keep our gardens up to scratch and donate some money.


EDIT: Andriod thats why I have sat on the fence for so long, nobody has shown me anything that has convinced me one way or the other. What Al Gore does so well in the film is take his years of research (he has been tackling the problem since the 70s) and knowledge acquired through his various scientific contacts and make it into a slideshow thats easy for anyone to understand. Thats why I question half baked programs commisioned by Channel 4 to boost their ratings after allowing racism to be shown as entertainment previously, I don't trust the media.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Common misconception. You're correct oil is not needed for locomotion, but mineral oil is the most effective lubricant discovered, something which isn't easily replicated in man made lubricants - which are still largely oil derivatives. I'm more concerned about this tbh. Less lube means more parts will need to be replaced. Bumclouds.

Lets not forget that fresh water is actually pretty scarce as well.

Well if we stop burning oil then we will have more for lubricants. There are also things like zero friction bearings where there is not contact and therefore no wear, which do not need lubication. Fresh water is easy to come by, the ocean is full of it, the polar caps are full of it the earth is full of it but most of it needs to be treated in some way before we can use it. Even urine is paletable with filtering. You think they stock large supplies of water on the space station and shuttle? They recycle what little thsy have and yes they includes urine.

Don't forget you can also extract water from rocks, even moon rocks. (look it up I don't have enough space to explain it all here)

Like it said in An Inconvenient Truth, we have the technology and infastructure to do something now, they could fix this problem in 10 years if they really wanted to.

Thing is: Can you prove to me that "Global Warming" is actually an effect caused by civilization and not just the end of the last ice age? With the short timespan in which we documented weather?

I feel carbon offsetting isn't great it's just paying money to make yourself feel good surely it's better to fly a bit less, turn the lights off and ditch the Range Rover?

I'm not sure whether global warming is real, but I do feel that are current way of living is unsustainable and using greenwashing to justify wastage should be banned.

Another scientific op is that the earth is overdue for the next ice-age. You don't see too many people complaining about that...

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

What Al Gore does so well in the film is ...

... not tell you how much he spends heating his 11,000 square foot mansion, or how much fuel he's burnt up flying accross the Atlantic in his personal jet.

Want to decrease carbon emissions? Seriously? Get Osama Bin Laden to destroy some more aeroplanes; if people were too scared to fly, it would cut human's CO2 creation by a big chunk. Want to save natural resources? Have all car factories destroyed and force everyone to re-use old cars instead of just throwing them away (compared to a car, a PC is environmentally insignificant). Hybrid cars are twice as evil, not only do they use a bunch of resources and energy to make, they're too complex to be serviceable, require regular battery changes and have a limited lifespan.

Warming trend leads to cooling trend, ergo Global Warming leads to Ice Age. We know the change can happen fast, mumified Mamoth's still standing with food in their mouth is a testoment to how fast things can change. The Dark ages were a mini Ice Age, and we know so little about how the earths climate changes that trying to predict what and when change will happen is not likely to end in a correct assumption.

There are lots of pointers that the earth is changing. Weather patterns have become stronger, storms are getting worse every year, the oceans have warmed to a point they they are now blue and not green with planckton like they once were and in recient years there has been a masive coral die off. Earth quakes are on the rise, another potentialy earth intersecting asteroid has been discovered and the "End of Days" is approaching.

Do what ever you feel is right for you and enjoy your time here for no-one knows when your time will be up.

Oh and the single largest source of polution on the panet is COWS, be we are the one breading and increasing their numbers far beyond what they would be if they wer not a food source for us. Either way I like steak and hamburger.

Quote from Gimpster :

storms are getting worse every year.

Simply not true.

There was nothing last year that compared to Katrina the year prior.

Weather hasn't been recorded for long enough to tell about patterns ...

There's an Australian company I know about called Greenfleet, which will offset your car's yearly CO2 emissions by planting indigenous forests via a subscription scheme (roughly 17 trees per car per year). Whether or not this kind of thing is having a real positive impact on climate change, there are many other immediate environmental benefits like strengthening of local wildlife communities, reducing pollution and enhancing biodiversity, tackling salination of over-used agricultural lands, improving rivers, etc. They've planted millions of trees already (thanks to local scouts groups mostly ) Just one organisation doing some good stuff.

Quote :

You may think I have gone mental within the space of a day, but I watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' for the first time at it really hit home.If your a sceptic, I would just say watch the film and be ready to change your mind.

I watched it. I wasn't convinced.

That graph at the start showing the CO2/temp correlation? He showed the CO2 rise at the end but didn't show a temp to match it.

Also, that graph was on a large scale and the later ones were on a smaller scale, so the spikes seen at the end of the later small-scale graphs probably work out to just another minor peak/cycle in the big-scale scheme of things.

I was a lot more convinced by the C4 film "The great global warming swindle" that addressed issues logically in a way that confirmed my own feelings, most save-the-earth rantings about co2 and global warming have only limited understanding of geological timescales. Yet only 60 years ago the co2 levels in the atmosphere were far higher than now, during this period there was a steady gentle drop int he earths average temperature, which went on for 4 decades.
What we are now seeing is a small pimple on the overall trends which is entirely negligible in the big scheme of things. Go offset your carbon and take abike to work while the US, India and China belch incredible amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere largely unchecked. If that helps you go to bed with a clear conscience at night then fine.
The whole Global warming scam is big business and run by political activists and not logical scientists.