I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I'm sure most of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine agree. Their best regiments have been smashed to pieces when advancing of Kyiv, only to retreat, taking Kharhiv, only to retreat, taking Izyum, only to retreat, taking Kherson, only to retreat.
Fair does, the Russian armed forces must be the finest drilled in the world at retreating. Morale must be horrific though.
An SNP MP who sneered at a barrister during a legal case is “disgraceful” and “spectacularly unwise” a leading Scottish lawyer his said.
John Nicolson used Twitter to decry Karon Monaghan, who questioned him at a tribunal which is deciding if the gay rights group LGB Alliance should be stripped of its charitable status.
His description of the “obviously agitated” Monaghan “who struggled questioning me” was condemned by Roddy Dunlop, the dean of the faculty of advocates. The faculty is the independent body for advocates in Scotland.
Addressing Nicolson on Twitter, Dunlop said: “(F)or you to refer to one of UK’s leading equality KCs in this way is disgraceful; & for you to comment on a case where you testified before judgement is spectacularly unwise.”
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
England forward Beth Mead says her recent comments about diversity in the Lionesses squad were "not a true reflection" of her values.
Her crime? For daring to speak the truth.
Nice of Ian Wright to give her a call and bully her into changing her stance. Makes one feel all warm and fuzzy.
usual bollox, if they are not picking the best players there is an issue, otherwise there is no way you should be selected by your skin colour just to get a quota.
I don't think it's usual to have bollox in women's football.
Of course, who knows where we're headed on that at this moment?
Many long years ago I played netball in a mixed league in NZ. Each team had to have a minimum of three female players. There was one team of trans players (or at least, chaps who preferred to play netball as women). They were allowed to play with any number of testicles on the pitch at a time…
Really?
When I played any given sport, I preferred to keep the soles of my feet on the pitch as far as possible.
Although that batch in Maricopa favoured Hobbs it’s a struggle now for her . The drop box ballots come from across the county and the latest update included many from very strong Dem leaning areas .
In terms of the house that’s still not called and the big question there in California , some suggestions that late votes there are breaking for the Dems which could see some Rep incumbents losing their seats .
The Reps are still strong favourites for the House but it could be an absolute razor thin margin .
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I'm with them when they talk about going "beyond politics", which I think shows that they recognise that democracy must be bypassed to have any chance of reversing things. I'm an old-fashioned, now shunned, eco fascist. Or a proper one, as I'd say. These groups turn out to be watermelons I'm afraid.
"...green politics was fast becoming a refuge for disillusioned socialists, Trots, Marxists, and a ragbag of fellow travelers who could no longer believe in communism or the Labour Party or even George Galloway, and who saw in green politics a promising bolthole. In they all trooped, with their Stop-the-War banners and their Palestinian solidarity scarves, and with them they brought a new sensibility. Now it seemed that environmentalism was not about wildness or ecocentrism or the other-than-human world and our relationship to it. Instead it was about (human) social justice and (human) equality and (human) progress and ensuring that all these things could be realized without degrading the (human) resource base that we used to call nature back when we were being naïve and problematic ...."
Nicola Sturgeon has told the new prime minister in a “constructive” first meeting that she intends to honour her mandate to hold an independence referendum “with or without the UK government’s agreement”.
Highlighting Downing Street’s “lack of respect bordering on contempt” for the devolved nations, the first minister said that despite “deep political disagreements” she hoped to work closely with Rishi Sunak and to enjoy a “good relationship”.
So if the Supreme Court rules against her, she'll just go ahead anyway?
Wow.
Talking of 'lack of respect bordering on contempt...'
I am starting to think that we might actually see criminal prosecutions here.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of xenophobic scumbags of course.
So Rishi and his bunch of Colonial Overlords are heading for the pokey. Crimes against democracy and imprisoning a nation, they richly deserve it and as you say are real scumbags extrodinaire.
You’d never give it, but considering England drove three line outs over the line for tries, that cynical penalty to bring the maul down suggests a case for a penalty try. Cheating Kiwis. Same as always. They did not deserve to win that.
