h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Best of all, you'll save a little money.

When you consider purchasing appliances, try and get ones that are most efficnet. Consider the operating costs as well as the purchase price. In the not so long run, you may save money while buying a more expensive item.

I don't trust alturism. Greed might help get the message across.

I have already done what I can to conserve ... and right now, gas is not so cheap! Particularly in California! I live in an area which is unlikely to have power outages ("rolling blackouts" is the quaint term!) because my little city has our own power plants. However, they run on gas to generate that electricity, and that has gone through the roof! I live in a modest apartment and my bill, for the same amount of gas used at this time last year, has increased in cost by 55% or so. I was not a heavy user to begin with; I shudder to consider what someone with a house to heat and a large family to cook for pays. < >

And yet, that kind of consideration may be about the only effective brake on consumption; it is just the most painful of the lot, as a conservation method! And will really only effect the user end of the problem, not the end of the problem that keeps insisting there IS no problem!!

On a happier note, is it true that a bunch of enterprising Europeans decided to "bum" out GW Bush by mooning him all right and proper on his Euro jaunt recently??
I certainly hope so!

SC

Fair points. You might find that some thin strips of Spongey draft excluder cut back your Air con in the summer and Heating in the winter. They probably only cost a couple of Dollars or Euros and they probably save heaps.

The bonus for the Gas is that it really doesn't harm the environment at all and if you use electricity to heat houses it is generally more expensive. I don't have the pleasure of living in Calif so I am not sure how the prices compare, but I thought Electricity was also sky high. I think that if you burn Gas to produce heat to power turbines to create electricity and send it down long wires that loose some then into your house to heat a fan heater, that quite a bit is lost along the way.

In India they collect the Cattle dung in huge clay structures and pipe the Methane into the kitchen for cooking. It may sound a bit smelly but as long as it is burning it shouldn't smell too bad, and it is a very sustainable free source. In fact it directly reduces the Methane in the environment. Does any one know of the chemistry involved there when you burn Methane?

Funnily enough Mr Bush is very environmental at home. His ranch has GeoThermic heating/cooling. I feel there is a certain irony there somewhere. I guess his big oil buddies would be furious if that got out so he is keeping it quiet.

But don't you see? It all makes perfect sense... Dubya is so obsessed by money that he doesn't want to lose that lovely cash by spending it on fuel...

My memory isn't really up to this challenge so I may be wrong but I think methane is CH4 and its carbon joins with oxygen to make CO2 and its hydrogen joins with oxygen to make H2O (both greenhouse gasses).

The E.U. & the U.N.F.C.C.C. have come up with a deal to save 'Kyoto'.
Watching 'press conferance' now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1451000/1451950.stm
&
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/default.stm

I wounder will the senate back this one, I'd say the last refusal was pretty evendent, 95-0 against. Halfta read up on this one, thanx Happy

The political correspondents on the news programmes reckon the supporters of the protocol will all ratify fairly soon. They're hoping that when Bush can no longer say "well, no other country has ratified it", the Bush administration, the senate and the American people will be embarrassed about looking bad. The Bush camp haven't shown any signs of embarrassment up to now though, have they?

No, we're not going to see Dubya saying "sorry guys, I was wrong, let's get back on the bus". But this thing is pretty long term anyway (the protocol, not the climate change - I know about that!), and all we're doing is milling around waiting to take the first step.

Bush *can't* agree to the new accord - it was part of his election manifesto to pull out, he did, and if he were to reverse this decision he would be *proven* to be weak and useless in the eyes of even his own supporters. I hear that the senate Democrats are pushing for official emissions levels to be agreed though.

I thought Dubya was strangely supportive of anti-climate-change moves before the vote, though it was obvious that a lot of his supporters were not.

I interrupt this programme to bring you an update on the methane hydrate story while I remember what was said:

Methane is 20 times more effective than co2 as a green house gas. Without taking the methane hydrate on the ocean floors into account (according to this particular estimate) global temperatures could be expected to rise by 2 degrees C over the next 100 years. However, if the methane hydrate in the oceans fractures and melts because of a small amount of warming, then the global temperature could rise by as much as 4 degrees C in 10 years. It seems there's a huge quantity of methane hydrate widely distributed.

Shouldn´t this also mean we should put an immediate ban on chili-dishes?

Speaking of Methane Hydrate, there's a sci-fi novel by John Barnes called "Mother of Storms" which starts with that methane layer at the bottom of the ocean being melted by the accidental release of a live nuclear device, which detonates deep under the water.

Goes on to a rapid rise in hurricane production, hurricanes being fueled by the rise in water temperature... (warning though, some of the side topics are a little unsavory [paedophilia and revenge], and some are quite intriguing [dying online]). All in all, an interesting thriller based on global warming, speeded up.

SC

I hereby declare my bedroom a republic. Equal rights for socks!

Unconformity, founder of the people's republic of Unc, capital city Heap (though this is really just a test, and if it all goes wrong I'm getting an ephigy)

Oooooops


got the thread number wrong after all....



It wasn't me, I didn't do it.....

pointless thread addict.

Random

Consistancy is for other people

so's spelling