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davieG

Technology, Science and the Environment.

By davieG, in General Chat

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Toddybad

Toddybad

Posted
Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

To be filed under 'we can't actually see it, so it's not there':

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/05/you-can-see-her-struggling-the-family-thinking-of-moving-countries-to-avoid-the-uks-filthy-air

Our government has lost 3 EU court cases over this (that's what the EU does for you), with plans that are woeful and tens of thousands dying. How negligent do they have to be for it to become criminal negligence? 

Edited by Toddybad
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Bellend Sebastian

Bellend Sebastian

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Toddybad said:

Our government has lost 3 EU court cases over this (that's what the EU does for you), with plans that are woeful and tens of thousands dying. How negligent do they have to be for it to become criminal negligence? 

The slump in the demand for diesel vehicles suggests there is at least some awareness of this issue on the part of the public, but you'd think people would be more bothered by this than they are.

 

Poor air quality is shortening the lives of thousands of people, and literally making your children stupid. Public response: meh

 

Razor company makes advert implying men can do bad things. Public response: this will not stand

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yorkie1999

yorkie1999

Posted
Posted

technology is getting out of hand. let me explain.

We're sitting in the living room chatting. I'm planning on putting new stairs in the house and i'm talking about what i want to do. My wife is looking at facebook on her phone, next thing, up pops an ad showing a  set of stairs on facebook....Topic of conversation turns to toy story 4, daughters on facebook, 30 seconds later up pops toy story on her phone. Then shes on about going las vagas with her boyfriend, next thing, flights to las vagas pops up.....WTF is going on.

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yorkie1999

yorkie1999

Posted
Posted
On 06/02/2019 at 09:34, Bellend Sebastian said:

The slump in the demand for diesel vehicles suggests there is at least some awareness of this issue on the part of the public, but you'd think people would be more bothered by this than they are.

 

Poor air quality is shortening the lives of thousands of people, and literally making your children stupid. Public response: meh

 

Razor company makes advert implying men can do bad things. Public response: this will not stand

The slump in diesel vehicles is to do with people worried about the government slapping massive taxes on them, not people being worried about health issues. If health issues were the concern, no-one would ever jump on a train again because they do about 1km per 10 litres of fuel. 

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Nalis

Nalis

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 05/02/2019 at 11:18, Bellend Sebastian said:

To be filed under 'we can't actually see it, so it's not there':

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/05/you-can-see-her-struggling-the-family-thinking-of-moving-countries-to-avoid-the-uks-filthy-air

I'm asthmatic and I genuinely notice my breathing getting better when go outside M25 and but getting worse I return to greater London. I'm not even exaggerating or kidding.

Edited by Nalis
Badly constructed sentence, albeit the edit isnt much better
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Countryfox

Countryfox

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

In some ways I'm jealous of the insects

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

 

Just enjoy it Seb ...  instead of going to bed tonight put the light on and run round and round it all night ...   then come over to mine tomorrow and I’ll stamp on you ...   :thumbup:

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Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

keeping it on the first page:

 

Just plant more trees: 

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-many-trees-we-need-to-grow-to-cancel-out-co2-emissions

 

Teenage Cannabis, Adult depression:

https://www.sciencealert.com/teen-cannabis-has-been-linked-to-adult-depression-in-a-new-meta-analysis

 

Universal income again:

https://www.sciencealert.com/universal-basic-income-doesn-t-make-people-work-less-says-new-study

 

AI performance improves with sleep: 

https://www.sciencealert.com/neural-networks-performance-increases-if-they-re-allowed-to-sleep-and-dream

 

Nurdles - I never knew that was their name:

https://www.sciencealert.com/our-oceans-are-full-of-nurdles-and-they-re-not-as-cute-as-they-sound

 

2 birds one stone - change nurdles into fuel:

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-how-we-might-turn-millions-of-tonnes-of-plastic-back-into-oil

 

Russias own independent Internet:

https://www.sciencealert.com/russia-is-preparing-to-disconnect-the-entire-country-from-the-internet

 

Harrison Ford still fighting to save humanity:

https://www.sciencealert.com/harrison-ford-urges-the-world-to-elect-leaders-who-accept-climate-change

 

Goodbye insects:

https://www.sciencealert.com/study-warns-nature-is-under-threat-of-collapse-due-to-plummeting-insect-numbers

 

Another viral video FAIL:

https://www.sciencealert.com/dangerous-viral-boiling-water-challenge-is-sending-people-to-hospital-doctors-warn

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

 

"The collapse of our civilisation is not inevitable. History suggests it is likely, but we have the unique advantage of being able to learn from the wreckages of societies past.

 

We know what needs to be done: emissions can be reduced, inequalities levelled, environmental degradation reversed, innovation unleashed and economies diversified. The policy proposals are there. Only the political will is lacking. We can also invest in recovery. There are already well-developed ideas for improving the ability of food and knowledge systems to be recuperated after catastrophe. Avoiding the creation of dangerous and widely-accessible technologies are also critical. Such steps will lessen the chance of a future collapse becoming irreversible.

