CO2 consultation - your views welcome

A snowHead

I must admit I rather like the idea of the SCGB funding tree planting. I work hard at not damaging tree roots and shoots when skiing off-piste. But occasionally I scrape something - so in a way I am making up a little with the levy.

I am unaware of the environmental code - perhaps my fault for not reading my membership pack thoroughly when it came out. I can't find it on the club site - given that the Respect the Mountain stuff is not it.

A snowHead

[quote= N Zotov

I am unaware of the environmental code - perhaps my fault for not reading my membership pack thoroughly when it came out. I can't find it on the club site - given that the Respect the Mountain stuff is not it.[/quote]

its here on the homepage under " respect the mountains ".

here

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hibernia, But didn't David say earlier that the Respect the Montains stuff was not the EWG's input Puzzled

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Nick Zotov, Puzzled

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hibernia, I challenged David on the low-energy light bulb in chalets - pointing him at the Respect the Mountains page. From his answer I assumed that guidance had nothing to do with the EWG. Could be simply that his answer was obtuse.

I must say that the muddle-headed thinking about environmental matters within the club hierarchy is beginning to make me doubt its competence overall. I suppose I should be grateful to for David for highlighting that. It is one of the reasons I am thinking of leaving the club.

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Nick Zotov, sorry to hear that you are contemplating leaving the SCGB - surely the benefits outweight the " problem " issues?. Give it more time though before making a decision.

I read the thread a couple of days ago?- and now I am really confused. If the EWG has not been involved in putting together the policies in my link then what has it been doing since it was started?.

My personal views on this area is that there is very little that we can do beyond tokenism to halt global enviormental issues beyond our control. That was the situation for millions of years. Ice ages come and go caused by factors that man can never control. And how do we stop the Chinese, etc... in their quest for economic growth. This debate, and the other one over there, is boring!.

The purpose of the SCGB is to foster sliding around the mountains and not getting involved in papers on the environment. I do not know how the idea of an EWG first arose a few years ago but it should have been shot down at that time. And its time for it to be retired. Council is good enough for me to put forward sensible measures for skiers and I, for one, am happy with that.

rant over

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Nick - Just to clarify: the Environmental Working Group drafted the Club's environmental guidance for skiers to follow. The phrase 'Respect the Mountain', and the wristbands which promote that principle, were subsequent initiatives which we were not involved with.

hibernia - the EWG was proposed at the 2002 annual meeting of the Club, after a discussion about heli-skiing. It was decided that the Club would look at environmental issues generally. I believe that the Council now has a number of advisory groups on various aspects of policy, with an elected Council member chairing each group.

It's always been the role of the Club to arm skiers with information and guidance on things they might be interested in. The Council hasn't the time to be fully briefed on everything, within itself, so it's sensible for it to be advised by people it trusts.

Change can only come about - as desired - by ordinary members standing for election and exhibiting greater competence themselves. Alternatively, Club members could hypothetically vote for the organisation becoming a fully-fledged corporate body - perhaps with all decision-making determined by a Chief Executive, Chairman and salaried board of directors (Council members are unpaid).

There are various ways of skinning the cat, but it's always sad if members of a Club hint at resignation, out of frustration or dissatisfaction. I'd encourage you, Nick, as a fellow member, to stick around - there's life in the old dog yet.

After all it is free

DavidS, what's false about it? DG was talking about taxes on aviation fuel, which at the margin would price people out of skiing trips. Indeed it would have to deter people from flying to serve its intended purpose.

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Well, not necessarily. If a technological solution is found to sucking aviation CO2 out of the atmosphere, then the function of the tax would not be to stop people flying (though some would obviously be deterred) but to make each flight carbon-neutral, by financing the CO2 burial process.

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I suspect skiers have deeper pockets than many other leisure travellers. Ski trips surely form a relatively small part of the aviation market, and presumably it is to reduce the total of all flights that taxing aviation fuel would be intended, at a time when a big continued rise in passenger numbers is projected. Surely taxing avaiation fuel must make sense? Why should it be exempt?

I suspect however you would have to pry the plane tickets from the hands of skiers with a crowbar... after all if Charter facillities at Geneva and Lyon airport won't put them off - what will?

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David Goldsmith, I suspect the money would be better spent reducing CO2 from other sources, such as from fossil fuel-burning power stations. I can't imagine how apparatus could be fitted to a plane without severe power reduction and weight gain issues. Hoovering it up afterwards would be difficult/expensive because it must be dispersed so rapidly. Better to go after fixed targets, I think, or even cars (or plant more trees, etc).

Actually, I think taxing aviation fuel has merit, but like all taxes it wouldn't be painless, and yes, stoatsbrother, many skiers wouldn't bat an eyelid, but some would feel the pain!

You know it makes sense.

Nick, I wasn't necessarily thinking along those lines. Would it be possible for science to create the equivalent of photo-synthesis, to convert CO2 to oxygen and extract the carbon from the air .... or extract the CO2 from the general atmosphere, thus extracting CO2 that's been generated from any source?

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A snowHead

Nick Zotov, resarch is underway and I think there was a fairly major breakthrough recently ... need to do a search on the NS w'site

A snowHead

Masque, gotta go do some work, so I won't google. But I am interested in that. Please drop a link if you come across anything.

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This is fantastic !
This thread is onto its 4th page, and is still on topic!

One thing that struck me last week was the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, flying out to arctic Norway for a 'climate crisis' photocall. On his return he was challenged concerning the CO2 generated by the flight and he promised that he had "carbon balanced" it with tree planting. As I think we've discussed, new trees do not offer a guarantee of long-term CO2 absorption because the tree/its timber may eventually be burned or decompose (though tree planting is a very good thing for other reasons).

