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Changing your biking habits cos of climate change

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Andy_Pagin
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PostPosted: 14:05 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

60% of all the pollution in London is marine and aviation sourced. I don't embark upon ships or flying machines, so I'm already greener than most people, fucks given about pollution from my cars & bike are therefore zero.
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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 14:25 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Last chance to see. Fuel-thirsty, performance motorcycles are a dying breed. We are the last generation that will be able to enjoy them as they were designed to be enjoyed. I'm making the most of it.

If increasing environmental levies and decreasing fuel availability don't get them, the speeding Nazis will. (hell, I'm having to use additives in my VFR for it to cope with E5 fuel as it is, I'm not sure it'll cope with E10 at all). I'll still be able to run it but I'll land up buying canned fuel. They'll have black boxes in all vehicles that kill the engine and call the police if you go over the speed limit within my driving lifetime

Upcoming autonomous vehicles will see legislation put in place that doesn't allow me that degree of total personal control of my vehicle, perhaps not on all roads but certainly on major thoroughfares.

I suppose using my bikes as hard and frequently as I can is changing my habits because it's an acknowledgement that this is unsustainable.
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SirFallalot
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PostPosted: 14:30 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

stinkwheel wrote:
They'll have black boxes in all vehicles that kill the engine and call the police if you go over the speed limit within my driving lifetime


I suppose limiting them in the first place would be enough? It's not like the police would be able to get to everyone stretched thin as they are Laughing Laughing Laughing completely outnumbered


I got to ask, where does the joke about killing/saving kittens come from???
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WimbleHJR
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PostPosted: 14:35 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

I actually have, though I'm in a position where it was easy to do so.

I now cycle to work 90% of the time, rather than use the motorbike.

I am however fortunate to live in Barcelona so weather and route wise, its easy. Also, it takes more or less the same time by bicycle so I'm not too affected by that either.

I decided to after a particularly long trip to Africa and my carbon footprint from that, but I do recognise I have a pretty easy choice where as those living in other places would have to sacrifice a lot more. Also, I do still use the moto for fun so it's not like I've given it up completely, nor do I plan to
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stinkwheel
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PostPosted: 14:50 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheWhiteBaron wrote:

It's not like the police would be able to get to everyone stretched thin as they are Laughing Laughing Laughing completely outnumbered


People said the similar things about drink driving when it was made illegal.

I reckon the within a generation, people will be perfectly prepared to shop you in for speeding if they saw you and that you'd be considered as much of a paraiah as if you were drink driving now.
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SirFallalot
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PostPosted: 14:58 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

stinkwheel wrote:
TheWhiteBaron wrote:

It's not like the police would be able to get to everyone stretched thin as they are Laughing Laughing Laughing completely outnumbered


People said the similar things about drink driving when it was made illegal.

I reckon the within a generation, people will be perfectly prepared to shop you in for speeding if they saw you and that you'd be considered as much of a paraiah as if you were drink driving now.


I guess anyone with an average quality dash cam and a good commute could probably churn out a profitable amount of 'free' fines a day?

When I used my helmet cam I reported someone to the police (they have a handy website for this), a car overtook on a zebra crossing and almost ran over 2 people and scared the shit out of me (as it went in my lane). I would only take someone to do the same for speeding, although idk if they'd take the time to analyse the footage to prove it, and the owner wouldn't exactly speed to prove it Laughing
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Polarbear
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PostPosted: 15:09 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a coal fired boiler and steam engine sitting in may garage. If they ban my diesel engine out of my boat that is going in and I will be blowing soot all up and down the Grand Union canal.

As far a bikes go, I won't change to electric, I'll give up biking. Only because it seems like a good cut off point as I'm getting on anyway.

I already have an electric cripple cart for going to the shops because it is so much fun to run over twats in Asda and push to the front of queues and it means I don't have to leave my Jaguar in the car park . Pale

Life is going to be sh1t.
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weasley
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PostPosted: 15:17 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like most, I usually see the poster's name, maybe read the opening line or two then scroll on past. But I felt compelled to read this one as it was (1) relatively short and (2) about a relatively up-to-date topic about which i know a little. I hope the other diatribes on Benleys and A1 licences are more accurate than this one?

Teflon-Mike wrote:
Less than 1% of UK vehicular travel is by motorbike... hmmmm.... we could take every damn one off the road tomorrow... and it would make less difference to our national carbon 'footprint' as oooh... I don't know.... giving my mother cooking lessons to stop her burning salad! (yes seriously! She managed it!)

Regardless of the size of the impact, reducing it is always reducing it. That's like saying that less than 1% of the population die by murder, so may as well just leave it alone.

