The Autoshite Mass-Debating Society

[eddyramrod]

You're supposed to open the sachet before you shake the bag...

[cobblers]

Protip! add all the salt, and back it up with stacks of vinegar.

 

Soggy crisps sounds bad, but it's absolutely amazing.

 

Works equally well with morrisons own brand ready salted though

[dollywobbler]

Ah, perhaps my bag was subjected to an unauthorised shaking? Shit that sounds wrong...

[Albert Ross]

THIS was filmed by a mate of mine...... I want this "Music" played at my funeral. Only up to 2:50 though....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZKFwSFxh0Y

[warren t claim]

I think it's time for a new topic.

 

Is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions a myth or reality?

Can there ever be such a thing as an environmentally friendly car?

Taking into consideration "whole life carbon emissions" would it be more green to buy a BMW 525e and a drum of Waxoil rather than a brand new Prious?

[MrDuke]

I've had it on good authority (from our own Mr J69 no less) that new cars are, statistically, less damaging to the environment than older cars, including manufacturing stages.

 

But then statistics are useless and crap in the real world

 

Seriously though, unless your car averages less than 15mpg I don't think there's enough of a difference to render you a planet-destroyer. Plus, how do you statistically factor in the risk of a freighter shipping brand new cars/components into the country spilling its oil all over a coastline and wiping out the local eco-systems?

 

I would, however, like to point out the difference between actual environmentalists (like my old landlord who, when he wasn't building rainwater-recycling systems, tooled round in an early-80s Passat) and the naive pseudo-green trendies who believe everything the papers tell them.

[Pete-M]

I think it's time for a new topic.

 

Is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions a myth or reality?

 

Myth.

Can there ever be such a thing as an environmentally friendly car?

Probably not, as according to the Ecomentalist Luddites nothing is environmentally friendly.

 

Taking into consideration "whole life carbon emissions" would it be more green to buy a BMW 525e and a drum of Waxoil rather than a brand new Prious?

 

Yes, as according to a study a couple of years ago an Jeep Cherokee 4.0 (XJ) on LPG blew pretty much everything else away for whole life carbon emissions. Mainly because Jeeps used the same engine for about four billion years, the body presses were the same ones for many years, the factory the built them was ancient but efficient, they don't rust particularly badly or chuck out much in the way of emissions, lots of parts get recycled instead of being binned, there's nothing other than the catalyst that's made out of anything particularly exotic, bugger all asbestos in 'em and in the US the vast majority of ones built are still going strong even after nigh on 30 years. Compared to a Pious, the Jeep is saintly. After all these years, an E28 won't be far behind the Jeep.

[eddyramrod]

Taking into consideration "whole life carbon emissions" would it be more green to buy a BMW 525e and a drum of Waxoil rather than a brand new Prious?

 

Povided the BMW is old enough to have reached the very bottom of it's whole-life price curve, and would therefore be regarded by "most people" as a throwaway, then yes, absolutely, DO IT!*

 

*Said by someone who took a 525e in part-ex, hated it, couldn't get rid of it fast enough, and will never ever own another BMW, even FOC. But you can apply the same logic to any car at the same stage of life: Maestro, Chevette, Cadillac.... Keeping the old stuff going, whatever it is, is definitely the green answer as far as I'm concerned. Also, who the fuck has enough cash to buy a Prius? Scrap-value luxobarges every time, for me.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I think it's time for a new topic.

 

Is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions a myth or reality?

Can there ever be such a thing as an environmentally friendly car?

Taking into consideration "whole life carbon emissions" would it be more green to buy a BMW 525e and a drum of Waxoil rather than a brand new Prious?

 

I mostly agree with Pete here. There are quite a lot of ecological problems on this planet. Even if they contribute somewhat to global warming (doubtful), carbon emissions are way, WAY, WAY down that list. If we didn't have overpopulation, we could deal with the contamination of watercourses, the smog produced by burning low-grade carbon for electricity (Ulan-Bator, or however it's spelled, is one of the worst places to be in the winter because they burn loads of the stuff), the carcinogenic particulates in diesel engines (admittedly, there has been some progress on that front) and a long list of etc.

 

Instead, we are just panicking about an increase in the concentration of a naturally-occuring gas that may or may not cause a slight change in temperature.

 

The BMW is much more environmentally friendly, unless you intend to keep the Pious for 25 years.

[Mash]

I think it's fair to say that the millions of vehicles around the world being driven and manufactured every day are a big contributor to greenhouse gasses. Whether they are the MAJOR contributor when you put into the equation aircraft, sea freight, power stations, manufacture of white goods and methane emmissions from cattle is up for debate.

