This turf cutting row - will Europe ever know?

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 1:20am

as i said b4 you pick a discussion the argue no matter what,,in one statement you said "pick a more efficient fuel" then your reply to my answer ignors that point completely,as it doesnt suit you to answer

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 1:27am

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

Are you being serious or sarcastic that fossil fuels withdrew carbon from the CO2 in the atmosphere?

And I was implying that you don't seem to have the grasp of the idea of something being carbon neutral!

quote ULTIMATELY . fossil fuels derive co2 from atmos un quote. ultimately does this word improve your point. ultimately if i cut turf to burn its going to make no difference to the biodiversity or anything else.

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 1:42am

allanpkr wrote: »

and btw its not my description of carbon neutral..i hope you agree that woods forests ,take up co2 from the atmosphere as is believed throughout the world , also that bogs are believed to soak up co2, ...then if you believe ,agree with them 2 statements they are carbon neutral if they are burned. fossil fuels ,carbon neutral...really.

You seem to be confusing the term "carbon neutral" with laws of physics and chemistry (something along the lines of the conservation of mass or energy).

Burning wood and turf and other fossil fuels doesn't change the amount of carbon that exists, but it does take carbon from the ground and puts it in the air which is where the problem is!

allanpkr wrote: »

hang on you said fossils fuels are carbon neutral , not me your grasp of carbon neutral is wrong
#

No I said by your definition its carbon neutral - you seemed to imply that burning wood/turf is carbon neutral, and if you think burning wood/turf is carbon neutral then you must also think that burning coal/oil etc is carbon neutral!

allanpkr wrote: »

quote ULTIMATELY . fossil fuels derive co2 from atmos un quote. ultimately does this word improve your point. ultimately if i cut turf to burn its going to make no difference to the biodiversity or anything else.

Im not quite sure what you're trying to say here, but the underlined quote is ridiculously incorrect! The biodiversity suffers a huge huge amount and many species will go locally extinct and extinct within Ireland if turfcutting continues. And it'll lead to increased flooding, and all the other points made earlier in this thread!

Like I said before I'm pretty sure I've put forward good arguments for most if not all of your points, but if I havn't its partly because its difficult to sink back into a discussion that's several pages long when replies are coming once a week, if that!

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 2:06am

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

You seem to be confusing the term "carbon neutral" with laws of physics and chemistry (something along the lines of the conservation of mass or energy).

Burning wood and turf and other fossil fuels doesn't change the amount of carbon that exists, but it does take carbon from the ground and puts it in the air which is where the problem is!

No I said by your definition its carbon neutral - you seemed to imply that burning wood/turf is carbon neutral, and if you think burning wood/turf is carbon neutral then you must also think that burning coal/oil etc is carbon neutral!

Im not quite sure what you're trying to say here, but the underlined quote is ridiculously incorrect! The biodiversity suffers a huge huge amount and many species will go locally extinct and extinct within Ireland if turfcutting continues. And it'll lead to increased flooding, and all the other points made earlier in this thread!

Like I said before I'm pretty sure I've put forward good arguments for most if not all of your points, but if I havn't its partly because its difficult to sink back into a discussion that's several pages long when replies are coming once a week, if that!

my latest replieshave seem to have gone right over your head,either you choose not to understand them or i can only think you have other motives.as for carbon neutral ,i suggest you are playing devils advocate,if not then i am amazed and suggest you read up on it

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 2:12am

allanpkr wrote: »

my latest replieshave seem to have gone right over your head,either you choose not to understand them or i can only think you have other motives.as for carbon neutral ,i suggest you are playing devils advocate,if not then i am amazed and suggest you read up on it

Honestly, I don't choose to not understand them but some of your grammatical and punctuation errors do make it hard to make sense of some of your replies.

Other motives? Was it you I thought was a conspiracy theorist earlier in this thread or was that someone else?

The devils advocate sentence kind of makes sense in so far as I was taking your "logic" and following it to its further conclusions, but I genuinely think you misunderstand the term and use of the term carbon neutral.

Do you believe that burning of wood and turf is carbon neutral?
If yes, then you must also believe that burning of oil, coal etc are carbon neutral.

