Climate, the science, politics, economics and anything else


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  • #79947 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    (SA, my story to you has got split into sections due to problems I’ve been having. Here’s the conclusion; I’m still talking with the City lads…)

    “How long before an ice-free summer in the Arctic?” I asked. They looked vague. “Come on,” I said, “you said finance was making enough investment; how long before the ice has all gone?”

    “Dunno. Not in my lifetime” he grunted.

    “Between fifteen and thirty-five years” I said.

    Shock. Sheer, uncomprehending shock; the expression was clear on their faces. They didn’t know!

    “That’s not modelling” I said while I had their attention, “that’s just observations. You can see the line, see the reduction year on year; anyone can see it heading for zero. The measurements are all public; check them for yourselves.”

    They went back to taking the piss, but it was nervousness now; the bravado had gone. I bid them well and continued after the procession.
    – – – – – – – –

    SA, don’t give up! We might fail, but we’re sure to fail if we don’t try. People’s minds can be changed. There are hundreds of ways to rebel, just by speaking to people, by refusing to let matters rest for the sake of politeness, by telling your boss that you refuse to do something the destructive way, by joining your local XR samba band and making a noise outside your local authority, or just by getting some stickers and putting them up around the office to get people talking.

    “This is where despair ends and tactics begin” – Banksy.

    #79949 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Glenn_nl, they likely were XR because that’s what we’ve been doing recently; going through the latest IPCC WG1 report, learning how to communicate it to the public.

    Code Red for Humanity

    #79990 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    “Despite the flurry of net zero emission goals and the increased pledges of many countries, some of the biggest oil, gas and coal producers have not set out plans for the rapid reductions in fossil fuels that scientists say are necessary to limit temperatures in coming years.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58971131

    The World has been in an economic dead-spot for a couple years ( except for China)
    much less Oil, Gas and Coal has been extracted.
    On the good front, the construction of Hydroelectric, such as the Ethiopian Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam,
    has been continuing. The development and deployment of wind turbines are still getting bigger and more efficient and more numerous.
    Morocco is fast turning into a Solar Super Power and plans are a foot to directly connect Morocco with North Devon
    https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/north-devon-africa-tiny-village-5989455
    Then the HVDC link between Norway and Blyth has just gone live
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58772572

    So if you can get past the moaning, much is getting done.

    #80017 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Apparently the dustbinmen are striking during COP26 in Glasgow, just to add to the general lunacy.
    It is being said that maybe more than twenty five thousand people will go to COP26 in Glasgow, this is the height of insanity.
    These true believers want people to stop using Carbon. So how are they getting there, bare foot walking?
    I hope they will not be using their wellingtons ( oil based) and tents ( oil based) and sleeping bags (oil based), just for this single jamboree?

    #80034 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “True believers” Michael? Are you telling me that the Arctic ice isn’t melting away? That sea level isn’t rising? That the oceans aren’t acidifying? That half the Great Barrier Reef hasn’t died in recent decades?

    I’ll be going to COP26. My vaccinations are up to date, and I’ll be staying outdoors to prevent spreading covid. I’ll be cold and uncomfortable, Michael, for your family and their descendants, since I don’t have any – it never seemed fair to father children into a global crisis. Yes, my tent, shoes etc. were made using fossil fuels, and I’ll be using trains to get there. And that invalidates my actions, does it? When taking action to change the system, I must act completely outside of the system, and as that’s close to impossible any action I take is that of a hypocrite. Great.

    Propaganda, Michael, propaganda. Who dreamed up this idea that economy, health, immigration etc. were all political issues but environmental degradation was purely down to personal choices and “the power of our wallets”? Would it surprise you to discover that it was BP?

    I suppose I’d be acting more responsibly by cheer-leading for the military-industrial complex.

    #80039 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, you make some great points, about people being enslaved to materialism, how war always hurts the ordinary people, how people have become estranged from the natural world, and how humanity is still desperately reliant upon hydrocarbons.

