It's all hot air! (Air Pollution)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Air Pollution
Date:	27/07/08 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: We are cleaning up

Disadvantages: The third world is pollutiung

So there it is, the worlds mean temperature have actually fallen since 2000. Admittedly the scientists who measured the numbers took the hottest year they could find to compare it with the recent cooler years up until 2007, which proves the point that you can find any up or down period you like if you pick your years and decades. The Earth also cooled between 1945 and 1975. It certainly feels like things are cooling down here as we return to those traditional wet and cloudy summers in Britain. And let's face it, what Brit wouldn't vote for global warming!! Britain's air is as clean as it has been this century, the smog's from the gushing putrid chimneys of the industrial revolution long since quiet, Fred Dibnah pretty much knocking them all down on his own.

It may be an outrageous idea but what if the pollution tipping point has past us by and the C02 we are pumping out now is actually cooling the planet? I suspect there ARENT many grants available to support that particular thesis in the current evangelical green revolution. But it is just as much a theory like the man-made global warming theory is as far as I'm concerned. So ruffled where the scientist at this temperature drop they have declared a 13 year cooling period to fudge the issue. Like the oil price of late-now trading at a seven week low after $147 high-world temps are falling, ever cleaner technologies perhaps aiding that slowing. I'm not suggesting pollution is under control so temperatures will keep falling or anything but I think we have turned a corner as far as being aware of our responsibilities. There sis no Armageddon coming.

One recent move to stem pollution was the shift to biofuels, a well meaning venture at the time to move towards crop based petroleum's that were squeezed from maize instead of dead Arabs. The idea was s to ease away from invading countries for oil and having to put nasty despots in control and to grow our own instead, Brazilian cars leading the way, 70% of all their new cars running on ethylene, the most popular crop based by-product fuel. But so lucrative was the crop to feed those greedy rich countries petrol use that world food stocks began to dwindle, the absurdity where we were starving the world to feed our cars, the third world producing corn and maize for SUVs in America, rather than feed its own people. Ironically these fuels are also more polluting than normal petrol and oil because the process is so intensive to get the fuels to the cars. One of the main reasons food prices are rising in our stores is because of this rush to biofuels as more and more maize goes up in smoke.

"Greenwashing", of course, is the big buzz word of the new century, the guilty polluting companies and corporations proclaiming their innocence by making extra efforts to improve their public face with those erroneous publicity stunts and TV commercials. Jensen Buttons car with the map of the world on it had to be the silliest and most ironic one, whilst EDF energy rattles you the most with their incredibly hypocritical 'infomercials', they the first to bang up the gas prices in the summer as that oil price begins to collapse. They can hardly put up gas on the claim it's linked to those recent rocketing high crude prices when it's tumbling...Gas markets are now officially a bigger rip off than printer ink cartridges for me, a champion con that has been tough to topple.

The reality is that most uncontrolled pollution is coming from the developing countries and any serious Kyoto deal would mean newer, cleaner, but fewer factories there and so production cuts, something the new economies will certainly not want to do. No American President, of course, will be cutting anything and most of the G8s secretive meetings are about exactly that, keeping what they have and making sure the little guys don't get a head start, the whining Bono and Saint Bob more than happy to remind us as that as they fly First Class to the get-togethers and enjoy the ten course meals with them. The bottom line is that cutting pollution is cutting output and cutting output is cutting profits and jobs. America, responsible for one quarter of the world pollution, are always cunning on these things, hoping to claim the natural emission drop coming from their current recession is their reduction for the decade. Britain are likely to deploy the same tactic, petrol sales already down by 20% in 2008. This means they have no future emissions targets.

The green zealots that wanted to make a gallon of petrol a fiver have had their way now and the economy, as expected, has ground to a halt because of that lack of mobility in it. All these green types that want to save the world all seem to be smug middle-class people that are not hurt as much by fixed cost rises as we are. Now they have had to trade in their yoghurt makers and People Movers I think they realize we can't live any other way than we do and I think that's the last you will hear of going green in the future, which is a big relief. They moan about the wars in Iraq and nuclear and wind power plants going up near their villages but they never have any other solutions.

Humans, by their very nature, want what each other have and we are all riding that train to oblivion, whether we like it or not. The whole idea that weather can cause the end of the world is absurd to them and so never going to sway them. If it getting warmer in the U.K then why are we seeing those huge gas price rises if we are using less because of the temperature rises?? I think the whole green debate has been pumped by western governments to distract from the Middle East oil grab America and Britain are carrying out right now, they saying the wars are not about oil because it's plentiful and not scarce, so how can the war be for oil because there's so much out there, eventually burnt so to cause global warming we need to stop? But we know that's not the case now with only 0.6% oil capacity on the planet, economies falling apart as demand continues and the insurgents smash the pipes around the world to spike the price. Why on earth would oil companies build the refineries we seriously need if the price is this high?

As we now know the British government wants to help cut pollution by recycling household trash. But it expensive and costing councils millions, they not benefiting from saving the planet in any way. Most of the plastic bottle collections in your allotted trays are now for show, they going straight to land fill. Only the tin and glass is worth anything and so we, the council tax payer, have to pay the proposed bin tax to hide this charade. So problematic has this landfill European issue become that the councils facing huge fines if they don't boost their recycling quotas have decided to build incinerators to get rid of the stuff they cant bury, producing more pollution. 'Veola Incinerators' are the government's preferred contractor and twenty have been ordered already. But the councils haven't gone for small ones but the biggest models, no choice but to chuck some recycling material into the flames to reduce those quotas, but you lot still being taxed on your bins to encourage recycling and, rather paradoxically, to help pay for the incinerators! Only can New Labor could come up with that one!

New Labor also look set to override their own and the European Union targets on air pollution for Heathrow's proposed third runway, which is seriously needed on safety grounds alone. Yes it will attract more bustle to southwest London but you have to do that to remain the top city in the world and attract critical business. And we are also very close to two planes hitting each other in mid-air over the capital.
The current two runways already overshoot pollution targets so a third runway would obviously increase those amounts radically, so New Labor has decided to over-ride any debate and build it. In their prepared report that puts the case for allowing the build it claims it won't be that polluting because of a mystery plane that will bring down future emissions. The trouble is the super clean 480 seat jetliner doesn't exist and all the major airlines have never heard of plans to build one, and so confused how they will meet these targets. Fortunately the mythical plane does have just enough seats for all the Labor MPs who will lose their seats next year in the general election to be shipped out and dumped over the Atlantic! In fact 13 past Labor MPs and 5 current ones have been employed by the Spanish owned British Airports Authority to push though the third runway build, using all manner of tricks, like that one...One of the cancers of modern politics is the same politicians who push though greedy policies that award billions of pounds to the private sector from the public purse are then rewarded with high flying jobs with those companies. All the people who pushed for war in Iraq have been or will be nicely rewarded with jobs in the arms companies in the near future.
I prefer to be told about air pollution by the pretty weather girls on About Anglia. We have an extra slot on the weather just to tell us what the weather will do today, pollution wise, a rating system from 1-5 on the days predicted smog. When it's very hot and clear it's five. When it's wet and cloudy it's rated one! I think that's what the post office call guaranteed overtime. She's a lovely girl though and Brita Purifiers get their moneys worth for the commercial.

Summary: What will be, will be..