Politicians need to be ultra-honest about this very serious problem, and what they propose to do about it. We do need solutions that are really going to reduce the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, or at least halt its rise.

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David Goldsmith, Cameron is utterly cynical.

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David Goldsmith, One thing that Cameron also said was that the flight was the least environmentally damaging part of his trip. He stated that the greenhouse gases produced as a result of industry were worse than air travel. Hmmm, could this be correct? Should we not worry about flying to our ski holiday destinations?

After all it is free

Maybe I'm dumb (or at least ill-informed) but why do we need 'human created photo synthesis'. Doesn't the natural version work well enough? Can't we just plant some more trees (as a number of initiatives are doing) to re-fix the carbon? seems simple and cheap (well simpler and cheaper than trying to mimic the process artificially anyway).

The problem with trees is that they die and then rot. You need to bury them in a swamp to permanently fix the carbon (it's called coal!).

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DavidS, the greater mass of vegetation maintained on earth, the more carbon locked up in organic form. The fact that a proportion of that might be permanently fixed is a bonus. That's how I see it anyway. OTOH, maybe you simply can't plant enough for the living carbon to make much of a difference. Anyone any information?

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DavidS, Thanks, so one approach would be to invest (hundreds of?) millions in developing artificial photo-synthesis technology, and then (hundreds of?) millions more in deploying it. Another approach would be to plant a bunch of trees all over the mountains (or wherever) and once in a while chop them down and use them to fill swamps.

sounds like a good low tech, low cost, sustainable approach that would also benefit the local economies of both the areas where the trees were grown, and also those where the swamp filling took place. Very Happy

What happens if the wood from the trees is used for building materials (chalets and the like)? and only dumped in swamps when the chalets are bulldozed in 30 years time? This sounds quite workable to me, or at any rate more workable than a high tech, high cost alternative? (or am I missing something Puzzled

)

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Well, one thing's for sure - the continued destruction of the tropical rainforests is madness. The western world should finance international conservation of these areas of the world.

Thicko question that I've been meaning to ask for a while .... how can a plane journey contribute more tonnes of CO2 per person than the total weight of the fuel? I keep seeing references to 5 tonnes per person (I think) for Cameron's trip. Someone please help me understand!

You know it makes sense.

stevew, to produce the energy needed to shift the plane and keep it up in the air the fuel (which contains C, H and other things) combines with atmospheric oxygen to produce H2O, CO2 and other stuff. It could be that the weight of CO2 produced (from the C in the fuel + atmospheric oxygen) exceeds the weight of the fuel (C, H and other things) in the fuel.

Every tonne of C in the fuel produces about 2.7 tonnes of CO2. and since I'm pretty sure that C accounts for the great bulk of the weght of the fuel, it's perfectly plausible that the weight of CO2 produced is greater than the weight of fuel.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

5 tonnes per person seems high. When I was on a shift which used, amongst other things, to refuel VC 10s, we used to stick about 132,000lb of fuel for a trip carrying 130 passengers to Cyprus - ie about 1000lb of fuel per passenger for a reasonable flight leg. OK, you get economies of size (Cameron was in a small plane, I think) - but, by modern standards, the VC10 was not fuel efficient.

A snowHead

A snowHead

richmond, Nick Zotov, laundryman, thanks chaps, it does make a lot more sense, I'll try and remember to find the originally quoted figures and see if the 5 tonnes still stacks up

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A while back, at one of the meetings of the Ski Club's Environmental Working Group, a colleague put the CO2/ carbon issue very simply: "There's a finite amount of carbon on the planet. We don't create more or less of it". What he was getting over was that you can't create carbon atoms - it's simply the way in which carbon exists that presents the threat to the planet.

We extract fossils fuels from the bowels of the earth (where they are, in effect, inert) and use them as highly volatile sources of power. Then we wonder why the atmosphere is threatening the future of the planet and human race.

I understand, though have not read them yet, that the 'Gaia' books by James Lovelock describe the terrible state we are in and what we may, or may not, be able to do about them.

Anyone out there have any comments on James Lovelock's writings?

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I read Lovelock's first book many years ago. His starting point is that life has created - and continues to create - the conditions for more life, transforming an inert world (with a carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere) into one in a state of constant flux. He supports the idea of sudden leaps from one stable state to another, and has, over time, becoming increasingly pessimistic in his writings on climate change. He is a fervent support of nuclear power and has great influence in government - I'd say he has been pivotal in persuading the PM to commission the ongoing energy review which is likely to recommend that the UK starts building new nuclear power stations.

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David Goldsmith, I have just finished James Lovelock's lastest one - something about Gaia Fights Back ?? (book already in charity shop and Google & Amazon not being very helpful with the title). It's in the bookshops now - discounted to about £9 hardback. {{{{ Edit - Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity. - see post below }}}

If snowHeads haven't read his previous stuff, it's a good place to start as he has somewhat refined his views over many years. These days he tends more to the idea that Earth tends to optimise conditions for the life forms prevailing at the time - but as DavidS says this does not imply long term stability. He currently feels the nuclear generation option is the only one able to fill the UK's upcoming serious energy gap.

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"The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity" is the latest book.

After all it is free

DavidS, thanks - the online peeps say it's published in August 2006. Wrong.

In the light of some of the recent news stuff about the impact of Chernobyl, Lovelock may have underestimated the impact of that accident when he assesses the safety of nuclear power. But as all the commentators say - when someone dies of cancer years after an event, how do you know there is a direct link?

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kuwait_ian, this may be a terrible slur - but I wonder whether Lovelock is that worried about a few deaths in the here and now...

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CO2 consultation - your views welcome

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