    But you have to get your thoughts to join up, to see the overall picture. Those wars serve the very system of materialism that so disgusts you, and the propaganda is an integral part of that – instilling pride on “our” military, and blaming China for all emissions though Western emissions to date still far exceed China’s.

    I’ll warn you though. The more you see the angrier you’ll feel.

    Love and rage, fellow rebel, as we say in XR.

    #80044 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    It’s a shame we don’t have like button so I have to make a comment on how Clark’s second paragraph is short but
    powerful.

    Regarding Brexit all It’s EU fault mostly France!

    World problems It’s China and Russia to blame!

    If you don’t believe in Brexit you don’t believe in UK.

    How much CO2 pointless posturing by Royal Navy in the Pacific emits? How many Clarks of this world could go to

    protests of all kinds around the world.

    Military spending is in Trillions year after year after year.

    Clark protest in my name as well but do not get hurt

    #80052 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Thanks Pigeon. There will be local actions and protests all over the country; probably all over the world. Your local XR or Green Party group will know what’s happening locally. Make your contribution colourful 😀

    https://rebellion.global/

    #80055 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Much is being done, as I mentioned today at 8.04.

    How fast do the True Believers think they can get the population of the World to go. The U.K. is electrifying our railways. We have made a good effort at installing wind turbines. We have mostly shut down our Coal mines. We have moved away from majority Coal Fired Power Stations. We still have a way to go to increase renewables but there is not a lot of scope left in the U.K. for normal Hydroelectricity. A set of Archimedes Screws has just been turned on in the River Thames at Reading, this technology could be reproduced on most weirs, I am not sure, why the roll-out is not quicker. Also we could have built the Seven Barrage, we have not, why not? That technology once established, could be rolled out around the coasts of the World.

    We have started with wave technology in Scotland, this could have been given greater impetus. Geothermal is being tested in Cornwall but no real results, yet. We have been ramping up Interconnectors, good.

    Solar is very slowly expanding. I would like to see new build commercial buildings being mandated to be covered in photovoltaics. Elon Musk roof tiles, seems a good idea for houses, I am not sure, why that has not kicked off in the U.K. or something similar, it seems a more acceptable option than roof panels. I think the roll out of fully electric buses, could have gone a lot more quickly. I am disappointed that Graphene solar windows, is taking so long to get going. I am sure that wearable photovoltaics on on the near horizon, so you can charge your device on your walk to work. I think battery cycles have come on apace and will improve commuting for the millions.

    So much has been done and is being done. You must take people with you. Laying about in the streets annoying people, will not take them with you, it will lead to antagonism and violence. After 20 months of a pandemic, most people have had more than enough of being told how to live their live by the Elite and by True Believers. So many people are telling us daily they are right and we are wrong, just give it a fucking rest.

    #80075 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Much is being done but it isn’t nearly enough because it should have started thirty years ago.

    “How fast do the True Believers think they can get the population of the World to go.”

    Ah, so you think this is political. It isn’t. Nature doesn’t give two hoots about politics. This planet has suffered five mass extinctions, and human activity has started a sixth. Either civilisation stops trashing nature, or nature will trash civilisation.

    How hard do you brake to avoid hitting a wall of solid rock? As hard as feels good? As hard as you can be bothered? As hard as the passengers will put up with?

    Or as hard as is necessary?

    That’s your choice, michael. The consequences of human activity aren’t up to me, or you, or politicians, or the electorate. They’re up to nature. Natural law. The only laws no one can break.

    “most people have had more than enough of being told how to live their live by the Elite and by True Believers”

    What?! Who on Earth convinced you that it’s “the Elite” trying to get emissions reduced? If the elite wanted less emissions they’d have plummeted by now! Michael, please think about the meaning of the word ‘elite’. The elite don’t need to ask politely; if they did they wouldn’t be the elite! The elite coerce us with economic conditions. The elite call down an airstrike or have artillery sent in.

