the Global Warming fiasco -- or how to tax the **** out of us

[JD450A]

Peat forms at about 1mm per year, so it's going to take a long time for those metres to be rebuilt at 1000 yrs per metre. Regardless of which when it's disturbed in the first place the carbon stored has gone.
It doesn't regen on it's own, it needs human intervention. There is some ruined near me, there was a moor fire years ago and it's never recovered, it's just being eroded and washed away.
It's not so much bird strikes, but the fact that they just stay away from the area.

Firstly the important stuff to biodiversity isn't in the layers of peat below..... Peat is literally acidic death.... Hence why it's such a good carbon store. Things that don't degrade are devoid mostly of microbes... Or life in general. Particularly deep peat.... Bog butter/bodies... Etc.

The stuff on top is however important.... Mosses and other plants. However plants want to grow if you create there niche.... We wouldn't be pumping millions into quite successful rewetting projects if they didn't work.... They do, and most sites that have been restored are monitored and are adding peat.

On the sidenote FYI/Personal opinion. I'm actually convinced at the argument peat should be classed itself as a renewable at the local level. Particularly in Ireland where tractor mounted slit cutters are used, but that's something no one will ever prove or stand by. Commercial extraction is a negative thing in most cases.

Back to your wind turbines.... It's not economical for a energy company to dig through deep peat. In most cases it'll be equivalent to stripping topsoil.... Which actually has a similar affect on releasing carbon. You can actually see in the photo you choose to use the soil colours around the excavation site.

We would not be restoring peatlands if they did not regenerate..... And if they didn't regenerate we would probably never have them in the first place. It is true they require the correct hydrology but that's not hard to achieve..... Go get a bath tub, put some water in it and launch some sporagum (still can't spell it) moss and a couple floating bits of wood in and leave..... It'll develop and in a decade or two you'll have enough peat for a bath

 

[LKSF]

so these peat bogs are already knackered anyway ????

No, they're still there. Umpteen millions have been granted over the last few years to repair the damage by blocking up the drainage channels.
It's not that black and white, nothing ever is. We're talking about thousands of Square miles of moorland so in that is a mass of diversity, there is land of all types, but it's mainly peat of all types. It's not a huge consistent mass of X type of peat at all the same depth.
To call it peat is like calling your transport a car. Of course it's a car, but what type? Peat is the same, it's a basic name for all types within.
Also like a car if it's damaged it can be repaired. Our moors have four flat tyres.

 

[JD450A]

It's not that black and white, nothing ever is. We're talking about thousands of Square miles of moorland so in that is a mass of diversity,

And of that mass of moorland what proportion is actually being dug up..... I'm not talking wind farm perimeter boundaries and total site area either, I'm talking area actually dug up.

I'd actually also argue in some cases the disturbance caused by Bat mincers is actually beneficial to biodiversity..... It annoyed me that very little research has been done on the affect the haul.road infrastructure has on reptiles and amphibians as I'm pretty certain it would show a significant uplift. Add to the edible biomass at the bottom and your birds and larger predators will do better too.

Compared to a solar farm, turbines are effing amazing.

With note to aquatic stuff, tidal power and offshore turbines probably do significantly more damage to marine ecosystems than we realise..... But data collection at sea is expensive and you can't see the damage... If a tree falls in the woods does it make a coherent noticeable argument to the general public.

 

[LKSF]

Firstly the important stuff to biodiversity isn't in the layers of peat below..... Peat is literally acidic death.... Hence why it's such a good carbon store. Things that don't degrade are devoid mostly of microbes... Or life in general. Particularly deep peat.... Bog butter/bodies... Etc.

The stuff on top is however important.... Mosses and other plants. However plants want to grow if you create there niche.... We wouldn't be pumping millions into quite successful rewetting projects if they didn't work.... They do, and most sites that have been restored are monitored and are adding peat.

On the sidenote FYI/Personal opinion. I'm actually convinced at the argument peat should be classed itself as a renewable at the local level. Particularly in Ireland where tractor mounted slit cutters are used, but that's something no one will ever prove or stand by. Commercial extraction is a negative thing in most cases.

Back to your wind turbines.... It's not economical for a energy company to dig through deep peat. In most cases it'll be equivalent to stripping topsoil.... Which actually has a similar affect on releasing carbon. You can actually see in the photo you choose to use the soil colours around the excavation site.

