Burning petrol & diesel in an uncertain world
- Thread starter gravygraham
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Mr Googler
Well-Known Member
Always enjoy reading your in-depth posts ??
BruceK
Well-Known Member
Never, well, maybe booze, after the fact.
Fantasie 19
Well-Known Member
Indeed.. my record at this years Boatshow was a 600Hp V12... Mercury I think... a hundred times bigger in power than the one I have on the back of my little MWB...
gravygraham
Well-Known Member
I’m all for technological progress but hey this is paradox on a plate.
Thanks for your interesting responses everyone.
Assassin
Well-Known Member
Has anyone actually proven climate change? has anyone suddenly asked why it changed its name from global warming to climate change or was it because official records showedthe world was cooling.
Has anyone actually disproved climate change.
So, we are being constantly drip fed the climate change agenda on virtually everything and it has yet to be proven or disproven and as always it is about money and nothing else.
Has anyone actually disproved climate change.
So, we are being constantly drip fed the climate change agenda on virtually everything and it has yet to be proven or disproven and as always it is about money and nothing else.
Momac
Well-Known Member
I don't think there is any doubt that climate changes . For example there have been ice ages.
There do seem to have been some extreme weather events in recent years on a regular basis so climate change does seem to be a reality.
Whether climate change can really be influenced by the activities of mankind is another matter .
Bouba
Well-Known Member
Perhaps there are more weather events than when we were young or perhaps the newsreels didn’t show them all back in the day....
superheat6k
Well-Known Member
Ok I will elaborate, but not much here is so boat.
Its about time the tax payers of this Country realise the whole subject of Global Warming and now Climate Change is about how Government can get away with taxing us more.
By hooking everything on CO2 they have finally found a way of taxing the air we breathe, or at least breathe out.
So I do have a personal theory that fat / overweight / under exercised people should pay less tax because they are effective carbon capture units, conversely anyone spending too much time running, at the gym, and especially those riding a pushbike, should be double taxed for the excess carbon dioxide they are producing.
Fantasie 19
Well-Known Member
Or incentivised to continue doing what they are doing given the current shortages???
TwoHooter
Well-Known Member
Have you been reading the RYA magazine?
I don't wrestle with my conscience for two reasons.
First, I'll feel guilty if and when the Prime Minister goes to a jolly in Cornwall by train instead of by jet. And this sort of nonsense stops: UK ministry with climate remit took 612 domestic flights since 2019
COP26: Climate minister Alok Sharma has set a bad example for jetting to 30 countries - including several on red list, say Labour
I cannot stomach hypocrisy, or one rule for the elite and another for everybody else, and the world's full of those twin evils.
Second, like others here, I look at my personal carbon output. Our boat burns very little diesel per annum (it is our smallest expense, totally eclipsed by mooring fees and maintenance, we burn more in our car than the boat), and we have cut back on other activities that produce the dreaded carbon. So my question is, do you absolutely have to have a boat which burns that much diesel, and will you use it often enough for the consumption to radically change your total carbon output?
None of us knows what is going to happen, to the climate or in politics, but based on the world's reaction to the disease-which-shall-not-be-named and which has an overall mortality rate which is easy to look up, I think it's a safe bet that the politicians will over-react to the so-called climate emergency and kick us all in the n**s (except for China and India and Brazil and the whole of Africa which will be let off the hook, and the Middle East who don't care about what the rest of the world says). You'll know if my prediction is right after the COP26 in Edinburgh in a few weeks' time. And the way politicians kick people in the n**s is not only by taking away rights which we have hitherto enjoyed without question since time immemorial (one of which is a Brit's right to own a boat) but also by taxing whatever they can get away with in order to try to pay for whichever sacred cow is currently top of their personal list or, sometimes, the personal list of their current nearest and dearest. Furthermore, there is a massive trend in the investment world to de-fund hydrocarbon exploration and development, such that it's questionable whether there will be any meaningful supplies of diesel in the future once current reserves have been exhausted.
Accordingly, I expect the cost of diesel for boats to rise exponentially. I'd say that's a more practical thing to focus on rather than personal feelings of guilt. Get a boat and enjoy it while you can. Take lots of photos. We may be the last generation to have boats. Let's enjoy it while we can.
prinex
Well-Known Member
Just because we change to another power source (example heating your home burning coal is now banned, we started using oil, in Switzerland I need to renovate the furnace for heating and - methane only no oil allowed anymore, maybe in 20 years will be solar-generated electric only) does not mean we cannot have boats anymore, we will adapt and find other ways to float around, maybe solar catamarans, or simply sailing like we are doing since 4K years or so.