    Seriously, michael; where on Earth did you get this idea? That’s not a rhetorical question; I really want to know why you think that.

    #80078 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, I’ll explain like this. It is difficult to know which would be worse; runaway global heating or full scale nuclear war.

    I’m not joking or exaggerating. They could kill similar numbers of people, take similar times for Earth to recover from, have similar effects upon civilisation. In fact, greenhouse heating is adding heat to Earth’s biosphere at the rate of four Hiroshima bombs per second.

    Now do you understand why I’m going to COP26?

    #80113 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest


    After almost six years, our country has been in a near continuous turmoil. Since the LibDem lot fell out of favour with the public, causing Dave Cameron to trigger his election promise, then the bullying, really kicked off, anybody who wanted to Leave was humiliated, hectored and harassed, sometimes called morons.

    Yet that is what the public mostly voted for, that is called Democracy. Democracy won out.

    Laying about in the streets, stopping people going about their daily business, is not democracy, it is attempting to impose one person’s World view on other people.
    The Greens have only ever had one member of parliament, at the present moment the dustbinmen of Brighton are on strike, just like Glasgow. People want their dustbins emptied, that’s what they pay for, they do not want people laying about in the streets, bullying, hectoring and intimidating them.
    Why not vote in more Green members of Parliament, that would be democratic.

    It seems to me that True Believers are gripped with some sort of Messianic Fervour.

    This I intrinsically distrust.

    #80116 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Clark, we in this country are doing plenty to shift. We have been tilting towards Renewables for sometime.
    The Scottish Hydroectricity schemes have been running for more than eighty years.

    “Laggan dam and hydroelectric system in 1934”

    Yes, I know they were constructed, mostly to run the Aluminium smelting plant but technology often comes in to existence, before it full usefulness is understood.
    Solar was first deployed on spaceships but was very expensive, it probably, at first was not thought to be deployable to poor people.
    Windturbines were invented before anybody much had thought of Global Warming.
    In fact, electricity generation of almost all types, were thought of and introduced before the days of Global Warming.

    The Industrial Revolution was started with people power, with animal power and with water power, later Coal was used.
    In the U.K. we have mostly moved on from Coal, just one more mine to open in the North West for top quality steel production.
    We still want a Royal Navy, they need provenance of the steel, boiling up scrap[ using electricity is not provenance but I can see for making washing machines, boiling up scrap using electricity is very suitable.

    Railroading people, bullying people, telling them they are too stupid to know their own minds, will just put them more firmly against you

    #80117 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, it isn’t a “world view”, it is simply fact – I listed a tiny fraction of the evidence, Oct 20, 16:43 above.

    What would you do to stop all-out nuclear war?

    #80119 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    How I wish the destruction of the biosphere was merely a “world view”. I could simply dismiss it and get on with all the things I love and find interesting.

    Michael, I can promise you that I personally won’t be “bullying, hectoring or intimidating” anyone. No one in Extinction Rebellion will be doing any of that; we are a strictly non-violent movement, we attend training sessions to help us to remain calm and respectful when facing confrontation. There will be a lot of other people attending who aren’t bound by Extinction Rebellion’s principles, and I can’t speak for them, nor for anyone apart from myself. I will do my best.

    But humanity is sleepwalking into a disaster of unimaginable proportions – global mass starvation, entire populations displaced, the resultant conflict – and in conscience, I cannot stand by; I have to take action.

    https://rebellion.global/

    Michael, you haven’t answered my question yet; Oct 20, 21:33 above. Please; I’d like to understand your thinking on this.

    #80125 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    Michael

    very good video about Maroko – Devon project you talk about.

    #80134 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    MICHAEL 21/10 @ 9.29

    Do you believe

    – that FPTP is Democracy?

    – that UKIP with 4 mill. votes 12.5% deserve 1 (one) MP in 2015 and greens with 1 mill vote 1 (one) MP?
    5 million people got 2 Two representatives while 30% share gives you about 200-300 MP’s by FPTP?.