We would not be restoring peatlands if they did not regenerate..... And if they didn't regenerate we would probably never have them in the first place. It is true they require the correct hydrology but that's not hard to achieve..... Go get a bath tub, put some water in it and launch some sporagum (still can't spell it) moss and a couple floating bits of wood in and leave..... It'll develop and in a decade or two you'll have enough peat for a bath

Not all peat is acidic. Plants generally* don't grow in pure peat because it contains little to no nutrients and doesn't have much oxygen due to it being soaked and anaerobic.
It's well known (and you don't have to go far to find out) how long it takes peat to form, so your assumptions are completely incorrect. Where does all of this wood needed come from on tree-less moorland? There are no trees there. In two decades approx 2cm of peat is formed and that's under the correct conditions, not in a bath.
Sphagnum moss is the word you're looking for and this *plant exists on peat, it is part and parcel of the whole cycle of the peat protection, forming of it and water retention.

" It's not economical for a energy company to dig through deep peat."
Completely irrelevant. If this goes ahead everything will be put where it's been planned to be.

 

[JD450A]

Not all peat is acidic.

Walking away now.

 

[Bob]

When you two are finished fighting, can I have some some acid free peat to grow my plants in as it is banned in plant compost and the crap sold as compost is that just crap .I have got a metre of peat in my garden but is too acid to grow plants in

 

[JD450A]

When you two are finished fighting, can I have some some acid free peat to grow my plants in as it is banned in plant compost and the crap sold as compost is that just crap .I have got a metre of peat in my garden but is too acid to grow plants in

Do you want some unicorn dust too?

 

[V8Druid]

Do you want some unicorn dust too?

could grow some hen's teeth then

 

[LKSF]

Walking away now.

I told you it was a waste of your time and mine.
They're pointless arguments and we've only partially debated one miniscule part of the whole thing so far.

When you two are finished fighting, can I have some some acid free peat to grow my plants in as it is banned in plant compost and the crap sold as compost is that just crap .I have got a metre of peat in my garden but is too acid to grow plants in

That's not true either Peat has never been banned for horticultural use in this country and not all bagged compost is crap, just some of it.
If you want horticultural advice then just ask, i'm as well versed on that as I am battling wind farms

Everybody here need to recognise that everything is not black and white, there are often instances which don't fit into either of those categories, that's one of the things which makes debates like these so huge and difficult to get our heads around and why we fall out doing it.
It's human nature to try simplify and pigeon hole things because it makes them easy for us to process.

I can see me making a video marching across some local moorland and sticking my PH meter into the peat, to show you that peats have varying rates of acidity and one near me isn't far off PH7
Neutralising acid soils in your garden is very easy

 

[LKSF]

Do you want some unicorn dust too?

Is pure peat classed as soil?

 

[JD450A]

One should never confuse simply being concluded as a unworthy adversary with coming near to winning a argument.

Electronic pH meters aren't particularly accurate either. I've had to read up on that too....

 

[LKSF]

One should never confuse simply being concluded as a unworthy adversary with coming near to winning a argument.

Electronic pH meters aren't particularly accurate either. I've had to read up on that too....

That's black and white thinking again. You can't dismiss every electronic PH meter as inaccurate as there are many different types. If one has calibrating solutions and an adjustment screw then it's accurate enough for what we want.
I see you haven't answered my question....

 

[Lancs Lad]

Ahem

Behind this post lie 40 pages of time wasting moaning which has gone straight into the Cyberbin. Go back and add up how much of your life you wasted in just this one thread.

 

[LKSF]

Ahem

This is educational!

 

[JD450A]

I see you haven't answered my question....

That's because I've concluded your benith me. I argue with people who are worth arguing with, you have managed to sink to the equivalent of dog s**t stuck to my boot. Scrape it off and walk on

 

[CPS]

That's because I've concluded your benith me. I argue with people who are worth arguing with, you have managed to sink to the equivalent of dog s**t stuck to my boot. Scrape it off and walk on

This is like the early days of Tiltrotators chat

 

[Bri963]

Some things are black and white. Like the Minstrel show on BBC.

 

[JD450A]

This is like the early days of Tiltrotators chat

Return to the classics... I'm done being nice to people I drove through lifton in Devon yesterday and was reminded that Trax and The Giant did offer a free nose job on a plant forum a while back... I'll never be that bad.

 

[JD450A]

Some things are black and white. Like the Minstrel show on BBC.

You can get white peat you know....

 

[Bri963]

You can get white peat you know....

I work with him.