Climate Change Protests - will they make a difference?

M0nica, I wasn't blaming small local heating companies but rather the global players.

However I don't believe that manufacturers only make what "we" want or ask for. They manufacture what they believe will yield the highest profit, and then target us through immensely slick advertising until we believe that we need what they're peddling. Once we've bought that, they'll release the new, improved, sexier version and set about making us "need" that too...

and we have the second highest tidal range in the world in the Bristol Channel.

But when the proposal to harness the water power in the Bristol Channel was mooted years ago, it was slammed for other environmental reasons.... wildlife, etc

GG13
All you need now is the wind turbines at the bottom of the garden and you've got your Blue Peter badge.
Well done???
We lived off grid for 20yrs with solar panels and 2 wind turbines. At the time we were lucky enough to be able to to buy some serious heavy duty batteries to be able to store the power.

Personally, I think that water power would be more effective as tides ebb and flow several times in 24 hours
Totally agree Gabriella
(four times)

Other countries make better use of hydro-electric power than we do - as for wave power, we are surrounded by sea and we have the second highest tidal range in the world in the Bristol Channel.

Gabriella totally agree re HS2

As we all know, electricity is way more expensive than gas as gas is classed as a 'luxury' by energy firms and electricity is a necessity.
You'd think the price bias would be towards gas but no.
One revolution of one wind turbine's arms will power the average family home for one day.
Personally, I think that water power would be more effective as tides ebb and flow several times in 24 hours. Storms would generate even more power as would waterfalls.
The cost will be the stumbling block and I doubt whether anything meaningful will be done in the lifetimes of my AC or GC, if then.
Meanwhile, saving 20 minutes via HS2 is a total waste of both time and money.

Petra we have solar panels and a sunken tank under our lawn which harvests rain water which we use to flush our lavatories in the winter and water our garden in the summer also.

It is more complicated than just single use plastic and human made CO2 emissions, the earths climate has been cyclical since day 1 as scientists have now discovered.

Cows and livestock emit CO2, the planet cannot support all its population on a vegan/vegetarian diet. Our youngsters in school,are now being educated on the viability of certain lifestyles/choices, they are the future.

XR although I have no doubts that they are sincere and believe what they are saying have not got any plans/way forward to put to any governmental departments which could be implemented.

If they continue to protest in this way they will lose a lot of support from every day folks going about their business (or should that be trying to?).

Callistemon
Couldn't agree more RE solar panels. Add to that insulation and then more insulation.
Add to that recycling of water.

Of course it will make a difference. It will change attitudes. That is exactly what the suffragists and suffragettes did. They did not get us the vote but they created the circumstances so that when a government saw an opportunity they were in the right state of mind and so was the country.

Some will no doubt continue to harrumph about the demonstrations but the young have the strength and willingness to carry on with a lot of help from those of other generations. It is likely that some devastation - it should have been one of the ones we have had already but our mindset wasn't at that point - will make governments make the change. What we need is to get them and the voters to the stage where we believe that what needs doing should be done.

Callistemon, I agree solar panels should have been made compulsory long ago, but solar cannot provide enough to power a home and even if batteries can be used to save occasional over-production of power, the long winter months when solar production is very low leaves a large gap - then there are houses not orientated correctly to benefit from solar power and blocks of flats.

Hapiyogi it is easy to blame commercial companies.But many companies in the heating industry are quite small man and boy or 10 men and a dog operations and they can only install what customers request and manufacturers can only manufacture what there is a demand for.

Replace a gas boiler with an electric one, it will cost you £5,000 and double your fuel bills, rip out your wet heating system and put a new electric system in and you will need to invest as muc as £10,000 - and double your fuel bill. How many consumers can afford this, let alone choose to do it - so commercial companies do not make the equipmen tor offer it.

Back in the 1960s when the gas industry converted from coal gas to natural gas, the conversion was done free by the nationalised British Gas. When solar panels first came in and wind turbines, government subsidised both. Now the market has grown and is profitable - despite much lower prices, subsidies have been removed.

I am not opposed to people demonstrating for emission removal to be speeded up, I am absolutely in favour of that but setting ridiculous scenarios like doing it by 2025 is plain stupid.

It's totally disgusting.
Two of my AC are running in the London marathon and have 5 figure pledges to each for their charities as have tens of thousands of other runners.
If the purported disruption goes ahead, it will lay to waste all the months of their training and the year long planning and sponsorship deals created by the organisers.
They are just selfish brats.

I agree with your posts M0nica and we cannot rely on just one or two sources of energy.

Why are builders not compelled to put solar panels on every new house which is suitably located?

We cannot go back to pre-Industrial Revolution - humans have, in the main, strived to progress so we will have to progress in new directions but with realistic expectations. Measures which are too punitive will just lead to different types of protests and perhaps anarchy and could lead to the type of scenario you illustrate.

People may be protesting in the capital but today, all over the country, so many others were out in their cars on the Bank Holiday.

M0nica, I think some of your points highlight how we have been passively sleepwalking towards a precipice.