Not that I wish to add to your aggrieved victimhood but Scotch ref I believe..
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
UK govt undertaking to issue no new licences. Indigogo was quite clear about this on Sky News.
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This will be the same Ed Miliband who pulled the plug on our taking a robust view on the Russian involvement (chemical weapons and all) in Syria. Emboldening Russia to then invade Ukraine because of our feeble response.
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
Overweight though and all that rage can't do him any good.
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
There's also the question of where to keep a financial reserve (which, in moderation, is not a bad thing to do). One's supposed to get a reasonable rate of interest on it as a simple matter of fiduciary responsibility.
But some councils did go too far. The issue was salient at least as long ago as 1991!
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This will be the same Ed Miliband who pulled the plug on our taking a robust view on the Russian involvement (chemical weapons and all) in Syria. Emboldening Russia to then invade Ukraine because of our feeble response.
Want to talk "historical responsibilty", Ed?
Miliband's words sets up a nice little (by which I mean BIG) dividing line issue for the Tories for the next election.
You’d never give it, but considering England drove three line outs over the line for tries, that cynical penalty to bring the maul down suggests a case for a penalty try. Cheating Kiwis. Same as always. They did not deserve to win that.
Not that I wish to add to your aggrieved victimhood but Scotch ref I believe..
I don’t blame the ref. Honestly, the rules of the game it’s not a penalty try. If the maul had been set and moving rapidly to the line and brought down it would have been. Essentially NZ have achieved a professional offence and won the WC as a result.
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
Rather than the fat unhealthy looking saddo we see in reality? He flatters to deceive.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I'm with them when they talk about going "beyond politics", which I think shows that they recognise that democracy must be bypassed to have any chance of reversing things. I'm an old-fashioned, now shunned, eco fascist. Or a proper one, as I'd say. These groups turn out to be watermelons I'm afraid.
"...green politics was fast becoming a refuge for disillusioned socialists, Trots, Marxists, and a ragbag of fellow travelers who could no longer believe in communism or the Labour Party or even George Galloway, and who saw in green politics a promising bolthole. In they all trooped, with their Stop-the-War banners and their Palestinian solidarity scarves, and with them they brought a new sensibility. Now it seemed that environmentalism was not about wildness or ecocentrism or the other-than-human world and our relationship to it. Instead it was about (human) social justice and (human) equality and (human) progress and ensuring that all these things could be realized without degrading the (human) resource base that we used to call nature back when we were being naïve and problematic ...."
I don't really see the material distinction between the two POVs he is trying to contrast in para 2. Would sentence 1 be satisfied if nature was preserved and wilded, but only for the benefit of first world richies? Is that a good thing?
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This is bizarre, dressing it up as historical reparations when you could call it insurance for the future, is a red rag to the imperialists. I wonder whether this is deliberate on the part of critical race theorists because reparations is more of a humiliation for whitey.
I'd be more amenable to funding nations for not destroying the natural world within their borders.
The claim by Caius that cancelling my talk was “never considered” is pretty much false. Arif was told a day or so in advance that he had to make it ticketed, otherwise the plug would be pulled. At such short notice that nearly scuppered it, which may have been the intention
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
Rather than the fat unhealthy looking saddo we see in reality? He flatters to deceive.
Naah, he is good for a decade minimum. Non smoker, obese but not grossly so. 40 years ago you might hope for a heart attack but they are so bloody good at CABG and stuff these days, that isn't a killer if you can afford a decent hospital.
One of the reasons EFTA (or similar) was not entertained was simply that Brexiters were so high on their own supply they could not concede that there was any merit at all in doing so.
After all, there were no downsides to Brexit, only considerable upsides; Minford predicted Brexit would deliver falling prices and economic *growth*; a US trade deal was in the wings, and of course the EU was a sclerotic hellhole anyway.
Once Brexiters return to reality-based thinking, and there are signs that this has started, EFTA (or similar) starts to look viable.
FWIW, I said on here before and after the vote I'd be ok with EFTA or EEA-EFTA with an emergency brake on migration.
It's effectively what Cameron said he was trying to negotiate for (albeit inside the EU) and failed to get.