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 2:34am

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

Honestly, I don't choose to not understand them but some of your grammatical and punctuation errors do make it hard to make sense of some of your replies.

Other motives? Was it you I thought was a conspiracy theorist earlier in this thread or was that someone else?

The devils advocate sentence kind of makes sense in so far as I was taking your "logic" and following it to its further conclusions, but I genuinely think you misunderstand the term and use of the term carbon neutral.

Do you believe that burning of wood and turf is carbon neutral?
If yes, then you must also believe that burning of oil, coal etc are carbon neutral.

my last reply so even you will understand CARBON NEUTRAL if a tree for eg takes up from atmos 4klgrams of co2 when it is burnt it releases 4 klgrams of co2 therefore carbon neutral. as in turf, what it takes up,when burnt it releases same .it is considered as fossils fuels are in now and for quite a few years do not take up co2 they are not considered neutral. if they ever took up co2 from atmos as living animals and plants is proberly questionable as living animals breather out co2

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 2:48am

allanpkr wrote: »

my last reply so even you will understand CARBON NEUTRAL if a tree for eg takes up from atmos 4klgrams of co2 when it is burnt it releases 4 klgrams of co2 therefore carbon neutral. as in turf, what it takes up,when burnt it releases same .it is considered as fossils fuels are in now and for quite a few years do not take up co2 they are not considered neutral. if they ever took up co2 from atmos as living animals and plants is proberly questionable as living animals breather out co2

Fantastic! I'm now completely clear, and fully satisfied that you are indeed confused about the term carbon neutral!

The term "carbon neutral" isn't used in this way. Carbon neutral is when you do something to offset the carbon you have released. So if your company revolves around a process that uses a lot of burning or fuel consumption, you would offset this by planting loads of trees or by restoring some damaged bogs.
So the process for something being carbon neutral is:-
Step 1: you burn stuff
Step 2: you do something so that a similar amount of carbon gets reabsorbed from the atmosphere.

The process you're talking about is the CO2 gets absorbed (Step2) and then you burn the wood/fossil fuel (Step1) - so your process isn't carbon neutral - its the backwards version of carbon neutrality - so its releasing carbon!

And turf is a fossil fuel by the way! If you're comparing turf to wood or coal, its more similar to coal! By burning turf you're releasing carbon that was tied up thousands of years ago, which is the major part of the climate change problem!

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 2:56am

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

Fantastic! I'm now completely clear, and fully satisfied that you are indeed confused about the term carbon neutral!

The term "carbon neutral" isn't used in this way. Carbon neutral is when you do something to offset the carbon you have released. So if your company revolves around a process that uses a lot of burning or fuel consumption, you would offset this by planting loads of trees or by restoring some damaged bogs.
So the process for something being carbon neutral is:-
Step 1: you burn stuff
Step 2: you do something so that a similar amount of carbon gets reabsorbed from the atmosphere.

The process you're talking about is the CO2 gets absorbed (Step2) and then you burn the wood/fossil fuel (Step1) - so your process isn't carbon neutral - its the backwards version of carbon neutrality - so its releasing carbon!

And turf is a fossil fuel by the way! If you're comparing turf to wood or coal, its more similar to coal! By burning turf you're releasing carbon that was tied up thousands of years ago, which is the major part of the climate change problem![/QUOT YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG CARBON NEUTRAL MEANS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID .NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH INDUSTRY.ALSO BOGS ARE LIVING, THE CARBON THEY TAKE UP IS HERE AND NOW ,NOT WHAT THEY TOOK UP 1000S OF YEARS AGO,THE PROCESS IS ONGOING. YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS CONFUSED.

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 3:09am

allanpkr wrote: »

YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG CARBON NEUTRAL MEANS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID .NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH INDUSTRY.ALSO BOGS ARE LIVING, THE CARBON THEY TAKE UP IS HERE AND NOW ,NOT WHAT THEY TOOK UP 1000S OF YEARS AGO,THE PROCESS IS ONGOING. YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS CONFUSED.

