Green Building Forum - CoP26 - what does the team think?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

revor — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 17:00:51 +0000

I followed cop 26 news reports each evening and never heard one person being asked what they had personally done to reduce their carbon footprint. I would have liked to know, it would be a way of setting an example to others. Or are they akin to Boris not wearing his Covid mask, telling everyone what they should do but not doing it themselves.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

owlman — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 19:11:41 +0000

Most mainstream media is guilty of such weak interviewing, or perhaps it's in the editing where the incisive stuff gets cut.
I generally watch the BBC news but lately I've been switching it off. I find it pathetic as a source of decent quality news reporting yet with endless supply of twee, mawkish subject matter which could hardly be classified as news.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Jonti — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 07:50:44 +0000

Posted By: revorI followed cop 26 news reports each evening and never heard one person being asked what they had personally done to reduce their carbon footprint. I would have liked to know, it would be a way of setting an example to others

The problem is that would do zero to alter the situation. The only way to alter behaviour of usage is through legislation. We all knew for years that single use plastic bags were bad for the environment yet as a population we did nothing to reduce their use until parliament caused us all to have to pay for them and suddenly we were quite capable of using far fewer. With our carbon footprint if everybody was to decide to ditch their combustion engine cars today and buy an electric one the economy would collapse.

Doing the right thing on a national, let alone a global scale requires long term, clear planning which has been lacking to date. I am afraid our politicians are on the whole hopelessly out of their depth. But that is what you get when you have too many career politicians in parties who's main goal is to get into power rather than implement policies that will advance the country.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

SimonD — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 10:37:21 +0000

Posted By: JontiWith our carbon footprint if everybody was to decide to ditch their combustion engine cars today and buy an electric one the economy would collapse.

It's funny (well, not really) that ditching combustion engine cars and NOT buying an electric one doesn't seem to figure much on the table, especially when you look at investment in public transport.

I teach a small number of professors of engineering in some classes I run. One day we had a discussion about individual responsibility and action and fell on the question of carbon footprint of apples. Interestingly, if you look at the total production and distribution chain, it is almost impossible for an individual to find this information, which means you can end up in a total spin about even the simplest of shopping decisions. One of the profs looked into it and surprisingly found that the carbon footprint of one local organic apple was greater than another grown in Italy and imported into the UK to the supermarket. It's not unlike the farsical situation where raspberries grown in Scotland are flown to Poland to be washed and cleaned and then flown to Lithuania to be packaged before being flown back to a national depot and trucked again to a distribution centre. And lets not even get into the same systems for trainers and cars, for example.

There are of course some small things we can do in our own little way, but the major problem is indeed the systems within which we live.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 10:49:08 +0000

Posted By: SimonDthe carbon footprint of one local organic apple was greater than another grown in Italy and imported into the UK to the supermarket.

Whatt? Is that because s/he was looking at a supermarket organic apple, which was also

Posted By: SimonDflown to Poland to be washed and cleaned and then flown to Lithuania to be packaged before being flown back to a national depot and trucked again to a distribution centre

? If so, it's the 'supermarket' not the 'organic' that was being quantified.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 10:54:04 +0000

Posted By: JontiI am afraid our politicians are on the whole hopelessly out of their depth.

I recently wrote elsewhere:
________________

New Centuries often feel like this one â€“ old complacencies collapsing, existential consequences becoming clear.

Back in 1911, doom felt impending. The Liberalsâ€™ Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George were the â€˜dangerousâ€™ radicals who rose to the moment. Their party of business and commerce finally politicked an end to the English aristocracyâ€™s Tory stranglehold via the House of Lords, and as pitchfork revolution threatened all over Europe, working class plight got their fullest attention.

The Edwardian mutual admiration, kinship even, between the English and German educated classes was extraordinary - and tragic, as colonial rivalry could only come to war. The Prussian militaristic ethos also created the worldâ€™s most generous public insurance against age, sickness and unemployment. Lloyd George spent his holiday on a study trip, resulting in Churchill and Lloyd Georgeâ€™s 1911 National Insurance Act. The rest is history, of intermittent progress and present decay.

