[UK] Government pay-per-use car taxation petition

[Bill]

Originally posted by noneedforaname
...anyone who has received capital punishment has never re-offended.

And plenty never have offended...

At least if someone is imprisoned and later found innocent, their freedom won\'t be posthumous. The death penalty doesn\'t seem to be any more of a deterrent than a prison sentence. I\'m not saying that the prison system is perfect; some people indeed do reoffend. But surely it is obvious that capital punishment is fundamentally, hideously wrong: if the state decrees that killing is wrong, how can they justify killing a killer themselves? It\'s no better than one murderer killing another.

 

[Trevor]

\"I don\'t recall archaeologists finding SUV\'s from when global warming caused the end of the Ice Age, nor did they find any during the Medival Warming Period.
Both of which, I might add, were very beneficial to man. \"

Thats a spurious argument. Global temperatures have been up to 15 degrees higher than now, but humans weren\'t around then. Global temeratures have been remarkably constant for the last 10,000 years, there is not a single human civilisation that has been around that long. We simply do not know what a global environmental perturbation of the magnitude predicted will do, but far smaller ones have destroyed past civilisations and ruined economies (Romes north african granery for example).

No offence Evil Dave, but I really don\'t think you have any idea what you are talking about. The reality is that the cause of global climate change is irrelevant, such change will cause massive social woe, be it natural or man made. The point is that we need to prepare, and driving around in a SUV with two fingers raised saying \"I\'ll do what I want\" doesn\'t change the fact that a sea level rise of 7m will displace millions of people and submerge many of the worlds economic centres.

The point is that we need to prepare for the consequences now. If we start making changes now, the effects will hopefully be manageable, if we wait until half of New York is underwater its gonna be a tad harder.

Part of my job is to study global warming and I am SERIOUSLY worried about what is happening. Economic woes are bullshit compared against severe damage to our environment and sea level rises that will displace millions of people. America struggled with 200,00 displaced by Katrina, what do you think will happen when Bangladesh, Holland and London start to be submerged? The economic cost will be astronomical. Coastal erosion costs 5 billion $ PER YEAR in the USA alone and will only get worse. Insurance companies are running scared and when that happens everyone really should sit up and take notice.


\"Matty That is a very patronising and somewhat insulting comment. I travel 40 miles each way to work. A bike (or motorcycle) is out of the question as I have been instructed by my doctors that as my balance mechanism is so damaged that I would be a Liability and dangerous (as well as uninsurable).

Public Transport is a farce.
In order to get into work before 09:30 I have to travel to Manchester and get the earliest Liverpool express,(07:20) which will get me to Lime Street at 08:15. I then have to get the link to Birkenhead another 20 mins. The first train to Manchester from Bolton is 06:50.
As it is I leave the house at 06:30 to miss traffic.

I\'ve signed. \"

But you see, thats the problem. How bad does it have to get before we realise that what we are doing is not sustainable. I sympathise fully that as an individual you may not have much choice if you want a roof over your head and food to eat, but our actions threaten our very existance. If individuals will not (or cannot) change their behaviour, then it is a requirement that governments do it for us.

Lets face it, it is a simple fact that humans do not need cars to survive, nor do we need TVs, airplanes, washing machines, hoovers or a thousand other things. When it comes down to it, we don\'t really need houses either, but there is one thing we would all find it rather hard to live without - planet earth.

It amazes me that people will happily pay for house insurance on the offchance it might burn down, but the idea of \'buying\' some insurance for the planet is seen as some weird, hippy idea that sane people wouldn\'t touch with a bargepole. I\'m starting to bet history will show those crazy hippies were right and its the rest of us who are insane.

To put this in perspective, I have been studying global climate change since the late 80s I always considered it to be real, but was never particularly concerned about it, because I believed that its effects on society would be minor. That has changed, I now see the potential for massive social upheaval on a scale never seen before by man. I still believe we will cope, but I\'m now seeing scenerios of millions dead or displaced as a possibility rather than a fantasy.