No. As I said above, you're misusing the term! You're right that no carbon is created or destroyed in the process, so it is "neutral" in that sense - but that refers to the Law of Conservation of Matter (or similar). It is similarly applicable to all of the other elements.

The term "Carbon Neutral" is used in the context of climate change, and attempting to reduce the impact of burning and releasing CO2 in the air - reducing the impact by "neutralising" it, e.g. planting trees that will absorb CO2 thereby meaning the burning has had no net effect. So the burning has a negative effect, but the following tree planting or bog restoration has a positive effect. positive + negative = neutral!
Burning turf has a negative impact, there is no positive, so its not neutral, its negative!

Also: Yes bogs are indeed living as can be seen with all of the unique vegetation that covers them. When bogs are described as "living" it is predominantly this vegetation that is referred to.
When you go and drain a bog, you kill the bog so it is no longer absorbing CO2. Do you gather up all of the top layers of vegetation and burn that? No you dont. That vegetation is what has soaked up CO2 in recent years.....

...what you and similarly misinformed and/or ignorant people do is burn the lower layers - the dark brown stuff that is made of plants that have decomposed and been compressed over the course of thousands of years to give it its characterstic colour, texture and content. So when you burn this you are releasing carbon that was absorbed thousands of years ago. It is therefore a fossil fuel.

The carbon taken up in the "here and now" was all that vegetation that was killed and scraped away before you went for the fossil fuel underneath. So not only are you releasing the carbon from thousands of years ago, you also put a stop to the process that was absorbing it in the modern day. So it has a very detrimental impact.

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 6:46am

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

No. As I said above, you're misusing the term! You're right that no carbon is created or destroyed in the process, so it is "neutral" in that sense - but that refers to the Law of Conservation of Matter (or similar). It is similarly applicable to all of the other elements.

The term "Carbon Neutral" is used in the context of climate change, and attempting to reduce the impact of burning and releasing CO2 in the air - reducing the impact by "neutralising" it, e.g. planting trees that will absorb CO2 thereby meaning the burning has had no net effect. So the burning has a negative effect, but the following tree planting or bog restoration has a positive effect. positive + negative = neutral!
Burning turf has a negative impact, there is no positive, so its not neutral, its negative!

Also: Yes bogs are indeed living as can be seen with all of the unique vegetation that covers them. When bogs are described as "living" it is predominantly this vegetation that is referred to.
When you go and drain a bog, you kill the bog so it is no longer absorbing CO2. Do you gather up all of the top layers of vegetation and burn that? No you dont. That vegetation is what has soaked up CO2 in recent years.....

...what you and similarly misinformed and/or ignorant people do is burn the lower layers - the dark brown stuff that is made of plants that have decomposed and been compressed over the course of thousands of years to give it its characterstic colour, texture and content. So when you burn this you are releasing carbon that was absorbed thousands of years ago. It is therefore a fossil fuel.

The carbon taken up in the "here and now" was all that vegetation that was killed and scraped away before you went for the fossil fuel underneath. So not only are you releasing the carbon from thousands of years ago, you also put a stop to the process that was absorbing it in the modern day. So it has a very detrimental impact.[/QUOTE you are wrong .timber is considered a carbon neutral fuel,not because of what is replanted,although i agree mayb it should be.of course turf is not carbon neutral i think that is obvious.. but i digress..my opinion of you is that you care more about the discussion than the subject,which if im wrong then you have failed. now about the subject of turf cutting. the main problem i have with the people in the eu and people like you, is that you have picked on an item or a so called problem that something could be done about, i.e an easy target . on the bog i cut turf ,i would say it is about lets say 500 acres about 10 acres are cut every year,same 10 acres. by about 6 familys. yet we will be banned from cutting.to say the flora and fauna cannot survive on other 490 acres is ludicrous. flora and fauna that mind you survived the ice age and will still be here long after we are not. also if the EU banned synthetic clothing,fracking, insecticides, fluoride, ect then they would have my full backing and i would say these are worthwhile causes , these MANMADE problems. EU on drinking water standards well done,ireland on leading world on banning cigarette smoking in public places well done.but banning turf cutting for a few familys who use it for winter fuel pathetic. to easy
take on big industry first, ban carbon trading.and all of above, then i would hope you would argue from your heart , instead of just trying to prove your interlect, when it comes down to it,i dont and will never believe that a handful of familys cutting winter fuel on a few acres out of 1000s will destroy anything. i wont even ask what you heat your home with,your proberly say timber.

