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Obomber coming to preach in Glasgow
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58937970
They are expecting more than twenty thousand people to so super spreading at COP26
that’s like killing more than one bird with just one stone.
If these people are such climate worriers, why are they using Carbon to go to Glasgow?
It will prove nothing
other than be a covid super spreading event.
The Scottish Health System is already in collapse mode.SA, we are indeed awash with greenwash. And yes, too little, too late. But better late than never, I suppose. Even one less step into the minefield will reduce suffering and deaths.
But all maybe less hopeless than it appears. It only takes a small proportion to become actively involved, for a cause to gain mainstream support. Tipping points aren’t all unhelpful. Many, many people are utterly frustrated; they want change with the status quo – that was what got Trump elected and Brexit voted for. Those two have not paid off for their supporters, so hopefully the next reaction will blow the other way.
Whatever, we cannot see the future. Giving up would be unconscionable.
SA, the climate crisis is less like falling off a cliff and more like walking into a minefield.
Extinction Rebellion has already had considerable success. It was after the April 2019 actions in London that the BBC stopped treating climate change as a debate – that’s big progress on XR’s Demand 1, Tell the Truth. XR rebels also glued themselves to Jeremy Corbyn’s front fence, prompting him to present his Climate and Ecological Emergency Declaration. It was passed by Parliament unchallenged. Since then, governments and local authorities all over the world have declared climate and ecological emergency. These declarations are more than empty words; they can and have been used successfully to challenge proposals such as new airport runways and road-building schemes.
Demand 3, for a Citizens’ Assembly was also acted upon, but the government gave it advisory status only, not legal power, and its remit was decarbonisation by 2050, omitting the halving of emissions by 2030 as the IPCC tells us we must do.
So, humanity is walking into the minefield slower than we were. That’s big progress, and XR are not about to give up.
– – – – – – –
SA, the rest of my reply to your October 17 18:15 comment #79733 (see subsequent comment):– “Climate action and so on are all doomed because none of these actions will change the underlying power structure”
The system cannot function without the majority’s cooperation. More and more must be persuaded to rebel! The Suffragettes won the vote despite a deeply patriarchal parliament, and India won independence despite trenchant British opposition. The more people who learn the truth of our dire predicament, the more that will be prepared to remove their cooperation. People do care for their kids, and their grandkids, far more than they care about plastic trinkets and their next holiday. But decades of appalling coverage by the corporate media has convinced people that there is no crisis, that climate change won’t affect anyone for centuries.
Let me tell you a story. In Autumn 2020 I was in London with XR. I had been camping illegally in Brockwell Park for about a week; I was in a right state; unshaven, partially washed, two days into my last change of clothing; I looked a mess. It was the last day of actions. We assembled at the Bank of England for our finale procession to Parliament Square. The schools were just going back, covid case numbers were rising nationally; I had my mask but I wanted to socially distance, so I took my place near the back of the procession where the density was lowest.
To one side I heard braying and I looked – two young men, City types in pinstripe suits were ridiculing my tatty cut-off jeans. “Oh well, at least they’re communicating” I thought, so grinning like a Cheshire Cat I wandered over to talk with them. “This is all bollocks” said the first. I listened respectfully and then asked them what climate facts they knew. They went on about all the investments they were pouring into electric cars. I told them it wasn’t enough, quoted the IPCC’s requirements to them, that emissions must halve in the next ten years. “Not going to happen” said one of them.
I heard a couple of women, they might have been XR – not sure, talking about meetings they had been holding recently, trying to educate the public on just how bad how rapidly things were becoming. One said she was interrupted by a gentleman in the audience who said, “What you’re saying simply cannot be true. People would be rioting in the street if it was true!”
We’re talking about the 1.5 degrees that we feel comfortable about staying within, as if that were the entire rise caused by human activity. That 1.5C is only since the 1950-1980 average. Even talking about “pre-industrial” is highly misleading, as 1750 might have been the start of heavy industry, but was by no means the start of our impact on the planet.
We have been cutting and burning huge tracts of forest for thousands of years. Britain and Ireland, not to mention the US, were entirely covered in forest, just for examples close to home. We now have patches of forest here and there, the effect of deforestation is simply massive. All this is supposedly granted for free, because we’re only counting our impact since 1750 at best, and much of the talk is of increases since the 1950-1980 average.
The drop in the number of birds and insects is staggering. At my parents’ place 20 years ago, huge columns of crows used to fly at dusk, it was a daily marvel. There must have been many thousands of them, literally. I saw a handful of stragglers the other day. My motorcycle gear used to get covered in insect strikes – this summer, sometimes none at all, despite riding through countryside.
I noticed some early paintings in museums – take a look next chance – in rural and farm settings. Birds are simply everywhere. The writings of Thomas Hardy and so on are full of descriptions of birds, how skilfully they dart beneath horses’ hooves and so on. Was this all just artistic licence? There are none today, or near it!
I’m not ancient, and the change since I was young is drastic. Younger people now probably don’t notice, because the base-line has shifted so far. My old mother tells me one dared not open a window in summer if you had the lights on, the place would be swarming with moths. Today you’re lucky to see one.
It’s really hard to find much optimism here.
(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.
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
“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-58772572So if you can get past the moaning, much is getting done.
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?“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.
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.
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
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 😀
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
Michael, you haven’t answered my question yet; Oct 20, 21:33 above. Please; I’d like to understand your thinking on this.
Michael
very good video about Maroko – Devon project you talk about.
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./pMichael – “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…
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.
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.
