What About China?
In his new book, What About China?: Answers to this and other awkward questions about climate change, Alastair Sawday has joined forces with a panel of experts to give precise and entertaining answers to a series of tricky questions on climate, travel, recycling, food, energy, waste, and finance.
The book tackles all the questions you were afraid to ask, like:
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Flying only contributes 3% of the carbon emission, so what's the problem?
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Shouldn't we just accept food miles as an unavoidable evil, especially if we want to support Fair Trade?
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Do vegetarians use less energy?
Written in collaboration with the Soil Association, Waste Watch, Tridos Bank, Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay travel guides, the Centre for Alternative Technology and James Bruges, author of the The Little Earth Book and The Big Earth Book .
What About China? presents straightforward answers and explanations, facts and figures, that will convert even the most hardened climate change sceptics.
Alastair Sawday's Publishing has given us 10 copies of the book to give away.
For your chance to win, leave us a comment with your favourite climate change related myth, comment, fascinating fact or question.
The best ten submissions will win a copy of the book.
Editor's decision is final. No cash alternative. Competition closes midnight, Sunday 31st August.
Full competition terms and conditions below.
1. The Editor is always right.
2. If in doubt, refer to rule 1.
Good luck!
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My favourite myth is the one that skeptics cling to now that the scientific community has agreed that climate change is taking place. The skeptics now claim that although climate change is happening, it is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times before, and that we’re not causing it. And since we’re not causing it, there’s no need to take any action to prevent it. We all just need to relax, sit back and enjoy the ride – business as usual!
Thanks Emma! First post too! 🙂
Here’s a fascinating fact from me:
The US Environmental Protection Agency has an Acid Rain Program that has sucessfully reduced sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 30 percent from 1990 levels.
How come we can’t get these people to be in charge of a program to reduce CO2 emmissions?
Do vegetarians use less energy?
No vegetarian or vegan association collaborating?
Says it all!
Nobody wants to believe that vegetarians use less energy as they will have to give up meat.
Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity, tells of when post-Kyoto, he was discussing climate change with several people from Greenpeace, who then went and ordered rare steaks for dinner.
my favourite myth is “The intensity of cosmic rays changes the climate”..Just another example of us trying to move the blame off ourselves and onto something out of our control 🙂
I was in my local town recently asking passers-by to sign an Oxfam petition asking world leaders to pledge serious action on climate change. One man’s reason for not signing was ‘I’ll be dead in a couple of years.’
How’s that for selfishness!
My little boy – who’s just turned three – asked his Daddy the other day why it was raining again? To which my husband replied because Mrs ‘Jones’ up the road drives a people carrier, has four exotic holidays a year and constantly forgets to put her recycle bin out! To which my son replied ‘ what a very naughty lady Daddy.’ Never a truer word said!
My partner is a geologist, and I was mortified on our first date when he tried to convince me that climate change doesn’t exist, giving various “scientific” mumbo-jumbo in order to explain himself. I said he’d have to buck his ideas up if he was going to be the man for me! When we eventually started living together, he saw the way I live (compost bin, water butt, recycling, organic local produce in the fridge, and fairtrade tea and coffee) and after about six months admitted that he thought climate change was “quite probable” and he was glad that myself and others like me do our bit to help the environment. He has now gone so eco-friendly, that he chastised me yesterday morning for absentmindedly placing a used teabag in the bin rather than the compost. “Think of the polar icecaps”, he said, wagging his finger. I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?
i believe that if we interfere with nature , it will get worse , just let nature take its course ,everything changes in due course,nothing lasts for ever!
Myth or fact? Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance.
The most frustrating myth that I’ve heard is that extra carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is a good thing! Apparently its good for crops, making them thrive, so they become more healthy and reliable!!!
Why is nuclear power called a carbon neutral / green energy? Before it is even produced, the plant has to be built, the uranium mined, refined, transported, and then reprocessed or buried once it’s been used. This must produce CO2 emissons but they doesn’t seem to get a mention.
Most people here in Ireland keeps on saying “Bring on global warming, then we’ll get better weather and more tourists!!” What they don’t know that, if it comes that far, most of the island would be under water..
my favourite climate related myth is that global warming is a conspiracy and that climate scientists foster alarmism about global warming to boost their funding!!!
I still hear the narrow minded & selfish assertion “Climate change is good for the UK, bring on global warming – hot summers, no more frosts, growing our own bananas..” I wonder if they would say that to someone flooded out in Bangladesh or losing their farm to desertification in Africa? Serve them right if the gulf stream does shift and get colder!
Carbon Dioxide levels are not strongly related to temperature – how could they in such trace amounts?
Climate change means we are going to live in desert like conditions – arid and hot – so we should expect gales in spring and autumn, and cool wet summers.
‘leaving the lights on uses less energy than turning them off & on again??!!’ I hear this at work all the time!
“We can’t make a difference” is my favourite myth.
An excuse for some people to continue living the way they are without accepting responsibility for their actions, in my opinion.
A person I know once refused to put their drink cans in the recycling bin at work, because “it won’t make any difference” (grr!) and a 30 second walk was “too far away”. Sheer laziness!
A friend told me that the methane cows produce through their…erm…digestive system has a bigger negative effect on climate change than the emissions of aeroplanes…if that is true it adds some heavy weight to the argument why people should eat less meat…
The one I always like is the fact that climate change is called global warming, and the Britain will be like the Med, some people say bring it on, the forest fires, water shortages and passing out on the tube from the heat!
If EVERYONE in the world became vegetarian would this help protect our environmment in any way at all? Also what would happen to all the animals bred purely for meat would they become extinct?
If “standby mode” uses so much needless power – why does not the EU countries make ilegal on all new TV, DVD players, set top boxes etc from new? There are rules about everything else. Perhaps Gordon Brown could introduce a standby stealth tax!
