British Expatriate Network

Perhaps this ought to be in the "Potentially touchy" forum...or really it should be on the front page of every forum. However I shall act with decorum and put it here.

Have you seen this film? I had the opportunity to see it last night and it was utterly riveting. I make the assumption that everything Al Gore says about Global warming - and its effects right now are at the very least somewhat accurate. Personally I believe it all. Even so, I find it absolutely terrifying that when my son (7) reaches my age (49), the effects of global warming will have reached his doorstep and the way of life he is experiencing right now will no longer be possible for his own children.

Personally I detest fluorescent lighting - especially in the home, but that movie could be enough to make me even give in to more than just the one bulb which we have installed. I will try to remember to put on more clothing when I am cold rather than turn up the heat, and not fire up the A/C more than necessary in the summer. A couple of degrees of discomfort now will be nothing to what it could be twenty or thirty years from now.

The problem with global warming is that to make a real and significant impact, even the sceptics and prfit makers have to be made to change their ways. So what is to be done?

If you haven't seen it.... SEE IT!

I thought it was an excellent movie!

Did you watch 'Who killed the Electric Car?'. Thats a good one too.

I haven't watched it yet, but I don't have the heat any higher than 68, unless it gets raelly cold here,and we don't have a pool or AC.Much to some people dismayroll
I do dress warmer when I'm cold and if I sit, I have a chenille throw over my legs.
In 2012(I think) CA Law will make it law to have fluorescent lighting too. Buy why that far ahead. Does it take 5 years for someone to go shopping
I also don't tumble dry when I can hang washing on the line. It really gets my goat when these foolish women here in 90f heat don't use whats given to them.
And what is it with the lack of solar here, I really dont understand why we don't use the suns rays more roll

I have been a believer for many years. Funnily enough, I am now a little leary, not of this particular problem cause and effect, but of others.

MMM, they cannot make the change, to flourescent, too quickly because of supply considerations, they couldn't make them quickly enough. if all the states adopted the standards they would build more production, but it would still take a long time to supply the demand.

Solar wasn't a break even proposition untill recently and people have been busily taking the value out of their RE by remortgaging. There seems to have been little interest in adding to the asset value.

Good for you Marmitemaniac!!! :grin:

I hope your not taking the piss :wink:

No, not at all. I can see now that it probably looks that way.

No I genuinely admire you for doing all those things. If we all did that, we'd have far less to worry about.

Living in a city, we're such a huge part of the problem, for starters.

We don't drive. Cycle as much as possible. We turn lights out when we leave the apartment (so many here don't), use those funky conserving lightbulbs etc.

But we fitted a water conserving shower-head, hated it and went back to a water-guzzling one. We use washing machines and dryers. I eat out of polystyrene and drink out of disposable cups far too much at work and so on. We really pay lip-service to conservation. I'd like to do more.

I think an interesting development here is the slow move of climate change skeptics to conserve energy. It seems to me that skeptics are being urged to reduce their own footprints for entirely different reasons. For example, I've noticed an awful lot of editorials of a particular bent over the last 6 months stating that Americans should eschew dependence on foreign oil. This is pitched as a more political and economic necessity than environmental awareness. I've also read a great deal about reducing dependence on coal-fired power plants with a push towards nuclear. The sales pitch on this is nice too - I've read in a couple of places that nations should move towards a European model" of nuclear power - basically meaning the extremely successful French system.

As for the movie I've only seen a bad Internet rip of it. Gore does very well and I was surprised how often he avoided choosing the high percentile of an estimation. My skepticism of him stems from some of his previous books, in particular the lip service he gave to people like Dr Paul Erlich. Nevertheless my opinion has changed slightly after seeing this. Oddly much of the vitriol I've seen directed at this has been from parents who don't want it shown in schools, creationists, or those who think Gore doesn't go far enough in blaming particular governments around the globe.

I didn't watch it, but Hannity was promising to reveal "Gore's dirty little secret", last night. A typical right wing ploy, if the message is demonstrably true, sow doubts about the messenger.

I can try and paraphrase what Ralph Nader said once on The Daily Show; "The reason we don't have solar power everywhere is because Exxon Mobil doesn't own the sun"

I bought the book of An Inconvenient Truth and haven't got round to the movie yet but most likely will soon.

I think the cost of solar is what stops a lot of folk. However there is a company working on roll out solar panels which will be cheap and easy to install and should be available in the next couple of years. They're up your way somewhere. Also the state is supposed to come forward and give rebates on solar installation, but Ahnold must have been too busy :roll:

We don't have AC either, but we do have double glazing and a ceiling fan and if you close the doors the house stays cool in hot weather. As to getting it warm in cold weather, bit of a problem there. Chalet ceiling that goes up to the second storey from the front room, more or less impossible to heat. Still burning wood when it's cold just to take the chill off the place. PG&E and the green people might moan, but until PG&E lower their heating prices, no way we can afford them. Mind the guy at the woodyard told me of a lady with a 12,000sq ft one level house who has nowt but electricity. Her January heating bill, going up to 68F, $1,200. Then they wonder why we buy wood.
Pool heated by solar, clothes dried on line, flannel lined jeans from a hunting catalog for winter, plus cuddl-duds, or as they used to be known, long johns. :lol:

global warming is happeneing has been for centuries its the natural progression of nature , man is accelerating it thats the problem .

havnt seen the movie yet so i cant comment i do know thou that al gore owns quite a bit of the oil industry and that might be what hannaty was waxing on about .

there are of course two sides to the argument folks in buffalo would be rejoicing if the earth got warmer a few degrees -)

greenland that was once (green) might go back to its oringinal climate .

many folks who talk about conservation drive around in gas cusling SUVs always finding a excuse to own them . last person taht spoke to me about the subject made his point (quite clearly he thought ) while smoking a cigerette .
once again a lot of us are condemming the actions of others while condoning our own behaviour
We use a tumble tryer there are subdivision rules in ours and in most cities resticting clothes lines .

we both drive compact cars .

I think you'd be hard pressed to find 10 Buffalonians who'd agree with you there. Buffalo residents tend to love the snow, and 10 feet of it is fine by them. My first year there we had 6 feet in a week. The roads shut for 12 hours - if it had been warmer the weather would be atrocious. If there's anything I miss it's the cold cold snowy weather.

here is one conflicting view which those who are interested in hearing all sides might want to read ....


https//www.conservativebookclub.com/Join/SingleBookJoin.asp?sour_cd=sb242az&prod_cd=c7020

John, you jest, surely.

We'd be a lot less suspicious of books like this if they were not part of a campaign by political hack, non-scientists, to say that the scientists are wrong. In NASA for example, a Bush appointed, PR flack was rewording papers, written by the scientists, to diminish their impact.

The guy who wrote this book is a lawyer with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a business lobby thinktank.

http://www.cei.org/dyn/view_Expert.cfm?Expert=148

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace. Since its founding in 1984, CEI has grown into a $3,000,000 institution with a team of over 20 policy experts and other staff."

I'll bet they get a chunk of money from Exxon et al.

http://www.cei.org/pages/about.cfm