More than expensive diesel I see something similar to how high-ps cars are taxed, over 20PS per ton super-high-tax, set a speed limit of 10kn 3 miles from coast everywhere, add super-strict boat engine emission regulations (so that everything 10+ years old is use-until-sold then no license renewed) - "dissuasion measures" so that at a certain point where is that sailing / solar boat etc. Same thing happening to cars btw.
TwoHooter
Well-Known Member
Don't give them ideas!
R400
Well-Known Member
The pressure may well be societal in nature. Boating and motorsport will make you pariahs. As Lovelock said in one of his Gaia books one of the biggest problems with global heating will be civil unrest/defence.
SimonD
Well-Known Member
We're bombarded daily with the dire consequences of climate change and extorted to do our bit to stop it happening. Meanwhile, Governments and other organisations meet regularly to discuss setting targets for reducing CO2 emissions. However, these are processes, rather than an end goal. I have not heard anyone set out what a sustainable planet would look like.
I'm sure there are some who think society should return to a pre-industrial revolution state. But you can't uninvent industrialisation and, despite the fact no-one voted for it, most of us wouldn't want to give it up. So, what does the future world look like? At present, what's on offer seems to be both ruinously expensive and unpalatable. We'll be driving electric cars, paying a lot more for heating our homes, eating less meat, not flying to Alicante every year, seeing huge swathes of the countryside being covered in solar panels, etc.
Is that it? Is there not a better vision where we can keep on living pretty must as we do now through the application of technology? Does it all come down to generating energy without generating CO2? If so, surely nuclear power is the answer (be it fission or fusion). And yet, it hardly gets a mention in the media. Is that because the green zealots would kick off or are Governments secretly planning an explosion (pardon the pun) of some form of nuclear power generation and want it to be a surprise.
I have no idea what the answer is, but I just wish someone in power, i.e. the means to make a real difference, would stop telling us how we can change the future without telling us what it looks like.
I'm sure there are some who think society should return to a pre-industrial revolution state. But you can't uninvent industrialisation and, despite the fact no-one voted for it, most of us wouldn't want to give it up. So, what does the future world look like? At present, what's on offer seems to be both ruinously expensive and unpalatable. We'll be driving electric cars, paying a lot more for heating our homes, eating less meat, not flying to Alicante every year, seeing huge swathes of the countryside being covered in solar panels, etc.
Is that it? Is there not a better vision where we can keep on living pretty must as we do now through the application of technology? Does it all come down to generating energy without generating CO2? If so, surely nuclear power is the answer (be it fission or fusion). And yet, it hardly gets a mention in the media. Is that because the green zealots would kick off or are Governments secretly planning an explosion (pardon the pun) of some form of nuclear power generation and want it to be a surprise.
I have no idea what the answer is, but I just wish someone in power, i.e. the means to make a real difference, would stop telling us how we can change the future without telling us what it looks like.
Boat2016
Well-Known Member
With the rising temperatures we will soon need to burn less fuels to heat our homes, that’s got to be good for us but not so good for those making billions our of the energy cartel.
Portofino
Well-Known Member
Gulf Stream the warm Atlantic flow apparently gets interrupted = cooler winters .Plus Jet stream the air flow thingy turns and blasts air , more air down from the artic .= Turn your heating up .
Net global warming yes but in temperate areas some extremes weather events which is what you see.
As far as energy nothing new there just spread your risk , the sources inc Nuclear.Ie do not become reliant on one and certainly he holding to a importer like a lot of EU ( Germany greens particularly ) on Russian gas .
How stupid and predictable Putins grasp of Germanys short + curly s.
PowerYachtBlog
Well-Known Member
Global Warming the Biggest Hoax Ever.
After making us dependant on the phone, and then computers, now its time to control your mobility.
Do you real want to control Man Made Global Warming when each alternative is actually more consumption centred and destructive to produce.
The easier most economic way to control global warming would be for the World to stop producing and over-producing.
If you change your car every ten years whatever emissions this will do, it is still better then if you change it every 5.
