Carbon Footprint...do you care?

I've just started practicing the 100 mile diet, and it got me thinking about the carbon footprint I'm leaving while travelling around the world.

Not even a hundred years ago, people were very limited in world travel. Now it seems everyone can just hop a plane and go. There is a really cool website that shows all the planes in the air at one time around the world. You can barely see the planet under all the flight paths!

What do you think about this....and how do you plan to lessen your carbon footprint on the planet? Or do you?

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Frankly - I don't believe everything they are putting out about this carbon footprint garbage. Did you know that cow farts are a bigger factor in carbon out put than all the cars put together? They are trying to tax the ranchers here based upon this now.

Think about it. What do you exhale? Carbon. Global warming is a hoax and bad science. We just had one of the coldest winters in a long time. On average our temperatures are cooling, not getting warmer at this point. In the 1970's the same people who are were yelling global warming were yelling global cooling. Now they are changing the terminology to 'climate change' because it is getting cooler again. Climates always change.

Look at the forests of Lebon that the Bible talks about, with Cedars the size of what is now consider huge. What caused that climate change? There were no jets or cars. And what exactly caused the first ice age if there were no humans there?

This is nothing more than an attempt to control and tax us. They are looking to tax people on what they do and to curb what they do through bad science. It is all politics. Reply to this

There is a difference between doing what is right - because it is good for the environment and being lied to about the global warming. Our company has always been as responsible as possible. We have recycling programs were people can send in broken vacuumcups and get replacements that we have refurbished or even a new one. Old metal is recycled and a good number of us use both sides of our paper before it goes for recycling. We have had a hard time finding places to take the used rubber. But this is not done because what some scientist tells us, it has always been done because it was the right thing to do. Problem is, when the lies are exposed, how much of the hard work done to get us to recycle will be rebounded because they hate the lies? I am not against doing things to make the planet better. I am against the ideology that we are great enough to actually have an affect on our climate. There's no proof in that area, only speculation that is being presented as facts. Reply to this

And are we being lied to by the authorities? It seems like people way to easily write off all information available if it conveniences them to do so.

But, maybe we are just victims of media overload, and that makes it difficult to pick out what is valid information and what is hyped up rubbish, designed to create hysteria in an attempt to sell newspapers and increase viewings, and people dont want to be sucked into that so dismiss everything they read and see. Reply to this

They are talking about us getting snow in August here. If you look my granddaughter is in a winter coat when we were in Yellowstone in July. We had one of the coldest winters on record last year. In the 1970's the same people who are now yelling global warming were yelling global cooling. The man who taught Al Gore about global warming died trying to undo what he had taught, because he found it was wrong. It is pretty egotistical to think we as humans can affect the weather. Reply to this

I don't recall his name off the top of my head. I will have to look for it. Reply to this

I think, while we may not have caused the ice ages etc maybe we do have some influence on the weather. And even if we dont, it is still no reason to be irresponsible about environmental polution and waste. Reply to this

What exactly are you saying Dympna? Should we ignore environmental issues, to avoid being egotisical? I dont think so. I dont think we should talk ourselves out of taking steps to preserve the environment. Reply to this

I think I need to take issue with the deliberate ignorance on global warming, and its denial.
It it just too convenient to dismiss it as "lies" so one can carry on as usual not have to face up our responsibility. We can be irresponsible if we don't know about climate change can't we?

Then we lose some more time in being able to do something about it.

Besides, what is so great about relying on fossil fuels whose prices have been so volatile they have had a very significant effect on food prices as well as heating bills?

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In terms of cow farts, there is this issue of population growth and hence the huge expansion in cattle rearing, particularly with the global trend for increase cattle rearing for dairy and meat production. The problem is Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas - more potent than carbon dioxide. But that is exactly why it is not a good idea to trigger global warming, as there is vast quantities of methane trapped below the oceans and under the tundra.

Let's nail this - cars form a huge part of the problem, which is growing continually as people becoming increasingly dependent on them, (let alone issues of obesity and lack of exercise as people replace their legs for cars), so it is no use just comparing that to emissions from bovine rumps.

Wind power is part of the solution, and Denmark and Germany have made very successful use of it. Inaccessible location of wind turbines are not necessarily a problem if the economics are right - hence the development of offshore wind power off the British Isles.

