It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

[Hawkmumbler]

I was considering breaking down some of the truly reprehesnibly dire shite I found on a mildly undulating dive into UKColumns.

But then I realised it was a tedious endevour, and just decided to reshare the now somewhat old yet still gold best at arms length take down on the psycho-acrobatics required to subscribe to fringe climate denialism.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, that guy's hilarious.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Heh, that guy's hilarious.

Yeah, I only really recognise him from that time he stormed of a BBC interview calling Andrew Neil, Andrew feckin Neil a leftist. Never fails to make me laugh.

[Hawkmumbler]

Benny-boi Shapiro is really just your stock standard snake oil salesman, only he dabbles in the realms of dubious socio-political soapboxing by way of naff merchandise and dietary supplements.

Stephen Crowder is a genuinely dangerous nutcase, however, and Harris was right in the video to accredit him as something wholly more insidious than simply an ill informed sceptic.

[The Legendary Shark]

So anyway, after a day of grappling with recalcitrant brambles, wild roses, and hawthorns (which the Faerie folk will not thank me for, holding the hawthorn as sacred) to uncover a length of ailing barbed wire fencing, I retired to lick my wounds and treat myself to a beer.

Psst.

Hmm. Sorry, atmosphere. It struck me that many more people around the country would be cracking cans at the same time as me. Not just cans of beer or cider or sparkling wine but also countless forms of pop and water. If you could hear them all, I thought, there would be a constant hiss 24 hours a day, all over the country. The continent. The world. That's a lot of CO2, I thought.

If we're serious about this carbon thing, I thought, then why do we still have fizzy pop? Beer and cider and sparkling wine, sure, these things are entirely necessary. But fizzy pop? Rotten teeth, diabetes, and climatological ruin?

So I thought I'd ask the AI how much CO2 comes out of fizzy drinks because I couldn't be arsed looking it up for myself. Because I've had a beer. It said,

It is estimated that the global carbonation process releases about 190 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This accounts for around 0.5% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. While this may seem like a small percentage, every little reduction in its emission counts towards lowering the carbon footprint of various industries and helps in combating climate change.

0.5%? That seems low. Still, it means I only have to feel 0.5% guilty about popping another can. Cheers!

[Funt Solo]

0.5% does sound low - but then it rather depends on what it's 0.5% of.

• 0.5% of one million dollars is $5000, which is quite a lot of wonga.
• 0.5% of the distance to the moon is 1194 miles, which is quite a hike.

Interestingly, the 0.5% figure comes up in this report: Global record breaking temperature is '500x bigger' than expectations says climate change professor

[Funt Solo]

Greta Thunberg cleared after unlawful protest arrest

A bit of a garden path headline, that. The protest wasn't unlawful, but the arrest was. The BBC's AI-headline writer needs reprogrammed.

Anyway - good news! The law trumps the cops - who, for some reason, seem keen on defending a bunch of oil execs from a young woman engaging in a peaceful protest.

Tories out!

[Colin YNWA]

Greta Thunberg cleared after unlawful protest arrest

A bit of a garden path headline, that. The protest wasn't unlawful, but the arrest was. The BBC's AI-headline writer needs reprogrammed.

Anyway - good news! The law trumps the cops - who, for some reason, seem keen on defending a bunch of oil execs from a young woman engaging in a peaceful protest.

Tories out!

Don't normally get involved in this sort of stuff on the forum, but this is too good not to celebrate.

Once you get past that horrible headline and into the judges comments on the police's illegal actions it's all so priceless.

Really hope they take civil action to remind the police they have a duty to up hold the law for all, not just the rich and entitled.

Thunberg remains an inspiration.

[IndigoPrime]

She's great. She was also in my neck of the woods recently, protesting against the shitshow of the Farnborough Airport expansion. There's no justification for that, bar MONEY RICH PEOPLE MOAR MONEY. So I imagine the council will wave it through while arguing something about jobs, even though the airport isn't remotely under threat it if doesn't expand. (It just wants MOAR MONEY. Did I mention the MONEY?)

Notably, from what I read recently, despite the airport claiming it's an essential hub for business, a substantial number of flights are from Farnborough to the Med...

[sheridan]

If we're serious about this carbon thing, I thought, then why do we still have fizzy pop? Beer and cider and sparkling wine, sure, these things are entirely necessary. But fizzy pop? Rotten teeth, diabetes, and climatological ruin?

I'd argue that fizzy cider is not necessary (and that real cider is much better - now I can also say it's more environmentally friendly too).

[IndigoPrime]

Interesting to see the Met Office on socials ask people in the UK to guess how the weather had been over Jan before putting out official stats. Here in the south of England, I guessed it had been warmer and about average for rainfall and sun hours. I got only one of those right. In fact, it was 'average' by modern standards for rain and temperature, but way sunnier. But they noted it was a month of extremes: either pissing down and very mild, or bloody cold but also dry and sunny.

I don't know about in everyone else's neck of the woods, but battery rain is increasingly rare here. It feels more like, I dunno, Florida, where it absolutely chucks it down or doesn't bother. I suppose we should feel fortunate we haven't had massive snow locally in years. (I don't really need another two days each with 30cm snowfalls on the house, effectively freezing our roof and turning our loft into drippage city.)

[The Legendary Shark]

I love the snow. It's the only time my garden looks as nice as everyone else's.

[The Legendary Shark]

Dr. Judith Curry (Professor and former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology) giving her verbal remarks to the US Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on "Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate Over the Magnitude of the Human Impact on Earth's Climate."

[sheridan]

On Judith Curry: "It is frankly shocking to see such a good scientist take that kind of a turn to sloppy thinking. I have no explanation for it."

[Funt Solo]

"Going against the vast majority view of climate scientists, she had suggested to newspapers that most of the recent global warming was not human-caused, and had hinted that IPCC scientists are motivated by "funding" even though they are not paid for their contributions."

Another belter, there. Someone who agrees with the poster's preconceived notions, but also demonstrably talks utter nonsense. Imagine that!