    – Apart from the rules do you think
    that people living in UK for over 15 years and paying taxes should not have the right to vote in referendum while the Brits living abroad more than 15 years are denied the same right as well.
    So if Brits living abroad more than 15 years “lost connection” to UK and are not eligible sure EU citizens
    living more than 15 years in UK should be eligible.

    – If there was consistency and honesty Brexit would never win!
    Why because I believe there must have been enough EU citizens living over 15 years in UK to just tip the
    balance or enough
    Brits living over 15 years in Eu to tip the balance./p

    #80138 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael – “It seems to me that True Believers are gripped with some sort of Messianic Fervour. This I intrinsically distrust.”

    Imagine someone comes into the busiest room of a big party frantically shouting “fire, fire, everyone get out!” – how do you tell whether they’ve found a fire, or they’re “gripped with some sort of Messianic Fervour”? The two look the same.

    Maybe if they’ve been going on about it for quite a while, getting more and more worked up at everyone’s inaction. Maybe if they have a team of fire safety officers saying the same thing. Maybe if authorities are declaring an emergency.

    Or you could go and have a look. If there’s smoke, and you can see flickering down the stairwell, there could well be a fire.

    But maybe they should campaign, and try to get elected first…

    #80141 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    If this is so all consuming, why has only one Green M.P. ever been elected in England?

    Answer, most people are not interested. Certainly they do not want to give up taking cocaine, smoking, drinking, eating steak, smearing themselves with “cosmetics”, wearing oil based nylons or driving their Rangerover/Jaguar. They still constantly want new clothes and new furniture, new windows and doors, new electronic machines made in China, for next to nothing.
    They want to travel to other lands for their holidays.
    They want to keep three dogs who eat meat, that meat comes from South America, where they first burn the trees, so they can farm.
    Those three dogs are not only eating meat that could feed people, they are also causing less Carbon dioxide to be sucked in and stored by those trees that have been cut down to farm beef.

    India has just said it will be burning Coal for the next few decades.

    You might as well give up now and save your train fare.

    #80157 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, that’s all true (apart from me giving up), people aren’t interested. But that’s because they don’t know, and that’s because the media barely mentions it. Oh, I know there’s coverage, but not remotely in proportion to the immensity of the threat:

    The lack of seriousness given by UK broadcasters to the crisis is evident in the results of a recent study that showed that the word ‘cake’ appeared 10 times more on British television than ‘climate change’ in 2020 while ‘dog’ was mentioned 22 times more. Mentions of climate change and global warming fell by 10 per cent and 19 per cent respectively compared with 2019, the report from BAFTA-backed sustainability initiative Albert found.

    There’s your answer, michael; cakes and dogs! Those are the thoughts the media wants in our heads, because cakes and dogs make money. The media is funded by advertising but the climate and ecological emergency means we need to buy less stuff.

    2019 was when Extinction Rebellion blocked four sites in central London for ten days each in April, and then again in September; that’s why the media mentioned it a lot that year, and mentions of it have fallen ever since. But the climate and ecological crisis has only got worse and more urgent. Extinction Rebellion don’t perform civil disobedience in order to inconvenience the public, no matter that the media say we do. We do it to apply pressure to the elite through the economic system, and to force the elite to mention the emergency in the elite-controlled media.

    #80182 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    It does not look like some leaders of major polluting states will turn up.
    Modi from India is said to be coming but India has said it will remain addicted to Coal for decades to come.

    https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20211021-climate-change-will-cause-global-tensions-say-us-intelligence-services
    Good to know that the CIA can know threats that are not just North Korea/Syria/Libya/Tunisia/Iraq/Afghanistan/Taiwan.
    Looks like Obomba will be accompanying Biden, probably as his “minder”

    #80200 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, I suggest that the nations that industrialised early and got rich and powerful by burning more than their share of carbon, undertake to pay for the poorer nations to expand their solar, wind and natural gas generation capacity until they don’t need to burn coal. If the US/UK etc. can afford all these wars and militarism and megatonnes of plastic baubles, they can afford to do that.