Fast forward to 2021 - new doom feels impending. Where are our radical political giants? Across the Pond â€“ maybe. Churchill would despair at the present vacuity of the Tory party that he later re-joined and led, not to mention the nostalgic stuckness of Labour, the once-great adversary. The only voices that speak clarity and uncompromised truth, that galvanise and give hope, are children:

I called my congressman
And he said, quote:
"I'd like to help ya son
But yer too young to vote"
Eddie Cochrane, â€˜Summertime Bluesâ€™, 1958

Not just Gretaâ€™s international Skolstrejkers, but the young in general (and young-at-heart), courageous, disciplined and non-violent in successive waves of protest - Extinction Rebellion and now Insulate Britain - show no sign of ceasing to generate headlines that embarass their anaesthetised elders, who hope to die before it all gets too bad.

Elder expectation that before it becomes a voting force, todayâ€™s overwhelming youthful environmental â€™idealismâ€™ will give way to comfortable compromise (because thatâ€™s what their own generations did) is in for a shock. For a start, itâ€™s clear that no such â€™comfortâ€™ awaits to seduce todayâ€™s young â€“ quite the reverse. And ever more personally impactful climate disasters are sure to reinforce environmental urgency, even in so-far benign England. Their â€™idealismâ€™ is driven by anxiety
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/06/eco-anxiety-fear-of-environmental-doom-weighs-on-young-people
just as heavy as the nuclear-war doom felt in the 1950s, and their protest more sophisticated than the dreary CND marches of that era, not so easily dismissable as lefty looniness.

Currently, even the Guardian editorial has mild doubts about Insulate Britainâ€™s tactics of traffic disruption. Minister Kit Malthouse says â€œWhile we obviously all value the right to protest, there is a difference between causing disruption and causing damageâ€ (regardless of Insulate Britain carefully causing no damage â€“ except to driversâ€™ tempers). When Ghandi led his March to the Sea to illegally collect salt, he obstructed road traffic for 24 days, but its special rhetorical impact in India really launched eventual independence. In court Ghandi, like Mandela, trained lawyers both, demanded the maximum penalty of the law, but the judges both avoided the trap of creating martyrs.

No such wisdom in Pritti the dominatrix Witch of Suburbia, who just sees an opportunity to shore up the Toriesâ€™ Reactionary Pensioner core vote, even as it demographically dies off. Previously Civil matters will now be Criminalised, with six months prison for â€˜interfering with key national infrastructureâ€™ â€“ the same as for manufacture or sale of flick knives. Suspected individuals will get travel bans.

This is all to avoid any concession to Insulate Britainâ€™s eminently reasonable, mainstream science-backed demands www.insulatebritain.com . Would it be so hard to agree:

1 that the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025

2 that the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit , with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy

Insulate Britainâ€™s protests would then cease. They would probably settle for a compromise, particularly on the deadlines, but the principles must surely be beyond argument? If the government is not already intending to do all of that, then how can UK possibly comply with the 2015 CoP21 Paris Agreement to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees?

What, if anything, can the UK Cabinet be thinking, to support hard-working Alok Sharma, President of the 2021 CoP26 Climate Emergency Conference (the worldâ€™s last hope to commit to actually doing what it takes) in Glasgow in November?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Mike1 — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:14:53 +0000

Posted By: revorI followed cop 26 news reports each evening and never heard one person being asked what they had personally done to reduce their carbon footprint.

The Carbon Footprint has its uses, however it was popularised by Ogilvy & Mather's advertising - on behalf of BP - to redirect responsibility for emissions onto individuals and away from themselves. It has always been the case that the only real solution is legislation on a global scale to phase out fossil fuels, so I'm pleased that TV interviewers didn't fall for this distraction.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

SimonD — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:19:33 +0000

Posted By: fostertom
Posted By: SimonDthe carbon footprint of one local organic apple was greater than another grown in Italy and imported into the UK to the supermarket.
Whatt? Is that because s/he was looking at a supermarket organic apple, which was also
Posted By: SimonDflown to Poland to be washed and cleaned and then flown to Lithuania to be packaged before being flown back to a national depot and trucked again to a distribution centre
? If so, it's the 'supermarket' not the 'organic' that was being quantified.