What is required is a global effort to move to a sustainable economy, where the environmental impacts of our actions are properly compensated within the economy. This requires governments to enact policy that changes our way of thinking, basically so we are aware of the real impact of our actions.

It is a simple fact that many of our resources are finite and we cannot continue as we are. Stick your head in the sand all you like, its a fact.

We are paying for our massive population, and it will only get worse. If we wish to sustain such a large population we need to change our behaviour. Alternatively we cut the worlds population to a few million. Personally I really don\'t see the need for all these people, so the latter appeals, but many seem intent on reproducing at a ridiculous rate.

Economic cost is the worst argument for not becoming sustainable. We have one planet, destroy it and we destroy ourselves, it is very simple, whether you like it or not.

As a scientist I\'m fascinated by what is going to happen in the next 50-100 years, as a person I\'m scared shitless.

Here is an interesting exercise for people, go find a map of a coastal area near you, or pick a major coastal city. Find the 10m and 50m contour lines. See what happens if sea level rises by 10 or 50m. What was the population in that area? How many people are displaced? What was the value of the submerged property? Now understand that sea levels rose by 120m at the end of the last ice age.

Are you scared yet?

Trevor - hoping to hell he\'s wrong, but really not willing to take the risk...

 

[noneedforaname]

Prisons are no punishment at all when there accomadation and standard of living is far better than that of our armed services, what are they being punished for?

most countries that still have the death penalty have low life expectancies and violent societies were they are far more likely to encounter death in there day to day lives and as such there is a much less of a \'threat\' when it comes to capital punishment.

In western countries violent death is something of a rareity and the standard of living is far better therefore the offender has more to lose and therefore the deterant would have greater effect.

If you have little or nothing you have little or nothing to lose if you try to better yourself through crime no matter the punishment.

If you have a lot to lose because of your high standard of living you are risking far more for less reward and therefore greater risk.

Other european countries have tried far more distasteful but less violent means of social engineering even into the sixties and proved to be completely fruitless.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by noneedforaname
Prisons are no punishment at all when there accomadation and standard of living is far better than that of our armed services, what are they being punished for?
Have you ever been in jail for a lengthy time? Even if you have a decent acomodation it\'s quite a punishment not having your freedom. Ask someone who\'s done a couple of years\' time.

most countries that still have the death penalty have low life expectancies and violent societies were they are far more likely to encounter death in there day to day lives and as such there is a much less of a \'threat\' when it comes to capital punishment.

In western countries violent death is something of a rareity and the standard of living is far better therefore the offender has more to lose and therefore the deterant would have greater effect.
That depends on what country and which demographic group you study. In the US, for instance, murder is the most common cause of death for young afro-american men (at least it was a few years ago).

If you have little or nothing you have little or nothing to lose if you try to better yourself through crime no matter the punishment.

If you have a lot to lose because of your high standard of living you are risking far more for less reward and therefore greater risk.
You may think people are that rational, but as I mentioned, the statistics tell a different story.

Other european countries have tried far more distasteful but less violent means of social engineering even into the sixties and proved to be completely fruitless.

 

[noneedforaname]

Deprived areas of the US can be likened to a third world culture, despite the glossy TV programs there are places like this. Unfortunately areas in this country are going that way and yes the rate of murder is rising and so are things like gun crime and drug dealing which both directly and indirectly cause deaths.

Our judicial system has done nothing to reverse this trend, not even slow it, yet our goverment has supposedly put more officers on the beat than ever before.

Something needs to change.

As for lack of liberty, do service personel have freedom to do completely as they wish. There regime is far more rigourous and disciplined than prisons.

One of our specialities are open prisons, its in these we put our paedophiles, murderers and violent criminals so they can mix freely with the local population.

The governors of these prisons have no idea wether prisoners have absconded or not. They are even allowed jobs on which they can claim tax credits. All the while \"posing no risk to the public\".