    What do you reckon?

    #80207 Reply
    Pigeon English
    Guest

    I am not sure if I did post this earlier and if I am sorry

    Carbon Brief: Which countries have emitted the most CO2? (YouTube, 1m39s)

    #80214 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Grief, it could be too late:

    In just 13 years, global oil production could enter into a terminal and exponential decline, accompanied by the overall collapse of the global oil and gas industries over the next three decades. […] The oil and gas industries are consuming exponentially more and more energy just to keep extracting oil and gas. That’s why they’ve entered a downwards spiral of increasing costs of production, diminishing profits, rising debt and irreversible economic decline.

    Oil System Collapsing so Fast it May Derail Renewables, Warn French Government Scientists (Byline Times, 20 Oct 2021)

    Energy is needed to build renewable energy sources; this is the Energy Trap which I’ve mentioned before.

    We need to economise now!

    #80243 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael norton, Oct 20, 18:53, final paragraph:

    “After 20 months of a pandemic, most people have had more than enough of being told how to live their live by the Elite and by True Believers. So many people are telling us daily they are right and we are wrong, just give it a fucking rest.”

    Michael, you still haven’t answered me, yet I see that you have been posting elsewhere. You swore at me. I’m asking; who are the Elite, and who are these True Believers?

    “Most people” don’t want to be told what to think by the Elite, right? So “most people” have stopped reading the Mail, the Telegraph, the Daily Express, the Times and the Sun, have they? Because last time I checked, those were the most popular media titles in England. Anti-lockdown, pro-military, anti-EU, pro-Westminster, pro-consumerism, anti-China, anti-XR, anti-climate action etc. etc. etc; all attitudes that are very prevalent in England.

    Those titles are owned by four billionaires who don’t live in the UK, nor pay tax in the UK.

    https://twitter.com/KevinAn48751902/status/1448549303560155138/photo/1

    Are overseas billionaires the common people then? Or do they just control those media on your behalf out of the goodness of their hearts, to ensure that your voices are heard? They certainly can’t be the Elite, influencing how you think.

    No, here’s one of the Elite who tells you how to think, one of those brainy kids who went to university – same university I dropped out of after a year, as it goes; he was a year above me in the Physics Department, and a friend of mine. He helped design GPS, and became Assistant Dean of Research at the Engineering Department, University College London, no less; proper Elite. Look at his journey home from work, er, on the bus. Look at the, er, mansion he lives in. Look at his holiday in, er, Wales, and the swanky parties he goes to:

    https://www.youtube.com/user/marekziebart1/videos

    #80245 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Please michael, just talk to me. Neither of us are billionaires, neither of us own media organisations. We’re equals. You thought that leaving the EU was striking a blow against the Elite, because people who’d gone to college advised against it. Who set the college kids against the workers? Who set the English against the French, against the Chinese, and all in favour of nuclear submarines and military tensions? In whose interest is that conflict?

    #80253 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Hello Clark, I just typed two long replies to you, they have not been recognised.
    I seem not to have been logged in.

    I am now going outside to cycle.
    Michael

    #80262 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, sorry to hear that your replies went missing; I find it very disheartening when that happens. Sometimes I can get back what I wrote by clicking the ‘Back’ button in the browser, but often it doesn’t work, so recently I have been trying to remember to copy my text before posting. I hope you enjoy your cycle ride; I cycle a lot too. I hope there aren’t too many aggressive motorists today; some of them really upset me sometimes.

    #80268 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    And michael, I know I’m pressing quite hard on these points. I’ll be open about it; I do want you to question some of the attitudes you express here. You may well not read any of the titles I listed but we’re all surrounded by many people who do, so we’re immersed in the opinions they project; it’s impossible to escape from such opinions or be unaffected by them. Speaking against them can prove unpopular.

