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Running out of resources on planet Earth?

42 replies

StrawberryDaiquiriPlease · 10/03/2013 14:56

Are we running out of resources on planet Earth?

What are we, as intelligent beings, doing to solve problems such as not having enough food and water and resources for everyone?

Are we, in the UK, forward thinking enough with our building of renewable energy sources and renewable housing?

I hope to be educated by more knowledgeable mumsnetters than myself.

Thanks

OP posts:
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StrawberryDaiquiriPlease · 10/03/2013 15:30

www.gizmag.com/four-crucial-resources-running-out/12630/ I thought this looked like an interesting article, which talks about our short term decision making and the problems that go with it, to get a discussion started.

OP posts:
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domesticgodless · 10/03/2013 15:36

er.... I think the answer to your questions is:
yes
nothing
no

It's a bloody sad situation but as one individual I don't have any viable answers. I think it will take a crisis or a whole set of them to change things and by then it might be too late.

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claig · 10/03/2013 18:35

Remember the words of that Thin Lizzy song - Don't Believe a word, cos words can tell lies ...

You've been spun for political purposes by elite think tanks and planners who have a plan for you and your standard of living. It looks like the author of the article, Loz, has fallen for the trap.


www.pop.org/content/myth-of-world-food-shortages-1539

www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/29/the-myth-of-peak-oil/

resource depletion myth

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claig · 10/03/2013 19:02

We had record rainfall last year with the wettest year for about 100 years. Today there is flooding in certain areas of the country and more snow. There is no drought here as teh global warmers sometimes cry. Lots of the water is wasted through leaking pipes.

They will increase and increase water charges and energy charges while crying shortage, but there is no shortage of water. With investment they can store and allocate and transport water. But abundance of water will lower the price and charges to the customer.

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claig · 10/03/2013 19:10

As actor Ray Winstone said the other day, they are shutting hospitals and fire stations saying there is no money while they spent billions on the Olympics. They are imposing austerity here while spending billions on foreign aid abroad, and even some Tory MPs are starting to ask why.

80 years ago the fog in London was so thick due to poor air quality that people couldn't see inches ahead of them. Thoise days are gone. Don't believe their tales of doom and gloom and depletion as they increase charges and costs and cut wages and benefits. As Thin Lizzy sang long ago - don't believe a word.

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claig · 10/03/2013 19:45

Don't read articles by a well-meaning but duped Loz in that magazine, read instead Christopher Booker in the Daily Telegraph.

Of course, the spinners, the think tanks, the elites and their puppets will deride him, but one day he will be hailed as a hero when their house of cards comes crumbling down and the public is told the truth.


This is from today's Sunday Telegraph online

' One reason why it is so vital for us to understand this, of course, has been all those devastating political responses to this fear, which promise to change our way of life out of recognition.'

'Yet it was on that modest rise in the 1980s and 1990s that the whole of the greatest and most expensive scare in history was launched on its way, with all the terrifying political and economic consequences we see around us today.'

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/9919121/Look-at-the-graph-to-see-the-evidence-of-global-warming.html

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claig · 10/03/2013 19:46

'which promise to change our way of life out of recognition'

That is the aim of the scare stories that the planners propagate.

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claig · 10/03/2013 20:07

They talk of 'tipping points' and 'saving the planet', they say they want to end the 'burden on the biosphere', the spinners spend days and days thinking up big words to stoke up fear. Cataclysmic, catastrophic, depletion - there is no end to their alarmist threats of danger to the biosphere.

They erect windmills on unspoilt greenbelt land and then charge the public to subsidise these ivory towers as they charge at them, screaming "save the biosphere", like Don Quixote of yesteryear, But the public, long in tooth and aware of the truth, is like Roadrunner to their Don Quixote, always a step ahead of Wile E. Coyote.

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flatpackhamster · 11/03/2013 07:58

Which resources are we supposed to be running out of? The only one I can think of is helium. All the others are accessible but at higher cost.

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SilentSplendidSun · 11/03/2013 08:08

I have faith in the human race. Resource depletion is not a bad thing. I am sure we will find other ways or other resources to meet our needs. As long as its not exploitative, I am all for finding or making new resources. Solar energy, case in point.

And there was another article in the Guardian a few Sundays ago, on how a farmer in India, increased his rice yields dramatically, using just traditional methods of farming. Its not all doom and gloom.

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claig · 11/03/2013 08:09

Forgive me, am I right in thinking that there is more than enough helium generated by one single Guardian editorial to keep the lights and fires burning throughout the land for a whole year?

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LadyIsabellaWrotham · 11/03/2013 08:13

Helium? Non-flammable inert gas best known for its properties at extremely low temperatures?

I think you've just summarised your understanding of the scientific issues rather neatly there claig.

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MoreBeta · 11/03/2013 08:27

We are NOT running out of resources!

I am sat here practically chewing my hand of with rage this morning at the insanity of what the UK is about to do with regard to nuclear power.

