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Tuesday 15 December - the plan so far

Len Freeman | 11:39 UK time, Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Here is what we are lining up for tonight's programme:

The government is to buy 22 new Chinook helicopters for use in Afghanistan, but they will be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the defence budget.

The Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth will outline the details this afternoon. We will have the latest.

Our Science Editor Susan Watts will also bring us up to date with events at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen where there have been more chaotic scenes today with people queuing for hours to get into the conference.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    I had a photo message from the Whitehouse last night that the President of the USA has already started discussing the issues which are being considered in Copenhagen. That is, he has held talks with Mr Solana.and Mr Baroso in one of the Presidential suites.

    mim

  • Comment number 2.

    NN tonight is a fine example of the futility of Copenhagen. The Government is to order 22 helicopters, which won't be ready for 3 years, so we know how long the war will last.

    These all require resources, energy in construction, use. Plus munitions and the destruction involved in their work.

    It is pointless any of us trying to cut our emissions, whilst Government's, people and sides still embark on projects of war and destruction against each other.

    Just watch the Hercules transporter. One round trip to Afghanistan uses as much energy as you could save by not having a phone charger on for 350,000 years. Even if it did use any energy when plugged in and not charging.

    Then if it did it would only warm the room up and delay the central heating from coming on for a short while.

    There is no point in having a report on Copenhagen while human beings still use resources to kill each other. Deal with the causes of the problem not the symptoms.

  • Comment number 3.

    Roger you wrote (mon):

    "The media has effectively become a propaganda tool, promoting only one perspective." This is sooooo true.

    Justin is going to tell us, sometime this week, in laymans terms the horrors of CO2, hoping to convince the 'deniers' . I hope he also explains that bigger contributor to global warming: water vapour - the big white fully stuff up above - the clouds.

    No real agreement at copenhegan, so another beano will be held in Mexico...the circus moves on. Al Gore is going to be quietly dropped as the front man for climate change (once called global warming, but since its not warming but cooling - hence the name change) It has been reported recently he is "killing the movement" He has, yet to date not debated his beliefs on climate change with sceptics/scientist and refuses to be in the same room/city/state/country as Lord Monkton as he Knows if confronted and challenged, he will be exposed as the fraudster that he is, well we know that but the sheeple are not fully aware of his lies. Will he have to give back the $300million slush monies that he aquired to help peddle the Rothschilds funded Global warming scam and depopulation nightmare? Maybe he gets to keep it... as severance pay. And will the hacks at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã have to eat humble pie and apologise for the Nazi globalist corprotocracy lie...Ill be watching that show, especially if Simon fronts it.

  • Comment number 4.

    The government is to buy 22 new Chinook helicopters for use in Afghanistan, but they will be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the defence budget.

    Our Science Editor Susan Watts will also bring us up to date with events at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen...,

    ...which will be paid for by...

    ...chaotic scenes today

    Organising and/or coordinating a global future might therefore be asking a bit much.

    Meanwhile, in other news....



    Now while I happily concede that for balanced, researched, objective reporting The Daily Express might well be at one extreme end of an oily ragged pole, it is sweet that the Guardian has had a slight irony failure in evidently presuming that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã has, does and should only get its leads from, well, modesty prevents...

    Whatever the merits (or otherwise) of The Express (no of readers?) vs. The Guardian (ditto), it might be interesting to also discover how they stack up, respectively, in terms of requiring others not being entitled to have an opinion, no matter how misguided. And why they think that.

  • Comment number 5.