Yes, the "organic" was not specifically what was being quantified but the whole system delivering the apple, from cradle to consumer, through a supermarket chain. Just to highlight the difficulties faced by a regular consumer. Clearly if you could wonder down to your local orchard and pick some organic apples off the tree, it would be a better scenario all round!

CoP26 - what does the team think?

WillInAberdeen — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:29:24 +0000

Based on the organic apples I grow, I suspect a very large % of organic apples are discarded or spoilt before they reach the supermarket, they are very difficult to grow organically without blemishes and bugs inside. The few apples that do make it onto the shelf, carry the carbon footprint of all the ones that didn't.

Commercial 'organic' fruit and veg seems increasingly to mean 'grown in a polytunnel'. I'm finding it difficult to see that as an improvement in biodiversity or land utilisation, compared to 'inorganic' (or whatever the correct term is!).

I made an exception for organic carrots though!

Edit: and I buy the "wonky" fruit/veg - avoiding wastage seems to be a powerful way to reduce the average carbon and biodiversity impact of the crop by spreading it over greater number of saleable products. And buy stuff that was grown in its native climate zone - tomatoes from the Med not from Kent, raspberries from N Europe not Africa, etc

Another edit: organic apples are in season for three months of the year, finishing now. If you buy one outside that period, it's been cold-stored.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:53:23 +0000

Posted By: owlmanI generally watch the BBC news but lately I've been switching it off. I find it pathetic as a source of decent quality news reporting yet with endless supply of twee, mawkish subject matter which could hardly be classified as news.

We've got to the point of always recording news programs now rather than watching them live. Mostly so we can skip the bits that aren't news (repeats of yesterday's interviews with people who witnessed some event or other being a prime example) and all sport except the F1 results and any sailing, and most of the human-interest but not news stuff. Also lets us watch any important bits twice. But I generally get an idea of the day's news from the web first.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 12:04:38 +0000

I get my news in full from the Guardian bit of the web - predictably lefty as it may be - which makes TV news look very skimpy. Radio 4 though is often even better.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 16:26:01 +0000

WillInAberdeen suggested: "tomatoes from the Med not from Kent"

How about tomatoes from just up the road from us :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8217227/Giant-greenhouses-use-sewage-farm-heat-produce-vegetables.html

https://www.lowcarbonfarming.co.uk/

and WillInAberdeen added: "organic apples are in season for three months of the year, finishing now. If you buy one outside that period, it's been cold-stored."

Very true. But cold storage doesn't cost much or release much carbon for the next several months or so, if it's done in the traditional way. The problem is large mechanical cold stores.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

philedge — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 17:07:44 +0000

The worst food miles Ive seen are-
https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/iceland-4-atlantic-cod-fillets-450g/66076.html
Caught in the Atlantic, shipped to china for processing and packaging then bought back to the UK. Crazy

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Jonti — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 20:14:52 +0000

fostertom,

I agree with most of what you say though 'Insulate Britain' seem to be more grandad than school kid to me I also agree with your improving homes theme but that would require the trades people in sufficient quantity to carry out the work.

Where I do disagree is the tone. I have very little time for the home secretary but don't believe name calling is the way to show that. It has always struck me as odd how those politicians and political parties who claim to be open minded and inclusive are also the ones labelling those who disagree with them as scum or the nasty party. Is that not the behaviour of the playground bully?

SimonD,

I agree that public transport should be the main player in reducing the carbon footprint of transport but there has be NO investment on the scale needed outside of London. Where I live if you are dependent on public transport then you will struggle.

WiA,

I think clear labelling of the journey of products would be a good way of informing individuals of what their personal footprint is.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 20:42:03 +0000

Posted By: fostertomWould it be so hard to agree:

1 that the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025

2 that the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit , with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy

I agree with Jonti about the personal attacks, BTW. I dislike her as well and don't think she's particularly good at her job but ...