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 12:54pm

allanpkr wrote: »

you are wrong .timber is considered a carbon neutral fuel,not because of what is replanted,although i agree mayb it should be.of course turf is not carbon neutral i think that is obvious.. but i digress..my opinion of you is that you care more about the discussion than the subject,which if im wrong then you have failed. now about the subject of turf cutting. the main problem i have with the people in the eu and people like you, is that you have picked on an item or a so called problem that something could be done about, i.e an easy target . on the bog i cut turf ,i would say it is about lets say 500 acres about 10 acres are cut every year,same 10 acres. by about 6 familys. yet we will be banned from cutting.to say the flora and fauna cannot survive on other 490 acres is ludicrous. flora and fauna that mind you survived the ice age and will still be here long after we are not. also if the EU banned synthetic clothing,fracking, insecticides, fluoride, ect then they would have my full backing and i would say these are worthwhile causes , these MANMADE problems. EU on drinking water standards well done,ireland on leading world on banning cigarette smoking in public places well done.but banning turf cutting for a few familys who use it for winter fuel pathetic. to easy
take on big industry first, ban carbon trading.and all of above, then i would hope you would argue from your heart , instead of just trying to prove your interlect, when it comes down to it,i dont and will never believe that a handful of familys cutting winter fuel on a few acres out of 1000s will destroy anything. i wont even ask what you heat your home with,your proberly say timber.

"my opinion of you is that you care more about the discussion than the subject" i.e. "yeah I'm wrong but I want to keep doing what I'm doing". Sorry to have to introduce facts into the equation so often!

It's hardly an easy target, look at the problems so far!

You cut 10 acres - I bet that by draining it more than 10 acres was damaged! And where does it stop then? If you and the other families cut such a small area then surely fuel or monetary compensation should be satisfactory?

The surviving the ice age statement is a little misguided....

This is also a MANMADE problem - people like you are unnecessarily destroying a very finite resource, despite having other options!

Ah right, so you should be the king of the EU who gets to damage what he wants and gets to sort out all those conspiracy theories you've been reading up on? Stupid democracy and science getting in the way!!

it shouldnt be "take on big industry FIRST", if its worth doing then the order shouldnt matter! And this is definately worth doing!

And how does one argue from their heart without using their intellect? You can't discredit my argument because its well informed and backed up, thats ridiculous!

"i dont and will never believe" - that sums it up! Despite all of the evidence and expert advice to the contrary, you will never change your mind! That is a completely unreasonable attitude, especially when your actions are impacting on our natural heritage and environment and therefore your actions are impacting on other people.

What do I heat my home with? Ah I burn huge loads of asbestos - it really smokes up the neighborhood I live in, but sure only a few families do it to keep warm in winter even though we've been offerred money and alternative fuel to stop! They say it makes people fatally ill, and loads of people in my neighborhood have died from it - but despite all of that evidence I dont and will never believe its true...........

allanpkr · 06-08-2012 1:56pm

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

"my opinion of you is that you care more about the discussion than the subject" i.e. "yeah I'm wrong but I want to keep doing what I'm doing". Sorry to have to introduce facts into the equation so often!

It's hardly an easy target, look at the problems so far!

You cut 10 acres - I bet that by draining it more than 10 acres was damaged! And where does it stop then? If you and the other families cut such a small area then surely fuel or monetary compensation should be satisfactory?

The surviving the ice age statement is a little misguided....

This is also a MANMADE problem - people like you are unnecessarily destroying a very finite resource, despite having other options!

Ah right, so you should be the king of the EU who gets to damage what he wants and gets to sort out all those conspiracy theories you've been reading up on? Stupid democracy and science getting in the way!!

it shouldnt be "take on big industry FIRST", if its worth doing then the order shouldnt matter! And this is definately worth doing!