A production of a car equals more or less what you put in Co2 for around 100000 km. Much worse with electric-battery powered cars, the numbers goes higher in those.
So global warming and Greens is all just a theatre with us as the protagonists, and the World still burning in fire until it keeps accepting the Human Kind as the prime species.
After making us dependant on the phone, and then computers, now its time to control your mobility.
Do you real want to control Man Made Global Warming when each alternative is actually more consumption centred and destructive to produce.
The easier most economic way to control global warming would be for the World to stop producing and over-producing.
If you change your car every ten years whatever emissions this will do, it is still better then if you change it every 5.
A production of a car equals more or less what you put in Co2 for around 100000 km. Much worse with electric-battery powered cars, the numbers goes higher in those.
So global warming and Greens is all just a theatre with us as the protagonists, and the World still burning in fire until it keeps accepting the Human Kind as the prime species.
TwoHooter
Well-Known Member
The OP asked whether they should feel guilty about burning £ worth of fuel to drive a boat, and the consensus seems to be that, no, they shouldn't, and if they do then they shouldn't give up the boat, they should change something else in their lives. That's certainly my view. But we boat owners would say that, wouldn't we?
I have just come out of a board meeting of a company where I am trying hard to persuade my colleagues that the issue isn't what we think should happen, from a moral or even an economic standpoint. The issue is where the politicians are leading us. The trick when planning personal or business affairs is not to think about what one would like to happen (which, surprisingly, is what most people do most of the time) but to anticipate what is actually going to happen. And (again, it's surprising), the right question to ask about climate change is not 'What is the climate going to do?', but 'What are the politicians going to do?'
Right now the politicians think they can get to net zero because the graphs show they will achieve the interim target of a 68% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 9 years' time, compared to 1990 levels. And, maybe, a 78% reduction by 2035. What they don't understand is that all the easy things have been done - principally the ending of coal-fired generation of electricity. I think there's a fair chance they will actually achieve something close to the 68% reduction by 2030 and that will reinforce their current determination to get to net zero. But after 2030 it gets way more difficult, and certainly involves a complete cessation of air travel (except, presumably, for the Davos crowd), an end to international shipping, very reduced cement production, and a host of other fundamental changes.
My best guess is that life will get so tough as we head in the direction our leaders are taking us that the public will demand they end things like boats that burn petrol and diesel. I just can't see the average member of the public accepting that they can't fly away for a holiday, or buy cheap stuff from the Far East, or build a house extension,... but we can still have boats.
Sidebar: If you are really interested in this topic I recommend you read the UKFIRES report I linked to above, and again here. This is a government sponsored organisation and the only one I know which is realistic about what net zero actually means.
I have just come out of a board meeting of a company where I am trying hard to persuade my colleagues that the issue isn't what we think should happen, from a moral or even an economic standpoint. The issue is where the politicians are leading us. The trick when planning personal or business affairs is not to think about what one would like to happen (which, surprisingly, is what most people do most of the time) but to anticipate what is actually going to happen. And (again, it's surprising), the right question to ask about climate change is not 'What is the climate going to do?', but 'What are the politicians going to do?'
Right now the politicians think they can get to net zero because the graphs show they will achieve the interim target of a 68% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 9 years' time, compared to 1990 levels. And, maybe, a 78% reduction by 2035. What they don't understand is that all the easy things have been done - principally the ending of coal-fired generation of electricity. I think there's a fair chance they will actually achieve something close to the 68% reduction by 2030 and that will reinforce their current determination to get to net zero. But after 2030 it gets way more difficult, and certainly involves a complete cessation of air travel (except, presumably, for the Davos crowd), an end to international shipping, very reduced cement production, and a host of other fundamental changes.
My best guess is that life will get so tough as we head in the direction our leaders are taking us that the public will demand they end things like boats that burn petrol and diesel. I just can't see the average member of the public accepting that they can't fly away for a holiday, or buy cheap stuff from the Far East, or build a house extension,... but we can still have boats.
Sidebar: If you are really interested in this topic I recommend you read the UKFIRES report I linked to above, and again here. This is a government sponsored organisation and the only one I know which is realistic about what net zero actually means.
BlueJasper
Well-Known Member
But nobody mentions the 'Modern Grand Solar Minimum'. That should peg back temperature rises somewhat.