The problem is prison has become a soft option, so much so crime has risen so much that our prisons are overflowing.

We have legal precedent saying we can\'t make prisons less enjoyable and we cant impose longer sentences as we don\'t have the room.

Whats the solution?

Its twofold,
1)instill moral sense in youngsters as they grow up.
2)short sharp shock to try to halt the rise in crime, so that as the younger citizens grow up and move out into society crime will fall naturally as the criminals grow old, die or are executed to be replaced with a more civil law abiding generation.

EDIT:and on that note im off for the evening as i have work to do, absolutely nothing to with becoming el presidente of the uk, honest.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Trevor
\"I don\'t recall archaeologists finding SUV\'s from when global warming caused the end of the Ice Age, nor did they find any during the Medival Warming Period.
Both of which, I might add, were very beneficial to man. \"

Thats a spurious argument. Global temperatures have been up to 15 degrees higher than now, but humans weren\'t around then. Global temeratures have been remarkably constant for the last 10,000 years, there is not a single human civilisation that has been around that long. We simply do not know what a global environmental perturbation of the magnitude predicted will do, but far smaller ones have destroyed past civilisations and ruined economies (Romes north african granery for example).

No offence Evil Dave, but I really don\'t think you have any idea what you are talking about. The reality is that the cause of global climate change is irrelevant, such change will cause massive social woe, be it natural or man made. The point is that we need to prepare, and driving around in a SUV with two fingers raised saying \"I\'ll do what I want\" doesn\'t change the fact that a sea level rise of 7m will displace millions of people and submerge many of the worlds economic centres.

The point is that we need to prepare for the consequences now. If we start making changes now, the effects will hopefully be manageable, if we wait until half of New York is underwater its gonna be a tad harder.

Part of my job is to study global warming and I am SERIOUSLY worried about what is happening. Economic woes are bullshit compared against severe damage to our environment and sea level rises that will displace millions of people. America struggled with 200,00 displaced by Katrina, what do you think will happen when Bangladesh, Holland and London start to be submerged? The economic cost will be astronomical. Coastal erosion costs 5 billion $ PER YEAR in the USA alone and will only get worse. Insurance companies are running scared and when that happens everyone really should sit up and take notice.

I am a scientist. I study physics, and while I do not know all there is to know about the environment, I know enough to know that we, as a whole, do not know enough.
Theories, without knowing the whole story, are generally bad theories.
I also know a very, very important thing: Scientific Method.
If the scientific method is no good, the theory is no good.
To put it bluntly, the methods used for the infamous hockey stick graph were tripe. They were also disproved by two canadian men and accepted by academic review for publication.

We have written documentation of the warming of the middle ages, which is harder proof than anything anyone else has.
You\'re also seeming to forget about the \"Global Cooling Period\" that seemed to happen in the \'50\'s, that had all the environmentalists screaming about the coming Ice Age.

I am not saying global warming does not exsist, I am saying that man does not cause it, can not stop it, and will either adapt or die off, like every other species on this planet.

There have been many Ice Ages, the ending of each of these was a \"Global Warming Period\" that lasted millions of years.
The logical assumption would be that this is a natural cycle, Not a man made one.
We just happen to be here when it is happening.

I know also that a natural disaster of great consequences seems to pop up every twenty years or so.
New Ice Age, Hole in the Ozone, overpopulation and starvation by the year 2000, Nuclear winter caused by burning oil fields, all embraced by the media and the doom mongers.

I also know that in research, those that yell the loudest or have the \"greatest emergency\" get the most funding.

