Blue Planet 2

I'm alone in work but have a telly to watch so I stuck on Blue Planet 2. * me is this depressing?

Plastics breaking down and decimating ocean wildlife. Rising temperatures destroying the coral reefs. I used to love a good nature documentary. I think may people don't quite realise how badly we have * our planet. Many reckon we could sustain 10 billion. Maybe we could but that is several billion more people *, * and polluting. Something should be done to ensure we don't get anywhere near a population of 10 billion. There will be nothing left to feed a population that large.

 

blue planet 1 was better.
more of a rom-com

 

As depressing as it is, we need these reminders as a society, in my opinion. On a day to day basis, I'd guess a lot of people don't make decisions based on the environmental impact of their actions, yet every little bit helps. Ultimately, I feel it'll come to a time where governments will be forced to step in and implement laws to regulate how much waste we produce. By that time, the damage will already be done.

 

If the Blue planet 2 is depressing then don't, like me over the last 2 years, let someone gift you a subscription for National geographic for Christmas. Don't get me wrong it is a decent read sometimes. But the full hopelessness of the demise of our natural world from the rapid rise in extinctions to the likely consequences of sea levels rising are explained in some scope.

 

Nature like man is a great surviour ,it has a great way of overcoming and evolving situations ,it has survived billions of years ,even as we talk about waste and pollution ,we are much more aware of situations than the 30s to the 70s when industrialisation through coal power and the great boom in car manufacture ,trees felled for wood there is now massive programme of replanting ,animal extiction programmes to breed and reintroduce numbers back to the wild ,I'm not saying I don't believe how dangerous this has become but spreading fear is a great way to tax society .

 

Its not spreading fear for the sake of it. People need to know the facts. And a heck of a lot of scientists are coming to the same conclusions whilst a lot of politicians aren't doing enough. No where near enough trees are getting planted. You can reintroduce animals but not if there is no 'wild' there. You can't just patch together a busted eco-system.

 

It's spreading fear for the sake of money and having a reason to tax a very gullable public who are taught from a very early age to obey authority ,from schooling and a blame culture mentality.
Everything wears out through use but ,our planet has managed to survive billions of years it's amazing ,self cleaning ever evolving and continually renewing ,even man who manages to * everything has not managed yet ,in fact you could argue we have become more sympathetic to nature.

 

It managed to survive those billions of years because we weren't killing it.
It's only the last few generations that have probably done 99% of the damage.

If you think it's about spreading fear to increase taxes, then I think you're very wide of the mark.

 

Humans are great at being ignorant, it’s our biggest downfall really whether its being ignorant to other people for their religion, race, gender, sexuality which have all been the root causes for so many of societies issues.

The big one is being ignorant to a planet that can only take so much, we care more about money than the well being of our planet which will definitely affect our children/grandchildren in the near future on whether not they will survive.

I think in that respect the film Interstellar isn’t far off, we are the most wasteful generation so far, polluting the earth to have our phones, laptops and other home comforts. Its too far gone now as well since it’s already embedded in the next generation.

We ignore the big issues of our future and just hope it will all be okay or that someone else is taking care of it for us. Similar to majority of the 1st world turning a blind eye to wars, famine, genocide etc because it doesn’t affect them.


* that was a bit too deep for this time in the morning...I’ve just depressed myself.

 

What have scientists, in numerous fields, got to do with tax? Also, how much of those billions of years have had 7.5 billion people on the planet? Not many and you see the damage in such a small time. The world will survive in some form. Mankind won't.

 

]

Its not the sientists that have anything to do with tax ,i believe its been a coming together of both sientists and governments where by studies based on hard to prove facts that global warming is purely human driven have been hijacked by government to implement tax raising ,at no.protest from sientist who believe it to be the case ,and see this as a possitive way to bring attention to it by hurting the tax payer ,btw their studies are mostly goverment funded which keeps them in highly paid jobs ,so you can see the mariage and how it helps both .
Studies have also shown it to be a historical thing that happens and global temp will drop again , there is a drive to push the electric car hard now ,there is no evidence to show this will help ,there is massive waste from the change over to electic and the problematic issue of how to dispose of the used batteries ,all while avaition fuel which many would say should have even more affect on the climate and nothing has been mentioned about this ,are we gonna have electric planes .