 

We will only march into collapse if we advance blindly. We are only doomed if we are unwilling to listen to the past."

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davieG

davieG

Posted
  • Author
Posted

What's wrong with gas hobs?

Gas hobImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Gas hobs could become a thing of the past if recommendations from the Committee on Climate Change are implemented.

What could this mean?

What is wrong with using gas hobs?

Gas hobs and gas boilers use fossil fuels which produce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists believe these gases are contributing to global warming by increasing the temperature of the planet.

This is a problem because the UK is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 based on 1990 levels.

This has recently become even more of a problem as emissions from housing suddenly increased by 1% last year, which is believed to be due to reductions in the installation of household energy efficiency measures.

Gas is cleaner than coal, but it is still bad for the environment.

What are the alternatives?

To reduce these emissions the committee has said new-build homes should be banned from connecting to the gas grid.

Instead of gas hobs these homes could be equipped with electric induction hobs and homes could be warmed using heat pumps.

An induction hob produces heat using copper wire coils which create an electro-magnetic field underneath a glass ceramic surface.

Heat is only produced when a pan with a magnetised based is place on the cooking surface - pans made of copper or aluminium will not work.

According to the Committee on Climate Change heat pumps produce efficient electric heating by operating "like a fridge in reverse".

Where a fridge's temperature is kept low by the evaporation and cooling of a liquid, heat pumps can be used to take thermal energy from the air outside, where it is compressed. Heat is then transferred into the home using a series of coils.

The Renewable Energy Hub says heat pumps are efficient because they don't depend on the burning of fuel to create the heat.

There are currently around 160,000 heat pumps in the UK with annual sales of around 20,000.

The Committee on Climate Change says this is significantly lower than in other countries and points to Italy where 1.5 million heat pumps were sold in 2016.

Gas hobImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Will my gas hob be taken away?

The Committee on Climate Change said people shouldn't worry about throwing out their current hobs and gas boilers.

They are recommending that no new homes are connected to the gas grid by 2025 at the latest.

Government advisers want gas hobs to be banned from being installed in new homes within six years.

The committee sets out the need to decarbonise heating in existing homes by 2050, through low-carbon heat networks, heat pumps and/or by piping hydrogen through the gas network instead of natural gas.

Has gas been banned elsewhere?

Last year the Dutch government introduced regulations which prevent new homes connecting to the gas grid.

It wants all residential buildings to be off gas by 2050, reducing CO2 emissions from all residential buildings.

Large cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht have signed a Green Deal, hoping that over the next few years gas-less neighbourhoods will emerge.

What's next?

Although tackling existing homes will be difficult and expensive in the short-term, money will be saved on gas bills in the long term.

The committee wants the government to consider the renovations as a national infrastructure priority, akin to widening roads.

Government advisers say gas hobs should be banned from being installed in new homes within six years.

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murphy

murphy

Posted
Posted

I just read an article about Dr Hugh Ross who has calculated the probability of life on earth using 123 parameters such as tilt of axis, distance from star etc etc and calculated it to be 1 in 10 to the power 139.

 

I should point out the despite his phd, I think that Dr Ross is a creationist.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, murphy said:

I just read an article about Dr Hugh Ross who has calculated the probability of life on earth using 123 parameters such as tilt of axis, distance from star etc etc and calculated it to be 1 in 10 to the power 139.

 

I should point out the despite his phd, I think that Dr Ross is a creationist.

Been doing some reading on the guy, he's an old-Earth creationist, basically thinks that God tinkered with everything in progressive stages rather than the evolutionary process happened by itself, but he also likes to stick it to the ridiculous Young Earth Creationists and doesn't buy into intelligent design if it can't be proven.

 

From what's been said here he buys into the Rare Earth Hypothesis too, which makes sense if he also is a godly man - if life is that special that it had to be created, it has to follow that it only exists here and the chance of it appearing spontaneously is remote. There's a lot of criticism of that though, especially seeing as the recent Kepler mission results have shown there are far, far more planets in the observable universe than we originally thought - but the only way we're really going to know for sure is if we find at least simple life on other bodies in this Solar System for starters.

 

Can't say that I agree with him on the God-having-a-hand-in-the-species-development-process part because there's zilch evidence for it, but then the way he frames it it's difficult to prove that he's wrong too seeing as from an observational standpoint we really can't tell whether or not acts of "nature" like evolution were being guided by the hand of a deity either. Seems he's managed to reconcile his devout faith with the astrophysical reality that exists reasonably well.

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murphy

murphy

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Been doing some reading on the guy, he's an old-Earth creationist, basically thinks that God tinkered with everything in progressive stages rather than the evolutionary process happened by itself, but he also likes to stick it to the ridiculous Young Earth Creationists and doesn't buy into intelligent design if it can't be proven.