And finally, I know that the most important Greenhouse gas is being ignored, the gas that is 99.9% made by nature and by far dwarfs all other green house gasses, the gas no environmentalists are even talking about. Water Vapor

You are presuming I know nothing, not a very scientific approach, or rather I should say, an approach that is becoming all too common in the politics of science today, the loss of objectivity, the fervor of being right, the bending of data to fit the theory, the dismissing of those who do not agree or even branding them as heretics, rather than letting the points prove themselves.
This smacks of religious fanaticism, not science.
I am skeptical, because that is the scientific way, prove it to me.
I will not accept theories as hard facts because it is safer or \"just to be on the safe side\"

 

[matty1001]

And cows farting hehe

 

[Mr.S.Marbo]

Off Topic Generally academic studies show that there is no deterrent effect from the death penalty. It doesn\'t reduce the amount of offences committed. You don\'t need the death penalty to stop people re-offending - just lock them up longer. Studies have shown that the cost of putting someone to death is often higher than locking someone up in a maximum security facility for 80 years.

The UK has something like the 5th largest economy in the world and it heavily redistributes income - the redistribution of income by the state does not cripple economies. Countries with the highest taxes in the world and who operate state income redistribution (Norway and the like for example) have high standards of living and still manage competitive economies.

More on topic Interesting post Trevor...

I would agree that we cannot just sit back and hope everything will work out fine. There is no doubt that climate change will catch up with us as a result of our actions. The scientific community is not saying \"it may not happen\" they are saying \"it WILL happen we are just not 100% sure when and how much\".

It\'s a case of pay now or pay later. Either way we will be forced to pay. A UK commissioned report by an economist stated:

\"....global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%..... But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product..\"

If you are not prepared to pay now to slow climate change then you will have to pay later. Thinking in purely selfish terms how bad would a 20% pay cut be for you? Do nothing and that\'s what you\'ll face. If no action is taken:

* Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people

* Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world\'s population

* Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of \"climate refugees\"\"

We cannot sit back and think everything will be fine because if we do it won\'t.

I am prepared to travel by bus and train (yes in the UK public transport is crap) and indeed I do at every available opportunity and I believe we all should. Despite this I don\'t believe the UK governments car plan is well thought out. It makes no distinction between essential and non-essential journeys. It won\'t stop Joe Bloggs from driving 20 yards down the street every day to buy shopping if he can still afford it.

It should be used to reduce unnecessary travel but I suspect it will have little or no environmental impact. The person who has to travel 50+ miles each day to from work is likely to just pay the charge if there is no other option.

What about something useful????? E.g. Japanese bullet style trains - would you drive from Birmingham to Edinburgh for 5 hours if you could get on a bullet train and be there in less than 1 hour for £20 - £30?? People will stop using cars when viable alternatives are given combined with penalising \"unnecessary car travel\".

 

[Beelzebrush]

Originally posted by Dammekkos2

there isn\'t a remote chance of me signing this petition, although some aspects of this proposal aren\'t my cup of tea (like tracking, but they do that already with mobile phones). And tbh, I think \"non-working mothers\" should be charged £186 for the monthly \"school run\". I walked to school most days.

Well... I assume you must have lived within reasonable walking distance to school - probably with a bus route for when it rained and presumably in an urban location? Problem is, that not everybody can do this - my son\'s school is 3 miles away via country lanes and no bus routes - so to achieve this, one of us would have a 6 mile round trip to walk twice a day, with no bus service for when the weather\'s shite - this, of course, is the same scenario for a great many people. There\'s no such thing as a black and white solution. Also, in my day-to-day job, I have to use a van to transport tools, materials, heavy plant etc... I can\'t see that a bicycle, public transport or a Toyota Prius would be a great deal of use.

Unfortunately - the fact is, that unless you live in an urban area that is well catered for with public transport and all you need to carry to work is a briefcase etc... you are screwed. There are millions of people who don\'t fit this demographic and life will be extremely difficult without a car/van etc.

Lastly, if you really think that this is just about the environment, you\'re dreaming... it\'s simply about yet more tax to supply a greedy, inept and wasteful government for whom environmental issues are nothing more than a convenient soundbite to extol more revenue and exact even more erosions of personal liberty.