Teflon-Mike wrote:
Meanwhile... the whole Kyoto debate on the presumed connection between climate change and CO2 emissions, remains at best, borrox…

No, it is not "at best, borrox". It is, at best, scientifically agreed consensus.

Teflon-Mike wrote:
It's NOT a scientifically 'proven' fact, that CO2 and green-house gas emissions are causing climate change. It is a THEORY.

Aaaah, the classic "theory not fact" argument, which is beloved of the flat Earthers and creationists and serves only to highlight your misunderstanding of both terms and the scientific process. Here's a test for you: gravity is only a theory - how would you like to find a high place and test it?

Teflon-Mike wrote:
...how many tons of green-house gasses, alleged to cause this climate change, come from human activity, compared to 'natural' emissions... like sheep...

And there we have it. The shot in the foot that exposes what a ridiculous position you hold. Yes, there is a substantial carbon footprint from farm animals.... PUT THERE BY HUMANS. Farming is a man-made activity and its emissions are entirely man-made.

I work in the oil and gas industry - it's a tough place to admit to working at the moment, but I know that most of what I am doing these days is in service of improving efficiency of existing machines and seeking alternatives for future ones.

Teflon-Mike wrote:
SO NO basically, is the answer, I am NOT planning on giving up my motorbikes for any notional suggestion that it might save the planet!

Here we agree - I have made some interventions to reduce the carbon footprint of my lifestyle but the bike stays. So I am possibly the worst kind of person - someone who understands and acknowledges the impact of ICEs on the climate but doesn't do everything I can to reduce it. But I am doing something, which includes being open-minded and brutally honest about the reality of the situation.
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Freddyfruitba...
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PostPosted: 15:47 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Re: Changing your biking habits cos of climate change Reply with quote

Seems like I'm in a minority of 1 here, but actually yes I do feel a bit guilty about my biking habit, mainly because for me almost every one of the ~9000 miles I ride per year are purely recreational. However, that said, I haven't changed my 'biking habits' at all. I try to justify it on the basis that I work from home so have no carbon footprint from commuting; and that spending my summer hols blatting around Spain on a bike is far more eco-friendly than hopping on a plane to Malaga...
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Ayrton
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PostPosted: 16:27 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

I already cut down my carbon footprint by riding to work and missing out on 25 minutes of crawling traffic. If the government really wants to reduce emissions then they should improve the infrastructure so the roads are not just gridlocked at rush hour.
I'm sure as hell not going to feel guilty about any recreational rides I go on. Seems like an odd hobby to get into if you worry about your small impact on such stuff.
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SirFallalot
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PostPosted: 16:42 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Re: Changing your biking habits cos of climate change Reply with quote

Freddyfruitbat wrote:
Seems like I'm in a minority of 1 here, but actually yes I do feel a bit guilty about my biking habit, mainly because for me almost every one of the ~9000 miles I ride per year are purely recreational. However, that said, I haven't changed my 'biking habits' at all. I try to justify it on the basis that I work from home so have no carbon footprint from commuting; and that spending my summer hols blatting around Spain on a bike is far more eco-friendly than hopping on a plane to Malaga...


This is the definition of carbon offset Laughing
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Freddyfruitba...
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PostPosted: 17:20 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ayrton wrote:
Seems like an odd hobby to get into if you worry about your small impact on such stuff.

Hey sonny, back when I swung a leg over my first bike nobody had even thought of 'climate change' or 'global warming'... Laughing
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JackButler
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PostPosted: 18:17 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you feel the need to change your habits & your daily life in order to save the planet then to me you just another victim of the bullshit.

Some of you need to get a firm grip on reality & ask yourselve's whether you are being manipulated, educated or just plain brainwashed.

If you able to work that one out then you need to ask yourself the question of when you last took advice from a 16yr old.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha
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PostPosted: 19:48 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

weasley wrote:


Teflon-Mike wrote:
Meanwhile... the whole Kyoto debate on the presumed connection between climate change and CO2 emissions, remains at best, borrox…

No, it is not "at best, borrox". It is, at best, scientifically agreed consensus.

Teflon-Mike wrote:
It's NOT a scientifically 'proven' fact, that CO2 and green-house gas emissions are causing climate change. It is a THEORY.

Aaaah, the classic "theory not fact" argument, which is beloved of the flat Earthers and creationists and serves only to highlight your misunderstanding of both terms and the scientific process. Here's a test for you: gravity is only a theory - how would you like to find a high place and test it?


Interesting points. I'm very ignorant of both the debate around global warming / climate change etc., and of the epistemological conditions that must be satisfied to separate a theory from a fact (for instance I thought there was a vast amount of empirical evidence to demonstrate gravitational pull, sufficient to regard it as factual). For these and related reasons it's difficult for me to even formulate a cogent question never mind attempt to offer any answers on the OP's topic. That never stopped me before though lol.