Did you say your wife was from Bulgaria? I had a UBER driver from Bulgaria yesterday. He was fluent in four languages. English french Russian and 'Jewish' As he described it -presumably Hebrew. He came to the UK in 2015 and left after Brexit in 2017 then Israel then France picking up a language driving cabs everywhere he went. He was astonished at the ignorance he found in the UK during the EU debate. It's not often you meet Bulgarians but if your wife is as cultured as Stanisav then you shouln't be short of things to talk about
With respect, what does the national origin of my wife have to do it?
This is very patronising.
The insinuation you're making is I must be some sort of hypocrite because I married a foreigner, and being a "Leaver" means you're a blood and soil nationalist and that's only consistent if you don't believe in associating with anyone who's not true born English.
That says a lot about your prejudices, not mine.
(by the way, she voted Leave)
You misinterpreted my post. I was not intending to make any point about your wife's views on the EU. My post was simply about meeting my first Bulgarian and how great it must be to be fluent in five languages nearly all learnt from driving a cab
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This will be the same Ed Miliband who pulled the plug on our taking a robust view on the Russian involvement (chemical weapons and all) in Syria. Emboldening Russia to then invade Ukraine because of our feeble response.
Want to talk "historical responsibilty", Ed?
What was the UK going to do to prevent the Russian adventure in Syria if Miliband Minor hadn't flapped his gob?
Nicola Sturgeon has told the new prime minister in a “constructive” first meeting that she intends to honour her mandate to hold an independence referendum “with or without the UK government’s agreement”.
Highlighting Downing Street’s “lack of respect bordering on contempt” for the devolved nations, the first minister said that despite “deep political disagreements” she hoped to work closely with Rishi Sunak and to enjoy a “good relationship”.
So if the Supreme Court rules against her, she'll just go ahead anyway?
Wow.
Talking of 'lack of respect bordering on contempt...'
I am starting to think that we might actually see criminal prosecutions here.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of xenophobic scumbags of course.
So Rishi and his bunch of Colonial Overlords are heading for the pokey. Crimes against democracy and imprisoning a nation, they richly deserve it and as you say are real scumbags extrodinaire.
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
Overweight though and all that rage can't do him any good.
True. Although his BP is apparently magnificent. It's the best BP ever recorded for a man in his 70s.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I don't think it's particularly helpful to dwell on the details of the absolute worst case scenario, but, in the event that climate change damages agriculture to the extent of creating a deficit of 1-2 billion in the number of people the world can feed, then things will turn very nasty until the population declines to the level that can be fed.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
Not recognising the progress made to date is a bigger deal than you suggest. If someone cannot accept facts or recognise truth their other claims are undermined and potentially persuadeable people might remain unpersuaded. After all, if someone lies about progress achieved, ignores it, or simply cannot see it, what else are they wrong about?
I have a lot of admiration for the non-Hallams in their ranks, whose persistent passion and energy I think has played a role in shifting the attitude of society and still can.
But you can be passionate and unyielding without ignoring genuine achievements or adopting childish interpretations with stubborn pride at the simplicity. A tipping point might be reached where they stop making headway because, politically, they don't want to admit when they've had some success!
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I don't think it's particularly helpful to dwell on the details of the absolute worst case scenario, but, in the event that climate change damages agriculture to the extent of creating a deficit of 1-2 billion in the number of people the world can feed, then things will turn very nasty until the population declines to the level that can be fed.
We feed more people than ever thought possible 50 years ago. Climate change provides opportunity too. Humans are infinitely adaptable. The best way to get population down is to raise standards of living. In the west people delay children while having careers, and then the population declines. In poorer parts of the world babies are an annual event. Create decent high standards of living and the population will stop growing.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
Yeah, again I don't really disagree. If they were the only green activists they would be counter productive for the reasons you state. But they are not, their contribution is to provide attention, others can provide the logic and solutions.
It may have been the economy that won it for Bill Clinton in 1992, but in 2022, it was a mix of the economy and abortion rights that has hopefully saved America – and the world – from another term of President Donald Trump. Women – young, old, black, Latina, suburban and rural – came out in their millions to vote Democrat last Tuesday. Unlike King Canute, the women of America held back the Republican wave that threatened to engulf the country’s democracy.
