Scotland Heading For Independence

[BuyingBear]

well, what do you guys suggest should be done? or do you think it's best to just turn a blind eye and let this problem get out of control?

What do you suggest we should do, go back to living in caves? Drive what little remaining industry abroad through regulation so we can transfer the emissions off the books? We can certainly do a lot more than simply beating ourselves up, this country is irrelevant, even Kyoto itself is irrelevant if the proliferation of new power stations in emerging countries instantly offset any gains. Maybe we should persuade the BRIC countries to go nuclear, would that do? Maybe install useless solar panels on the roof, build white-elephant 'renewable' projects that cannot even yield their embodied energy, drive the economy into a ditch?

Environmentalism has a basic problem that it cannot address internally, population growth and the industrialisation of large emerging countries like India and China will have a far greater impact than Western Europe or the US combined, some are honest in their intentions but it still amounts to a neo-eugenist movement. Local Friends of the Earth groups also call for "population ceilings" for towns in the UK; "population growth: 70K adults max", I presume the 70,001 newborn shall be left outside the city gates? They don't seem too welcoming of foreigners either, for a reformed group of Marxists they don't sound like very nice people, they seem intent on diminishing peoples standard of living for dubious ideological grounds (i.e. hatred of the capitalist system), this is what your ideology amounts to on the ground, when it is actually put into practice. Nice.

Edited September 12, 2006 by BuyingBear

[Caledonian-Emigre]

What do you suggest we should do, go back to living in caves? Drive what little remaining industry abroad through regulation so we can transfer the emissions off the books? We can certainly do a lot more than simply beating ourselves up, this country is irrelevant, even Kyoto itself is irrelevant if the proliferation of new power stations in emerging countries instantly offset any gains. Maybe we should persuade the BRIC countries to go nuclear, would that do? Maybe install useless solar panels on the roof, build white-elephant 'renewable' projects that cannot even yield their embodied energy, drive the economy into a ditch?

Environmentalism has a basic problem that it cannot address internally, population growth and the industrialisation of large emerging countries like India and China will have a far greater impact than Western Europe or the US combined, some are honest in their intentions but it still amounts to a neo-eugenist movement. Local Friends of the Earth groups also call for "population ceilings" for towns in the UK; "population growth: 70K adults max", I presume the 70,001 newborn shall be left outside the city gates? They don't seem too welcoming of foreigners either, for a reformed group of Marxists they don't sound like very nice people, they seem intent on diminishing peoples standard of living for dubious ideological grounds (i.e. hatred of the capitalist system), this is what your ideology amounts to on the ground, when it is actually put into practice. Nice.

How high above sea level do you actually live?

Have you got children and do you care about their future?

[Gone baby gone]

I blame Mel Gibson for this whole mess

[Caledonian-Emigre]

I blame Mel Gibson for this whole mess

Property wasn´t a very sensible investment in those days - you stood an above-average chance of having your house pillaged or burnt down in one military campaign or another.

A bit like buying in present day Grimbsy ...

[Mr C]

they seem intent on diminishing peoples standard of living for dubious ideological grounds (i.e. hatred of the capitalist system), this is what your ideology amounts to on the ground, when it is actually put into practice. Nice.

I dont think our standard of living needs to suffer much at all. The first idea is to look at altering our ways of living to be more energy efficient, such as homes being insulated to a high standard, also a better public transport system thats actually usable/enjoyable/cheap for commuting workers to reduce the number of cars on the roads, maybe even some sort of fuel tax relief for people who commute using car pools. I think these kind of changes would actually increase our standard of living and people would save more in the long term. And lets face it, a few windturbines here and there where practical is only going to help, these will become more cost effective when the price of oil goes up.

I do think that ultimately we cant stop this disaster from happening, unless we can set an example to the rest of the world and by some miracle people take it seriously, places like India and China will be affected by droughts etc probably more so than us, so I think it must be in their interest. If we dont take steps then others wont, so I think it can only be a good thing to set an example or two. Industry is a big problem though, unless there can be some sort of world wide agreement on standards of efficiency.

The world economy has been strong this past decade thus increasing Co2 levels, but I have a feeling that a global recession or depression might slow it down enough to buy more time. Who knows.

[BuyingBear]

How high above sea level do you actually live?

Have you got children and do you care about their future?

I'm 100m above sea level.

I care deeply about the future and countering war, famile, disease and pestilence, that's why I am so dismissive of bearded weirdos peddling apocalyptic visions to naive fools and wasting resources that could be much better spent.

[BuyingBear]

I dont think our standard of living needs to suffer much at all. The first idea is to look at altering our ways of living to be more energy efficient, such as homes being insulated to a high standard, also a better public transport system thats actually usable/enjoyable/cheap for commuting workers to reduce the number of cars on the roads

Don't worry about my standard of living, you're stuck in a very first world bubble if you keep battering on about me or road transport, the UK is responsible for 2% of global CO2 output, transport makes up 25% of that and emissions from passenger cars is half of that again. If you stalled the entire UK car fleet global emissions would reduce by a mere 0.25%, which is equivalent to a handful of coal fired power stations in China, the sort of new output that comes online each and every week, in fact the emissions from power generation in India and China far exceed UK emissions and will eventually eclipse that of Europe.

Basically, there are 2.5 billion people out there on the verge of making a significant leap in their standard of living, forget about the UK with its 60 million souls, we're insignifcant, what is your answer to the above challenge? Would you rather the simple natives go back to living in mud huts? The misanthropic mindset of environmental movement has a very dim outlook for these people, care for the environment doesn't seem very humanitarian when you drill down into these issues, environmentalism relies on a fundamental mistrust of humans and countering their ambitions at every stage, there is also a severe mistrust of technology.

Maybe China should build more dams instead of burning coal? Three Gorges didn't go down well in your camp so it seems sitting in unlit mud-huts is the only answer for these people.

[SarahBell]

How high above sea level do you actually live?

Have you got children and do you care about their future?

Oldham is the highest town in the UK isn't it?

[conifer]

As us English get lazier and lazier and more and more apathetic, the Scots are increasingly running the UK! So why would they want independence?

[rogerthelodger]

As us English get lazier and lazier and more and more apathetic, the Scots are increasingly running the UK! So why would they want independence?

and 2 of the biggest banks are Scottish.......

[svag]

I know I asked something similar earlier in the thread but the population of Scotland is likely to fall in the next 30 years so how will this affect house prices in the long term considering the amount of building work going on at the moment?

"the population of Scotland is projected to rise, peaking at just over 5.1 million in 2019 and then slowly declining, falling below 5 million in 2036 and reaching 4.86 million by 2044"

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/press/news2...proj-press.html