    Politicians are as affected by this just as much as the rest of us, as are people who work for other, supposedly more independent media organisations. When people see the word ‘propaganda’ they usually think of the the government controlling the news media, but I think the converse, media influencing politicians, is actually more significant. Politicians and other media personalities are a more valuable target for corporate propaganda because they have more power and reach.

    In this sense, propaganda is like covid; we tend to think of its effects upon us each of us personally, but its effects upon society as a whole are more significant.

    #80277 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    O.K. Clark, I’ll try and do something I am not good at, I’ll try and be succinct. About one hundred million years ago there was an increase in Angiosperm Biodiversity and Forests. Then came along the KT Event.
    This killed out the dinosaurs, so they could no longer feast on the tree leaves. This allowed the Angiosperm Forests to explode.
    The Biodiversity of the Angiosperm Forests are much more three D, than the Gymnosperm Forests.
    This moved to a fuller environment, with greater uptake of Carbon.
    The Angiosperm Forests drew down vast quantities of Carbon, this moved the World to have the smallest quantity of Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere – ever. C4 plants then turned up, able to need less water and less Carbon dioxide.

    The Industrial Revolution has put some Carbon back into our Atmosphere.

    No doubt more trees and shrubs will take in more Carbon
    and things will even out.
    Personally, I do not think there is a climate emergency, it is hype.

    #80279 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    Glasgow dustbinmen go on strike for the duration of COP26, The railways go on strike for the duration of COIP26.
    Disruption is expected in Glasgow over as the first major road closures for COP26 take effect.

    Personally, I would not go anywhere near this Covid-Super-Spreader-Event

    This is a jolly for people without jobs.

    #80286 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, what sort of effects do you think the sort of changes you described would have on human civilisation?

    #80287 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    “This is a jolly for people without jobs.”

    In Extinction Rebellion, I have met several doctors and nurses, a school inspector, a software developer, two young women who started their own businesses, a psychologist, a machine code developer and wood stove designer / constructor, a county councillor, a former investigative journalist who now works zero hours and agency work because the journalism trade has collapsed, several scientists, lots of students, two festival organisers, a former Marconi radar engineer, a former army engineer, and two electricians. Of course, I don’t discover everyone’s jobs. People book time off work to attend the actions. XR has groups for various professions – XR Doctors, XR Engineers, XR Scientists etc.

    Are you prepared to stand corrected on that point?

    #80288 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Oh, and camping illegally, getting shouted at and insulted by some members of the public, facing police and getting arrested can be pretty intense; not really a ‘jolly’, though there are a lot of joyous moments, public support, and good social support too. I have sat in a circle of fifty Quakers at one action.

    #80291 Reply
    ET
    Guest

    “Personally, I do not think there is a climate emergency, it is hype.”

    What is the basis of your reasoning?

    #80301 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Good morning everyone. It is Sunday, which in the traditions descended from Europe is the day we put aside everyday matters to consider the most important concerns – right and wrong, good and evil, and the welfare of those closest to us.

    Extinction Rebellion’s first demand – tell the truth.

    #80302 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    ET, I had a very low level education. Possibly I could be converted to understand that there is an imminent climate emergency but I could also suggest that it might be possible for a religious order to impact such that I go about with sandwich boards declaring the end of the world is nigh. Most people are not interested. I cannot fathom why Boris Johnson has been captured, I suppose he is weak and wants to fit in with the whims of his latest female partner.
    Politicians are often as weak as any ordinary people, they can be swayed by fanaticism, look at Iran, look at Germany, look at Japan, look at North Korea. Just because we are bombarded with blanket coverage of Global Warming Catastrophe
    does not mean every person will be taken up with the fervour. I am an individual, who is not taken up with the fervour.