The exit polls speak for themselves. The latest from NBC News show that 53 per cent of female voters chose the Democrats, compared to only 45 per cent of men. It’s the women’s vote, stupid.
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This is bizarre, dressing it up as historical reparations when you could call it insurance for the future, is a red rag to the imperialists. I wonder whether this is deliberate on the part of critical race theorists because reparations is more of a humiliation for whitey.
I cannot speculate as to the reason, but it appears to be another area where people are insistent in sticking with poor framing rather than argue the point in a way which won't be counter productive.
Make people feel they are being selfless and generous in doing it, rather than demanding it for the sins of their forebears, seems better to me.
It may have been the economy that won it for Bill Clinton in 1992, but in 2022, it was a mix of the economy and abortion rights that has hopefully saved America – and the world – from another term of President Donald Trump. Women – young, old, black, Latina, suburban and rural – came out in their millions to vote Democrat last Tuesday. Unlike King Canute, the women of America held back the Republican wave that threatened to engulf the country’s democracy.
The exit polls speak for themselves. The latest from NBC News show that 53 per cent of female voters chose the Democrats, compared to only 45 per cent of men. It’s the women’s vote, stupid.
One of the reasons EFTA (or similar) was not entertained was simply that Brexiters were so high on their own supply they could not concede that there was any merit at all in doing so.
After all, there were no downsides to Brexit, only considerable upsides; Minford predicted Brexit would deliver falling prices and economic *growth*; a US trade deal was in the wings, and of course the EU was a sclerotic hellhole anyway.
Once Brexiters return to reality-based thinking, and there are signs that this has started, EFTA (or similar) starts to look viable.
FWIW, I said on here before and after the vote I'd be ok with EFTA or EEA-EFTA with an emergency brake on migration.
It's effectively what Cameron said he was trying to negotiate for (albeit inside the EU) and failed to get.
Did you say your wife was from Bulgaria? I had a UBER driver from Bulgaria yesterday. He was fluent in four languages. English french Russian and 'Jewish' As he described it -presumably Hebrew. He came to the UK in 2015 and left after Brexit in 2017 then Israel then France picking up a language driving cabs everywhere he went. He was astonished at the ignorance he found in the UK during the EU debate. It's not often you meet Bulgarians but if your wife is as cultured as Stanisav then you shouln't be short of things to talk about
You're not a proper PBer until you've had an Albanian in a taxi driver by an AI robot.
I have got that right haven't I?
Albanian *Black Cab* driver.
“…. all these politicians today. Bunch of snowflakes and idiots. I ‘ad that King Zog in the back, once, Proper gent, tipped right. Not like these bleeding furriners you get all over Tirana these days…. Right, that £143.26. No, I don’t take cards.”
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
Not recognising the progress made to date is a bigger deal than you suggest. If someone cannot accept facts or recognise truth their other claims are undermined and potentially persuadeable people might remain unpersuaded. After all, if someone lies about progress achieved, ignores it, or simply cannot see it, what else are they wrong about?
I have a lot of admiration for the non-Hallams in their ranks, whose persistent passion and energy I think has played a role in shifting the attitude of society and still can.
But you can be passionate and unyielding without ignoring genuine achievements or adopting childish interpretations with stubborn pride at the simplicity. A tipping point might be reached where they stop making headway because, politically, they don't want to admit when they've had some success!
Sympathy is quite different from admiration. I don't admire them, but I do have some sympathy for them and lots for their cause.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
Yeah, again I don't really disagree. If they were the only green activists they would be counter productive for the reasons you state. But they are not, their contribution is to provide attention, others can provide the logic and solutions.
That only works so long as they tread a careful line and people don't end up associating the whole lot with the loonies. So far they haven't, but too much attention on them and the attention to the useful parts of the movement can suffer.
One of the reasons EFTA (or similar) was not entertained was simply that Brexiters were so high on their own supply they could not concede that there was any merit at all in doing so.