 

My Dad has that and I'd borrow his after he's read them. There was as picture of a man surfing in Barbados and you could see all the plastic waste swirling around him in the wave. To most people's mind Barbados is an island paradise. Not any more.

 

You can see the ‘marriage’ between scientists and government, but not corporations and government?

 

Even if you were right were right and there were no such thing as anthropogenic climate change (there is), our polluting would still be disastrous for the planet. Or are scientists force-feeding plastic to seabirds, so the government can raise air passenger duty?

 

I don't think I have ever read where any scientists have said global warming is all down to mankind so to for you to imply it is disingenuous.

It's the rapid way we are causing it rather than a natural occurrence that will * things. Natural global temp variations are just that 'natural' & nature has a way of dealing with its own crisis, it's things of our making & the speed of them that nature can't defend against.

 

I genuinely don't know what to say to climate change deniers, who try and link it to some * conspiracy. * me.

 

It's * scary.

 

It is. Its a subject that's so easy to learn about as well, just google images of polar ice caps past and present or rising sea levels but naw it's because "they" want more tax. I don't know why I bother given I have no kids, must be the soft * in me who worries about my nephews/nieces and other people's bairns etc.

 

I think it is wrong to assume all studies are government funded. They aren't. And no doubt Trump and his friends will be a bad influence on climate change study funding. In truth there are numerous independent and international studies that honourably aim to establish truths about what really is going on with the planet. To think they are about 'hurting' taxpayers is a nonsense. Trying to combat climate change and all the other ills of the damage we are doing can only be of benefit to taxpayers.

 

I agree pollution is a big problem and land fills probably more than cars that have become so efficient, and will keep improving ,

Why tackle cars as the main pollutant when aviation fuel is probably the bigger issue .

Environmental impact of aviation

A C-141 Starlifter leaves contrails over Antarctica.
The environmental impact of aviation occurs because aircraft engines emit heat, noise, particulates, and gases which contribute to climate change[1][2] and global dimming.[3]Airplanes emit particles and gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, lead, and black carbonwhich interact among themselves and with the atmosphere.[4]

Despite emission reductions from automobiles and more fuel-efficient and less polluting turbofan and turboprop engines, the rapid growth of air travel in recent years contributes to an increase in total pollution attributable to aviation. From 1992 to 2005, passenger kilometers increased 5.2% per year. And in the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87% between 1990 and 2006.[5]

Comprehensive research shows that despite anticipated efficiency innovations to airframes, engines, aerodynamics and flight operations, there is no end in sight, even many decades out, to rapid growth in CO2 emissions from air travel and air freight,[6][7] due to projected continual growth in air travel.[8][9]This is because international aviation emissions have escaped international regulation up to the ICAO triennial conference in October 2016 agreed on the CORSIA offset scheme,[citation needed] and because of the lack of taxes on aviation fuel worldwide, lower fares become more frequent than otherwise, which gives a competitive advantage over other transportation modes.[citation needed]Unless market constraints are put in place, this growth in aviation's emissions will result in the sector's emissions amounting to all or nearly all of the annual global CO2 emissions budget by mid-century, if climate change is to be held to a temperature increase of 2 °C or less.[10]

There is an ongoing debate about possible taxation of air travel and the inclusion of aviation in an emissions trading scheme, with a view to ensuring that the total external costsof aviation are taken into account.[11]
Again no talk of how to reduce emmissions but plenty of talk about taxing fuel ,does this tax go towards finding better ways ,is electric cars a better way , they Will cause more problems from waste from batteries and other health concerns ,it all smacks of ill thought logic where the way forward is to tax pollution rather than fix the problem ,so is it as bad as predicted .

As countries the world over legislate to phase out petrol and diesel cars, attention is turning to the environmental impact of mining the materials needed for electric vehicle batteries.

This additional scrutiny has largely focused on ethical concerns with cobalt and lithium supply chains, despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s observation last year that the lithium ion batteries his vehicles use are mostly made of nickel and graphite, with lithium itself merely “the salt on the salad”.

But the extraction of nickel – predominately mined in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Russia and the Philippines – comes at an environmental and health cost.

