Wind Power - the killer argument

Wind turbines pay back the carbon cost of their manufacture in about 6 months and last for 20 years or more. After that first 6 months every kilowatt they generate is carbon-free and nuclear waste-free and a gain for our grand-children.

That is not to say that it is not preferable to site them out at sea rather than in areas of outstanding natural beauty; but one also should not be misled by nimbys with their arguments about lack of efficiency, and the fickleness of the wind. These are not relevant to the matter in hand, the saving of the planet.

Domestic Waste Recycling

I have always have had worries about the viability of domestic waste recycling. Take, for a simple example, plastic bottles. These occupy large amounts of space, even when partially crushed but are low in  weight of recoverable plastic. To collect them necessitates a heavy vehicle frequently stopping & starting along miles of residential roads;  then, when full, transport to a depot and from there to a recycling plant for recovery of usable plastic. Is the carbon saved at the point that reclaimed plastic granules issue forth into a delivery lorry more than that expended by all the handling and transport involved?

Will the cost of this recovered plastic to the bottle-makers be less than that of new material; or are taxpayers subsidising recycling as a matter of Government policy in order to keep the raw materials in the ground and waste out of land-fill?

Presumably someone has done the sums.

Climate Change Denying

The deposits of fossil fuels that we have been cheerfully consuming over the last 100 years or so, and at an ever-increasing rate,  were gradually laid down over many hundreds of thousands of years. Although aspects of  the present theories and predictions of climate change may still be open to be dispute or questioning, what climate change deniers, like Simon Heffer of the Telegraph, first need to tell us is; why should releasing this carbon in such a small fraction of the time in which it was laid down not produce some observable effects on the climate? If they can't, the sensible thing for the time being is to assume the worst and do what we can to get off this carbon jaunt.