The problem with your suggested no 2 for me is that I've already paid out a bunch of my money to do this for my house. Why should I pay again in taxes to do it for everybody else?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

WillInAberdeen — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:11:52 +0000

Good plan Jonti.

I propose a law to ban anyone from:
1) building artificially heated/lit glasshouses
2) calling them "green" houses
3) heating them with waste (literally) heat that could be useful in real houses
4) marketing them as being lower-carbon than gas-heated glasshouses, while conspicuously not comparing them against growing the produce in naturally warm-enough countries, or growing it in the UK during only the naturally warm-enough growing seasons.

Watch out for the British Bananas crop, doubtless coming soon...

CoP26 - what does the team think?

SimonD — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:32:44 +0000

Posted By: WillInAberdeenGood plan Jonti.

I propose a law to ban anyone from:
1) building artificially heated/lit glasshouses
2) calling them "green" houses
3) heating them with waste (literally) heat that could be useful in real houses
4) marketing them as being lower-carbon than gas-heated glasshouses, while conspicuously not comparing them against growing the produce in naturally warm-enough countries, or growing it in the UK during only the naturally warm-enough growing seasons.

Watch out for the British Bananas crop, doubtless coming soon...

Somewhat adjunct is an article I read a while ago describing how UK wine makers use parafin burners in the fields to protect the grapes from frost. No roof, no tunnel, just burning it all out in the open.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:59:36 +0000

Yeah, that was cheap about Priti Patel.

Posted By: djhI've already paid out a bunch of my money to do this for my house. Why should I pay again in taxes to do it for everybody else?

Did you not foresee that? Wasn't to 'create the facts' your public spirited way to make it happen eventually nationwide on a grand scale? Would that ever happen without massive public subsidy, at least as pump-priming, FiTs-style?

Anyway, nations that have their own sovereign currency don't have to finance such things by taxation - not even by borrowing from the private sector at interest or by issuing term bonds
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deficit-Myth-Modern-Monetary-Economy/dp/1529352568/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17X4I6RB1NW9P&keywords=deficit+myth&qid=1637618344&sprefix=deficit%2Caps%2C605&sr=8-1

CoP26 - what does the team think?

gravelld — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 19:18:28 +0000

Posted By: djh
The problem with your suggested no 2 for me is that I've already paid out a bunch of my money to do this for my house. Why should I pay again in taxes to do it for everybody else?

Are you referring to your newbuild?

Completely different scale of costs imo.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Mike1 — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 19:58:37 +0000

Posted By: SimonDUK wine makers use parafin burners in the fields to protect the grapes from frost. No roof, no tunnel, just burning it all out in the open.

That happens in virtually every vineyard across Europe... though maybe not the south of Spain or Italy.

Time to plant an apple tree and brew your own cider :)

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 20:01:11 +0000

Posted By: gravelldAre you referring to your newbuild?

Completely different scale of costs imo.

Yes I'm referring to my newbuild, but specifically to the cost of building to PH rather than building regs, (not the whole thing!) which I think is relevant.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 20:08:28 +0000

Posted By: fostertomDid you not foresee that? Wasn't to 'create the facts' your public spirited way to make it happen eventually nationwide on a grand scale? Would that ever happen without massive public subsidy, at least as pump-priming, FiTs-style?

Anyway, nations that have their own sovereign currency don't have to finance such things by taxation - not even by borrowing from the private sector at interest or by issuing term bonds

No Tom, I built my house with the intention that we might have a relatively low-cost and comfortable old age given the likely possible scenarios. If it helps somehow in 'encouraging the others' then all well and good. But I'd rather see the government promise a slow and steady increase in energy costs, with a large proportion remitted back to the needy, and then keep that promise. That seems more likely to encourage people to take sensible actions than handing out wodges of made-up cash to all and sundry.

And sorry, but I don't believe in your MagicMoneyTree theory. We'll just have to wait and see how it all works out in the next few years.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 22:24:01 +0000

Posted By: djhyour MagicMoneyTree theory

What specifically is wrong with it?

