Climate Change

[saveasteading]

10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

or polluted with tin, copper, arsenic, lithium...

...pilchards.

 

You are certainly doing your best to discourage tourism.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

You are certainly doing your best to discourage tourism

One of the posters about saving water was to save it for our visitors.

Did not go down well in some quarters.

Really a case that climate change has shifted weather patterns more northerly, so Cornwall is gradually getting dryer. More reservoir will have to be built. 

If it it accepted that some land will have to go to reservoirs, there is an opportunity to float solar farms on them. And part could be turned over to holiday homes and recreational/educational facilities.

I think we tend, as a nation, to be too small minded about development. No reason something cannot be multifunctional. Hard to legislate for, but new developments could contribute to local carbon sequestration projects. So say 100 hectares need to be developed for housing, 50 local hectares could be turned into woodland or wetlands. There are secondary opportunities for tourism as well. 

Trouble we have is that it seems to be one thing, and one thing only. Much imagination is needed.

 

One area is the existing housing overheating, no one wants roofs covered in solar reflecting bitumen paint, which is cheap and effective, or put a tinted film on windows. 

PV on roofs and walls is effective at reducing some energy input into buildings, but is seen as expensive, so not done by many, and not done at all for overheating reasons.

 

Local food production, while it seems sensible, probably isn't. Different areas of the country/world have different climates, topology, geology and transport links. Our transport links are based on old industries and agriculture. Be a shame to neglect what is already there and works. 

Like power delivery, the inefficiency is in the last few miles, not the bulk transport.

Companies don't look for the most expensive and environmentally damaging way to trade in goods, they look at the cheapest. Most of the developed world has similar standards and taxes, but some have better skill sets or other resources.

Tulip, that turns pigs into bacon and sausages, is in Redruth, not where the market is. But it does make for cheap bacon. Half a pound of offcuts pressed into a mould.

Not many local farms will do that for you.

Edited July 3, 2023 by SteamyTea

[saveasteading]

13 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

More reservoir will have to be built

It would be reasonably easy to reduce water demand.

Reduced flow / spray taps and showers.

All metered. A fixed sum up to a limit, then rather expensive,esp in summer.

Huge discounts on water butts.

 

Any other suggestions?

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, saveasteading said:

It would be reasonably easy to reduce water demand

Well it should be. But that really entails getting people to change. The SW already has the most expensive water in the country, and has shown it can save a bit easily.

Getting flows restricted may be a step too far at the moment.

Cornwall is a relatively low density county, about 160 people per km². With less than 600k people, all infrastructure projects are expensive.

Add to that the unique problem that the population more than doubled in the summer, our infrastructure has added costs. Still functions amazingly really. Not many places can cope with the variations in all aspects of life i.e. food supply, energy, water/sewage, policing, medical facility, housing...

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

No, we need economically active people to serve the nation.

Children will be these people.

 

You are quite right. What I meant is ending population growth. 

[SteamyTea]

38 minutes ago, Marvin said:

You are quite right. What I meant is ending population growth. 

I think that has almost happened.  It is amazing how fast the fertility rate has dropped, and in the most unlikely places.

Sub Saharan Africa, which has plenty of land, water, and mineral resources, but even worse politics than us, is the next place to transform it selves (plural as many countries).  Could be a good place to to help out.  No need to interfere with  all the countries, just ones that are internally willing to change.

Edited July 3, 2023 by SteamyTea

[saveasteading]

40 minutes ago, Marvin said:

What I meant is ending population growth. 

It is the fault of reduced death rate,  medicine, clean water,  that sort of stuff.

100 years ago a couple would have 10 children and 7 would die.

Then the parents die at 65.

No population growth....well just enough to arm the next world war.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

22 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

No population growth....well just enough to arm the next world war.

If you knocked out the whole of India, then that would be 1.45bn less.

Back to 2005 levels, and people where saying them there are too many of us.

in 1970, Limits to Growth and Population Bomb were popular reading, there were 3.7bn people, people said too many.

1951, 2.6bn.  Was it a problem then? I was not born.

Now let us look at energy usage by person since 1950.

 

Year	Pop billions	Energy TWH	Energy per person /kWh/y	Power per person /kW
1950	2.6	28600	11000	1.3
1960	3.1	42000	13548	1.5
1970	3.7	66400	17946	2
1980	4.5	88000	19556	2.2
1990	5.3	107000	20189	2.3
2000	6.1	123000	20164	2.3
2010	7	153000	21857	2.5
2020	7.8	168000	21538	2.5

 

I wonder if we have reached peak energy/power per person?

I also wonder if we can reduce usage to 1 kW per person.

 

Data from

Population

Energy

[Mattg4321]

5 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Where there is already a hosepipe ban in Kent and E Sussex.