Firstly, I wonder how theories of climate change account for e.g. the Thames freezing annually, and people attending a fair there. Things like that. It's as though global warming - or change, at least - preceded industrialisation on any meaningful worldwide scale. I imagine there are numerous other examples from around the globe - some that suggest one thing, others another.

It makes me ponder the extent to which we're conflating correlation and causation in these debates. E.g. - yes, climate change is occurring. And, okay yes, it is changing in an epoch that has seen industrialisation on several continents. But - the inevitable and predictable observation - we know that massive changes in global temperatures have occurred in times when no industrialisation was present...

Fwiw, currently my own view is that climate change is happening but that there is less compelling evidence to demonstrate that it is as a consequence of industrial activity etc. etc. That said, I've resisted drilling down into the data and debates because it quickly feels pretty fucking overwhelming tbqh. It's great that the www exists as a resource to research such stuff - but it often feels like there's such an immense amount of data weighing on each side. I accept however that it is happening - but don't feel that there is similar weight for how.
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DJP
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PostPosted: 20:55 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

JackButler wrote:
If you feel the need to change your habits & your daily life in order to save the planet then to me you just another victim of the bullshit.

Some of you need to get a firm grip on reality & ask yourselve's whether you are being manipulated, educated or just plain brainwashed.

If you able to work that one out then you need to ask yourself the question of when you last took advice from a 16yr old.


That^^.

Anyone who believes that they are seriously discussing this has misunderstood the issues.
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Ste
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PostPosted: 21:19 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

DJP wrote:
Anyone who believes that they are seriously discussing this has misunderstood the issues.

https://i.imgur.com/hH5Wy0C.gif
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Easy-X
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PostPosted: 23:41 - 26 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh shit... I stopped driving to work in a car as I thought it was a bit of a waste: 5 seats, just me in the car. And then I went to work on an ebike... can I get my tree-hugger badge pls?

No wait, I swapped the ebike for a motorbike, best keep that badge Smile
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Undinist
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PostPosted: 00:32 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

trevor saxe-coburg-gotha wrote:
I wonder how theories of climate change account for e.g. the Thames freezing annually, and people attending a fair there.


The answer was published in January this year. In the 15th century about 56 million North American natives died, mostly because of diseases imported by Europeans. The dead natives' farmland, which was about the size of France, reverted to forest. The new trees caused global cooling and a mini Ice Age in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/31/european-colonization-of-americas-helped-cause-climate-change

Quote:
European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.

Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90% in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.

This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.

The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.

“The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution,” wrote the UCL team of Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis.

The drop in temperature during this period is known as the “Little Ice Age”, a time when the River Thames in London would regularly freeze over, snowstorms were common in Portugal and disrupted agriculture caused famines in several European countries.

The UCL researchers found that the European colonization of the Americas indirectly contributed to this colder period by causing the deaths of about 56 million people by 1600. The study attributes the deaths to factors including introduced disease, such as smallpox and measles, as well as warfare and societal collapse.

Researchers then calculated how much land indigenous people required and then subsequently fell into disuse, finding that around 55m hectares, an area roughly equivalent to France, became vacant and was reclaimed by carbon dioxide-absorbing vegetation.

The study sketches out a past where humans were influencing the climate long before the industrial revolution, where the use of fossil fuels for the manufacturing of goods, generation of electricity and transportation has allowed tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.

Widespread deforestation for agriculture and urban development has also spurred the release of greenhouse gases, causing the planet to warm by around 1C over the past century. Scientists have warned that the world has little over a decade to drastically reduce emissions or face increasingly severe storms, drought, heatwaves, coastal flooding and food insecurity.

The revegetation of the Americas after European arrival aided declines of global carbon content in the air, dropping by around seven to 10 parts of carbon dioxide for every million molecules of air in the atmosphere. This compares to the 3ppm of carbon dioxide that humanity is currently adding to the atmosphere every year through the burning of fossil fuels.

“There is a lot of talk around ‘negative emissions’ approaching and using tree-planting to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to mitigate climate change,” study co-author Chris Brierley told the BBC.

“And what we see from this study is the scale of what’s required, because the great dying resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million.

“This is useful; it shows us what reforestation can do. But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate.”
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Tdibs
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PostPosted: 04:56 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

trevor saxe-coburg-gotha wrote:

It makes me ponder the extent to which we're conflating correlation and causation in these debates. E.g. - yes, climate change is occurring. And, okay yes, it is changing in an epoch that has seen industrialisation on several continents. But - the inevitable and predictable observation - we know that massive changes in global temperatures have occurred in times when no industrialisation was present...


