Technology, Science and the Environment.

[Vardinio'sCat]

10 hours ago, davieG said:

Not from tins, open plastic packaging, wine/beer bottles. Practically every food container could easily have remnants of food.

I've even heard that they can't recycle most pizza boxes because of the food contamination.

 

Not saying this is all fact but it's what I've heard/read in reports hence my "confusing" comment.

 

As far as I remember, if we had a national standard, as opposed to different councils doing different stuff, things might be better.

 

[Vardinio'sCat]

9 hours ago, Countryfox said:

 

 

I think I’ve seen you pair wondering around town holding big placards with  “The end of the world is nigh”  above your heads ...    

 

But that would be using up valuable resources (shoe leather and the like), plus everyone would just laugh at us... 

 

Armchair environmentalism, it's the future!

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Vardinio'sCat said:

 

Wood burners though, most of my mates have them, dead trendy, and they are not really smokeless fuel people .

 

You're basic point is a good one though, it was worse in the past. Having said that, one thing I did read about plastics (tho I'm no expert) is that all the plastic ever made is still out there, whereas most airbourne pollutants tend to get rained out of the air, at least.

 

Been reading a book called The World Without Us. Kinda scary.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us

Read that one a while back, is darkly fascinating stuff.

 

People take the idea that tomorrow is going to be just like today way too much for granted, IMO.

[leicsmac]

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-world-biggest-battery-australia-trump.html

 

This is good - a bit of healthy competition.

[Strokes]

On 17/03/2018 at 09:27, davieG said:

Washing things thoroughly is not easy, just one example I never wash plastic containers that have had chicken in them as you then risk contaminating your own facilities. Some containers are just impossible to get clean without considerable effort and if you attempt to you then leave contaminated water remnants which will leak onto and paper or cardboard.

If I’m unsure, I just stick it my neighbors bin.

[leicsmac]

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43458365

 

Brilliant stuff. 

[Webbo]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43458365

 

Brilliant stuff. 

It's marvellous what they can do now. There was a thing on the news this morning about treating MS with stem cell transplants. Seems to be having miraculous results.

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

It's marvellous what they can do now. There was a thing on the news this morning about treating MS with stem cell transplants. Seems to be having miraculous results.

Yeah, it is.

 

Of course you've got the detractors (mostly the religious lobby) arguing "ethical concerns", though. Maybe they want to keep their monopoly on miracles? 

[Milo]

49 minutes ago, Webbo said:

It's marvellous what they can do now. There was a thing on the news this morning about treating MS with stem cell transplants. Seems to be having miraculous results.

Heard this as well - destroy the persons immune system with chemo...and then rebuild it with the stem cell bone marrow transplant...

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, Milo said:

Heard this as well - destroy the persons immune system with chemo...and then rebuild it with the stem cell bone marrow transplant...

 

 

 

And stem cells mean a vastly reduced chance of rejection.

[Buce]

 

I find this rather distressing:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

I find this rather distressing:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066

Heartbreaking mate.

 

[leicsmac]

5 hours ago, Buce said:

 

I find this rather distressing:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066

Just the latest in the long and growing list of the Holocene extinction event, sadly.

[David Guiza]

5 hours ago, Buce said:

 

I find this rather distressing:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066

I remember Chris Packham saying a few years ago that we should let endangered species become extinct as maybe that way people will see the destruction being caused, as opposed to throwing millions of pounds at keeping them alive. I'm not sure that I would go that far as I think every animal has a right to life and no species deserves to die out to make a point, but I guess there is an argument to be made. 

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, David Guiza said:

I remember Chris Packham saying a few years ago that we should let endangered species become extinct as maybe that way people will see the destruction being caused, as opposed to throwing millions of pounds at keeping them alive. I'm not sure that I would go that far as I think every animal has a right to life and no species deserves to die out to make a point, but I guess there is an argument to be made. 

If this argument were guaranteed to work, I'd probably go for it...but I'm not sure that it does. Like has been said, species are going extinct right now at 100 to 1000 times the natural background rate largely due to human activity and that barely makes any kind of news.

[Guest]

22 hours ago, leicsmac said:

If this argument were guaranteed to work, I'd probably go for it...but I'm not sure that it does. Like has been said, species are going extinct right now at 100 to 1000 times the natural background rate largely due to human activity and that barely makes any kind of news.

You make it sound like Humans are not a part of nature. It could be argued that we are the Apex predator and the present "destruction" of our planet is very natural. The fact that we are increasing the speed of it surely doesn't make it an unnatural act. Birth to death, creation to destruction the cycle of life, the Lion king and all that.

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, FIF said:

You make it sound like Humans are not a part of nature. It could be argued that we are the Apex predator and the present "destruction" of our planet is very natural. The fact that we are increasing the speed of it surely doesn't make it an unnatural act. Birth to death, creation to destruction the cycle of life, the Lion king and all that.

Yeah, you have a point there, so substitute "usual" in for "natural", then.

 

Though I believe humans are rather unique in nature in this regard as we seem to be the only species that has begun an extinction pulse (as I think they're called) purely through our own actions and not with the aid of some drastic change caused by an outside event.

[leicsmac]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43477233

 

This...isn't good.

[Buce]

4 hours ago, FIF said:

You make it sound like Humans are not a part of nature. It could be argued that we are the Apex predator and the present "destruction" of our planet is very natural. The fact that we are increasing the speed of it surely doesn't make it an unnatural act. Birth to death, creation to destruction the cycle of life, the Lion king and all that.

 

We may be part of nature but we are unique in being able to understand the consequences of our actions.

 

There is nothing 'natural' about poisoning the very air we breathe, polluting the seas, chopping down the rainforests, willfully ignoring man-made global warming, driving a mass extinction and generally destroying the planet that we depend on for our survival.

[Manwell Pablo]

20 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

We may be part of nature but we are unique in being able to understand the consequences of our actions.

 

There is nothing 'natural' about poisoning the very air we breathe, polluting the seas, chopping down the rainforests, willfully ignoring man-made global warming, driving a mass extinction and generally destroying the planet that we depend on for our survival.

 

Yeah.......

 

Problem is you stop all of those things completely life's going to be a bit shit really isn't it. 

 

Plus not all of it is true I don't think we ignore man made global warming at all. We (well most of us Donald) are actively trying to lower it. 

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

 

Yeah.......

 

Problem is you stop all of those things completely life's going to be a bit shit really isn't it. 

 

Plus not all of it is true I don't think we ignore man made global warming at all. We (well most of us Donald) are actively trying to lower it. 

And this hits upon a pretty significant philosophical question.

 

Is a shit life better than no life at all?

[Buce]

32 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

 

Yeah.......

 

Problem is you stop all of those things completely life's going to be a bit shit really isn't it. 

 

Plus not all of it is true I don't think we ignore man made global warming at all. We (well most of us Donald) are actively trying to lower it. 

 

I guess that depends on your definition of shit.

 

But even if meets your definition of shit, your children's life, and their children's life, is going to be a whole lot shittier.

[Manwell Pablo]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

I guess that depends on your definition of shit.

 

But even if meets your definition of shit, your children's life, and their children's life, is going to be a whole lot shittier.

 

Well literally none of it would cause a global power shortage I would imagine which would be my dictionary definition of shit.

 

Not sure about that either, take a good few years to totally screw the planet up if you ask me, and after all what we do it’s going to die all on its own eventually. Maybe a lot sooner than we think, we could all go back to living in mud huts and get taken out by an asteroid in 100 years (one we could of dealt with had we continued to advance technology) let’s remember living primitively and doing no damage to the planet hasn’t exactly worked out for numerous other alpha species before us has it?

 

Not saying we shouldn’t look at ways of progressing as carbon efficiently as possible while maintaining current living standards obviously we should look to push cleaner energy and use technology to lessen our need on natural planetary resources but as the old saying goes you’ve got to break some eggs........

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Manwell Pablo said:

 

Well literally none of it would cause a global power shortage I would imagine which would be my dictionary definition of shit.

 

Not sure about that either, take a good few years to totally screw the planet up if you ask me, and after all what we do it’s going to die all on its own eventually. Maybe a lot sooner than we think, we could all go back to living in mud huts and get taken out by an asteroid in 100 years (one we could of dealt with had we continued to advance technology) let’s remember living primitively and doing no damage to the planet hasn’t exactly worked out for numerous other alpha species before us has it?

 

Not saying we shouldn’t look at ways of progressing as carbon efficiently as possible while maintaining current living standards obviously we should look to push cleaner energy and use technology to lessen our need on natural planetary resources but as the old saying goes you’ve got to break some eggs........

2

 

How many years until the planet is largely uninhabitable is acceptable to you?

[Manwell Pablo]

2 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

How many years until the planet is largely uninhabitable is acceptable to you?

 

I wouldn’t put an exact number on it, but personally if this planet is totally uninhabitable in as little as 500 years it’s going to have zero impact on me or anyone I’ve ever met, not that it will be, But the planet dying is an inevitability anyway, and should we not progress we could be long gone before then.

 

As I say, everything you see going on before you could well end up saving us from something before it makes the planet uninhabitable or perhaps lead to the extension of human survival via off planet colonys, I’d view giving up on progression to make sure future generations can live a pre industrial life style until something wipes them out as a rather backwards attitude myself but then we all have different opinions on human behaviour and what the future could hold.