Plumes of sulphur dioxide choking the skies, churned earth blanketed in cancerous dust, rivers running blood-red – environmental campaigners have painted a grim picture of the nickel mines and smelters feeding the electric vehicle industry.


The Philippines this year closed or suspended 17 nickel mines because of environmental concerns.

Miners struggling with low nickel prices have welcomed rising demand from an industry that the International Energy Agency estimates will deploy up to 70m electric vehicles by 2025 (pdf).

It is coming on too slowly for some – the Ravensthorpe mine in Western Australia became the latest in a long line of nickel projects to be marked for closure in September. But on the same day in the same state, Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton unveiled plans for a $43m (£33.5m) processing plant to supply 100,000 tonnes of nickel sulfate per year to the emerging battery market.

Carey Smith, a senior analyst at Alto Capital, says BHP Billiton has deep enough pockets to hold on for the electric vehicle boom, but notes it is only doing so after failing to sell its unprofitable Nickel West business due to an estimated A$1bn (£616m) in environmental clean-up liabilities.

The rise of electric cars could leave us with a big battery waste problem

“They’ve got 40 years worth of slag, which isn’t the cleanest material in world,” Smith says. “It needs to be disposed of carefully, burying it somehow or covering it with clay.”

South32, which spun-off from BHP Billiton in 2015, runs the Cerro Matoso mine in Colombia, where residents of nearby communities and mine workers have reported elevated rates of deformities and respiratory problems associated with exposure to pollution generated by nickel mining and smelting (pdf).


A BHP Billiton spokesperson told the Guardian all the company’s projects met environmental approval requirements.

Dr David Santillo, a senior scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories, says : “The mining of nickel-rich ores themselves, combined with their crushing and transportation by conveyor belt, truck or train, can generate high loadings of dust in the air, dust that itself contains high concentrations of potentially toxic metals, including nickel itself, copper, cobalt and chromium.

“We have to get smarter at recovering and reusing the vast quantities that we have already extracted from the earth, rather than relying on continued pursuit of new reserves of ever poorer quality and at substantial environmental cost.”

French carmaker Renault, producer of the Zoe, Europe’s best-selling electric vehicle in 2016, said that it recycles almost 70% of the battery weight, although did not specify what proportion of nickel is recycled.


Tesla claims that the nickel in its vehicles is 100% reusable at the end of life, but refused to disclose to the Guardian where the nickel in its car batteries is sourced from.

In a statement a Tesla spokesperson said suppliers were “three or four layers removed from Tesla. It is obviously quite difficult to have perfect knowledge about everything that happens this far down in the supply chain, but we’ve worked extremely hard to gather as much information as possible and to ensure that our standards are being met.”

Robert Baylis, from the mining consultancy Roskill, says entering the electric vehicle supply chain will see nickel miners attract additional scrutiny over carbon emissions.

A 2009 study published in PLOS Oneconcluded that the global warming potential of mining and processing nickel was the eighth highest of 63 metals over the previous year. However, a 2016 Union of Concerned Scientists study (pdf) found that the manufacture and operation of electric vehicles produced less than half the carbon emissions of comparable petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel has responded to pressure on carbon emissions and claims to have reduced its use of coal-fired energy by 49% in 2016 (pdf).


“It is of strategic importance to us as a key player in the supply chain that is enabling the growth of electric vehicles and clean energy solutions,” says Larisa Zelkova, vice-president at Norilsk Nickel.

The company has a lot of ground to make up – its home city of Norilsk is rated one of the most polluted cities in the world, thanks largely to the 350,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide emitted annually by the city’s nickel factory, which was decommissioned last year. In 2016, Norilsk Nickel made headlines when an overflow of oxidised nickel waste turned the city’s Daldykan river red.

Andy Whitmore of the London Mining Network, a coalition of anti-mining campaign groups, says nickel producers should sign up to international standards such as the Initiative on Responsible MiningAssurance.

“I am not sure that nickel has got the attention it deserves,” he says. “Although the mining industry has responded to its critics over the years, mainly we would argue by changes in policies rather than true change in practice, I don’t believe the pressure around [electric] cars has made a difference to date.”
.