 

Of course that's an entirely different debate to whether old cars are "greener" than new ones. I'd say running well maintained ten year old cars is a better choice if you want environmental kudos than a brand new one every three years.

 

I should point out I have no facts to back up any of this!!!

[TimothyClaypole]

Although I have just been watching Rubicon whilst smoking weed...

 

I hope you brought enough for all of us...

 

How much is a quarter these days?

[Pete-M]

The BMW is much more environmentally friendly, unless you intend to keep the Pious for 25 years.

 

Even if you kept the Pious for 50 years it'd still be worse than the BMW. Have you ever actually looked into how much shit goes into one of those things? There's also the fact that to keep a Pious going in the manner it's intended to - as a Hybrid - would more likely than not cause more environmental damage than building the whole E28 did in the first place.

 

The Pious is also the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world. which isn't a good thing. 1kg of Neodymium in the electric motor alone. Lanthanum in the battery pack, even the LED bulbs use rare earth elements to build.

 

However, as China is busily stockpiling rare earths (not for export) Toyota reckon they've sussed out how to get around the rare earth issue. They're planning on using Thorium instead.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I love LANTHANUM. "ΛανθάνÉ" (pronounced lan - th as in thermic - a as in apple - no as in Norway, stressing the second 'a') doesn't really mean 'hide' as per the article, but 'go unnoticed'...perfect name for the environmentally disastrous crap they put in the Pious.

[warren t claim]

I worry that the developing world will be left to pick up the pieces and break up all the toxic chemicals when these hybrids reach the end of their life. As a parent I shudder at the thought of an eleven year old boy having to pick apart a battery from a Pious for a Dollar a day.

[Cavcraft]

I worry that the developing world will be left to pick up the pieces and break up all the toxic chemicals when these hybrids reach the end of their life. As a parent I shudder at the thought of an eleven year old boy having to pick apart a battery from a Pious for a Dollar a day.

 

A worry you'll have to give serious thought to if this country keeps going the way it is.

[rml2345]

I do believe in the man made global warming thing as we've been burning dead plants and whatnot for a few centuries and it is getting warmer.

However running an old motor like the E28 has got to be better than shipping a Pious full of rare elements half way round the world and then havIng to scrap it after 10 years because the electrics are borked.

[M'coli]

I believe that the human race is contributing to global warming, but also that it's not entirely man-made: the planet was due to warm up anyway but that we're assisting in that by using the stored energy beneath us. The energy stored in fossil fuels is being emitted into the planet as heat, one way or another, and unless there is a reduction in heating of the planet by lower amounts of solar energy reaching us, then the planet must heat up until it chucks out (as black-body radiation) the increased amount of heat that we're pouring into it.

I also believe that we're at the point of a major extinction event, but not the cause of it - we're just speeding it up vastly.

[myglaren]

I think it's fair to say that the millions of vehicles around the world being driven and manufactured every day are a big contributor to greenhouse gasses. Whether they are the MAJOR contributor when you put into the equation aircraft, sea freight, power stations, manufacture of white goods and methane emmissions from cattle is up for debate.

 

Of course that's an entirely different debate to whether old cars are "greener" than new ones. I'd say running well maintained ten year old cars is a better choice if you want environmental kudos than a brand new one every three years.

 

I should point out I have no facts to back up any of this!!!

 

I have no backup for this but read or saw on TV, not sure which, that termites produce significantly more methane that any other source.

probably best taken with a bucket of salt but still.

[dollywobbler]

Problem is, what's normal? How do you baseline what a planet does? Millions of years ago, oxygen levels were twice as high as they are now. Imagine what that'd do for engine power! When plants were invented, CO2 levels dropped to very low levels - as we experience today. They play around with nature and hippies love them. How's that fair? Just because tree farts are quite pleasant for us.

 

I imagine we do make a difference, seeing as we've created lots of polluting things and chopped down an awful lot of trees (as well as releasing vast amounts of stored CO2 in the form of coal and oil) but it does seem a very tricky thing to quantify.

[Guest]

I've given up justifying having a load of polluting old cars and couldn't care less what society thinks of me as I've largely turned my back on it. You know what the biggest cause of pollution is? Humans. Yet people are puzzled - often offended - when I raise the massively important issue of overpopulation. If there's more people, there's less resources between them - these people need food, jobs, entertainment, buildings, factories, towns, cities.

 

If we're going to take this whole pollution thing seriously, we need to tackle it head-on by dramatically reducing the birth rate, not by farting around taking away the advantages of the developed world. I'm not having kids and I don't drop litter, there's nothing else I need to do. Cheers!

[rml2345]

Lots of sensible sense.

 

That's a very valid point about overpopulation. It also increases the rate of consumption of fossil fuels, and the production of greenhouse gases.