Note, no one suggests "handing out wodges of ... cash to all and sundry", quite the reverse - essential to 'print' financial lubricant just sufficient to stimulate unused capacity in the economy and workforce, or short-term potential to increase same, so as to avoid demand outstripping supply leading to inflation.

In the case of a MagicMoneyTree-financed programme of housing retrofit, that would need to be paced very carefully, financing first the training of a body of trainers, then the training of a workforce, with finance to actually carry out retrofits only as skills and materials become available.

Anything but the present history of, indeed, handing out cash, after expensive bureacratic qualification, in the absence of training and supply chain, enriching the financial intermediaries and massively inflating the cost of the work - all no doubt financed, as you would wish, within 'responsible' PSBR and/or at your expense as taxpayer. It could be very different.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Peter_in_Hungary — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 09:07:38 +0000

Posted By: Mike1
Posted By: SimonDUK wine makers use parafin burners in the fields to protect the grapes from frost. No roof, no tunnel, just burning it all out in the open.
That happens in virtually every vineyard across Europe... though maybe not the south of Spain or Italy.

I've not seen paraffin burners but I have seen straw bails burnt at each end of the rows to ward off frost. Straw is usually a waste product that is difficult = expensive to dispose of but I guess paraffin might be easier to use.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

owlman — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 09:24:20 +0000

Posted By: fostertom

In the case of a MagicMoneyTree-financed programme of housing retrofit, that would need to be paced very carefully, financing first the training of a body of trainers, then the training of a workforce, with finance to actually carry out retrofits only as skills and materials become available.

Never mind the MagicMoney Tree. Where are the Magic trainers and nationwide workforce coming from. Which bit of the economy are they going to be "hunted" from?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

John Walsh — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:06:02 +0000

Posted By: djhyour MagicMoneyTree theory

Obvs, Tom is perfectly capable of defending what he writes, but still think it's useful to call out unhelpful, unnecessary casual political slurs re "your MagicMoneyTree theory". Firstly, as you no doubt well know Dave, Modern Monetary theory isn't Tom's theory. In fact it's so widely thought of there's even a campaign in universities to update the economics curriculum to include MMT. Second, as you no doubt also know Dave, using the term "MagicMoneyTree" is a political statement, one usually used by the right to attack the left. When, in fact, MMT in action by the current Tory government currently goes by the euphemism of 'quantitative easing'. Happy to discuss the political choices, where to spend the money the BoE simply, routinely creates out of thin air but can we do that without resorting to political slurs?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

owlman — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:22:40 +0000

Only two sources of "Magic Money" AFAIK; Taxation and Printing more, and both of which have been employed by both the Left and Right. Nothing specifically political about the term as far as I can see.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

djh — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 11:10:42 +0000

Tom and John. I'm not getting into discussions about the political or other aspects of monetary theory. Nor am I going to apologize for calling it what I think it is. As I say, we'll just have to wait for the future to become the past and then we'll know the truth.

CoP26 - what does the team think?

fostertom — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 11:39:05 +0000

Posted By: owlmanWhere are the Magic trainers and nationwide workforce coming from. Which bit of the economy are they going to be "hunted" from?

So - no new skills, no new industries, no retraining are feasible because lots of people have discovered, in lockdown, that they don't have to keep on doing 'Bullshit Jobs'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bullshit-Jobs-Rise-Pointless-About/dp/0141983477/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bullshit+jobs&qid=1637753841&sr=8-1
so there's a 'labour shortage'?
Offer those same people good apprenticeships in new growth industries - many would jump at it - no?

CoP26 - what does the team think?

Mike1 — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 13:12:09 +0000

Posted By: fostertomso there's a 'labour shortage'?

There is, and as one of the most cyclical sectors construction isn't very attractive to start with, quite apart from loosing people to other sectors whenever there is a downturn.

Now ff there was to be a 30-year programme of upgrading the national housing stock to achieve climate goals, supported with more than words by all political parties, then maybe the sector would have a chance. Though it would still be tough as there aren't enough people being born to supply all sectors of the economy.