Thames Estuary wind farms (1 Viewer)

[Tyke]

My comment on Scandinavia is based only upon my own experience when I dealt with that region. I may well be wrong - but I'd like to think not.

OK Steve-thanks.
Cuba etc were pretty silly cases to quote I agree!
Colin

 

[ghostrider]

Just to lighten things up a bit having read through the thread.
My son went on a field trip to a wind farm last year to learn all about the wonders of wind power, he worked out how high the turbines were,how much metal was needed to produce one,how much concrete was needed to secure one to the ground the only thing he couldn't do was see it work and calculate how much energy it produced...Why? because it was too windy and they'd been switched off!!

 

[Marcus Lawson]

If you oppose the plans to construct these wind turbines then please sign the e-petition here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ywindpower/

 

[Imaginos]

Nothing that won't be unsolvable or not really important in the long run? If GM genes get out that's it, they're out - if they don't have a particularly bad effect then great, if they do, well, not much we can do about it. How are you going to kill off a wild GM plant with a pesticide it's been made resistant to?.

With a herbicide that it's not resistant to?

Maybe we should all get some perspective on what it is we are 'tinkering' with - and then you might not blow it off so easily. This is millions of years of evolution and nature we are messing about with - things are the way they are for a reason, and there's no way you can assume or tell people that fiddling with it will have no effect..

I think there is more research done on potential 'effects' nowadays than during the chemical & radiation experiments of the 1930/40/50s that gave rise
to most of the wheat we consume nowadays, which has at least twice as many chromosomes than 'wild' wheat.

?? That's not genetic drift - genetic drift is the random sampling of genes that results from random mating in a parent population, leading, by chance, to unexpected gene frequencies. It can't be managed - it's a natural process. Obviously oak pollen isn't going to fertilise a daffodil... The problem may be where GM plants hybridise with wild relatives (which they do), have a higher fitness or some specific advantagous characteristics, and out-compete other wild plants creating an even more unnatural ecosystem. That's a real danger - and there's no way of definitely stopping it.

Very true, but this is surely the same problem as the invasive plant problems in the UK and there is as yet little regulation of plant imports so why regulate GM on the same basis.
The heart of the GM debate is fears based on the term Genetic Modification and the mental 'Frankenstein' images that produces, indicitave of an increasing sceptisism amongst most people about modern science. Another problem is the seeming untrustworthiness of certain GM producers, Monsanto now seems to be a byword for capitalism at it's most bloodthirsty, however there are many other biotech companies that do not deserve to be tarred with the same brush.