    Roger - I couldn't agree with you more. As you have repeatedly pointed out, Copenhagen focuses only on one issue. It ignores all of the other issues affecting the world such as acidification of the oceans, water shortages, top soil degradation, etc. Indeed many of the so-called green technologies designed to reduce climate change involve huge amounts of environmantal degradation whether it be mining for rare metals for batteries for electric cars or building offshore wind turbines (I'm not convinced that the amount of energy prodcued by an offshore wind turbine is even equal to the energy required to build, instal and maintain it). Meantime, we have a world economy which depends on ever increasing consumption. We have products which are manufactured in the knowledge that they will break down or become obsolete within a short time so that the consumer has to buy a replacement. I'll give you an example. My wife purchased a metal rack for holding shampoo bottles etc in the shower last year. Within 6 months we had to throw it out because it was rusty. She replaced with another rack (a different type this time). Same thing happended again. Now, isn't obvious that something which is going to hang in a shower needs to be rust-proof? I'm coming to the coinclusion that it should be made a criminal offence to sell rubbish products that are a wate of the earth's resources. It would probably have more of an effect that Copenhagen. But it won't happen. Why not? Because millions of people are employed in China and other places throughout the world manufacturing rubbish whether it be rusty shower racks or rubbish plastic toys to give away free with burgers. Of course the real killer is that we buy this rubbish and we can't even afford to do it. I somnetimes wonder if this is the Chinese getting us back for the Opium wars but rather than get us addicted to hard drugs, we have become addicted to buying lots of cheap rubbish that we don't need, doesn't make us happy and is destroying the earth. Ah, I hear them say, but the solution is carbon trading.

  • Comment number 6.

    Kev

    Hope you are right about the failure of the proposals. We do have problems with the planet-population, pollution, destabilization of ecological life support systems etc.

    But carbon trading does not resolve these issues. If they get a deal people make money but the problems are not solved.

    Looking at the news reports it is looking like there will be no agreement. That gives a bit a space to get a proper way of managing the planet in place.

    I really am not understanding the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, I thought they had some remit to inform. Yet are not doing this, seemingly projecting some unquestioned attitude like a deal in Copenhagen involving carbon trading deserves the same build up as Murray winning Wimbledon, England the world cup etc.

    Like we are supposed to be caught up in some Ö÷²¥´óÐã generated euphoria that an agreement in Copenhagen involving carbon trading is a good thing.

    Forgetting if they are trying to instill the same emotive feelings as they wish for a major sporting event. They should consider there is always more than one side involved.

    Here's to failure at Copenhagen and a better future for the world.

    Celtic Lion

  • Comment number 7.

    #5 Nedafo2

    This is sense you are writing, this is not getting out there. All I hear is carbon trading, emissions permits tat tat tat.

    How does mining and pollution of toxic metals for use in batteries of electric cars, become intrgrated into a limited carbon only audit? It doesn't.

    So you can still destroy the planet quicker, with an electric car, but hide the negatives because the audit does not require them. They have done creative accounting with money, crashed the lot. Now are going to apply the same mentality to our planet.

    The Madness of Copenhagen

  • Comment number 8.

    copenhagen isn't about climate change. it is isn't about science. its about money and how people can get their hands on it.

    cutting back

    the 'bonus' the troops get from the bankers debt is not the same one the banker's give themselves?

    tony was so gung ho for war any excuse would have done? discuss.

    would Tony invade here?



    war crimes warrant for Tzipi Livni?
    she was coming to speak to the JNF? of which Gordon, Tony and Cameron are patrons?

  • Comment number 9.

    "The stock market has dropped due to higher than expected inflation" I heard on News24. Nonsense - I can predict the short term trend (using the previous 6 months' data) and it was spot on expectations this month.

    Next month headline RPI will be 2.0% and CPI 2.5% (this is easy to calculate!) both rising to just over 3% over the next 6 months.

    This will present a problem next month as 2.5% is above the 'set point' of 2% for CPI and as any engineer knows that will cause (a poor) control system to react violently [good control systems will already have reacted].

  • Comment number 10.


    Nos 7 -

    'How does mining and pollution of toxic metals for use in batteries of electric cars, become intrgrated into a limited carbon only audit? It doesn't.

    So you can still destroy the planet quicker, with an electric car, but hide the negatives because the audit does not require them. They have done creative accounting with money, crashed the lot. Now are going to apply the same mentality to our planet.'

    yes !