 

[Avelorn]

Originally posted by Evil Dave
And finally, I know that the most important Greenhouse gas is being ignored, the gas that is 99.9% made by nature and by far dwarfs all other green house gasses, the gas no environmentalists are even talking about. Water Vapor

Now if you would use your scientific mind and consider why they don\'t mention it. I think I can afford being a bit sarcastic with you as you were being pretty arrogant with a person actually researching the field. Many of us are scientists in one way of another... doesn\'t mean much if we\'re not actually researching the field.. or at least one nearby.

About the issue I think it can be good to keep in mind that this isn\'t an experiment that we can replicate in a laboratorium. The theory is based on simulation and computermodels on one of the most complicated mechanisms we know of.. the climate. So the question which hypothesis answers best to the given data. I can\'t answer that question as I haven\'t done any research in the field.. I can just say that the scientists I\'ve seen quoted and read papers by have all been quite to the point on what\'s happening. And I\'m not sure what their motives is to overplay the risk we are facing except perhaps the funding issue. But the funding issue is mostly about people trying to get money through releasing premature results. They run out of money.. scream a bit in the media and hope that someone will think it\'s important. I don\'t think that factor is large enough to make the research of them all a large stinking pile of poo though. Maybe we disagree on that.

But on th other hand I have pretty good ideas on the motives of the person cited as a source from your link..

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pat_Michaels

Two quotes I find interesting. Especially since I\'ve dealed with other kinds of sceptics before.. namely sceptics of certain historical events. Scepticism with an agenda so to speak.

\"There\'s a certain kind of skeptic who has no patience for the official consensus, especially if it has the imprimatur of a government, or worse, the United Nations. They focus on ambiguities and mysteries and things that just don\'t add up. They say the Official Story can\'t possibly be true, because it doesn\'t explain the [insert inexplicable data point here]. They set a high standard for reality -- it must never be fuzzy around the edges.

\"They argue not as scientists but as lawyers,\" says Pieter Tans, who runs a lab at NOAA in Boulder, Colo., where he examines bottles of air taken from monitoring stations all over the planet. \"When they argue, they pick one piece of the fabric of evidence and blow it up all out of proportion . . . Their purpose is to confuse, so that the public gets the idea that there is a raging scientific debate. There is no raging scientific debate.\"

Confusion leads to people not acting = money. In the short term of course...

If I remember correctly there was a bet that the average temperatures would go down in the period 1997-2008(?) from one or several sceptics... well the odds are getting better!

But on the other hand Dave.. I do sincerely hope you and the sceptics are right in the end!

 

[Evil Dave]

@Avelorn:
As I\'ve said, I believe in Global Warming and that it will culminate in another Ice Age, the history of the planet has shown this.
I am not a skeptic of Nature, but of Human Nature.

I do not believe, however, that man is causing something this time, that has historically happened before without man.

What truly started my skeptisicm was the hockey graph chart and the data therin.
They got data from measuring tree rings, and extrapolated.
Now, there is no scientific instrument that measures tree rings and magically tells you the temperature that it was when that ring was grown.
Anyone who knows a bit about forestry, can tell you all kinds of factors can and do affect tree ring growth: Water, temperature, sunlight, elements in the soil, nutrients, forest fires, etc. etc.
Now this data is inherently inacurate, when you extrpolate faulty data, you get faulty data. It\'s really simple, go to a map, pick a point and go 5 degrees off from the point you want to go to, go a thousand miles and you\'ll see you are way off the mark from where you intended it to be.
When this was pointed out, the scientists involved said you could get the same numbers without the inherantly inacurate tree ring models. When asked for their number models for verification, the scientists refused to give them up. Which is extremely fishy. Scientists want their theories to stand up against argument.
The Federal Government, who funded them, made them give up the information, where upon two canadians took the time to go through all the numbers and data, and could not get it to add up, they found many basic mathmatical errors, and even then could not add it up, without the tree rings.
The same tree rings that the same scientists had used years earlier and explained that carbon, a nutrient for trees, had caused decent growth those years, not temperature.
This was accepted by a review of peers and published.

