Greta, Trump and similar topics

Can any one explain something to me?

If we are not self harming, why is that when I close a shore from being out at sea, virtually all over the world, I always see a line of thin brown smoke hanging over the land in lighter airs? And when I get closer, why it honks of engine fumes so much?

Its not pretty.
 
doug748 said:
Well, not quite.
The other thread was closed because the name of the girl from the snow line was used without genuflection and a number of people, who should have known better, went off on one.
My view is that these sideshows do more harm than good, the case needs a figure of real popular stature, someone of tone and restraint.

I am sure Trump is thrilled to have a peripheral figure to disregard, some of his backers would gladly shoot a climate activist on sight. Maybe Attenborough (sadly too old) as the public face would be far more difficult to isolate politically.
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To respond to that is too far outside the intent of a boaty forum.
 
capnsensible said:
Can any one explain something to me?

If we are not self harming, why is that when I close a shore from being out at sea, virtually all over the world, I always see a line of thin brown smoke hanging over the land in lighter airs? And when I get closer, why it honks of engine fumes so much?

Its not pretty.
Click to expand...


This might help...


PS Its got water in it.
 
I thought I would agree with Mr Singleton idea at first.

However my dear wife is scared that her grandchildren wont have a viable world to live in, and I fear the same for mine. Changes to weather could and indeed already affected my sailing (and have already ruined much of my winter climbing and skiing in Scotland). Talking to myself wont help so if the gammons and trolls traduce on any forum perfectly reasonable people who are trying however ineptly or otherwise to raise the agenda I will respond. Wont be much sailing on a dead planet.
 
doug748 said:
Well, not quite.
The other thread was closed because the name of the girl from the snow line was used without genuflection and a number of people, who should have known better, went off on one.
My view is that these sideshows do more harm than good, the case needs a figure of real popular stature, someone of tone and restraint.

I am sure Trump is thrilled to have a peripheral figure to disregard, some of his backers would gladly shoot a climate activist on sight. Maybe Attenborough (sadly too old) as the public face would be far more difficult to isolate politically.

.
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No disrespect but some of your posts were way of the Mark and scientifically wrong, you based you opinions on observations and tabloid headlines .
But that is not the point here , sailing and climate change can and should be discussed were there is a meeting of the two, and as many threads drift, so does this topic , but the fundamental issues still apply , we need to be smarter in our pursuit of reducing our carbon footprint in this sector , how I do not know all the answers , but am aware of my anchor, my diesel engine , and products I buy for sailing and think a little more about it , and thanks to people Like Greta it has opened my eyes a little wider
 
capnsensible said:
If we are not self harming, why is that when I close a shore from being out at sea, virtually all over the world, I always see a line of thin brown smoke hanging over the land in lighter airs? And when I get closer, why it honks of engine fumes so much?
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That will be a thin layer of sulfur-rich gases trapped by an inversion (colder air on top of hotter). I used to participate in a "longest flying day" event at Rufforth Gliding Club. near York, and during the first winch launches the layer was both visible and smellable as you went through it. Later in the day thermal mixing tended to disperse it.

It was particularly bad there because there were so many coal fired power stations around there; at least one powered aircraft in the area declared an emergency as they passed through the inversion, thinking they had a fire on board.
 
JumbleDuck said:
That will be a thin layer of sulfur-rich gases trapped by an inversion (colder air on top of hotter). I used to participate in a "longest flying day" event at Rufforth Gliding Club. near York, and during the first winch launches the layer was both visible and smellable as you went through it. Later in the day thermal mixing tended to disperse it.

It was particularly bad there because there were so many coal fired power stations around there; at least one powered aircraft in the area declared an emergency as they passed through the inversion, thinking they had a fire on board.
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Thanks, understand that. Thinking about locations and sea traffic, that explains that phenomena in the Straits og Gibraltar.

The land masses both sides normally give a fresh windflow through. In light airs again, that pollution layer, from the busy shipping lanes would form that layer. I believe big ship engines use sulphur rich fuel?

But seen it too in lots of other places, as I mentioned, from general traffic on shore and I suppose, factories.
 
capnsensible said:
Can any one explain something to me?

If we are not self harming, why is that when I close a shore from being out at sea, virtually all over the world, I always see a line of thin brown smoke hanging over the land in lighter airs? And when I get closer, why it honks of engine fumes so much?

Its not pretty.
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You can often see a yellow smear over Portsmouth, sometimes over smaller habitations along the coast.
These days the pollution I can smell is less often obviously traffic and more often woodburners, coal fires, bonfires....
 
doug748 said:
I must agree, though it seems the rules have changed.....
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....although nature's rules still stand! Mankind's first revolution was based upon harnessing sunlight to grow crops and wind to power trade. The second upon fossil fuels to power production and trade.