The UK is about to commit itself to a 35 year long term contract to buy electricty at a guaranteed price from a new fleet of nuclear power stations built by EDF (Electricite de France) but get this!

We are about to guarantee them a price of likely to be £96 - 97 per megawatt hour.

The current 1 Year Forward price to buy electric on the wholesale market in the UK is £60/MWh.

So we the residential customer will be paying at least 50% more for electric just to meet our stupid climate change targets. Believe me, industry/commercial users will refuse to pay it and will get special deals and we the residential customer will pay for the whole lot. The green lobby are ruining this country and the Coalition Govt have just signed up to a deal which will make us all a lot worse off.

Natural gas is ubiquitous on the planet. Constantly being renewed by rotting vegetation, we could even produce it from digestion of sewage. We have fantastic combined cylce gas turbine technology to generate electric cleanly from natural gas which is almost 60% thermal efficient and proven technology that has no danger of accidents like nuclear. Natural gas is incredibly cheap and yet we go and agree to build stupidly expensive nuclear power stations (and wind turbines).

Utter, utter madness.

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claig · 11/03/2013 08:44

'The green lobby are ruining this country'

But who are the green lobby in reality? It's not those loveable well-meaning hand-wringing Guardianistas in woolly jumpers and sandals with their placards on the 'biosphere' and 'saving the planet'. They are only the dupes and puppets used to try to convince the public. The real green lobby is the men in suits who pull the strings and keep the show on the road.

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claig · 11/03/2013 08:52

Who sets the climate legislation and targets? Who runs the target culture? It is the EU in their suits, not the eager, youthful, naive climate campaigners with their badges and banners displayed on the public's TV screens.

Who benefits from the target culture? Is it the public or the men in suits?

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claig · 11/03/2013 08:59

To whom is taxpayer money paid to subsidise windmills on rich landowners' land? Is it the public with their badges, banners and slogans and their ever increasing fuel and water bills, or is it the landed aristocracy and rich elite?

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MoreBeta · 11/03/2013 09:17

The odd thing about all this climate change nonsense is that the Guardianista always dribble on about 'Fuel Poverty' but seem to forget that not being able to afford to heat your home has quite a lot to do with the cost of the fuel including electric.

Pushing up the cost of it by 50% to subsidise windmills and nuclear and then bleating about how people can't aford to heat their homes and demanding even more benefits so people can aford to pay their fuel bill is just the sort of circular logic of insanity that the political left are famous for.

However as Claig rightly points out, the irony is that there are plenty of 'men in suits' on the right who are sat there rubbing their hands with glee at the huge slosh of guaranteed public money this climate change agenda brings with it.

Corporations love socialism - it means less competition and guaranteed profits negotiated directly with stupid politicians who havent got a clue and love spending other people's money. Big corporations thrive under socialism and small ones and private individuals are locked out of the market place.

This system is called 'Corporatism' and is pretty close to 'Communism' and a long way fron Capitalism. Ordinary people dont do well under either Corparatism or Communism where a powerful elite of business and political interests (often the same people) get svery rich indeed.

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MoreBeta · 11/03/2013 09:30

..... and another thing.

If you want to know why French and UK troops are fighting a low level war in Mali at the moment you might want to look at this web page about a uranium mine called Imouraren owned by Areva which is a French company that mines the uranium used in French nuclear power stations.

Yes that mine is sitting on top of one of the largest uranium deposits in the world and it is in Niger which is next door to MALI.

Maybe its just a coincidence.

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domesticgodless · 11/03/2013 18:37

MoreBeta, your penultimate post made me splutter my coffee. i don't know if you're actually trying to take off a ranting Telegraph reader choking in reactionary rage, but you certainly do a good campy job of it.

Corporations so clearly love socialism and communism, that's why they overwhelmingly back and sponsor socialist parties. Oh, wait....

Out of interest what do you make of the whacking great state handout to failed banks and also the likes of A4E, which have a marvellous record of total failure in creating work placements? Is that OK, because the government is at least handing out money to other hearty, sensible Telegraph readers like yourself?

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MoreBeta · 11/03/2013 18:42

I hate the state handout to banks. It is one of the worst pieces of corporatism I can think of and we will be paying for it for years while bankers take massive bonuses. I am not a banker, I work for myself.

Corporatism has got worse and worse in the last 20 years and far too many politicians and civil servants slip into nice high paying jobs in big business straight after leaving office - often closely related to their job while in public office.

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mrscog · 11/03/2013 18:50

Mn seems to be full of people who wash bedding and towels weekly or after every use. It always strikes me as a huge waste of resources and very entltled compared to the majority of world citizens. I wash my towels when they will no longer dry on the radiator - about once a month per towel.

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flatpackhamster · 11/03/2013 20:19

domesticgodless

MoreBeta, your penultimate post made me splutter my coffee. i don't know if you're actually trying to take off a ranting Telegraph reader choking in reactionary rage, but you certainly do a good campy job of it.