Another thing that has fueled my skeptcism is the fact that many of our states are not hitting even close to their highest temperatures, many which were set in the 1920\'s. Yet, very few charts wind up given to the public that show any accuracy before the 70\'s, as it is generally accepted that the 40\'s and 50\'s were much cooler than the norm. (Hmmm....Nazi\'s were in the 40\'s thru 50\'s...therefore I theorize that Nazi\'s cause Global Cooling lol)
Yet we have had a few hit record lows, along with the freakish blizards hitting the midwest as I type.
The fact of the matter is the Global Warming theory is not a new one, it was being discussed in the 1900\'s.

As you say these things cannot be tested in the laboratory, so we must look at the bigger picture, not just pieces of the puzzle.
And the puzzle may be larger than we can even comprehend.

Astrologers recently found that the temperature of Mars is rising as well, pointing to it could be a cycle caused by our sun, which we have very little true knowledge of.

Just recently scientists have found that live plants give off far more methane than dead plants, disproving a theory that had been accepted as fact for decades.

We know too little to blame it on one culprit at this time, or even if there is a culprit.
Those claiming to know the whole truth are truly not looking at the bigger picture.

It is generally assumed that scientists do not have agendas, everyone has an agenda. Everyone.
Since I have been in the scientific community, I have seen more petty thuggery from those with PHD\'s over those without. I have seen wasted funds, blatant racism, nationalism and sexism. I\'ve witnessed the stealing of funds, the use of federal grants for personal use, and the falsification of data.
I\'ve seen far more back stabbing, and ass kissing in the scientific community, than I ever witnessed when I was working for the federal government, and almost all of it is over funding.
It\'s sad to say that I\'ve come to trust politicians more than most scientists, which in truth, is basically what most of them in the higher offices have become, except you can impeach politicians.

And come on, man, They can\'t tell me with 100% accuracy if it\'s going to rain tommorow, yet they can tell me what the weather is going to be like in a hundred years?lol

edit: Also, this years Hurricane season was predicted to be huge, that turned out to be completely bogus.

 

[finn17]

It\'s not a common occurence...

..but I agree with Evil Dave 110%

We live on a lump of \'almost\' spherical rock with a molten iron core that hurtles around the sun at breakneck speed whilst spinning on it\'s own axis at a speed that, without gravity, would hurl each and everyone of us into space purely by centrifugal force. Our trajectory around the sun, an uncontrolled thermonuclear furnace, is entirely governed by the fragile balance of gravitational forces at play in our solar system..

Have I said anything controversial yet?

If not, why on earth do we blame miniscule changes in temperature over a miniscule amount of time (the amount of time anyone has bothered to take records) on things we humans do?

To my mind, that\'s the same kind of thinking that once made us the centre of the universe.....

We don\'t have that much influence..we never had that much influence...

 

[Swordwind]

When we invent that bomb they have at the end of Starship Troopers, then we should be worried.

 

[matty1001]

Looks like somethings happening:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6242281.stm

 

[generulpoleaxe]

yeh, ruth kelly is nicking someone elses idea.

using talentless bitch.

 

[supervike]

Originally posted by finn17
.
We don\'t have that much influence..we never had that much influence...

Yup, I think we give ourselves a bit too much credit there as well....As much as we would hate to admit it, the human race is an insignificant speck on an age old rock. We haven\'t the power to change things to the degree we are talking about.

Its a noble cause, but one that is rooted in our arrogance...

 

[Trevor]

\"I am not saying global warming does not exsist, I am saying that man does not cause it, can not stop it, and will either adapt or die off, like every other species on this planet.
There have been many Ice Ages, the ending of each of these was a \"Global Warming Period\" that lasted millions of years.
The logical assumption would be that this is a natural cycle, Not a man made one.
We just happen to be here when it is happening. \"

All evidence suggests we are due another ice age. The little ice may have been the beginnings of this, hard to tell. The worry is that the natural cycle is currently cooling, if that is true, then we are massively underestimating global temperature increase.