The third will require a massive global effort to fix the bits of Mother Nature we've bust and to play nicely with her in future. Or she might ban us lot for good!

Who knows, sail power may yet play a role?
 
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We have recently returned to Europe after years of sailing through the tropics as a family. We relied on solar and wind energy for power, running all our screen-machines, fridge, lighting, etc. Sailing downwind in trades kept our diesel use pretty modest, and a 2.5hp outboard for the dinghy sips fuel. We ate plenty of fish which we caught and local fruit and veg. We were always warm and well fed, without trying. We had plenty of 'stuff' from our previous life, so had no need to buy clothes or white goods or have any serious expenditure, other than a some boat stuff like new dinghy.

Since returning to Europe in December we have had the gas boiler more or less permanently on, used plenty of electricity from the grid, and filled up the car with about 100 litres of fuel per month, and consumed far more food which has been shipped across continents in plastic packaging, etc. UK heating gas use per household is around 17,000 kWh of energy per year.

This summer I want to get some solar panels and better insulate the house, and we can use the car less, etc. But even with some commitment to making changes to live more sustainably in Europe the difference in the ecological footprint of the 2 lifestyles will be huge. It's clear we need serious sustained structural change, which we can and must commit to, to have the impact we need on climate change.
 
siwhi said:
We have recently returned to Europe after years of sailing through the tropics as a family. We relied on solar and wind energy for power, running all our screen-machines, fridge, lighting, etc. Sailing downwind in trades kept our diesel use pretty modest, and a 2.5hp outboard for the dinghy sips fuel. We ate plenty of fish which we caught and local fruit and veg. We were always warm and well fed, without trying. We had plenty of 'stuff' from our previous life, so had no need to buy clothes or white goods or have any serious expenditure, other than a some boat stuff like new dinghy.

Since returning to Europe in December we have had the gas boiler more or less permanently on, used plenty of electricity from the grid, and filled up the car with about 100 litres of fuel per month, and consumed far more food which has been shipped across continents in plastic packaging, etc. UK heating gas use per household is around 17,000 kWh of energy per year.

This summer I want to get some solar panels and better insulate the house, and we can use the car less, etc. But even with some commitment to making changes to live more sustainably in Europe the difference in the ecological footprint of the 2 lifestyles will be huge. It's clear we need serious sustained structural change, which we can and must commit to, to have the impact we need on climate change.
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I've reduced my carbon footprint in the last couple of years, but that's been enabled by semi-retirement.
Which couldn't have happened without a couple of decades in the rat race.
Likewise I assume your time afloat was paid for by your work or someone else's?
I guess it would be normal engineering practice to average out 'gap years', retirement and so forth over a lifetime.

Opting out of society is superficially green looking, but we need all the other work done so that people can develop and make all those turbines and solar panels and all that. We could all pretend to be Barbara in the Good Life, but nobody paying tax= no scientists, doctors, weatherforecasters, nothing, no society basically.
 
Our experience of cruising was that there is a very developed society with long term cruisers with the usual mix of values and characteristics. Like many others, we haven't felt so socially connected before, to other cruisers, to people in the places we visited and also to the environment we were in. Don't assume there was no 'productive economy' or scientists, or doctors or weather forecasters working whilst being cruisers either, again our experience in various different ways proved quite the opposite. It's not superficially green, it really is much greener than our previous lifestyle. There are numerous other benefits too.

Yes, we earned the money for the boat in the rat race. Working doesn't mean we should continue to struggle to live in a more sustainable manner. There are many elements of our western lifestyle that need to change. I may have misunderstood you, but your logic seems to flow along the lines of work = pay tax = have a society = rat race = heavy carbon footprint. These things are often (cor-)related, perhaps sometimes this is in our mindset, but they don't need to be. There are quite a few parts of the chain that could be engineered differently, and for us at least, sailing gave us an exciting and optimistic alternative reality.
 
dom said:
Wartsila's rotor sail is very clever, based on the so-called Magnus Effect.

Here's a fun little explanation vid if anyone's interrested:
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It's an interesting explanation, but not a very good one, since he trying to pin it all - without saying so or maybe knowing so - on the Coanda effect. In fact the Magnus effect is an example of Kutta-Joukowski lift which is the mathematical formulation of Frederick Lanchester's circulation theory of lift, Basically if you superimpose a vortex on a uniform flow, there is a sideway force on the vortex. In an aerofoil the vortex arises because of the shape of the section; in a rotor it arises because the rotor drags air round with it.

The turbulent wake is a red herring too - he took that picture from wikipedia ...
 
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