Still 100 000 houses to be built but there is no plan for water other than to take it away from places with plenty. Or for sewage other than feed the existing system 

Nothing to do with a lack of water though. 
 

South East Water have imposed one on me yet their reservoirs are 97% and 82% full, due to the very wet start of the year we had. 
 

The problem is huge amounts of extra housing in the area, and not enough investment in the infrastructure (as with pretty much everything in this country). They literally can’t treat the raw water fast enough and get it to all the houses quick enough if demand surges when it’s hot and dry (as you’d expect it to do). 
 

Blaming climate change is a total cop out and let’s these incompetent clowns off the hook. 
 

Water should be really be nationalised (along with energy, rail and anything else that is vital to a functioning society) and run for the good of the people. Unfortunately, you’ll get clowns, charlatans or crooks running it most often whether it’s run by the state or the private sector!

[JohnMo]

Read somewhere that in the 60 or 70s when central heating first started the house target temp was something like 16 degrees, now we get people who want and need to have 23, or they will die, then complain about big bills.

[SteamyTea]

36 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

The problem is huge amounts of extra housing in the area

What has the increase actually been each year, 1%, 0.5%.  Data is needed to back that up.

37 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

Water should be really be nationalised (along with energy, rail and anything else that is vital to a functioning society) and run for the good of the people. Unfortunately, you’ll get clowns, charlatans or crooks running it most often whether it’s run by the state or the private sector!

I have to agree, and have no idea what the answer is.

 

34 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Read somewhere that in the 60 or 70s when central heating first started the house target temp was something like 16 degrees, now we get people who want and need to have 23, or they will die

They died of hyperthermia back then as well.

[Jenki]

10 hours ago, saveasteading said:

 

To end with a tease. In any documentary or travel programme about the Highlands, there will be 90% English accents.  Probably all legal, but perhaps have relocated for the reliable water supply.

Being a new expat living in the Highlands, it's not rare hearing a Scottish accent, but I reckon I hear more English southerners than Scottish, of my 3 closest neighbours 2 are locals, and one came from around 10miles from where I grew up in Manchester.

 

Agriculture: two crazy examples.

A local farmer sold his head of sheep, as the government are willing to pay him more for the next 5 years in subsidies to sell them, than he would earn rearing lambs and selling.( with a hope of meeting next zero) absolutely crazy shortsighted planning.  Reminds of engineering in the 90's outsourcing everything to China, only for costs to increase, but no way back when the foundries closed etc.

 

Secondly wool. I had my second hands on experience of rural life today assisting my neighbour with the annual sheep shearing. ( Started paying back my long I owe him list)

He gets about 30 to 50 pence for a fleece. And it costs him £1.50.

So why is wool insulation so expensive, my gut is big business not wanting this cheap raw material when they can sell profitable glass fibre / PIR products lobbying government for favourable incentives to use their products.

 

Sitting here at 74M AMSL, I'm quite happy that the planet will do what it needs, the UK hitting net zero with  the introduction of EV's and decimating farming will not work, and have a more detrimental effect on the planet as we will need to secure food security by way of more transport.

 

 

[Mattg4321]

14 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

What has the increase actually been each year, 1%, 0.5%.  Data is needed to back that up.

 

 

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/media/17852/census_briefing1_population.pdf

 

The population of West Sussex, where I live, increased by 9.4% between 2011 and 2021. Of course, it's possible it actually increased by more than that, since we don't know how many people are living here illegally.

 

Either way, it's a big increase in a small amount of time, leading to pressure on services, when the infrastructure is not suitably upgraded, when evidently it has not been.

 

[SteamyTea]

48 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

The population of West Sussex, where I live, increased by 9.4% between 2011 and 2021. Of course, it's possible it actually increased by more than that, since we don't know how many people are living here illegally.

That is population, not housing, as you claimed.

15 hours ago, Mattg4321 said:

The problem is huge amounts of extra housing in the area, and not enough investment in the infrastructure (as with pretty much everything in this country). They literally can’t treat the raw water fast enough and get it to all the houses quick enough if demand surges when it’s hot and dry (as you’d expect it to do). 

I do agree that there is probably a good correlation with population and water usage.

It may be a case of not potable water being a problem, but waste water not being treated effectively.  We just flush it into the sea down here.

[Mattg4321]

Fair enough, but I would suggest you’re being a little pedantic! It’s people, rather than houses that use water. The same link shows that the number of households has increased by a similar amount. 
 

We have a similar problem here with regard to wastewater. Southern water (the company that deals with my wastewater), received a record £90M fine a couple of years ago for doing exactly that. Those responsible should be facing jail time for that imo.