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It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

Started by The Enigmatic Dr X, 24 July, 2019, 09:35:09 AM

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shaolin_monkey

More or less with you on this. However, I couldn't help but groan when I saw the footage of folk being pulled off the top of that Tube.  It doesn't look great, because we're supposed to be encouraging electric mass transit solutions.

Also, this may be one of the first situations I've heard of where the public have physically turned on a protester and given them a good hiding.  That is NOT something anyone wants, and if the violence of those members of the public is left unchallenged we're basically opening the doors for anyone to take angry potshots at protesters, XR or otherwise.

On the other hand, it HAS again raised the issue of why people are prepared to do this - because of the terrifying reality of man-made climate change sweeping our society, civilisation, and lives away, and in a horrendous drawn out manner too.

So ultimately I'm torn - I desperately want people to wake up to the fact we're all in deep shit, but I don't want to encourage disruption of a transport system that could aid us, and definitely don't want to give any violent thugs agency to attack protesters of any kind, let alone XR activists.







TordelBack

#166
That's about my thoughts too. To be clear I'm not condoning the tube disruption either, it muddies the waters badly. Public transport = good. But equally I don't believe anything significant can be achieved without pissing off an awful lot of ordinary people a great deal.

Logical, factual argument and polite consensus-building has failed - not 'is failing' but 'has failed'. If the reality of climate collapse isn't enough, then the threat of endless disruptive protest needs to add to it. Rest assured, once the pain of any real mitigation measures starts there'll be plenty on the streets protesting that instead.

The Legendary Shark


A large part of it, maybe, could be a simple fear of change.

It's easy to imagine how poorer or developing countries feel about curbing emissions. They look at us, who have achieved our current level on the back of emissions, apparently pulling the ladder up after us. We can't tell them to cut emissions, to go back to washing clothes in the river or being unable to read at night because the coal-fired power station has become to expensive to run. The availability of clean water and medicines rise in proportion to emissions, child mortality decreases inversely. This is not to say that emissions are good, but they are damned convenient - especially for poor countries looking for tried and tested methods of lifting their people out of poverty. Places like China, which has lifted millions out of dire poverty by making such things as electric lights and washing machines available. These countries might want to help, but they're not going to want to ask their people to give up decreased child mortality, medicines, light bulbs and washing machines.

In contrast, our worries seem minor. We don't have to worry about child mortality, medicines, light bulbs or washing machines. They're pretty much baked in. We worry about being deprived of a holiday or the latest i-thing. We don't want to lose our wide range of streaming services or miss the latest fad. Yet we bang on about cutting emissions. It's no wonder the poorer countries don't want to play ball.

Maybe there should be some kind of "Sacrifice Fund." You pick something to sacrifice, your next holiday or new i-thing, and put the money towards buying a solar power plant for a remote village. No loans, no bonds or monetary faffing about, buying actual stuff for actual people. You sacrifice your treat so Zog doesn't have to sacrifice his washing machine. We could start that now, right here.

Bagsie treasurer!

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




IndigoPrime

Full Green policy doesn't advocate leaving countries without. It's about re-equalisation, across the world. This means some countries will still be able to develop, but the west will have to learn how to live in a different manner. Given that some people freak out when the suggestion is "cut your beef intake in half", you have to wonder if we're not just a species on the road to extinction.

TordelBack

That's it in a nutshell. Some days I think we'll change, most days I don't, but I don't believe we'll do it fast enough. For there to be no meat or dairy, no airplane commutes, no cheap internationally shipped plastic crap, no foreign holidays or even weekend drives to the beach or the hills... all at the same time, and while extreme weather events accelerate, sea levels rise, wildlife dies off and climate-driven wars and refugees increase. It seems too much, too fast.

Tiplodocus

The no meat and no dairy thing is really a piece of cake*.

Well, if you are doing it for ethical reasons... I can see it would be harder to take if environmental was your main reason for giving it up.

At the moment, I reckon being holier than thou gives me a free pass on some of the others. But obviously, that will only be the case for so long.

* except there are some pieces of cake you don't eat.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

shaolin_monkey

Here's a great breakdown of where the green house gases are coming from, and therefore what needs altering/reducing/eliminating:




It's from this cracking website about world resources:

https://www.wri.org/

TordelBack

#172
Quote from: Tiplodocus on 17 October, 2019, 09:08:03 PM
At the moment, I reckon being holier than thou gives me a free pass on some of the others.

I know you're kidding, but this really is the point. I was a veggie for many years in my teens and 20s, so I haven't had much of a problem shifting my share of family cooking over to meatfree and am increasing the proportion of vegan meals (although I find that harder- cheese is my life). So yeah, that one thing can be done: it's the prospect of everything else and all at the same time I find hard to contemplate, and harde4 to believe a significant proportion of people will do it.

I've stopped all flying the past few years, but both my brothers and their families use planes like buses. I've never travelled long-haul bar one trip to NY, although I'd always planned to, and now I never will. If my Ozzer brother was to do likewise, which he should, I'd never see my niece and nephew again.

That, and no cheese!  Add the prospect of giving up owning dogs and cats and fucking hell.

shaolin_monkey


shaolin_monkey

Worth a read and ties in with Tordel's earlier points about keeping this in the public eye even if the action may seem counter-productive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8TjvThS0cxubHByd2tHajZ6ak1KM0ROeE1oa0JrNlFFOFhv/view

shaolin_monkey

Neil Gaiman has waded into the fray on Twitter.

He asked:

'Any sane scientists out there think "reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025" is a worthy goal and support it? Please Reply, with qualifications, if so...'

The general consensus is it would be very difficult to achieve, but such a lofty goal is absolutely essential right now.

Here's a link to the thread. The responses from scientists around the world are fascinating.

https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1185595855493062658?s=21

Modern Panther

"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."

IndigoPrime

It's all about political will, and political will comes from voters. I got a harsh lesson in that on the way back from the march, listening to some old fucks (pensioners, some of which were Northern Irish) prattling on about Corbyn, extinction rebellion ("they've gone TOO far!"), remain/the march, and zero carbon. On the last of those was the whine about "who's going to pay for it?" combined with "but how will we heat our houses when they turn off all our heating". Grade-A bullshit (hey, pensioners, it won't be you paying for it!), but these are the people who turn out to vote in huge numbers.

Until the young (by which I mean the under-30s) start understanding that, we are basically fucked. And so, especially, are they.

IndigoPrime

Oh, and I nearly forgot the doozy: we shouldn't do anything in the UK, because we are only responsible for 1.5 per cent of emissions, and so we shouldn't be paying for anyone else. It's all about selfish fucks who won't change their lives at all. It always has been and it always will be.

I don't get the argument – I genuinely don't understand it – when people say "but if we go zero-carbon by 2030, we'd lose 5% of worldwide GDP". So fucking what. That is an investment in our entire futures – our species' future! GAH.

Tjm86

The economic argument takes no account of the cost of extreme weather events though, doesn't it?  How much do storms cost the UK economy?  How much did the storms that have ravaged the coast of America the last few years cost the US economy?  We've already got insurance companies forecasting that home insurance is likely to become an unaffordable luxury in some areas for those least able to afford it

Of course there is also the Brexit argument.  How much has the clusterflob created by this parliament cost the UK over the last few years?  What is it forecast to cost over the next few decades?  Sauce for the goose and all that ...