Actually we could quite easily stop global warming. Give me the resources and I could plunge the planet into an ice age in a few years. To say we can\'t do anything about climate change is simply wrong (whether we should or not is a different matter).

There is an overwhelming scientific concensus that climate change is occuring, that humans have contributed to it and that it has the potential to cause serious social upheaval and damage.

The chemistry behind the ozone hole is well known, it was us, we had a measureable effect and our actions have helped it to repair.

You may believe that we do not have any significant influence on our environment, but that is simply not true. It is not an egotistical overstatement of our importance, it is a simple fact that we have had large, significant impacts upon our environment and many of these are negative. There isn\'t a single bit of natural environment left in the UK, it is all man modified.

Yes there are larger things out there than us, one asteroid could make all this academic, but that is a spurious reason to not look after the planet.

Do you shit on your dining table? Why not? Many of our actions are akin to shitting on our dining table and then eating off it, it really isn\'t a good idea. Yet because its out of sight, or happens on time scales of decades we don\'t see it and thus consider it to not exist or not be important.

Read the story about the goose that layed the golden eggs, that is the path we are currently on.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Trevor
There is an overwhelming scientific concensus that climate change is occuring, that humans have contributed to it and that it has the potential to cause serious social upheaval and damage.

Partially true. There is a large concensus that the climate is changing, however there is no concensus that man is causing it.
There is a Petition of over 10,000 scientists floating around that disagreed with the Kyoto accords, and man\'s influence.
If I remember corectly that is over 20X the number that even wrote the accords.

The chemistry behind the ozone hole is well known, it was us, we had a measureable effect and our actions have helped it to repair.

Actually, we do not know for how long the ozone hole was there. There are theories it may have been there for a great, great while. Even theories that a hole such as this may have been the mutating effect that has caused evolution in many species. There is no proof as to whether we did anything to help it repair or if it was a self repair job. Nature tends to balance and fix itself.

You may believe that we do not have any significant influence on our environment, but that is simply not true. It is not an egotistical overstatement of our importance, it is a simple fact that we have had large, significant impacts upon our environment and many of these are negative. There isn\'t a single bit of natural environment left in the UK, it is all man modified.

Which after we are gone for a while will revert back to nature.
And I point you towards Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl, all man made disasters that are thriving again less than 60 years later in the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl in less than 10 years is now a lush overgrown forested area that has become a refuge for wildlife.
Mother Nature is one tenacious bitch.

Yes there are larger things out there than us, one asteroid could make all this academic, but that is a spurious reason to not look after the planet.

The problem is, is you do not want to look after the planet, not really.
You want to look after humanity and yourself, and keep the planet in a way that you see as benefitting us, whether it be natural or man-made.
In other words you see it as a delicate ecosystem, that suits our fragile species, and will fight to keep what you see as the status quo of the ecosystem.
I see it as a sturdy environment that will still be strong and kicking after we have gone the way of the Dodo.
Unlike many other species, however, we may have the ability to survive another Ice Age, if we don\'t kill ourselves through overpopulation first.

I have lived in the wild, rough places of the Earth most of my life. The woods, the swamps, the mountains. I like privacy and these are usually the only places one can find them.
I find it oddly ironic that I have met very, very few environmentalists actually living the life out here in the wild, yet you can\'t walk ten feet without stepping on them in any major city.

 

[Ogrebane]

Cool battle of the scientists. Looks like a nerd fight. Slide rules at 10 paces. My bets on trevor (well he is from OZ or at least living here)

Very interesting banter not sure whose side to be on yet tho. Can we have references to actual figures perhaps.

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by Ogrebane
Slide rules at 10 paces...

Actually, as a physicist I use photons.lol