Are Boaters really Green?

[Sir Nibble]

but many boaters empty the ash onto the side of tow-path which may well be illegal under present legislation.

This is an interesting point. On the river Wey I was advised to drop it into puddles or low spots on the towpath, ("Only maintenance it gets.") I would imagine BW have an approved method for disposing of ash, but I'm damned if I know!

[carlt]

This is an interesting point. On the river Wey I was advised to drop it into puddles or low spots on the towpath, ("Only maintenance it gets.") I would imagine BW have an approved method for disposing of ash, but I'm damned if I know!

Every lockkeeper I've met racks his gates with his. Though in the age of GCH this must be getting rarer.

 

 

Anyway, those who claim to be that dedicated shouldn't be eating meat in the first place. Meat production has a huge environmental impact from it's energy consumption to the livestock methane emissions.

This is confusing environmentalism with climate change.

I dread to think what will happen to the environment I live in (a beef farm) if we all stop eating beef. You can already see the daventry new developments on the skyline.

Let them eat steak, I say.

[KenK]

I'd really like to know what people mean when they claim they are being green. Boats are no greener than houses and don't forget a lot, possibly most, boat owners have houses and cars.

 

A few examples of the green lobbys bright ideas.

 

In Germany a few years ago the Green party introduced a tax on beverage cans to encourage people to recycle. 25 Euro cents per can, however there were no recycling facilities available anywhere in Germany for either Aluminium or Tin cans. In fact Tin cans cannot be recycled effectively due to the nature of the material and the cost. The result the market in Germany for tinned beverages collasped and lots of people lost jobs. The Green party threw up its hands and claimed it was not their fault they were trying to save the planet.

 

Windfarms, it costs more to make, install and connect one wind turbine in both monetary and environmental terms than even the best case projections give for the "green" energy produced over the projected 20 - 30 year life.

 

A company we work with produce environmentally friendly paper bags and sell them to supermarkets to allow you to dispose of your organic waste in a "green" way. The bags are made from recycled paper which has to be imported from Spain as they can't find a supply in this country. So where is all our recycled paper going? To say nothing of the environmental cost of shipping the paper from Spain in trucks.

 

Carl burning wood is not carbon neutral anymore than burning coal you still produce CO2 and various other toxins. Yes trees regrow but if you wait a few million years you get fresh coal seams. If you want to cut greenhouse gasses then you need to use nuclear energy but that of course brings its own problems.

 

I think the idea which sums up the stupidity is that in some strange way we all have a right to a certain amount of pollution and if I don't use my share I can sell it to you so you can pollute a little or if your a rich person / nation a lot more and still feel good about yourself.

 

Ken

[honey ryder]

I dont think this society makes it possible to be completely green.

 

the only way is to live in a tent/indian TeePee with canvass woven from a hand loom, using natural wood as the poles and growing your own food and animals in an area of land naturally tended to with no chemicals etc. wear only clothes you can make from natural fibres and make your tools from natural resources accessible by excavating by hand.

basically we would be back in the DARK AGES fighting to eek out a life and maybe our life expectancy would be back to 35 at best !

but back in those days there wasnt 60 million of us trying to live off this tiny piece of land.

 

So, naturally people who take up less space and use less energy on things that are not really necessary for survival are going to have less impact on the environment, but all creatures have an impact on the environment.

 

Im pretty sure a termite colony doesn't consider the view and landscape of its neighbouring zebra and wildebeest before erecting a large mound in the middle. nor does a lion ask the rest of the pack if its ok to do a jobby next to a bush.

 

my way of being as environmentally friendly as possible is by not having children. they make a hell of a mess and only add to the vast over population of humans. Im doing my bit to reduce the population. In fact if you give me a decent weapon and let me loose in a room with an assembly of the worlds current powerhungry governments I may reduce the population a little more.

 

green, the only green i see most boaters being is in their faces when a bigger, shinier boat moors up next to them or if they dont have good sea legs.

[fuzzyduck]

Couldn't agree more with the no kids thing.

 

protect the environment, don't breed. be as green as you can be by helping make mankind extinct.