After all, there were no downsides to Brexit, only considerable upsides; Minford predicted Brexit would deliver falling prices and economic *growth*; a US trade deal was in the wings, and of course the EU was a sclerotic hellhole anyway.
Once Brexiters return to reality-based thinking, and there are signs that this has started, EFTA (or similar) starts to look viable.
FWIW, I said on here before and after the vote I'd be ok with EFTA or EEA-EFTA with an emergency brake on migration.
It's effectively what Cameron said he was trying to negotiate for (albeit inside the EU) and failed to get.
Did you say your wife was from Bulgaria? I had a UBER driver from Bulgaria yesterday. He was fluent in four languages. English french Russian and 'Jewish' As he described it -presumably Hebrew. He came to the UK in 2015 and left after Brexit in 2017 then Israel then France picking up a language driving cabs everywhere he went. He was astonished at the ignorance he found in the UK during the EU debate. It's not often you meet Bulgarians but if your wife is as cultured as Stanisav then you shouln't be short of things to talk about
You're not a proper PBer until you've had an Albanian in a taxi driver by an AI robot.
I have got that right haven't I?
Albanian *Black Cab* driver.
“…. all these politicians today. Bunch of snowflakes and idiots. I ‘ad that King Zog in the back, once, Proper gent, tipped right. Not like these bleeding furriners you get all over Tirana these days…. Right, that £143.26. No, I don’t take cards.”
Doesn't take cards? Bit of a missed opportunity if people just hand them over...
I note control of the House is coming down to CA and NY, they'll take months to count.
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that whatever the final count the Republican performance has been pisspoor.
In these economic circumstances they should have won the House by a huge margin and had at least a four seat majority in the Senate.
If they can't win big in the midterms in the middle of economic crisis and with a President who, charitably, sometimes looks rather past it then it's very hard to see them retaking the White House.
If Trump is the Republican candidate or runs as an Independent then the Democrats should walk it. The Republicans best hope is if Trump is in jail for any one of his crimes.
The Republicans’ best hope is if Trump dies. All the investigations go away. They can appeal to his fans by saying how great he was, but they can get a better candidate in place.
Unlikely to be soon enough though. Mid 70s, lifelong abstinence from booze and fags. Many actuarial years left.
Rather than the fat unhealthy looking saddo we see in reality? He flatters to deceive.
He may be fat and unhealthy in general, but not dead in next couple of years unhealthy.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I don't think it's particularly helpful to dwell on the details of the absolute worst case scenario, but, in the event that climate change damages agriculture to the extent of creating a deficit of 1-2 billion in the number of people the world can feed, then things will turn very nasty until the population declines to the level that can be fed.
We feed more people than ever thought possible 50 years ago. Climate change provides opportunity too. Humans are infinitely adaptable. The best way to get population down is to raise standards of living. In the west people delay children while having careers, and then the population declines. In poorer parts of the world babies are an annual event. Create decent high standards of living and the population will stop growing.
I think you're arguing against someone else. A lot of those are arguments I've used against those people who think the population size is the biggest climate change problem.
I'm hopeful that we will avoid the worst case scenario by a wide margin, and be able to continue to feed the global population as it peaks, and then begins to decline later this century.
However there are many currently very agriculturally productive areas that are very vulnerable to climate change. There are definitely downside risks.
It may have been the economy that won it for Bill Clinton in 1992, but in 2022, it was a mix of the economy and abortion rights that has hopefully saved America – and the world – from another term of President Donald Trump. Women – young, old, black, Latina, suburban and rural – came out in their millions to vote Democrat last Tuesday. Unlike King Canute, the women of America held back the Republican wave that threatened to engulf the country’s democracy.
The exit polls speak for themselves. The latest from NBC News show that 53 per cent of female voters chose the Democrats, compared to only 45 per cent of men. It’s the women’s vote, stupid.
There are many ways to slice & dice the vote to get a message to suit but this is one I do like. That Trump is a misogynist is clear to anyone paying attention and there's karma aplenty in him being rendered unelectable because of insufficient support from women.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I don't think it's particularly helpful to dwell on the details of the absolute worst case scenario, but, in the event that climate change damages agriculture to the extent of creating a deficit of 1-2 billion in the number of people the world can feed, then things will turn very nasty until the population declines to the level that can be fed.