Corporations so clearly love socialism and communism, that's why they overwhelmingly back and sponsor socialist parties. Oh, wait....

Out of interest what do you make of the whacking great state handout to failed banks and also the likes of A4E, which have a marvellous record of total failure in creating work placements? Is that OK, because the government is at least handing out money to other hearty, sensible Telegraph readers like yourself?

MoreBeta can answer for herself, of course, but I think you'll find that most right-thinking people object to state handouts for any company.

I think MoreBeta uses too much hyperbole but the essential point is valid. The EU is a case in point - a government, or group of governments, or the EU commission design a policy and then roll it out to the corporates for comment. The policy that is agreed is essentially a tie-up between the interests of the political class, and the interests of big business. The losers are the Poor Bloody Infantry, the taxpayers who suffer iniquitous legislation which makes big business rich at the expense of small business and ordinary workers redundant.

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SierraTango · 12/03/2013 22:17

I wish I knew more about our policies when it comes to renewable sources of energy. What are we as a country doing to harness different sources of energy? I?ve seen windmills going up and seen solar panels here or there, but nothing on a widespread scale that could replace our current primary fuel sources. Surely, as an island our main source of power should be tidal energy? How do we find out more about these issues? How do we get involved to bring about change?

Recycling is something else I feel really strongly about but which also concerns me. I have actually seen people throwing plastic bags and all kinds of things in the bin, which could be reused (if not recycled). I also don?t think that what can be recycled is always clear enough, as I have seen people trying to recycle stuff that I am pretty sure is non-recyclable. And you hear worrying (myths?) that recycling doesn?t get recycled and gets dumped in landfill that make me really worried (I heard that it is not economically viable to sort through recycling to sort out what can and cannot be recycled so it gets chucked :/)?.really hope that one is not true :S

Whilst I am pretty good at recycling I don?t think I really buy any recycled products. Maybe that should be my one small achievable goal that I set for myself?? I imagine that if nobody buys anything that is recycled then recycling will never really be economically viable. Yes? I also try and do my washing at 30 degrees and do other little things like that etc. etc., to help the bigger picture. But I feel like I/ we could do more!

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SierraTango · 12/03/2013 22:20

So, much like StrawberryDaiquiriPlease, I also hope to be educated by more knowledgeable mumsnetters than myself.

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flatpackhamster · 14/03/2013 11:56

SierraTango

I wish I knew more about our policies when it comes to renewable sources of energy. What are we as a country doing to harness different sources of energy? I?ve seen windmills going up and seen solar panels here or there, but nothing on a widespread scale that could replace our current primary fuel sources. Surely, as an island our main source of power should be tidal energy?

An awful lot of questions, and as a non-expert I'll try to give you a bit of an idea about the issues here.

When you're considering how much power the UK needs, you need to consider a few things. The first is that our requirements change depending upon the time of day, the day of the week, the weather, and so on. This is called the base load.

The second thing you need to consider is that transporting electricity is expensive and wasteful. The longer those electricity lines are from the place where the power is generated, the more electricity you lose.

The third thing to consider is that when you want electricity, you want it immediately, not in 2 hours' time. This means that a power solution needs to be scalable. That means that it should be easy to increase the amount of power from that solution. Nuclear is a good example of this - it costs as much to run a nuclear power station at 100% of its capacity as it does at 1%.

So the best power solutions are ones that can give us that base load, that scalability and that short transport distance for the power. The worst ones are ones that don't give us any of them. Most renewables fall in to this category.

Take wind as an example. Wind power is only available at certain times. If the wind is blowing too hard, or not at all, there's no power. You can't turn the wind up when you want more power. And because wind farms have to be in exposed places, that means that you have to have huge long cables to deliver the power.

Because wind is on and off, we either have to find a way to store the power when it is generated in huge battery arrays, or we have to use the electricity when it's available. The first is not cost effective and is far more environmentally damaging than a coal-fired power station, the second is what the eco-mentalists are trying to force us to do, and it's madness.

Realistically, we need a base load that is reliable. If we don't have one, the economy grinds to a halt. Renewables can't power the country, because they can't guarantee that base load.


How do we find out more about these issues? How do we get involved to bring about change?

What sort of change do you want to bring? There are already a number of projects that are bringing change, but not perhaps in the way you would hope.

The EU has written various laws to subsidise some forms of electricity generation and not others. These are bundled under its Renewables Directive. What these laws do is give taxpayers' money to wind, solar, biomass, and the like, and put a 'carbon tax' on coal, oil and gas.

One of the consequences of this is that fuel prices have doubled, pushing hundreds of thousands in to fuel poverty. The reason you're spending more on heating your house and cooking your food than ever is this directive. It takes taxpayers' money and subsidises inefficient power generation, and then you pay more for your electricity on top of that.

The solution in the short term is gas, some coal and plenty of conventional nuclear power. In the long term, the solutions should include thorium fission and fusion. China already has an operational thorium reactor. Thorium nuclear is far superior because, unlike uranium, there's no waste.

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