    What do you reckon on this battery-ultracapacitor hybrid technology Rodger - dangly bits or a potential runner ?






    ----------------------------------
    That was a better interview than the last one Kirsty. But we need to really get at the problems with celebrity worship, desire and its exploitation by TV and the art/culture world whether its Paxman or Postman Pat and in the wider context on the fabric of our society.

    Nos 1 - for those who think that that's another mim delusion, I cant tell you that the Whitehouse is a contact on her flickr account and is probably true.

  • Comment number 11.

    #10 Streetphotobeing

    "What do you reckon on this battery-ultracapacitor hybrid technology Rodger - dangly bits or a potential runner ?"

    Interesting read all the links. Again it doesn't matter how efficient the battery or in this case capacitor. They are only a storage medium. The electricity still has to be produced. Most global electricity production is at present from fossil fuel. If it is CO2 emissions they are trying to reduce, they don't. It is only the source of the emissions that is moved, from the tail pipe to the flue pipe.

    Confusion arises from the evolution of such vehicles. They were first considered in the 70's and called ZEVs or LEVs. Zero emission or low emission vehicles. The emphasis on vehicles. They were originally intended to reduce photo chemical smog in places like Los Angeles. The emission referring to petrochemicals, oxides of nitrogen etc. Not CO2.

    ZEVs and LEVs do not have a history of CO2 reduction. The CO2 emissions came out of the power generating plant outside of the city, rather than pollutants from tail pipes within it.

    Similar with hydrogen fuel cell. A misconception in the media is hydrogen is a fuel an energy source. This is not true. Hydrogen is a storage system, just like charging a battery. The hydrogen needs to be produced, either electrolysis of water. Which requires electricity-were does that from?

    Though most hydrogen comes from the the industrial processing of natural gas, methane.

    The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle may only emit water at the tail pipe. But the process of steam reforming of hydrocarbons is highly energy intensive. Therefore CO2 is produced at the hydrogen production stage.

    Cameron and Boris are amusing with their qualifications in art history etc extolling the virtues of electric cars. Blissfully unaware they are challenging the laws of thermodynamics and proposing perpetual motion.

    Perhaps electric cars will have to wait for industrialisation of bio technology when algae or bacteria can produce the hydrogen. But then they will need energy to do it. How much sunlight will they have access to..... and it goes round and round?

  • Comment number 12.

    @ Streetphoto - anyone can sign up and be a contact with the White House
    Source:
    :p

  • Comment number 13.

    GOOD TIDINGS OF LIMITLESS ENERGY

    I am still for tidal power.

    The tides have not failed since records began (and a bit before).

    There is always some clever fellow improving on electrical storage efficiency - it will get better yet (potentially).

    The greatest obstacle is resistance. Not electrical resistance, but that of vested interests corruptly coupled with politics to prevent advance. Tobacco is a glaring example. Successive British governments drag their feet towards a few pictures on packets of LEGAL POISON. (Shock - horror! "Sadam GASSES his own people!") while eight EU states grow subsidised tobacco.

    While we have dishonourable politicians in Westminster, on the take in all sorts of convoluted ways, excellence and elegance of applied technology for a better Britain at ever-lower ecological cost, WILL ELUDE US. We have to DISMANTLE Westminster.

    SPOIL PARTY GAMES

  • Comment number 14.

    The uninformative interview with the Friends of the Earth delegate was a complete waste of time. I'd quite like to hear what is going on there, not why he was there. Exactly where would you expect environmental groups to send their experts when a major conference is going on?

    I'm also bored with pathetic attempts to attack anyone trying to tackle climate change as some kind of hypocrite just because they emit a bit of carbon dioxide in doing what they do. The same case could be made for every single Ö÷²¥´óÐã report or documentary which looks at climate change - I watch them all on my TV which leads to CO2 emissons but don't phone you up to complain afterwards.

    If I want that sort of narrow minded nonsense I'll buy the Daily Mail thanks. Mind you, that would lead to trees being cut down as well....

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