 

Best thing is its a 2 birds 1 stone thing too. not only are you the ultimate greeny, you also get to stick it to the govt by denying them the next generation of meat for the grinder.

 

win win in my book. other than that i'll be dead in 50 years. so I Don't give 2 hoots about climate change.

[anthony]

well ive certainly started something here havnt I?

So why arnt new wooden canal boats being built if steel is so un green?

Are wooden boats inferior rubbish?

Edited March 28, 2007 by anthony

[StoneHenge]

Too late, I've already had two, but I promise not to have anymore children!!!

Edited March 28, 2007 by StoneHenge

[Bobphilips]

Too late, I've already had two, but I promise not to have anymore children!!!

 

Well I intend to increase the number of children around in the next couple of years. Shame on me!

 

As for the wooden boats... why aren't there more modern ones around? Guess it is cost and demand?

[fuzzyduck]

Are wooden boats inferior rubbish?

 

No!

 

for an extreme example HMS Victory may be wood, and she may be old, but she is still an awsome machine. and most certainly not rubbish. Lets ignore the fact some monkey has decided she gets to rot in a ditch for the southerners.

[anthony]

its funny because whenever i spoke to any boaty kind of person a few years back i was told to avoid woden boats like the clap.

[fuzzyduck]

Well I intend to increase the number of children around in the next couple of years. Shame on me!

 

That's your choice, but don't expect me to sit wailing and crying about the environment for them.

 

Might be a good idea to invest in a small hilltop for em tho ;-). look on the bright side, at least boating will be a far more common passtime.

[Bobphilips]

its funny because whenever i spoke to any boaty kind of person a few years back i was told to avoid woden boats like the clap.

 

I'm guessing this is on the grounds that they might need more 'tender loving care' ie routine maintenance?

[anthony]

I'm guessing this is on the grounds that they might need more 'tender loving care' ie routine maintenance?

Would this be the case if they were sheathed in epoxy?

I ask as this is something i have read about although certainly far from green.

[Bobphilips]

That's your choice, but don't expect me to sit wailing and crying about the environment for them.

 

Might be a good idea to invest in a small hilltop for em tho ;-). look on the bright side, at least boating will be a far more common passtime.

 

Sound advice.. nice hilltop with wooden house, lovely view and a good solid SEA going wooden boat.

[fuzzyduck]

So we're agreed, as long as you don't live in a lower river valley. or norfolk global warming is a good thing for boaters.

 

lets all go for a drive to celebrate.

[carlt]

Would this be the case if they were sheathed in epoxy?

I ask as this is something i have read about although certainly far from green.

A new wooden boat needs docking once every five years to be caulked and blacked, about a weeks work for one person.

When the folk in metal boats need to start looking for a welder because their plates are thinning (say 20-30 years?) you'll be looking for a boat builder and some lumps of oak to start replacing some soft planks. It's far easier to fill holes in wooden boats than metal though, so most wooden boaters do the maintenance themselves.

 

Tank a wooden boat and you'll accelerate the rotting process by stopping the wood breathing. You'll end up with a very floppy plastic boat not attached to the knees.

 

The reason people are scared of wooden boats is because there have been no new ones built, so the ones left are restoration jobs (like mine) or restored boats doing the bonnet runs.

 

The oldest surviving narrowboat is wooden: Maria, despite iron being an accepted material by 1854.

The oldest surviving yacht is wooden

The oldest surviving fishing vessel, wooden

The oldest surviving lifeboat....seeing a pattern yet?

[Bobphilips]

The oldest surviving narrowboat is wooden: Maria, despite iron being an accepted material by 1854.

The oldest surviving yacht is wooden

The oldest surviving fishing vessel, wooden

The oldest surviving lifeboat....seeing a pattern yet?

 

Where can I get a wooden car?

[carlt]

Where can I get a wooden car?

There are a lot of wooden framed cars surviving, some with stretched cloth instead of sheet metal bodies. As my favoured era for wheeled transport is the 60's and 70's, I think there are others on the forum who can better steer you in the right direction.

