When is Britain going to start doing something about global warming?

Answer 1

I am sure the British government can quote a long litany of things that it is doing from wind farms to energy conservation. There is though a need for much more radical and hard hitting measures. The government was fortunate that about the time of the Kyoto agreement the country was switching a lot of power generation from coal to natural gas (driven by economics not environmental concerns) and this results in lower CO2 emissions. This enabled the British government to adopt a 'holier than thow' attitude in its discussions with other countries.

Now though the UK seems likely to miss more recent targets on CO2 emissions. I feel one characteristic of British society is great resistance to quick change. Despite any good intentions of politicians they greatly fear mass opposition to unpopular measures they may try to force through. My feeling is that British politicians will continue to be high on rhetoric but less high on actual achievements and the UK will continue to struggle to meet targets. For those looking for rapid and revolutionary progress, such as the development of an hydrogen economy or large scale switch to bio fuels, it won't happen in the immediate future on a big scale.

Answer 2

Its not so much Britain as other countries which need to curb their carbon emissions, for example think of the current super powers America and China, until they agree to any "green" proposals not a lot can be done. Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen as George Bush is a well established Texas oil baron, and china are going through a kind of industrial revolution and thus without their compliance whatever Britain does will be virtually insignificant as everyone else will still be using fossil fuels.

Answer 3

global warming....caused by me spraying my armpits to smell better, by the burning of fossil fuels, by the gasses escaping from fridges, but it apparently has nothing to do with firing hundreds of space rockets and satelites, probes etc to other planets, i bet it has little to do with all the atomic bomb tests all those years ago, or the fact that we have ultra high and microwave frequencies bouncing all over the place 24/7 now.
this planet has a history of cooling and warming up again, at school i remember being told that we were still warming up from the last ice age, the fact is, we are all being told on a daily basis that we must recycle to stop global warming......we cannot stop it, the ozone is damaged and there is little reason to expect it to 'heal' itself, all we can do is try to slow it down in the vain hope that science will provide an answer.

Answer 4

If you look on a map of the world you will see that the relative size of britain in comparison with america, asia and the european landmass is tiny and insignificant. Do you really imagine global warming is any concern of ours?

Answer 5

We have to force politicians to take the issue seriously at all elections, or else they will just continue in the same way of thinking.
Many of the solutions so far have unpleasant repercussions; politicians get worried about upsetting people, so don't have the guts to push through an initiative. Its going to be expensive to research and develop.
-Getting people to cut back on their comforts is always hard, probably too hard for human nature in general
-Building a new generation of Nuclear Power stations brings on the opposition of much of the Green movement, due to fears about its safety
-They are building more wind farms, but no one seems to have done research into power storage, since the wind available varies greatly (some kind of large-scale chemical transmutation process required: power <=> chemical potential?)
-Solar power is really for hot countries to develop, led by US perhaps
-they don't seem to want to commit money to other ideas.

We've got to keep bothering them, or they will keep saying the right things, but not doing much.

Answer 6

We (Britain) will never do so. We are so much addicted to our cars and our turkey twizzlers and to being selfish, that to have to do anything that will get us up off our collective arses, make us walk to a shop to buy some fresh ingredients to cook on a cooker, as dictinct from a microwave, would tax us beyond endurance.

We'd rather drive 400 yards to get the morning newspaper, that has no news in it, go back home, watch the TV news over a breakfast of sugared meusli (supposed to be good for you), then drive 800 yards to the station for our 50 mile journey to work. The wife will take her car to drive the kids 135ft to school, and then will drive the vehicle to her job, which probalbly involves driving people around to look at houses that are 200 yards from the nearest bus stop. She will pick up the children from school (135ft is a long way to walk), and will get annoyed because her parking space is taken up by the car of the unemployed 17 year old daughter of the single parent next door, who is on benefits, and whose daughter is on benefits, and is pregnant by an unknown father resulting from a sexual encounter engendered by the mutual consumption of cocaine.

Hubby will get back after another 50 mile commute and will drive from the station to his home (it takes ten minutes to get out of the station car park, but it is only five minutes wask home). He will enter the house in which the central heating has been on since dawn, and eat a microwaved meal in front of the wide-screen TV..

He would like to say to his wife that he should be able to work from home, because all his work is done on a PC, but his employer will not allow this because the employer feels that staff working from home will slack off, so it is better for productivity if staff travel 100 miles per day to do at a desk what they could do just as well at a desk at home, but he cannot, because his wife has driven 1200 yards to the Gym where she can exercise in order to keep fit.

Wifey gets back, microwaves a meal for herself that is full of salt and additives, tells Hubby that their twelve year old kid has gone out with his friends. At the time, the twelve year old is being driven 35 miles to the nearest Local Authority Secure accommodation, having been arrested for criminal damage.

This story is culled from a court case in a respectable area in Suffolk.

We've got no chance.

Answer 7

They are doing what needs to be done .some of us are not old enough to know and some of us have forgot in the 1980s we were told that we were heading into another Ice age .And we were going to have to get used to the colder Winters .just because we were having a couple of colder than average temps .And are we? No we are not .Then a few summers ago we were told that we were going to have to get used to droughts in Summer .I wish it was a bit drier now.plus other things that I will not go into .Talk about Uturns they ain't in it .Just one more thing. There are some scientists in Canada that say the Ice Caps are not melting but are just on the move .Talk about gloom and doom what do we believe.We may look back on these days and think Its not what they are saying today.

Answer 8

What else do you think they have planned - they already put taxes on flights, higher tax on bigger cars, cameras hidden in your bin - they are ripping us off. Guess what, they don't bother spending this extra income on green issues either - if you think that the air tax will be spent on stopping global warming you are sadly mistaken - still, I will keep putting out my cardboard if it makes everyone happy an stops me paying more taxes to this country.

Answer 9

Ask the Environmental office about their current project or planning regarding these.

Answer 10

The question should be when are the US and China going to do something about it.