There are times you wonder why you bother.............

[pipesmokingman]

pipesmokingman,

you'll be Plymouth based then ?

Cant see the locals giving you much room for your motability n trailer but you will get noticed.
There may even be opportunities as a mobile advertising platform 

Reckon you would destroy your back if you spent much time travelling around in that little tracked buggy.
You would feel the smallest irregularity on the surface.

All tracked machines should have a hydraulic arm attached .....


noel

aye well spotted sir , you are right about the locals - but actually one is virtually invisible on a scoot ( subject of a whole off topic thread  ) , yep agree my back ( and many other parts )  would suffer - but what fun to see the "Abe's" scatter before a mighty machine 

and REALLY AGREE with the arm idea - useful if fitted with a big grab for picking up i-pod users - people who can take up the WHOLE  pavement on their own , and inconsiderate Parker's who obstruct drop ramps in pavements --  hummmmmmmmmmm thinks - wonder if i fitted a hydralic pump to..........

[desperate]

- so frankly folks the BIGGEST problem with all this is NOT  the shenanigans of our politicos - BUT the hypocrisy of ordinary folk in many cases 

Pipesmokinman

My sentiments exactly
Have an applaud

People always blame the politicos, but really I think they are just trying to divert attention from their own bigoted, selfish, stupidity.

Desperate

[JMALW]

Indeed - why should we bother?  When we get daily prompts on why we should turn off our TV standby and the latest expensive light bulb that no one likes
but will save the planet. This kind of media hype does no good for encouraging sensible living for the masses.  You have to ask if the rich find the easy come easy go attitude exciting at our expense - what is the point?   If the idea of going into space as a tourist was benefiting the development of new technologies fine - but there are already ample projects going on with the space station etc without wasting resources on this.  As for global warming eerm we just had  a few drops of snow and the country is almost paralysed - we will not survive a freeze - we would survive a small rise in temperature, though I suspect mother nature has other ideas and will correct any imbalance - adaptation is key.

[martin]

adaptation isn't the key - there are many conditions that are plain not adaptable to....... The multinational corporation's lobbyists will suggest gently warmer summers and the ability to grow grape vines on Teesside, when in reality, anything over a very small general rise in temperature we are talking "catastrophic climate change" resulting in mass famines, dustbowls, widespread loss of habitat and species (including us) over most of the earth. Bit like opening a blast furnace door and yelling "adapt" as you chuck people in.....
About the only person spouting such nonsense with an apparently straight face is the simpering Nigella's father - the worst chancellor in history, and writer of diet books......

[frotter]

Daftlad = "The traditions of the forum require a photo of something like a mobility scooter with a trailer.  bike sounds ace."


Sorry to go OT again but i cant resist this..... Ancient bodged scooters/wheelchairs are exactly my thing!

Batricars are ROCK hard garden utility vehicles..







Has ancient stereo/cassette player an evrything!



And mine is only a weedy 4mph model... (er, the Batricar. Not present Mrs F.....     )


But I also think small leccy vehicles for local transport could be fantastic. I bodged this up out of stuff going in the skip from a local Disability centre. The Frotling has had its bike speedo up to over 30mph! (ok - downhill, does about 15-18 on the flat).




But of course - its not really allowed/acceptable/"sensible"/encouraged/possible for most folk.

Bah!


 

[daftlad]

Frotter...... udders on the moo van..... you're a nutter.
I also wrote "The innovators on this forum develop cutting edge systems, they are perfected and then the government learn from us and then steal our ideas"
You are obviously "cutting edge"
ta ta

[pipesmokingman]

that poor batricar !! - but just gos to show what good hauling vehicles they are - ,sorry i have still not put pics of trailers up yet - been too cold and wet - but they coming - just had to retire my old batricar - brakes gone - but your pics have  given me a few ideas 

[frotter]

Heh! That old thing has been plodding around our garden week in, week out for about 6 years. I have changed the motor brushes once and replaced the odd broken wire but other than that......

Toyed with the idea of small tractor/mower tyres for it as its grip lets it down a bit in t' mud!
I did bodge up a 4wd wheelchair a couple of years ago It has tank style twin joystick steering- awesome mud-plugging thing. Sadly its chassis snapped in two and it is sat in a shed (still..) awaiting attention. 

I luv mobility vehicles, me!

 

[AdeV]

adaptation isn't the key - there are many conditions that are plain not adaptable to....... The multinational corporation's lobbyists will suggest gently warmer summers and the ability to grow grape vines on Teesside, when in reality, anything over a very small general rise in temperature we are talking "catastrophic climate change" resulting in mass famines, dustbowls, widespread loss of habitat and species (including us) over most of the earth. Bit like opening a blast furnace door and yelling "adapt" as you chuck people in.....

What science are you basing this stuff on, Martin? The only other proponent - that I know of - of such disaster is Hansen, and he's clearly gone bonkers in recent months.