 

From what's been said here he buys into the Rare Earth Hypothesis too, which makes sense if he also is a godly man - if life is that special that it had to be created, it has to follow that it only exists here and the chance of it appearing spontaneously is remote. There's a lot of criticism of that though, especially seeing as the recent Kepler mission results have shown there are far, far more planets in the observable universe than we originally thought - but the only way we're really going to know for sure is if we find at least simple life on other bodies in this Solar System for starters.

 

Can't say that I agree with him on the God-having-a-hand-in-the-species-development-process part because there's zilch evidence for it, but then the way he frames it it's difficult to prove that he's wrong too seeing as from an observational standpoint we really can't tell whether or not acts of "nature" like evolution were being guided by the hand of a deity either. Seems he's managed to reconcile his devout faith with the astrophysical reality that exists reasonably well.

 

Personally, I think that is likely.

 

I know we only have a sample of one to  make that judgement, but the fact that life established on earth so quickly on earth after the fiery Hadean period gives us good grounds to be optimistic that simple life will be found elsewhere given the right conditions and there are a few contenders.  Some even say that it is inevitable.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, murphy said:

 

Personally, I think that is likely.

 

I know we only have a sample of one to  make that judgement, but the fact that life established on earth so quickly on earth after the fiery Hadean period gives us good grounds to be optimistic that simple life will be found elsewhere given the right conditions and there are a few contenders.  Some even say that it is inevitable.

I agree pretty much entirely - as you said, even though there isn't proof (yet) there's a lot of reasons as to why it's probable given the way things have turned out on Earth.

 

Get moving to Europa or Enceladus, please. Quickly.

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yorkie1999

yorkie1999

Posted
Posted
On 21/02/2019 at 18:39, davieG said:

What's wrong with gas hobs?

Gas hobImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Gas hobs could become a thing of the past if recommendations from the Committee on Climate Change are implemented.

What could this mean?

What is wrong with using gas hobs?

Gas hobs and gas boilers use fossil fuels which produce greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists believe these gases are contributing to global warming by increasing the temperature of the planet.

This is a problem because the UK is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 based on 1990 levels.

This has recently become even more of a problem as emissions from housing suddenly increased by 1% last year, which is believed to be due to reductions in the installation of household energy efficiency measures.

Gas is cleaner than coal, but it is still bad for the environment.

What are the alternatives?

To reduce these emissions the committee has said new-build homes should be banned from connecting to the gas grid.

Instead of gas hobs these homes could be equipped with electric induction hobs and homes could be warmed using heat pumps.

An induction hob produces heat using copper wire coils which create an electro-magnetic field underneath a glass ceramic surface.

Heat is only produced when a pan with a magnetised based is place on the cooking surface - pans made of copper or aluminium will not work.

According to the Committee on Climate Change heat pumps produce efficient electric heating by operating "like a fridge in reverse".

Where a fridge's temperature is kept low by the evaporation and cooling of a liquid, heat pumps can be used to take thermal energy from the air outside, where it is compressed. Heat is then transferred into the home using a series of coils.

The Renewable Energy Hub says heat pumps are efficient because they don't depend on the burning of fuel to create the heat.

There are currently around 160,000 heat pumps in the UK with annual sales of around 20,000.

The Committee on Climate Change says this is significantly lower than in other countries and points to Italy where 1.5 million heat pumps were sold in 2016.

Gas hobImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Will my gas hob be taken away?

The Committee on Climate Change said people shouldn't worry about throwing out their current hobs and gas boilers.

They are recommending that no new homes are connected to the gas grid by 2025 at the latest.

Government advisers want gas hobs to be banned from being installed in new homes within six years.

The committee sets out the need to decarbonise heating in existing homes by 2050, through low-carbon heat networks, heat pumps and/or by piping hydrogen through the gas network instead of natural gas.

Has gas been banned elsewhere?

Last year the Dutch government introduced regulations which prevent new homes connecting to the gas grid.

It wants all residential buildings to be off gas by 2050, reducing CO2 emissions from all residential buildings.

Large cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht have signed a Green Deal, hoping that over the next few years gas-less neighbourhoods will emerge.

What's next?

Although tackling existing homes will be difficult and expensive in the short-term, money will be saved on gas bills in the long term.

The committee wants the government to consider the renovations as a national infrastructure priority, akin to widening roads.

Government advisers say gas hobs should be banned from being installed in new homes within six years.

More likely to do with the fact every man and his dog is installing log wood burners. Effing stinks round our way when the neighbours decide to spend the night in next to a warm cozy fire that they've filled up with logs from the trees they've chopped down. It's like birmingham in the peaky blinders days.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47339774

 

Interesting topic, really. As tech gets more and more advanced, the ethics involved within it are likely only going to get more and more thorny tbh - I mean, the whole reason the Space Race existed was because the US and USSR wanted a more efficient way to blow each other to kingdom come, after all.

 

Is it even possible to separate technological development from the intent of killing people? (You can call it "defence" as much of you like but once you strip away all the rhetoric, that's what it comes down to.)

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