    I have no idea if the world is getting hotter or cooler or more windy or more wet. I am concerned about the destruction of natural habitat. You are not allowed to mention population growth.
    In the last one hundred years the wold has increased its population by five times. Then there is the exponential increase in dogs. Yes, I think people crave too much stuff, yes people are too fat. Nothing will change in Glasgow, people will still want cheap plastic crap from China, people will still want one use plastic bags to collect dog muck.
    People will still fly to other lands with zero tax on aviation fuel.

    Forget global warming. Start a campaign to stop people breeding, see how that goes. Start a campaign to get people to buy less stuff they do not need from China, see how that goes. Start a campaign to get people to stop buying and eating factory food. Start a campaign to stop India and China burning ever more Coal, see how that goes. I think that in the U.K. we have done quite a lot for us to become a little more sustainable. Boris Johnson in his new found zeal wants us to rip out our Natural Gas boilers and replace them with Hydrogen, he is away with the little people, I do not buy it, I do not want a Hydrogen boiler at vast expense, especially as Australia is ripping ever more Coal from the ground to sell to Asia. Coal consumption in Asia is going up. Coal consumption in the U.K. is going down.

    #80305 Reply
    Clark
    Guest

    Michael, you’re nowhere nearly cynical enough about either “our” leaders or “our” media.

    Extinction Rebellion is NOT a campaign to change people’s behaviour. It is civil disobedience aimed at governments.

    In the Second World War, resources, especially food, were scarce due to the German U-boat attacks upon commercial shipping. The government did not “start a campaign” for people to be more frugal; it imposed rationing, and it took control of industry by commandeering it, so that wartime necessities were produced rather than luxuries.

    Churchill had his faults but he is rightly respected for his leadership at a time of crisis. Johnson is a charlatan, a liar who is conning the British people; hydrogen is indeed a scam, to extract yet more money from ordinary people and to prop up the dying fossil fuel industry:

    Blue Hydrogen. The greatest fossil fuel scam in history? YouTube, under 16 minutes.

    There is a climate and ecological emergency. The polar ice is melting away rapidly; the only possible cause is more heat. Sea level is rising rapidly; the only possible cause is thermal expansion of the oceans, which can only possibly be caused by more heat. The largest living thing on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef – half of it is already dead.

    What you think is “fervour” is in fact desperation. Thirty years of trying to influence governments democratically has failed – governments just batted it back to the people and refused to control the markets. Churchill would be spinning in his grave.

    #80306 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    As Clark says, again and again and he is correct, we are being swayed in our thoughts and desires by those who wish us to consume more. Part of “The Trick” of the Industrial Revolution, was to get people to desire stuff they did not know they needed, an excellent example is tea and cakes/biscuits. Build factories to manufacture ceramic table ware. Import sugar from the Americas. Import tea from Asia. Construct a canal system. Build factories to manufacture biscuits/cakes.
    But “The Trick” is to get people to desire this new life style. To get middle class people to desire beautiful crockery, so that it is displayed as well as used, that it is part of a set that can be added to. The tea comes from China, the Sugar from the West Indies, an aspiration life style is born. We have not looked back, we are “helped” to want ever more stuff, that we did not know we needed or wanted, much of this is promoted by television and now the Internet.

    Probably this is the greatest addiction of all time.

    #80311 Reply
    michael norton
    Guest

    So, in my view, there are a few steps that should be taken but will not be taken.
    Of the highest importance is to “encourage” less people to be born.
    This is Number One.
    Second, “encourage” people to NOT want an aspirational life style, repeatedly buying stuff.

    In my view both these will fail

    Three, start a movement to show people how ill factory food is making them, “encourage” the hoards to learn cooking with basic food.
    “Encourage” people to become more physically active and reduce their time on mobile phones/social media.
    Four, plant more forests, protect the forests that are left, stop burning wood in power stations and calling it green.

    I think, the forests plan could work.

    The less factory food and more physical exercise, must work or one quarter of the world will become obese and disabled.
    At that point civilization will already be down the plug hole.

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