Movie Time: The Age of Stupid

[yamin]

Sorry to be so negative, but most humans live a life that is half as useful as my cat's. It's high time there was a drastic population cull and whoever remains can reassess how to live.

We are like the Roman Empire before the fall. So cheers!

Well, that should get us all moving in the right, positive direction then! Assume you feel your life IS more than half as useful as your cats and you don't include yourself in that sweeping damnation of humankind? :?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well, that should get us all moving in the right, positive direction then! Assume you feel your life IS more than half as useful as your cats and you don't include yourself in that sweeping damnation of humankind? :?

You assume wrong, cat has contributed far more than I ever have. Sorry Yamin, we are over-evolved animals who are destroying the complex civilisation we have built up. It would have been better if we had stayed as monkeys.

 

[yamin]

Guess its time to give up then, and remove myself from the useless life I have lived in a suitably environmentally responsible fashion, wearing sack cloth and ashes, and using only recycled rope!

This is the problem with online debates - I'm not necessarily disputing your assessment, but in my albeit sometimes Pollyanna-type optimism, I find it hard to swallow such complete and utter negativity. Thank heavens they weren't so half (completely) empty on Apollo 13! (Oops, space travel, I'll go back below my parapet 8) !

Did you get geese by the way?

 

[DaveBrigg]

I shall be watching the film in the most eco-friendly and sustainable way that I can. Wait for a pirate version to appear online and download it, without needing to start the car. How much CO2 from a PC and a cup of tea?

 

[biffvernon]

We could read the Sun: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2273556.ece

 

[Flyfisher]

Nobel prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen says: “I would like to be optimistic that we will survive but I’ve got no good reason to be.
“In order to be safe we would have to reduce our carbon emissions by 70 per cent by 2015. At the moment we are putting them up by three per cent... ”

If these numbers are correct - or even close - then it seems to me that it's not really being pessimistic to assume the worst, it's reality. I don't believe anyone or any organisation has the faintest clue how to achieve this sort of change in our energy habits within 6 years. It's simply not possible.

The 'green movement' might be contemptuous of those people who deny climate change is happening or don't worry enough about it all but, in reality, what can it offer as a solution? Very little, it seems.

 

[biffvernon]

Yes, I've regarded it as reality since about 1970. In 1979 I stood for parliament for the then called Ecology Party. Only about 3% of the people believed me. It could have been different and then we would now not be where we are now, 30 years on. At last the message has reached The Sun, sadly too late. Don't blame the green movement - we've been offering the solutions for a very long time.

Yet I haven't given up all hope. It is not quite certain that tipping points have been reached. What is clear is that we need to stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere and we need to remove some of what is there. While there is a lot of campaigning around air transport, as I said earlier this is a relatively small source and certainly not worth stopping flights by climate campaigners for. Oil for transport is just too useful to hope that we will stop using it until we run out.

The real killer and the one where action needs to be directed is electricity generation from coal. We must halt all new coal fired power stations and phase out the existing ones ASAP. If it means covering the beautiful landscape with windfarms so be it. The alternative is the lights go out. Remember there is no such thing as 'clean coal technology'. Carbon Capture and Storage is a mirage.

And we need to remove CO2 from the air. The front-runner here is bio-char. You use plants to capture CO2 by photosynthesis, then burn the material with restricted oxygen, turning it into charcoal. This can be spread on the soil. Charcoal is a great soil improver, inert, lasting for centuries, and acting as a sponge to hold on to plant nutrients. Not only does it permanently store the carbon it also improves the fertility of the soil. It has to be done on a vast scale but it is possible and it would work.

Of course this is The Age of Stupid and we probably won't do these things. So we will have to plan for the sort of map that you see in the Sun article (or in its original form in Gaia Vince's article in the New Scientist) and expect billions of deaths from starvation and the British Isles becoming a very crowded place.

 

[Penners]

we need to remove CO2 from the air. The front-runner here is bio-char. You use plants to capture CO2 by photosynthesis, then burn the material with restricted oxygen, turning it into charcoal. This can be spread on the soil. Charcoal is a great soil improver, inert, lasting for centuries, and acting as a sponge to hold on to plant nutrients. Not only does it permanently store the carbon it also improves the fertility of the soil. It has to be done on a vast scale but it is possible and it would work.

