Australia-environmentally friendly or not

in the renovations forum roof painting went off on a bit of a tangent (thanks to me :D ) over whether Australia has a reputation for being a bit on the environmentally unfriendly side. The trigger was a poster who is planning on painting his roof a dark colour event though it will up his cooling bills ( but it will keep his wife happy ). I was suprised when I arrived here at how wasteful people are in Melbourne with water, at the huge cars and the poorly insulated homes.

now I wait for the flames :D

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Originally Posted by jackiew

now I wait for the flames :D

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Sorry, cant afford to waste energy on flames.

Al :)

How much difference to the cooling costs do you think a dark coloured roof really makes ? Stuff all if you are using evaporative cooling - as he is, because that system works on keeping air flowing through the house, not keeping it at a predetermined temperature like air conditioning does.

I have a dark green roof, plus evaporative cooling, and it rarely goes on more than half speed.

Like Ozwinner, I too drive a lovely 4.7 litre gas guzzling V8 and love it. :D

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Originally Posted by kenmil

Like Ozwinner, I too drive a lovely 4.7 litre gas guzzling V8 and love it. :D

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Thats a girls engine, mine is 5.4 litre
I too have evap air, and it rarely gets turned up more than 10%, seems to be more efficiant than the cold type.

Gota go, and burn me a forest, Al

There's an old saying
"too much horsepower is barely enough"

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Originally Posted by jackiew

in the renovations forum roof painting went off on a bit of a tangent (thanks to me :D ) over whether Australia has a reputation for being a bit on the environmentally unfriendly side. The trigger was a poster who is planning on painting his roof a dark colour event though it will up his cooling bills ( but it will keep his wife happy ). I was suprised when I arrived here at how wasteful people are in Melbourne with water, at the huge cars and the poorly insulated homes.

now I wait for the flames :D

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Jackiew.. you disappoint me!! where is all your greenie whinging about burning of fossil fuel?? (look where I am from.. and what I do for a surviving!) :p ;) :D

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Originally Posted by ozwinner

Thats a girls engine, mine is 5.4 litre
Al

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Yes, but that would be a Ford, so it doesn't count. :D

C'mon luv, this country is soooooo big, when this little bit of it gets a bit dirty, well just move to another. :D

I say bring on the big motors.

My car motor can be found here....... :eek:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

Anyone slightly mechanical will love it, I promise. :D

Ben.

Ps. JackieW, I think that $ are more important than the enviro-thingie to most people. :(

Jackie,

There were a couple of observations I wanted to make. The first was that the Daily Telegraph is a tabloid so you can't really compare it to the Age, the Australian, or the Age's sister paper in NSW - the Sydney Morning Herald ;)

Nevertheless, the other observation was that the article didn't really mention Australia as having a bad reputation in relation to green house gas emissions but was more of a dig at the pandering to the US of A that goes on. Of that, we (or should I say our elected government) are truly guilty.

I read up a bit on it and yes, we are at the bad end of the scale when you look at emissions per capita. Those stats are worked out by estimating the emissions of industry, transportation, farming etc. and dividing by the population. They're a guide but not definitive. They're also slanted against us because we are quite heavily industrialised for the size of our population. When you look at some of the other countries such as China, their per capita figures are much lower than ours but multiply it out by the size of their population and the problem there is or will be much bigger than it is here.

Your experiences in Melbourne are annecdotal evidence that there is a problem here and a lot of people don't take it seriously. Step outside the cities though and you'll see a different story. For example, a lot of places simply don't have the water to waste. We never wash our cars or water our lawns.

As a kid, we never had air conditioners or central heating or electric blankets. I grew up in a town a couple of hours north east of Melbourne and we survived the winters by putting on more clothes. It rarely gets hot enough to need an air conditioner down there. I only discovered those things when I moved to Sydney.

Returning to your original comment though, I guess you are telling us that we have this reputation 'overseas', ie. in the UK, and that from what you have seen in Melbourne since you arrived, you believe this reputation to be deserved?

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Originally Posted by silentC

................ I guess you are telling us that we have this reputation 'overseas', ie. in the UK,...................

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From my readings of the Dutch newspapers I have to say that we have that same reputation over there. Our government refusal to ratify the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gasses rankles many.

If through the effects of the hole in the ozone layer the sea level rises 300mm the effect on our country would be minimal but 75% of the Netherlands will be underwater with the next king flood tide. Denmark, northern half of Belgium and substantial parts of Germany would also disappear. I doubt if the Riviera and the northern parts of Italy would also survive.

This is constantly in the minds of European leaders and there is already a push by the the Greens in the EEC to ban trade with any country that refuses to deal with this issue and adhere to the agreement.

So maybe soon our country's hip pocket will be affected when they ban trade with us. Maybe then we will learn and our political leaders accept that they were stupid in being so obtuse. So Jackie I won't flame you I agree with you.

Peter.

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Originally Posted by silentC

I grew up in a town a couple of hours north east of Melbourne and we survived the winters by putting on more clothes.

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Hmmm sounds like we come from the same part of the world.


- Wood Borer

Born in Mirboo North, raised in Thorpdale and proud of it ;)

Sorry, got my directions wrong, that's South East :o

EARTH FIRST! :D We'll mine the rest of the planets later. :eek:

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Originally Posted by Sturdee

This is constantly in the minds of European leaders and there is already a push by the Greens in the EEC to ban trade with any country that refuses to deal with this issue and adhere to the agreement.

So maybe soon our country's hip pocket will be affected when they ban trade with us. Maybe then we will learn and our political leaders accept that they were stupid in being so obtuse. So Jackie I won't flame you I agree with you.

Peter.

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There is currently NO conclusive link between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and climate change. All we really know about how the climate works is based on physics abstractions (models), not empirical evidence. The evidence about current climate behaviour is conflicting and therefore inconclusive. Forecasting outcomes on current data is also specious.

I agree that science has proven many links between economic activity and its impact on the environment (eg CFCs effect on ozone depletion and increased ultra violet radiation, leaded petrol and brain development in children, etc etc). I would personally like to lower use of fossil fuels if only to clean up the air we breath, but the best I could say about "global warming" or the "Greenhouse effect" is that it needs more research. Furthermore, Dr Stephen Schneider and his ilk are peddling fear, not knowledge. Policy makers are buying in to this because fear means votes.

Even if the Greenhouse effect IS real, Australia's contribution to global CO2 levels is negligible. The vast majority of CO2 output is estimated to come from the USA and China and other developing nations, which have no real targets under the Kyoto Protocol. I doubt the credibility of the EEC's threat to affect a ban on those two countries. I think the source of this recent threat is a "strange bed fellowship" between European farmers, manufacturers and greenies, with the first two looking for yet another excuse to bump up non-tariff protectionism to a whole new, dizzying level. Australia should be more worried trading bans from our Pacific trading partners...