And how does one argue from their heart without using their intellect? You can't discredit my argument because its well informed and backed up, thats ridiculous!

"i dont and will never believe" - that sums it up! Despite all of the evidence and expert advice to the contrary, you will never change your mind! That is a completely unreasonable attitude, especially when your actions are impacting on our natural heritage and environment and therefore your actions are impacting on other people.

What do I heat my home with? Ah I burn huge loads of asbestos - it really smokes up the neighborhood I live in, but sure only a few families do it to keep warm in winter even though we've been offerred money and alternative fuel to stop! They say it makes people fatally ill, and loads of people in my neighborhood have died from it - but despite all of that evidence I dont and will never believe its true...........

....first we disagree i dont think we are destroying our bog,you think we are, thats the difference.
dont keep mentioming conspiracy theories cause it sounds pathetic.
keep introducing facts into equation,sorry your oponions do not equate as facts,
im saying people like you go up in arms about the bogs ,but if you are so worried about biodivercity of the world you should be more worried about the major abuses of this worlds envirement,but it seems that a small % of bog has really got you ranting on and on,while major pollution goes unheeded.
i will not comment on your crass and stupid infantile statement about burning asbestos.
by the way i didnt say to take on big industry first,i said dont take on easy targets first,thats a cop out. if you really want to help this planet the biggest enviremental problems should be acted on. personally ,and this is only my opinion, i wiuld love to see ireland declare itself a totally organic island, now that would be an amazing leap of forward thinking.
and once again you miss my point about you. only to say the winning of the argument(not that i think you did) is more important than the subject your actually supposed to be fighting for.
i will leave you to reply, as i know your arrogance will not let anyone have last word... EVER. but will not be interested in it, please leave message now.

OpenYourEyes · 06-08-2012 2:24pm

allanpkr wrote: »

....first we disagree i dont think we are destroying our bog,you think we are, thats the difference.
dont keep mentioming conspiracy theories cause it sounds pathetic.
keep introducing facts into equation,sorry your oponions do not equate as facts,
im saying people like you go up in arms about the bogs ,but if you are so worried about biodivercity of the world you should be more worried about the major abuses of this worlds envirement,but it seems that a small % of bog has really got you ranting on and on,while major pollution goes unheeded.
i will not comment on your crass and stupid infantile statement about burning asbestos.
by the way i didnt say to take on big industry first,i said dont take on easy targets first,thats a cop out. if you really want to help this planet the biggest enviremental problems should be acted on. personally ,and this is only my opinion, i wiuld love to see ireland declare itself a totally organic island, now that would be an amazing leap of forward thinking.
and once again you miss my point about you. only to say the winning of the argument(not that i think you did) is more important than the subject your actually supposed to be fighting for.
i will leave you to reply, as i know your arrogance will not let anyone have last word... EVER. but will not be interested in it, please leave message now.

Just because your comments are based on opinion doesn't mean everyone elses are also based on opinion. I'm careful to state it when I'm giving my opinion, the rest is fact thats well backed up - but that doesnt matter because you've already said you wont change your mind anyway!

I'm very concerned about biodiversity in the world. I'd love to see some of the major causes of deforestation and pollution tackled, but I realise that they are logistically much more complex and difficult to tackle unfortunately. But that has absolutely no impact on whether or not the destruction of the bogs should be tackled! Environmental destruction should be tackled whether its big or small, and in the context of Ireland this is big! Again, hardly an easy target given the problems of the last year re enforcement!

Re: Ireland becoming an organic island, irrelevant to this discussion. I'm not sure if i agree or disagree on that yet.

And you bit about winning the argument makes no sense! If you said "i'll stop cutting turf if you say you lost the argument" and I refused, then I'd be putting the argument over the subect I'm fighting for. But yeah, that makes no sense!

Ah very nice! If I leave this comment, you win according to the underlined bit - but if I don't leave a comment then you get the last word and feel like you won! I was considering finishing on a similar win-win sentence a few posts back but decided against it! Good for you though!

This turf cutting row - will Europe ever know?

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