But what acreage do you need to grow the plants that will simply end up being burned (rather than eaten)? Is there enough arable space on the planet for this process to be effectively implemented?

If so, why are we hearing so little (or - in my case - nothing) about this process? The above few sentences from Biff are the first that I've ever heard about it. It sounds cheap and low-tech. There must be a catch, mustn't there?

 

[biffvernon]

Google is your friend:

http://www.biochar-international.org/
http://www.biochar.org/joomla/
http://www.shimbir.demon.co.uk/biocharrefs.htm
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/biochar/UKBCRC.html
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=49381
...and much more.

Yes it would need a ginormous acreage, but you would not be burning food. It's all the wast biomass that would go into the pyrolosis unit, crop waste and forestry waste.

The biggest problem faced by our species for 10000 years is going to need big solutions. Fortunately, bio-char is a solution that can be spread out over all the little farms, am myriad of little contributions to the big solution, producing some energy, supplying a soil improver and removing CO2 from the air. Win, win, win. Why are people not talking about it everywhere? This is the Age of Stupid.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Guess its time to give up then, and remove myself from the useless life I have lived in a suitably environmentally responsible fashion, wearing sack cloth and ashes, and using only recycled rope!

Did you get geese by the way?

No, no don't do that Yamin, I would miss your chirpy comments. And you won't find sackcloth these days,it's all been turned into ethical shopping bags.

Can I revise my Friday night opinion that half the human race should be culled? I was having a bad moment.

No geese yet, but they are near the top of the Things To Do list.

 

[Penners]

Can I revise my Friday night opinion that half the human race should be culled?

An upward or downward revision?

May I please be considered for inclusion on the nomination committee? I have a number of ideas worthy of discussion.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Can I revise my Friday night opinion that half the human race should be culled?

An upward or downward revision?

May I please be considered for inclusion on the nomination committee? I have a number of ideas worthy of discussion.

Well I was thinking of a full pardon for all of humanity but come to think of it there are certain places that would look great as a big lake...

But, yes, you can stay Penners. I can't do without you. And Biff, we need him to tell us how to suck up the CO2 thingies. And Lime, and Moo, and Shelley, and lots of others, they're really helpful. But Gareth, hmmm, not sure about him. He might get the chop.

 

[biffvernon]

Remember that a goose is not just for Christmas. We have one that is about 30 years old.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Remember that a goose is not just for Christmas. We have one that is about 30 years old.

30!!!!!! That's just greedy. Did you make the outdoor heated bath for it? And have you made it a walking frame? What's its name?

 

[Penners]

Remember that a goose is not just for Christmas.

Speaking as a fully qualified carnivore, I profoundly disagree.

 

[Penners]

Gareth, hmmm, not sure about him. He might get the chop.

Oh, come on. He's official. We'll need him to countersign the culling order. Then it'll all be his fault.

 

[biffvernon]

What's its name?

The Goose.

A few years ago when we had five, they went for a wander (they often did) but this time it happened to be Christmas Eve and they happened to wander into someones back garden. With the best of intention, the householder shut them up in their garage and phoned the police to report the find in an effort to trace their owner.

Another neighbour had seen them and, knowing they were ours phoned us and we went round to retrieve them. The geese-minder was relieved to find the owner but said she was quite put out by the attitude of the police who apparently did not believe her story.

Of course as soon as we opened the garage door the geese walked off home, as they always did.

 

[JoceAndChris]

aww that's so cute!

You're lucky it wasn't Penners' garage, he'd have rounded them up for the pot!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Gareth, hmmm, not sure about him. He might get the chop.

Oh, come on. He's official. We'll need him to countersign the culling order. Then it'll all be his fault.

I see you've all been having funwhile I've been away. This must stop now - you're not here to enjoy yourselves.
And Joce - how are the aquilegias and the sausages coming along? I want to see the place before you pour Penners' muck all over the floors...

 

[JoceAndChris]

I see you've all been having funwhile I've been away. This must stop now - you're not here to enjoy yourselves.
And Joce - how are the aquilegias and the sausages coming along? I want to see the place before you pour Penners' muck all over the floors...

You don't miss a teeny little trick do you? I bet the folk of Norfolk quake in their boots when they try to sneak a non-authorised restoration past you! In fact, I bet it's never happened.

You must come ASAP before the UPVC arrives. :wink: