http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do1004.xml

Just a couple of added facts. China is indeed building two new super efficient low pollution coal fired stations a week, but is closing five old inefficient polluting ones a week at the same time. Also last year they signed a 19Bn Euro deal with France to open 19 gigantic nuclear power stations.

China also had it's coldest winter for 50 years this year.

So who still thinks it's not a load of tax raising bollocks??

Could you explain the connection between the first part of your message and the punchline? Or was it irony?

If China is doing all that then presumably it's costing them a fortune, which they get by....

Well said Mr ADG.

April is the new August and July is sooo last season.
I wonder if teachers now want a six week break in April?

Well they're about as much use as a sign saying "No tide allowed beyond this point" would be.

They're only really a solution as a retaining structure where there is very low pressure from high tides, for example in areas where there are already natural or other more robust defences shielding them or where the tide is not the main concern with regards to land slip. For example Middleton beach.

As a solution in an exposed high tidal area, e.g. Seaton front by Newburn Bridge or Scarborough Headland, they would be about as useful as Janice Cockfingers trying to deal with long range shots.

we will just extend the promenade up to crimdon and if sunnerlund and seaham do the same we have got it covered

would you really want to buy a house on steetley???
in five years time your chickens will be dropping dead in the garden

I thought all gabions did was transfer the problem further down the coast.
Mind you, that could well be a deliberate strategy.

the land at the bottom of the railway embankment below Steetley was obviously shifting, as a number of houses on West View Road were demolished due to subsidence. That was at the bottom of the embankment!!!!
I certainly wouldn't want a house on there, regardless of what guarantees they might be giving about shoring it all up!!!! The guarantees will only be for about 20 years anyhow, by which time the people you want to sue for your house collapsing will have long since disappeared!!!
Building on brown field sites is a noble idea in principle, but I wouldn't like to think what chemicals have leached into the soil there over the years, and how that will affect the place in future years.
ICI still owns the land beneath the top six inches at all of its Teesside sites, as the likes of Terra etc knew what had leached into the ground for 80 years!!!! They weren't prepared to buy the factories from ICI unless ICI retained ownership of the sub-soil!!!! Hence it will still be ICI's responsibility for anything going wrong at some future point, or as a result of future legislation for cleaning up contaminated land -and all the associated costs of putting it right.

Or even as a result of current legislation which is now in place.

Proper sea defences, such as your Accropods and rock armour, are designed to neutralise the energy from the tide rather than moving it elsewhere.

Putting gabions up in exposed locations is merely playing about with trying to defend the coast.

Well according to a growing group of scientists there has been no global warming since 1998 and the warming trend has ceased and flatlined and we are now entering into a period of global cooling. The cooling period is part of a natural cycle and mostly due to an extended period of low solar activity.

Apparently!

I presume that this group of scientists are totally impartial and not sponsored by an oil major in any way?

I've been to the Antarctic peninsular and seen the rapid melting / disappearence of the ice shelf and glaciers - believe me it is happening

I think most if not all reputable scientists will agree that global warming is happening - is it down to us? Is it cyclical?
Of that I don't think anyone is 100% sure

From a personal point of view I don't see how we can take the risk of saying it might be cyclical - and if at the same time by the actions we take we manage to utilise our fossil fuels more efficiently and reduce the crap that we put into the environment then I'm all for it

It's the sun that controls the climate - end of. It doesn't always burn at the same temperature because of explosions etc;

D'accord mon brave.

In accordance with the standard western rules on reporting China, rule 1. NOWT positive ever in any circumstances, they only say China is opening two coal fired power stations a week. What they DON'T say is that China is closing five nasty, dirty, smelly, elederly, power stations a week. Or that China is self sufficient in coal. Or that China has 97% recycyling. Or that it's going Nuclear to service 70% of it's urban grid.

The connection is that China is doing probably more than any other nation in the world to 'reduce it's carbon footprint,' which admittedly was somewhat fifties Black Country ten years ago, and leading by example.

What it's not doing is raising spurious taxes whilst doing it. If what you're driving at is the state owned industries which may be suspect in their pollution control then in actual fact, these are used as benchmark standards for privately owned companies. They do give Government grants for pollution control measures.

"As usual, a person saying the end is nigh, uses the term "we". Its always "we" as in "us". Us being little old England."

The end is nigh? I don't think I said that anywhere if you read my post again - or is that just your British Standard Answer to anything climate related - it certainly sounds like it.

And whilst I can see your point of view regarding a small country not making a great deal of difference - I will guarantee that if things did go tits up you would be the first in line shouting your mouth off that it is all the governments fault etc etc.

If you cannot see by increased taxes on fuel / emissions control that we are at the same time forcing consumers / industry to look and develop other alternatives than foreign owned fossil fuels then your are more naive than your self-indulgent post suggests.