About the only person spouting such nonsense with an apparently straight face is the simpering Nigella's father - the worst chancellor in history, and writer of diet books......

I have to dispute "worst chancellor in history" - that accolade has to belong to Gordon Brown, he who failed to "save the world" (despite saying he did); who's reaction to the banking crisis & subsequent recession has left Britain over £1 trillion in debt, who apparently continues to believe - like the sub-prime borrowers who got the world into this mess - that all he needs to do to get us out of debt... is spend more money even faster!

In 10 years time, Brown's legacy will be writ large, and it won't make for a pretty story. Lawson's sins, by comparison, were trifling and insignificant.

BTW, Happy Christmas... enjoy the snow while it lasts...

[SteveH]

I have to dispute "worst chancellor in history" - that accolade has to belong to Gordon Brown, he who failed to "save the world" (despite saying he did); who's reaction to the banking crisis & subsequent recession has left Britain over £1 trillion in debt, who apparently continues to believe - like the sub-prime borrowers who got the world into this mess - that all he needs to do to get us out of debt... is spend more money even faster!

In 10 years time, Brown's legacy will be writ large, and it won't make for a pretty story. Lawson's sins, by comparison, were trifling and insignificant.

 Thought Gordon was OK as a chancellor.... I thought all that you mention above happened after he changed his job & became PM... He has been a rather Oh, how I wish it was better PM....

[AdeV]

The gold thing happened on his watch, as did the £5bn pension fund raid (the single reason most final salary pensions outside the taxpayer-funded public sector are now closed), the sell off of most of the Inland Revenue's property - ironically, to a company based in a tax haven, and any number of other moronic policies. Brown spent hard and borrowed heavily even while the economy was growing strongly - which left the cupboard completely bare when the wheels did finally fall off the economy.

You're right that Darling was chancellor when the banks went pop, but he came up with "his" responses with Brown's guiding hand steering him down the Brownian path (whether he liked it or not - and there was some evidence that he didn't like it at the time).


But enough politics for today... I'm sure this one will be picked up after xmas...

[martin]

dunno where the "it's only Hansen" idea came from - just insert "catastrophic climate change" into Google, and you have a choice of nearly 2,000,000 articles,and "climate tipping point" gives around 900,000 - here's just one.... http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1885804,00.html  -the main problem being not that we will pass tipping points, but pinpointing which and when, and that these things can happen with frightening speed - far too fast to take "avoiding action"*
As far as I'm concerned (and all the IPCC scientists), it's one of the main reasons why it's worth bothering - we're not talking "a bit of manageable warming", but total "tipping over the edge into disaster"
As for Lawson - you may be right, Brown may have been marginally worse, but Lawson has never distinguished himself in any field of endeavour, or choice of friends...... I doubt he's started now!

*I'd suggest a swift watch of the following to gently explain why it makes no sense to sit on our backsides and "do nothing"

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/zORv8wwiadQ&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;fs=1</a>

[Alan]

Quote from Mr Frott " And mine is only a weedy 4mph model... (er, the Batricar. Not present Mrs F.....     ) "

Just wondered what Mrs Frott is doing walking away from said machine with a Fish in her hand.

Regards

Alan

[AlanM]

"As an Expert Reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for eighteen years, that is to say, from the very beginning. I have submitted thousands of comments to all of the Reports. My comments on the Fourth IPCC Report, all 1,898 of them, are to be found at IPCC (2007) and my opinions of the IPCC are in Gray (2008b)

I am therefore very familiar with the arguments presented by the IPCC, many of which have now been copied by the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the responses to them.

I will first comment on the Introduction

to make absolutely clear what the evidence is for climate change and anthropogenic (human-induced) causes.

The climate has always changed and always will. No evidence whatsoever for a human contribution to the climate is given in their following statement.

Their Summary is as follows:

The globe is warming

This statement is a lie. The globe is currently cooling. According to the CSSP Report (Karl et al 2007), there are currently nine authorities currently involved in providing a dataset of monthly global temperature anomalies. They are

NOAA’s National Climate Data Center (NCDC, GHCN-COADS) NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (HadCRUT2v) NOAA radiosonde network , (RATPAC) Hadley Centre Radiosonde Network (HadAT2) University of Alabama Lower Troposphere TLT MSU (UAH ) Remote Sensing Systems Lower Troposphere TLT MSU (RSS) National Center for Environmental Protection Reanalysis (NCEP50) European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis (ERA40)

Eight of these authorities agree that the globe is currently cooling. Only GISS disagrees.

because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions

No evidence is presented to justify this conclusion. There are “projections” of computer models but these are not predictions, they are merely the results of assumptions made in the model. No “projected” result has ever been successfully related to an actual change in the climate. "

Dr Chris Landsea

Obviously not all the IPCC agree....

[martin]

only well over 90%!  
a simple guide...........http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/News_and_Issues/Science_Issues/Climate_change/Climate_booklet_RS1420_reprint_Dec08.pdf