The Fireless Locomotive

But still greater in a young, vigoursly growing tree, which was my point.

No, sorry. CO2 locked up in the cardboard was taken in by the tree. Releasing it adds nothing to the overall C02 level, hence it is carbon neutral. The CO2 would have been released in the short term by the tree dying and decaying anyway. Burning fossil fuels, the fuel for the lorry, releases CO2 that has been locked away for millions of years and would, generally speaking, not be returned to the atmosphere even in the very long term. There's a major difference, usually ignored by the "green" movement, which in turn makes any further statements they make dubious.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
beamendsltd
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Arthur Figgis wrote: [...] Gee, they sure didn't know anything!

A travel agent friend of mine told me of a conversation he had with a US citizen, who commiserated with him about the flooding near a Northern Ontario community - surely the flooding would reach my friend's home soon? My friend pointed out that as he was south of that community, and the river in question flowed north (into Hudson's Bay), he wasn't worried. The US citizen refused to believe him. All rivers flow south, 'cuz that's _down_, don't you see?

BTW, there are parts of Canada that are south of the US border. And most Canadian citizens live south of the 49th parallel, the famous "undefended border" (not any more.).

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

The technical, geographic facts, no matter how correct, or how correctly taught, don't matter very much. What matters is how people see themselves and define themselves. Canadians aren't Americans, Mexicans aren't Americans. Until recently, Mexicans didn't think of themselves as Norte Amerticanos, and most still don't. Mexico and south is Latin America, you see. Recent legislation and treaties have pushed the Mexicans to realise that business-wise they are North Americans.

After all, you New Zealanders don't want to be lumped in with the Ozzies, do you? Yet from our POV, you are close to them geographically, you speak with a very similar accent, so you must be the same people. Right?

HTH

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Actually, we residents of the US aren't "Americans" either. It's just that "United Statians" is such a mouthful that we appropriated the term "American" :-).

And as a matter of trivia for you folks across the pond, our Civil War was what turned "these united States" into "this United States".

OK, I'll go back to lurking now :-).

Reply to
Larry Blanchard

Don't the states think of themselves as mini countries similar to countries in the EU so you call yourselves Americans as you are on the American continent and we call ourselves Europeans on the European continent or Britons in the British Isles apart from Eire.

Reply to
Chris

The Mexicans and Central Americans call then Nortemericanos.

"Oh, you're English, I do like your accent"

"Thank you"

"I went to England last year on vacation"

"Where did you go?"

"Scotland"

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

Which is not far off:

(prior to Wimbledon) "Great British hope Andy Murray ..."

(after he gets beat) " Scotland's Andy Murray was knocked out ..."

which I have heard on the radio (or a very close variation of).

Cheers, Martyn

Reply to
M Roberts

We're wandering way off topic, but ...

My theory, based on observation, is that yanks use language differently to the rest of us. They seem to use words as placemarkers for things and concepts without regard to the actual meaning of the word. (examples: "cool" to mean good, "intelligence" to mean information, "gas" to mean gasoline ...) Having placed their own meaning on any given word, they expect actual English speakers to fall into line. The fact that "gas" already has a specific meaning becomes irrelevant to them and the potential contradictions are ignored. In your example, place a US centric map of the world on the deack and the UK is obviously east, Mexico is south ...

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Greg Procter

"North, south, east and west, are all compass directions, Sure, from somewhere in the US Canada is north and Mexico is south, but from New Zealand they are all a little north of _East_. On the page of my Atlas there's a big continent north of the equator called "North America" and another south of the equator called "South America". Ok, there's a straggly bit in the middle, including Panama. If I want to ship (an ISO container) to the straggly bit I ship it via Houston, which according to my Atlas map is in North America.

You're welcome to make localized definitions based on automotive standards definitions or Barbie doll market preferences or whatever, but if you label those definitions with terms like "North American", "West", etc you need to recognise that you're using words which have intrinsic meanings which may conflict with your intent.