[howardang]

Where can I get a wooden car?

Morgan cars are all wood frames, and what about the Morris Travellet estate car?

 

Howard Anguish

[blackrose]

This is confusing environmentalism with climate change.

 

Climate change comes under the umbrella of environmental issues.

 

In fact Tin cans cannot be recycled effectively due to the nature of the material and the cost.

 

I don't know where you got this "fact" from but it is not true. Both steel and aluminium cans can be effectively recycled on both an environmental and economic basis.

 

Carl burning wood is not carbon neutral anymore than burning coal you still produce CO2 and various other toxins. Yes trees regrow but if you wait a few million years you get fresh coal seams.

 

No, Carl is correct, the common consensus amongst scientists on the time scale for carbon neutrality is within 100 years. It is not practical to wait millenia for the carbon cycle to resolve itself.

Edited March 28, 2007 by blackrose

[Trafalgar Marine]

I recently read that coal produces twice as much Co2 as gas.

With so many liva aboards using coal and other solid fuel IM keen to know if there is in fact any truth in this?

How about burning wood what enviromental effect does this have?

 

Coal is definitely a much dirtier fuel than gas but to what extent depends what coal your burning (physical makeup, sulphur content etc), where your burning the coal and where the coal originally comes from (i.e. transportation cost).

 

35% of our electricity is still produced from coal burnt in old inefficient power stations which make a massive contribution to climate change. Don't know about electricity generation in China but I'm guessing you could easily double that figure.

 

We drop off most of our scrap metal at the docks in Liverpool, it is then taken to China (or similar) to be recycled. I know shipping is quite carbon efficient method of travel but the power used to recycle the steel must be quite "dirty". The raw steel is then transported back here so we can make our narrow boats, cars, cans etc. Surely there must be greener ways to do this recycling.

 

The government and big business need their heads knocking together. Maybe then they might do something useful instead of producing carbon footprint reports and trying to get ahead in opinion polls by spinning green issues. the UK's 200 largest publicly listed companies are wasting a combined £61m per year by not using energy-efficient PCs and by leaving IT equipment running overnight.

 

Tesco for instance use more power than most big industrial companies but where are the solar panels on the huge flat roof's (sure they could afford a few), the delivery trucks and vans on biodiesel, energy saving lights, fridges etc etc etc...

 

The government also need to invest in clean rubbish incinerators that can also burn natural gas (produced by sewage works, existing land fills). This has already proved a major winner in Amsterdam.

The tetra-pak recycling technology comes from south America I think (saw something on discovery channel about it), why is a relatively poor country coming out with this I thought we were the ones supposed to be coming up with all the new green inventions. To many bean counters about for my liking.

 

I personally think we're all screwed in the long run so enjoy the finer things (like being warm) while you still can.

 

I don't particularly want children either, wouldn't mind a bit of practise though.

[Sir Nibble]

Lets ignore the fact some monkey has decided she gets to rot in a ditch for the southerners.

Wouldn't it be lovely to see her at sea again? But unfortunately, it's only the steel masts passing through the keel and concreted into the dock that stops her collapsing under her own weight. Can you think of a more suitable place for her than Portsmouth? especially as she is still a commisioned ship of the Royal Navy.

[anthony]

I was told so long as only the exterior surface was sheathed the wood could still breath so rotting would not happen?

I must confess I do love the way wooden boats look.

[carlt]

I was told so long as only the exterior surface was sheathed the wood could still breath so rotting would not happen?

I must confess I do love the way wooden boats look.

The interior is already sheathed with sheathing felt, coal tar and shearing so it needs to breathe through the outside. I don't know who told you but they were wrong. wrapping a wooden boat in plastic kills it. I can show you a number of boat corpses that went that way.

[dor]

Tesco for instance use more power than most big industrial companies but where are the solar panels on the huge flat roof's (sure they could afford a few), the delivery trucks and vans on biodiesel, energy saving lights, fridges etc etc etc...

 

Our local Tesco, amongst much pomp and publicity, has put up a windmill in their carpark. Don't think anyone has seen it actually turning yet......