Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Interesting that China's CO2 emissions are dropping - by 1.6%, year on year, in the first quarter of 2025. Their energy demands are increasing, but they are now supplying a large percentage of their energy needs from renewables.

 

They're also reclaiming desert and being quite innovative with new green technologies. I expect them to overtake westerns countries in general and the USA in particular very soon.

Shame about the way they treat some of their own people and threaten Taiwan.

 

@NigelJ, the point about war's contribution to climate change is the devastation is ongoing over decades. Rebuilding buildings that didn't need rebuilding until they were blown into a million parts is a complete waste of resources, which have to be made, transported, assembled, etc. War also pollutes water courses, which, over time, affects everywhere and degrades agricultural land, making it less useful for locals. It may not, on its own, have the biggest carbon impact of all human activity, but to disregard it completely whilst nitpicking about other sources shows the BBC has an agenda. If its stated aim is to embed climate change in every report yet it leaves it out of pieces on war and the activities of the super-wealth, that speaks volumes, IMV.

You wouldn't need a paid BBC reporter on site. Airports have cameras and flight records. AI could collect the data and crunch the numbers.

@shiney, ebay is but one example. If you prefer, take emails, which we all participate in. Every email ever sent is being stored, about 99% of them for no purpose whatsoever given they will never be revisited. Every post made on every forum ever, even where these are no longer accessible as far as participants are concerned, is floating out there somewhere. Utterly pointless to use the world's resources on such storage.

 

Now which do you want your first (now in pink) or your second?
I thought you weren't of favour of capturing all this data, storing it and then using AI to analyse it on the grounds of environmental damage.
Your licence fee would still have to go up.

 

I have no problem with that and agree with you, my problem is the erroneous use of the term exponential growth.
I have no problem with the BBC, but then I only listen to the Radio mainly 4, the World Service and TMS; I often hear all the issues that get you going discussed and solutions, some radical, proposed. The fact that Governments don't implement and people do not want to pay for these is not the fault of the BBC

 

That may be true, but from what level compared to the UK?

 

@NigelJ, I don't see why the licence fee would go up. It would just be a case of the BBC making different editorial decisions. Instead of sending reporters to stand on beaches during storms telling everyone else not to stand on beaches during storms, they could report on the environmental cost of concrete imports used to rebuild war zones. Instead of sending reporters to Davos to name check all the rich and famous, they could report on the number of private jets used, etc.

I don't want a record of every email and internet purchase kept, because it is pointless. Collecting data on carbon footprints and airports, reporting the data, and then deleting it, fine.

 

With respect that's not really true. The UK is responsible for about 0.9-1% of global co2 emissions within our shores but if you take imports into account, that more like 2%, thas not even considering any greenwashing. Our population is 0.86% of the world's population and we don't really account for much co2 storage capacity compared to most other countries.

I get the imposition of pointless ideology but it's part of the apathy that the population has driven by the incessant media and flawed governmental policy.


I studied environmental science at the uea and was taught by the people that did the research into how our climate is changing. To some that will straight away alienate me but to others perhaps they will accept that we were taught about both man made factors and natural climatic events, everything has been studied for its impact and whilst some natural processes are occurring, the simple answer is that man has vastly sped things up to levels that life struggles to cope with.

 

I don't think,bearing in mind how many people are in the world that we wouldn't have a big effect on the environment.

My biggest bug bear is the population explosion that is happening along with habitat loss for other species.

Just cutting down on emissions is treating a symptom of a much larger problem that nobody really wants to even discuss let alone try to do something about.

Messing around trying to stop emissions is really just tinkering around the edges of something much more serious imo.

 

@Thevictorian I'm certainly not disputing that people and their actions over centuries have had an effect on the environment. What annoys me is when 'environment correspondents' try to put human influence as the major, or only, reason for climate change. Climate change has been a reality for millions of years so natural variations need to be acknowledged too.

 

A minor moan from me, but has anyone else noticed that the same actors are turning up in multiple adverts, mainly those aimed at older people? I rarely watch any adverts, and always mute the sound when they come on, but OH is flitting between rugby, cricket and F1, so a fair few ads have made their hideous appearances.
I’d assumed that those ready made meal delivery services were aimed at housebound elderly, but the blond woman with the overfilled cheeks is evidently still sprightly enough to travel, with insurance cover for those with medical issues. However the man with the grey beard can’t be inspiring confidence in the dinners if he is also busy arranging his own funeral!
I’m surprised that the doddery old man who has treated himself to both a second hand car, and a mobility scooter, hasn’t been seen ordering his meals yet. He could share them with his adoption dog! At least the woman with the bulky pee pads is now confident enough to get out to the big chain DIY store to order her new kitchen.
I know, I ought to get out more! Off to the garden to work out how to support my rather etiolated sunflower plants!

 

Oddly enough, the latest "population worry" appears to be the falling birth rate. I must remember to have a quiet word with my Hedgehogs - 3 young this year

 

I completely understand what you are saying @pete and @KT53 and don't disagree.

Emissions are wrongly used as the main talking point but it's an easy one to quantify because we have decent data for a long period of time. Population and habitat loss are more emotive, so harder to argue against, you'll always have the people need space and resources argument, which shouldn't be an argument.

The earth's climate does change and has varied wildly in the past but we do know through studying rocks, fossils, pollen, ice cores etc, what it was like and the influence certain things played. This evidence is how we know that despite some constant factors, like volcanic and sun activity or Milankovic cycles (the earth has an elliptical orbit so we aren't always the same distance away from the sun and our axis shifts a little as well) that it is humanity that has sped the majority of the warming this time. It is predicted that even though we are due for another cooling event in the next 10,000 years or so, part of the rythmic cooling and warming periods the earth would natural go through, that our recent activity will likely delay or stop the next ice age.

 

That's only a problem for the economic models.

 

I think that is a UK thing.
Apparently they were saying that migration in the last few years is responsible for something like 98% of the population increase in the UK.
We have increased our population by around 2 million in about 3 yrs.