You'd have to be quite stupid to lump us together.

You need to get a new map - there's a 1,000 mile gap between the two countries at their closest points plus a few hundred miles more before cities are encountered. Draw a 1200 mile distant line around the US - should we consider everything inside that line to be just like the US and not worth considering as different? or Vice versa?

LOL - yanks and Siberians speak with similar accents - you must be the same people, right?

Reply to
Greg Procter

Of course you are, all Americans are Americans.

That would be grammatically incorrect. Perhaps you meant "this United State"?

Regards, Greg.P. NZ

Reply to
Greg Procter

Don't you Brits think of yourselves as Scots, Welsh, English ... in the same manner? Closer to home you divide yourselves further Londoners, Manchunians ..., then down to suburbs and then down to streets, number 27, and so on.

From distant points of view each of us divides our perception of others into categories that are relevant to ourselves. For example, I have no reason to sub-divide the USa into smaller groupings, other than for shipping purposes to ports. I can only fly to LA or Vancouver in the Americas from New Zealand. I might once have needed the east-west time divisions if I wanted to telephone someone, but now we have e-mail so that has become irrelevant. Wolf can't distinguish between Australia and New Zealand - I guess he has no need, so why should he.

Regards, Greg.P.

NZ.

Reply to
Greg Procter

Dunno, to a non climatologist it seems a reasonable article with some interesting points. Deserves a fair review before being dismissed so lightly - are there any fair ones ?

Cheers, Simon

Reply to
simon

The good ole boys in the Southern states are very different from the North East US which is more like Europe and the West Coast are something else.

Chris

Reply to
Chris

An English person is perhaps more likely to self-identify as British than a Scotsman is.

When I was surveyed for Transport for London a while back I was given the option of being (among others) British, Welsh, Scottish or Irish, but not English....

Isn't the usual answer along the lines of "In Australia we'd shear that..."

(or was that Wales?)

Reply to
Arthur Figgis

So no-one really wants admit to being English(?)

They do some strange things in Australia!

The big differences between Australians and New Zealanders stem largely from the fact that 150 years ago people were banished to Australia, whereas those coming to New Zealand had to pay.

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Greg Procter

Sure, and I could bore you with the differences between Southlanders/Cantabrians/Wellingtonians/Aucklanders/Northlanders. Until you need to know I wouldn't expect you to be interested. :-)

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Greg Procter
[snip Wolf's comments about how citizens of Canada, US and Mexico see themselves]

Your mistake is to assume that words have intrinsic meanings. They don't. People use words to express meanings. Significant difference. If we here want to use "gas" (short for "gasoline", BTW) for the fuel you call "petrol", well, that's our right. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. But to keep on insisting that the usages you learned are the only true and correct ones makes you come off a right twit.

No more stupid than you lumping Americans and Canadians together.

1,600 km??? Is that all? Ontario is about 2,100km by road from its eastern to its western border. I'll be driving 2,300km one way to visit my relatives in Western Canada this fall. In the 60s and 70s, we used to drive another 900km to get to Saltspring Island, where my parents had a house on Ganges Bay.

Like I said, you and Australia are so close to each other, to us it looks like you're just an off-shore island.

[...]
Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Greg Procter wrote: [...]

I guess I should have warned you I was using satire. Specifically "satiric impersonation", where the satiric target's POV, mindset, reasoning, etc, are impersonated in a different context or in an exaggerated fashion, to display their absurdity. (A favorite technique on Saturday Night Live, BTW.)

HTH

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

The Arctic drainage basin extends into parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana.

Most of the populated parts of Ontario and Quebec are south of 49°, as well as the Maritime provinces apart from northern Newfoundland.

In addition to Alaska, there is also a tiny, isolated part of Minnesota that is north of 49°.

Reply to
MartinS

Of course the Brits, Aussies and Kiwis don't have any colloquialisms peculiar to their own countries or regions, do they?

Reply to
MartinS

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