Hydro power is good news, and increasingly micro hydro power will be the way to go for small communities. However in warm climates recent evidence has emerged of hydro power contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from bacterial activity in sediments, so it has to be in the right place.

And finally, a couple of years of rainy seasons should not be taken as climatically significant. Worlwide melting of glaciers and muti-decadal drought is. Discerning what is a natural variation from indicators of climate change is not easy, but increasing incidence of extreme weather events is something else though.
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> wind farms. Huge wind farms. This one goes on for miles and miles. The bearings in them go so fast they lack profitability.

Isn't that just a problem of poor workmanship? Taking from the specific (ie a problem in your area) from the general does not make it true for all wind farms.

Envionmental Wackos? I'd put global warming deniers firmly in the wacko camp, there with all the "rapture" lot. Certain environmentalists are concerned that if wind turbines are on a migration path for birds they could cause major problems – but so do domestic cats on the bird population too.

>>If the technology was to a point where they were logical - I would be behind them with bells on! It just isn't there yet.

In Denmark the technology is very logical, to the point that 20%!o(MISSING)f Danish power now comes from wind.

>The polar ice caps are coming back.
Where's that then? Jupiter? The Arctic ice cap is continuing to get thinner, glaciers worldwide are on the retreat.

>There has been growth in that area, they just are not putting it out to the general public.
Where? please name your sources for this. All ice caps are reducing in size except for East Antarctica.

>>I old enough to see where the climate changes in cycles. This is just a cycle. Prior to the past couple of years where it has been getting colder very quickly - in the past 100 years the increase in temperature was only .5 degrees on average. This has already been reversed by those two years.

A quote from those wackos at the UK Meteorological Office:-

"Despite this fall, a look at global average temperatures reveals a different picture. It shows large variability in our climate year-on-year – warmer some years, cooler in others - but what is very clear is an underlying rise over the longer term, almost certainly caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

"There are a number of natural factors contributing to this interannual variability, the single most important being the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

"The global climate is currently being influenced by the cold phase of this oscillation, known as La Niña. The current La Niña began to develop in early 2007, having a significant cooling effect on the global average temperature. Despite this, 2007 was one of the ten warmest years since global records began in 1850 with a temperature some 0.4 °C above average. Indeed, the years 2001-2007 recorded an average of 0.44 °C above the 1961-90 average, which is 0.21 °C warmer than corresponding values for the years 1991-2000".

>>The methane report concerning the out put of carbon comes from the UN report. They blame cows more than cows for the increase in carbon.

Cars I think you mean. Well, transport is a significant contributor - over 20%!o(MISSING)f emissions, and over 90%!o(MISSING)f that is from road transport.

And I am sure what happens there is nothing compared to what I saw happening at Yellowstone in July. The carbon out put of the geysers is more than just a few wisps. It was coming out strong enough to almost knock you over! This has been going on without man's help unchanged.

Yes, but 5 billion extra people on the planet, make a difference, particularly if they aspire to western lifestyles. If whole geological layer of fossil fuels are burned in 300 years, it will make a difference.

>>Fossil fuels are not volatile –

Well petroleum/gasoline and natural gas prices certainly have been.

>>actually there are some scientists who are now saying it may be a renewable resource.
That's new on me.

>>What makes the prices to bad are all of the bad regulations. (Note not all regulations are bad, but some are - like a $5,000 fine if you happen to drip any of the oil on the ground while pumping it out. It just came out of the ground and much of it is going to be sprayed on the top of roads, but if they spill so much as a cup of it they get fined $5,000 according to my friend who works in the industry.)

Well you would not it in your water supply would you?

>>Because of the costs of fines and unions who jack up the cost of labor due to separation of job duties, right now we have to have oil at $65 per barrel before they can make a profit getting it out of the ground.
Er… unions? So it was the unions' fault it went over $100 a barrel last year? And I seem to remember that the oil companies have been doing rather well of late? (Exxon earned $1,300 a second in 2007, according to CNN).

>>Many of those in the drilling industry are looking to go under right now.

Aye, but not Exxon then. Or BP. Or Shell.

>>It is also the restrictions on where they can drill. Have you ever seen a drill? They take up a very small spot of land. Land that can be reclaimed after wards very easily! So the ban on shale drilling and in the Rockies for years hurt us. Now they want to put that ban back in place. We have more oil in this country than they do in the middle east!

I think that explains why you want us to deny global warming then.


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