We’re all doomed… doomed I tell ye!
The nuclear lobby has successfully perpetrated the most dangerous myth: that nuclear power can contribute to our carbon reduction targets and increases our energy security. Our spineless Government has been persuaded it should be part of our energy mix despite these facts: 1. The Government’s own deeply-flawed consultation showed it would reduce UK carbon emissions by only 4%.
2. By the time a new generation of nuclear power stations is built, there will be less than 40 years supply of uranium left on the planet. (IT IS NOT A RENEWABLE RESOURCE!)
3. Nuclear power only generates ELECTRICITY, therefore contributing little to our biggest energy objective: heat. Sources:
http://tinyurl.com/399nrn
http://tinyurl.com/5lvn55
I told you so.
Is it true that dairy cows produce methane gas in harmful quantities affecting the ozone layer?
i think it is a great shame that china is having to deal with the prospect of Terrorist attcks at the Olympics. Why cant they just leave the world alone and not ruin a legendary event!
Why does the USA not sign up to reduce gas-guzzling vehicles and reduce their pollution levels?
I find it a mytha that lather and silk are “ethical”
I find it a myth that leather and silk ar e”ethical.”
I find it a myth that leather and silk are “ethical”
My favourite comment which was related to me was; ” its not global warming, we are in fact entering the start of an ice-age, so we don’t need to worry about warming up, we will need the effect of greenhouse gases to survive”!
An observation: the last time there was a major temperature change was the ice age. Everything died. Do we really want to experience that again?
Warmer summers, excellent! Obviously these people are the only ones who know where the thermostat is when we reach the perfect temperature.
The world population has grown by more than 2.5 times in the past 55 years from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.45billion in 2005.
Global energy demands are projected to rise by as much as 60% in the next 20 years as a result of continued population growth and economical, commercial and social development.
After watching Planet Earth, someone said to me: “Why not move all the polar bears to the Antarctic – they can eat the penguins, there’s loads of them, and we can breed more tuna in the Arctic seas when they warm up.” That’s just wrong on so many levels I nearly cried…
The argument I hear most often is “why should I bother? one person can’t make a difference”. One person alone can’t, but that one person added together with all the other people who thought the same way really could. Every large group is just a collection of individuals after all. A lot of the time I think it comes down to peer pressure, and no-one wants to be the only one doing something. Personally I do all I can, and maybe it won’t make any difference but at least I’m doing the right thing. Who knows, maybe I’ll start a fashion rather than just following them all the time.
City off Rotterdam saying: we won’t collect the green and rest garbage, since our oven has inproved!?!!
No myths that haven’t already been covered.
maybe if grazing livestock were given charcoal tablets their emmissions would be less damaging 🙂
Is it true that Mars and Pluto are warming up
My favourite climate change comment came from my 8 yr old nephew – who recently came in from playing one hot, humid afternoon – threw himself on the floor and breathlessly exclaimed, “Could we call Mother Nature and ask her to turn the sun off for a little while? It’s too hot for me, the grass is burning my feet and the trees need sunblock!” Then he asked for a drink of water – filled his cup up a second time and ran outside again. My sister watched as he took it outside and ‘gave the tree a drink’. How adorable is that?!
I just find it curious that whenever there is a debate in the media on climate change it always seems to be between a scientist on the one side and a non-scientist (Jeremy Clarkson, Melanie Phillips, etc.) on the other.
We’re coming out of a mini ice age so of course the planet is warming up!
That my stinky wind is contributing more to climate change than the cow’s
An interesting fact:
Most people believe that CO2 pollution from automobiles is one of the main treats we create to our environment, especially in terms of climate change. However, it is the consuption of meat and other animal byproducts which cause the most damage.
Rearing animals for meat is responsible for the following global warming emmisions:
18% of CO2 (more than all the planes, trains and automobiles on the planet).
64% of Ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.
65% Nitrous Oxide, which is 296 times more polluting than CO2.
And 37% of Methane, which is 23 time more polluting than CO2. It is also estimated that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 – 130 gallons of methane a day, and with the intensity of factory meat/dairy/fur farming, the ammount of cows raised for meat, milk and leather is a huge threat to the environment.
The animal agricultural industry also causes huge ammount of destruction to the environment, including air, soil and water pollution, depopulation of wild species & deforestation.
The truth is, if you want to help the environment, and do your bit to prevent climate change, then the reduction, and especially the elimination, of animal products is the way to go.
Let nature take its course? There is nothing natural about global warming. We humans caused it by burning fossil fuels and rearing unnatural quantities of livestock.
I read somewhere that if animals were no longer raised for food, it would leave THREE TIMES enough water and crops to feed all of the world’s hungry.
Myth : The observed warming is all due to solar radiation variability, not human activity
SWITCH TO EATING KANGAROOO MEAT COS THEY EMIT LITTLE OR NO METHANE GAS
the hole in ozone air will mean we willnever have proper weather again
My most flabbergasting comment was that the rise in sea levels has nothing to do with global warming because, if you notice, when you put ice cubes in a drink, the water level goes up. So, actually, as the ice melts, the level goes down. Global warming would make the ocean levels decrease!
It is a fact that carbon dioxide levels in the earth\’s atmosphere have increased by an astonishing 30% in the last 200 years alone!!Whilst comcentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at their at the moment higher than at any time during the last 800,000 years
Carbon trading is a farce. It allows large comapnies to carry on polluting and much of the money goes abroad and is stolen by dictators
My favourite question is that the ice in the South Pole apparantly is increasing and if so why?
According to research back in the 90s, three-quarters of the carbon stored in organic matter in soils and vegtation in the UK, is in Scottish peat bogs.