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Yeah, c’mon Digger_uk – enlighten us, don’t just bemoan a lack of knowledge among the ignorant masses! Let us have the benefit of your profound wisdom – Don’t be shy!
Those who support arguments warning of a climate crisis argue that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a major danger in that process.
What possible effect does the element Carbon have on any climate crisis investigations.From the responses to my post it seems obvious that no distinction is discerned between Carbon, and Carbon Dioxide.
Let me put a question: what danger to the planet is posed by the element Carbon, what danger are we hoping to mitigate by capturing Carbon. I say we protect nobody by “capturing” Carbon, and endanger nobody by doing nothing about Carbon.I’m old school, so view the language used in scientific study works best when it is precise. What has happened here is that Carbon and Carbon Dioxide seem to be spoken of as though they are synonymous.
I am well aware of the arguments that ask us to leave fossil fuels, and the Carbon they contain, “in the ground”, but what I am questioning here, is why are we urged to leave Carbon sequestered in soil and seawater alone.
Surely, it is the capture of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide that the climate activists are wanting to achieve…_DiggerUK – “Let me put a question: what danger to the planet is posed by the element Carbon, what danger are we hoping to mitigate by capturing Carbon.”
Carbon 12 or carbon 13?
Michael and DiggerUK, I’m scared. Please spare less than fifteen minutes of your time to understand why.
Hothouse Earth and an Ice-Free Arctic Sea. Starting in 2030?
“From the responses to my post it seems obvious that no distinction is discerned between Carbon, and Carbon Dioxide…”
In the mineral future thread from May 26, 2024 at 01:16https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/mineral-future/page/3/#post-97964
“Michael, NOBODY is saying remove carbon from the world, at least, no one sane. They quite obviously mean carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas – and they are not advocating total removal. When they say “remove” what they really mean is stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by burning things. Burning is oxidisation, a chemical process involving heat, oxygen and some fuel, usually carbon based. No one is advocating removing all the CO2 from the atmosphere, Michael. What “they” are advocating is to move away from our fossil fuel energy economy which releases 40 plus billion tonnes of CO2 in 2022 into the atmosphere over and above what is released by natural processes. That’s a big number, Michael. Those 40 plus billion tons of CO2 have to go somewhere. Carbon, the element, is not the culprit. Nobody is saying carbon is bad.”
However, there is a carbon cycle where plant life sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere, uses it for photosynthesis and creating organic molecules that make up the plant’s matter. When leaves are shed or the plant dies, those carbon containing organic molecules end up in the ground soil thus acting as a way to store carbon or remove some CO2 from the atmosphere.
Forest removal, tilling soil etc., disturbs this carbon sink and microbes feed on the carbon, respire and convert the stored carbon back into CO2 via respiration. I think that is what Michael is getting at.As has been pointed out before many times, atmospheric CO2 levels (which are trivial to measure) are still increasing despite all the natural carbon sinks, including the extra greening from the increased levels. Just as easily calculated is all the fossil fuels used globally and how much CO2 they produce on burning them. Also, using carbon-13 concentrations we can show how most of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere comes from burning FFs. I have pointed to John Tyndall’s experimental proof in 1861 of the heat-trapping of various gases, including CO2.
The current government are so loathed by most of the public , they are trying to freshen up their stle, by responding to losses in the steel industry and in the oil industries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k11xze2jyo
“The government is funding the official receiver to ensure the safe operation of an oil refinery after its owner went into administration, a minister has said.Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery Limited, which owns the plant in Immingham, North East Lincolnshire, filed for insolvency on Sunday, putting hundreds of jobs at risk.
There are 420 employees at the refinery, though Unite the Union said 1,000 jobs could be affected when taking into account contractors and the supply chain.”
Recently they let our oldest refinery go to the wall – Grangemouth
https://www.petroineos.com/refining/grangemouth/Next they will probably get the Cumbria coal mine opened, for coal to make steel in Lincolnshire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhouse_Colliery
Michael Gove, as the then Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, approved the application in December 2022, although the decision was subject to legal challenges.But…. people *are* saying carbon is bad. This is why I am not able to buy coal anymore for burning on my open fire.
Burning coal releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. You can generally see it as smoke. The carbon particles vary widely in size, and the heavier ones fall back to the ground and are loosely described as soot.
The smaller ones can combine with other particles in the atmosphere, and when breathed into human lungs can trigger all manner of respiratory illnesses over time.