[M'coli]

Aye, very true - and we seem to be determined to eradicate population-limiting disease, whilst not ensuring that birth rates are reduced.

[MrDuke]

Spot on ^^^ Yet everyone thinks the (quite sensible, in principle) Chinese method of population control by taxation is a terrible violation of human rights. I know it has its faults, but everyone everywhere has the "human right" to a fair slice of the planet's produce, surface area, and expendable resources, surely?

I believe that at the age of 15, everyone should take a compulsory test to evaluate their basic morality and common sense: if they fail the test, they get sterilised. They can go back in 10 years for a retest and if they then pass, they can have it reversed. Then I'd still tax them for every child after the first 2.

 

 

Damn, I told myself I wouldn't rant on here any more.... stupid vodka......

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Hirst has got it right first time. Whenever I try to tell people that there's just too many of us on Earth, they are trying to define whether I am a Class 1 misanthropist or completely deranged (well, I am probably both, but that is beside the point). The really depressing thing is that, apart from the 'man in the street' who could be forgiven for being somewhat ignorant and/or preferring to think about boobs on reality shows than the environment, 'green' groups and government policymakers, in the UK and across Europe if not all over the bloody planet, are fucking oblivious to the plain truth. How does it make sense to penalise people for driving a car that produces, say, an extra 40 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime when you incentivise the production of more people (viz. child benefits/tax credits) who clearly will end up producing thousands of tonnes each?

[warren t claim]

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

 

What would it take to get you out of your car and start using buses and trains?

 

For a laugh I thought I'd enter my daily commute into here... http://www.google.com/url?q=http://trav ... Q6mg6lgZ6A and see if it is at least possible for me to get to my usual place of work by 6am, a journey that takes me 40 mins by car. To get from South Manchester to Huyton it would take me a staggering 5 hours and 50 mins!!! I'd have to set off before midnight! Even if I departed from the Claim family residence on The Wirral, which is the same county as Huyton, the journey would still take 4 hours and 15 mins! Even in the 106 I can do the commute in under 30 mins in clear traffic!

 

So the question is whether public transport can ever be a viable alternative to owning a car? I'm sure if you live and work in the centre of London and work regular hours it is at least possible but for the rest of us provincial shiters I can't see an alternative.

[Rocket88]

I've given up justifying having a load of polluting old cars and couldn't care less what society thinks of me as I've largely turned my back on it. You know what the biggest cause of pollution is? Humans. Yet people are puzzled - often offended - when I raise the massively important issue of overpopulation. If there's more people, there's less resources between them - these people need food, jobs, entertainment, buildings, factories, towns, cities.

 

If we're going to take this whole pollution thing seriously, we need to tackle it head-on by dramatically reducing the birth rate, not by farting around taking away the advantages of the developed world. I'm not having kids and I don't drop litter, there's nothing else I need to do. Cheers!

 

Agreed, and what makes it more galling is that the bearded yoghurt knitters who moan at me about my cars usually have at least 4 brats...............

[scaryoldcortina]

Admittedly, my work is much closer to home (It's about 2 miles by road or just under a mile if I walk) but using the bus takes over half an hour (says the website) because the only bus to our village doesn't go the right way. You have to go a mile on one bus, then get off and wait for another one

[cort16]

If I walked to the train station (15 minutes) I could get a train, which takes me to the local town in about 25 minutes but then there's only 2 buses a day, which take me from town to out office neither of which line up with my train.

I do get the train quite often if I'm going out on the bevvie or what ever after work but I have to get a £5 taxi from the train station to the office. Rubbish really.

 

The big stumbling block is price. It costs me £42 return to get the train station from Ayrshire to Edinburgh a few months ago. If there was two of us that would be £84 quid. If I'd taken the car it would have been £30 on diesel and £10 in parking.

 

Public transport needs to be cheap and consistant get people out their cars but the attitude tends to be to force up the price of motoring instead.

 

Is it not something ridiculous like £90 to get from Bristol to London on the train during the day?

[M'coli]

I've yet to have a commute by public transport that on a good day is quicker than me on my bicycle on a good day.

 

For example, take the St. Neots - Huntingdon run - by the timetable, it would take me 50 minutes from the bus stop in Snots to getting off at Hinchinbrooke hospital, and also it would take me 10 minutes or so to go from the house to the bus route.

Best time for me on the bike for the same route (ok, via the A1 - it felt less dangerous than the backroads as well as being 2 miles shorter) - 10.5 or so miles, 27 and a half minutes, meaning that I could have a shower and that and still be quicker than the bus. And have saved my busfare for the pub at the end of the week!

[cort16]

If I was going a few miles i'd rather go on one of those electric scooters than get the bus.