And it will keep changing if all the humans died tomorrow. The deforestation and pollution is also making a change, the question is how much and how much can you push the scales until it all unbalances? well for us anyway, the planet will survive, we might not.

Ultimately though we just have to develop better technology, changing personal habbits is never going to work.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha
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PostPosted: 05:51 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tdibs wrote:
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha wrote:

It makes me ponder the extent to which we're conflating correlation and causation in these debates. E.g. - yes, climate change is occurring. And, okay yes, it is changing in an epoch that has seen industrialisation on several continents. But - the inevitable and predictable observation - we know that massive changes in global temperatures have occurred in times when no industrialisation was present...


And it will keep changing if all the humans died tomorrow. The deforestation and pollution is also making a change, the question is how much and how much can you push the scales until it all unbalances? well for us anyway, the planet will survive, we might not.

Ultimately though we just have to develop better technology, changing personal habbits is never going to work.


But if we don't know how much effect we're having why do we conclude it's so much that we have to develop certain sorts of responses?
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Sister Sledge
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PostPosted: 08:24 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

This ^^
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chris_hu_cheng
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PostPosted: 09:41 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

YES.

It is warmer, so I ride my bike more than I would have done if it wasn't.

I don't think I would ride in winter, but since I learned to ride there is barely a week of 'proper' winter each year.

I have lived long enough, and have memories of scraping ice off of cars for weeks in 'proper' winters.

In summary... it is warmer than it used to be, I would ride less if the climate was colder. What caused the climate to be warmer? I have no clear idea.

It is also wetter I feel (not so sure about that one) but wetness doesn't stop me riding.

If not on a bike I would be in a car, which is worse (I am lead to believe), so I have no guilt.

If I had an option of useful/fun electric bike I could afford (hopefully with awesome torque etc.) I would buy one to sit next to the ICE bike/s I would still have for the things I would miss if I didn't (until I was forced not to use them).
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha
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PostPosted: 09:57 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

Undinist wrote:
trevor saxe-coburg-gotha wrote:
I wonder how theories of climate change account for e.g. the Thames freezing annually, and people attending a fair there.


The answer was published in January this year. In the 15th century about 56 million North American natives died, mostly because of diseases imported by Europeans. The dead natives' farmland, which was about the size of France, reverted to forest. The new trees caused global cooling and a mini Ice Age in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/31/european-colonization-of-americas-helped-cause-climate-change

Quote:
European colonization of the Americas resulted in the killing of so many native people that it transformed the environment and caused the Earth’s climate to cool down, new research has found.

Settlers killed off huge numbers of people in conflicts and also by spreading disease, which reduced the indigenous population by 90% in the century following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey to the Americas and Caribbean in 1492.

This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.

The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to actually cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.

“The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution,” wrote the UCL team of Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis.

The drop in temperature during this period is known as the “Little Ice Age”, a time when the River Thames in London would regularly freeze over, snowstorms were common in Portugal and disrupted agriculture caused famines in several European countries.

The UCL researchers found that the European colonization of the Americas indirectly contributed to this colder period by causing the deaths of about 56 million people by 1600. The study attributes the deaths to factors including introduced disease, such as smallpox and measles, as well as warfare and societal collapse.

Researchers then calculated how much land indigenous people required and then subsequently fell into disuse, finding that around 55m hectares, an area roughly equivalent to France, became vacant and was reclaimed by carbon dioxide-absorbing vegetation.

The study sketches out a past where humans were influencing the climate long before the industrial revolution, where the use of fossil fuels for the manufacturing of goods, generation of electricity and transportation has allowed tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.

Widespread deforestation for agriculture and urban development has also spurred the release of greenhouse gases, causing the planet to warm by around 1C over the past century. Scientists have warned that the world has little over a decade to drastically reduce emissions or face increasingly severe storms, drought, heatwaves, coastal flooding and food insecurity.

The revegetation of the Americas after European arrival aided declines of global carbon content in the air, dropping by around seven to 10 parts of carbon dioxide for every million molecules of air in the atmosphere. This compares to the 3ppm of carbon dioxide that humanity is currently adding to the atmosphere every year through the burning of fossil fuels.

“There is a lot of talk around ‘negative emissions’ approaching and using tree-planting to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to mitigate climate change,” study co-author Chris Brierley told the BBC.

“And what we see from this study is the scale of what’s required, because the great dying resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million.

“This is useful; it shows us what reforestation can do. But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate.”


I find *all* of that very, very difficult to believe. However, reading it and reading around it - I did have to revise some previous thoughts I'd held, i.e. that Thames "frost fairs" were an annual thing. Apparently they were more sporadic than that.
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Undinist
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PostPosted: 10:23 - 27 Nov 2019    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you think you know better than peer-reviewed research, good luck!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261
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