“Michael, NOBODY is saying remove carbon from the world, at least, no one sane. They quite obviously mean carbon dioxide” ET
Carbon is Carbon, and Carbon Dioxide is Carbon Dioxide. And one of the foundations of scientific discipline is a precision with language whilst discussing matters scientific.
If some of you can’t be disciplined about your deployment of language in this debate, then please, spare everybody your worthless prose…_This was my reply in the minerals thread, to ET
ET, thanks for your reply. Obviously I was being philosophical. I do think we are heading down a very dark alley. No real attempt to think through most of the ramifications for ordinary people, the near starving, the under developed, the barely earning enough, working people. No doubt judges and members of parliament and the managerial classes will cope in the new Green Dream World. If we in the U.K. would need to build out our National Grid by four times to be able to deliver all this electricity for lighting, heating, cooking, battery back-up, EV charging, AI centers, Electric Steel and so on, should all those plans be well advanced by now, should the workers have been trained by now? If there can not be enough Copper in the Earth for us to exploit, what will we do? There is only the Copper that exists, there is no more. If we shut down all our native coal mining, allow India to shut down our original steel making, are we to assume that we will buy our steel from India, China or elsewhere, where it is manufactured using coal? How will the world benefit then?
This new imagined Utopia is a mirage, you can’t use a wind farm to make a solar farm. You can’t use a solar farm to make a wind farm. You need concrete, which releases huge quantities of Carbon, back into the atmosphere. Almost everything that is needed in the modern world is based on minerals, fresh water and power and the workers, to make it happen. What I am trying to get at is that stunning levels of minerals, fresh water and power would be needed for this transition.
It is not gong to happen.
Apparently only about 3% of the world’s electricity is currently made by wind, solar or hydro.Michael, I am willing to bet that no one contributing to this thread disagrees with your assessment of current government policies and current politicians as being abjectly insufficient and often, well, total bullshit.
However, pointing out how dumb Ed Milliband is, or the lack of copper, or the shortsightedness of net zero policy are not in themselves arguments against the science behind climate change. And across multiple threads on this topic I and others have been trying to get you to separate the two different arguments. Speaking for myself I agree with you mostly on how badly implemented and how uninformed most government policy on this issue is. It’s designed and constructed to allow big oil and big energy corporate interests to maintain profit.
I was skeptical about climate change too in the beginning. I asked myself some questions and dug in to find the answers.
What is the greenhouse gas effect. Why do certain gases contribute to it, CO2, methane, water vapour etc. What’s the physics behind electromagnetic wave absorption and reemmission and so on. You’ll find the answers to all that without ever a reference to politics. Coz it’s physics, sometimes physics known for centuries. If you are going to change my mind on climate change you will have to show me physics that disproves the proposition not how dumb policies or individual politicians are.@Digger
It is Michael who continuously brings up carbon storage in top soil not me. I merely try to reply politely.
Note I try politely to reply, something you might try to emulate instead of attempting to deploy insuffrably patronising but substantively lacking replies. If you have something useful to add then flesh it out in your own comment rather than trying to goad people into guessing what you mean. Do you really think people here don’t know the difference between carbon the element and CO2 in relation to the greenhouse gas effect?Do you really think people here don’t know the difference between carbon the element and CO2 in relation to the greenhouse gas effect
It is obvious that is the case…_It seems, Digger_uk, that you don’t understand why removing the production and use of carbon based fuels is important…
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-does-burning-coal-generate-more-co2-oil-or-gas
Burning fuel with carbon content produces CO2…
So why are you getting so bent out of shape when the two are used somewhat interchangeably, given they’re so related……..
(I ended sentences with that trailing ‘…’ since you seem to think that makes it a lot more profound…)
Digger, there are multiple threads on this topic. Read through them for context. It’ll take you a while. Your strawman argument won’t work here. Please add something substantive.
Digger, you still won’t take on the argument directly. What does that say about your argument?
Politics – on the way to an all electric future
Quote BBC
“Issues at an electrical substation which caused a fire that resulted in Heathrow Airport closing were first detected seven years ago but not fixed, a report has found.The investigation found that National Grid, which owns the substation, had been aware of a fault since 2018.
The report details numerous opportunities to rectify issues at the substation, but found maintenance was repeatedly deferred.
Heathrow shut down as a result of the power cut, which led to thousands of cancelled flights and stranded passengers.
Energy watchdog Ofgem has launched an investigation into National Grid following the report’s findings, which Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called “deeply concerning”.