We don't have the technology, or the skilled installers. Those things will take more time, until commercial interests decide there is huge profit in providing them. By which time, I fear such recreational pursuits as caravan-towing and jolly family holidays will be but a memory.

We all have to stop being such greedy over-consumers.

It has got nothing to do with tax, all to do with technology. Wind turbines are not the answer.

As I mentioned yesterday I monitor where are electricity is coming from daily, ofen more than daily on gridwatch.co.uk/ It is currently showing that nearly half the power we are now using this minute comes from renewable sources, but yesterday evening at around 6.00pm it was 35% and by the time it was dark it would have fallen to 20% as solar dropped out. Sometimes the contribution of renewables can fall as low as 20% or less.

What technology is there around or is there likely to be around that in the next five years that can be guaranteed 24/7 bridge the gap between what wind turbines and solar produce, with a small element of biomass.

Nuclear power stations cannot be built in six years neither can the tidal barrages along the Welsh coast and the rejected one on the Severn estuary.

Battery technology is developing and may help to bridge some variable renewables over a day, but what happens when renewables are below peak demand for days and weeks on end - and that does happen, especially in winter andthis technology is unlikely to be ready and installed widely in 6 years.

Where are the companies that can make enough electric heating devices to replace all the gas and oil heating equipment in 6 years, or te technicians that can install them. What about transport. Where are the electric engines powerful enough to power huge lorries travelling hundreds of miles with essential supplies? Where, even are the electric cars capable of towing a caravan or travelling for 300-400 miles fully loaded with a family of four and their luggage off on holiday. How do we manufacture all the vehicles needed to replace every vehicle now on the road in 6 years.

What about trains. We back onto the main London - Bristol line. The elctrification schem started in 2012. It is still not complete. They are still arguing about what to do about the listed bridge running through our village on a key length between Didcot and Swindon. It was due to be built in 2014. It is 2019 and we are no nearer dealing with this problem.

All the taxation measures in the world cannot solve problems when the technology is not there to provide the solution.

MaizieD
Richard Murphy has some ideas. I can't see them being popular as they are tax
I agree
Taxation may be popular to some but I doubt it would be effective. The rich people and countries would just either pay up or outsource the problem and the poor people/countries would suffer.
What is needed is education, inspiration, innovation, help and maybe a bit of humiliation.
Look How Attenborough got the World talking about sea pollution.
I don't think bullying or taxation is good. As others have said, this has to be tackled on a goals basis, some will be able to achieve the goals sooner than others, but as long as everyone is trying we should not ignore progress made by any.

Maisie- none of the steps we will have to take will be popular.
Therein lies the problem. Sorry- one of the problems.1

^ unless they first produce a peer reviewed report explaining how this can be done.^

Richard Murphy has some ideas. I can't see them being popular as they are tax related but they do act to make everyone responsible, not just people who want to do their bit.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/

IT'S ABOUT THE PLANET OUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN, AD INFINITUM, WILL INHERIT.

Exactly, and what will there be for our children and grandchidren if we ruin the economy, become a 5th world country, where children are starving in the streets, hospitals do not have the power to conduct operations or money to buy drugs and and their is a mass migration of people from this country to other countries, in the way that, over time, Iraqis, Syrians and Afghanis have fled here, because their economies have become basket cases?

Gonegirl, how do you fancy your children and gorgeous grandson living in a camp like they do at Calais, trying to jump a lorry that will take them to somewhere in Russia or the Middle East that might give them assylum. Remember by then we will no longer be part of the EU.

What gets things done is not demonstrators in the streets but family members like mine and no doubt the efforts of the family members of other GN members, but first and foremost by us in our homes and in our lives.

Pamela yes, I have been fully aware of the drought in parts of Australia, followed by devastating floods where cattle have drowned in water and mud.
Droughts have always been part of the Australian climate - but cows and sheep, rabbits and camels have not always been there and the population then knew how the land and climate worked and lived according to Earth's rules.

*they're accused

MOnica excellent post, as was your earlier one. We need their plan of how this demand can be met. But as soon as anyone mentions this they accused of being "anti" or uncaring about the planet. A properly costed plan because everything has a carbon cost, from electric cars, to wind turbines, to solar panels. Do we even have the manufacturing capacity to build the amounts needed in the timescale? Scrapping all the non compliant cars, boilers etc will have a carbon cost. Your DH and DD are addressing the problem in practical ways, actions that really can help towards the goal we'd all want to achieve.
I'm afraid Extinction Rebellion have made this more about them by the methods they've employed. Governments and big business are the ones with power to change things and government haven't been the least bit inconvenienced by the protest.

They've already made a difference. They've got people talking.

Gonegirl I just don't understand your antagonistic attitude - everyone posting has agreed something needs to be done about climate change, there are just disagreements about whether the protest by ER is the right way to effect change.

Yes but governments have to act now and take the people with them.

Just not sure demos like this take the vast majority with them. I think this alienates people rather than galvanises them.

Time will tell

My post certainly wasn't aimed at you Pamela. (I realise it could seem like that. Sorry)