The National Energy System Operator (Neso) said moisture entering electrical components at the North Hyde substation caused the blaze at the site that supplies the UK’s biggest airport with power.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly22eelnxjoWell, they can not even keep the creaking plant supplying Heathrow Airport completely functional, what possible chance of a 95% all Green Electrical Future, in just four years.
It is palpable twaddle.I don’t think you can use the Heathrow substation fire as a hammer with which to defeat the proposed increase in electric usage.
As the report says, the fault was lack of maintenance. This is a result of cheapskate private UK companies trying to cut costs and maximise profits (remember Railtrack and deadly rail crashes?).
I doubt these ‘deferred’ maintenance schedules would have been allowed in other European countries. Jail sentences for owners of cheapskate companies might be the best policy; pus a ban on ever owning/managing a company again.
Just watched Prime minister’s Questions.
The Chancellor Rachel, looks like somebody has given her a good hiding, her eyes are sunken into her skull and her body is sunken into the green benches, she looks like a husk.Presumably, Starmer is well on the way to achieving his ambition of making the Labour Party unelectable. That will leave a choice between Reform and the Tories as the only major parties at the next election.
Not much hope for social democracy here any more – or any kind of democracy for that matter.
Give this government some credit though, we never had weather this good under the Tories.
– “Give this government some credit though, we never had weather this good under the Tories.”
Why thank you Michael. My friend I was with in Chelmsford nearly passed out in the heat yesterday. It gave me a headache that I succeeded in managing by being careful. The crops in the fields around me are stunted from lack of rain. Much of Europe is on fire.
You actually WANT this to happen. Your arrogance is simply staggering.
Clark, it was a joke that somebody had replied on a you tube about U.K. Government messing up.
You need to calm down. Stop obsessing about something that you cannot influence.
Even if it is really an existential threat to all life on Earth, you are not going to stop the inexorable rise in Carbon entering the atmosphere. Eventually, possibly, it will happen but not in our lifetimes.
This pathetic government have fucked up, virtually everything they have set in train.
Our economy is shooting down the tubes, very quickly.
Millions extra will be on the dole in the near future.
We are in the final collapse of the United Kingdom.
Nothing to be done, just to let it play out.“Give this government some credit though, we never had weather this good under the Tories.”
I kinda have to give this one to Michael, when I read that line earlier I almost choked with laughter and literally spat a mouthful of drink out. It’s cutting humour, shows that Michael does indeed has a sense of humour and personally, despite different views, I thought it was very clever. Michael can be a smartass, good for him.
“Even if it is really an existential threat to all life on Earth, you are not going to stop the inexorable rise in Carbon entering the atmosphere.”
I think you know Michael I will disagree with that. However, maybe that’s the play, kill the economy to kill emissions?
More seriously, everything you are seeing in the economy is because our UK government is doing everything to hand over public services to USA tech companies who will never pay tax on their profits made in the UK. Trains, health, drugs, electricity and gas, water, prisons, payroll software, electoral roll software, managing courts, managing juries, managing f***ing everything now has a USA owned company providing the software. You cannot interact with any government service without using online resources and all those resources are provided by USA corporate owned software.Clark, ET
I only watched part of Prime minister’s questions.
One of Sir keir’s answers, was that Amazon were making a big investment in the U.K.
He seemed to think this was spiffing.
We suspect, that last year an Amazon data center opened on the edge of our town.
https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2025/june/30-06-2025/four-charged-in-connection-with-terrorism-investigation-following-damage-to-aircraft/
No windows, at all, the most incredible security, not like Brize Norton, where you can walk in and paint the aircraft.
The locals say it is Amazon. No nameplate on the gate. No information in the local paper – nothing.
You would have thought they were making nuclear weapons in there, like AWE.
I do, partially agree that we may have left the E.U. but we are being captured by the U.S.A.
Bit by Bit.
I suspect number one on their list will be the capture of Rolls Royce.Don’t you mean Brit by Brit?
Rolls Royce cars division was sold to BMW in 1998.
Rolls Royce holdings is the aerospace division which makes Trent jet engines etc and is publically quoted on the stock exchange. BlackRock is the largest investor with over 8% of stock with some other institutional investors close to that.This woman makes a good fist at explaining how London Heathrow went dark for twelve hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dBbzL8jK30
The transformer, that first caught on fire was fifty seven years old and had not been “serviced for at leat seven years.
this is old infrastructure that was being used at more than 100% design spec.
She claims that national Grid are apparently spending most of their efforts on trying to connect renewables to the grid and pulling back on maintaining old infrastructure?