We feed more people than ever thought possible 50 years ago. Climate change provides opportunity too. Humans are infinitely adaptable. The best way to get population down is to raise standards of living. In the west people delay children while having careers, and then the population declines. In poorer parts of the world babies are an annual event. Create decent high standards of living and the population will stop growing.
Humans are not infinitely adaptable, don't be silly. They die like flies at a wet bulb temperature of over 35C, or when there is nothing to eat because of crop failure.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
‘The science’ is a poor phrase. There are lots of models of what happened. Recently the more extreme outcomes are being shown to be increasingly unlikely. Mitigation will be essential. I am less convinced of the need to remove CO2. I am not convinced of what the ‘correct’ temperature of the planet is. It’s possible, that in the long run, a slightly warmer world may be better. The hard bit is making sure it does impact on billions of people en route to that. Pakistan was horrific (and under reported in navel gazing Britain, obsessed by our pointless government shenanigans). Floods have always happened in the area, but it’s highly likely climate change has worsened the effects, and frankly it doesn’t matter to the person who’s home has been destroyed.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
Not recognising the progress made to date is a bigger deal than you suggest. If someone cannot accept facts or recognise truth their other claims are undermined and potentially persuadeable people might remain unpersuaded. After all, if someone lies about progress achieved, ignores it, or simply cannot see it, what else are they wrong about?
I have a lot of admiration for the non-Hallams in their ranks, whose persistent passion and energy I think has played a role in shifting the attitude of society and still can.
But you can be passionate and unyielding without ignoring genuine achievements or adopting childish interpretations with stubborn pride at the simplicity. A tipping point might be reached where they stop making headway because, politically, they don't want to admit when they've had some success!
Sympathy is quite different from admiration. I don't admire them, but I do have some sympathy for them and lots for their cause.
A lot of people do. That's why the idiot ones need to not squander that goodwill. Plenty of good work for the cause might be missed.
I'm not even saying stop protesting and attention seeking. That can have value. Just that ignoring facts because the cause justifies it will hurt them eventually.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
Rejoining would be the 21st century answer to the Restoration of 1660.
It would further entrench a corrupt governing class, damage representative government, tie us to an absolutist foreign government and need another revolution a few decades later.
So, yes, the parallels are good.
Should we also expect another great fire and plague several years afterwards?
On the upside, Leon would probably enjoy the new social mores.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
You might be right, but I rule them out more based on the evidence of past climate, and the known responses that have been observed. Modelling works with assumptions, ensembles have a range of assumptions. Those at the extremes are useful but are also unlikely, and recent work is showing that the large increases in temperature some studies have suggested are not going to happen.
I agree that my phrase infinitely adaptable was too strong, but we are good at finding solutions.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
That reduces it to a "go and tell the king the sky is falling" absurdity, when it clearly isn't. We very possibly very nearly went extinct 70,000 odd years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory We would have been pushed to survive (i.e. would not have survived) any of the 5 or 6 great extinction events which we got through by virtue of being little creeping things at the time. And "But here we are" only means that nothing has happened which has not been survived by at least one breeding pair of humans, it says nothing about the pleasantness of the fate of the non survivors.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
You appear to be mixing up predictions based on ignorance of how things work, with ones based on an increasing understanding of how things work.
I am not going to ignore just about every climate scientist in the world because some ancient civilisation thought the sun was a God that might be displeased with us.
Er... 'targeting the wealthy' would require a wealth tax, surely? This is targeting the high-earners; not necessarily the same thing.
Are you saying that it's ok to earn shedloads as long as you spend it? Targeting wealth rather than income penalises prudence and modest lifestyles.
And ignoring wealth allows windfall gains on asset price to create a massive damaging divide in society between the generations. Especially as those windfall gains over the last decade are mostly due to govt funded QE.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
That reduces it to a "go and tell the king the sky is falling" absurdity, when it clearly isn't. We very possibly very nearly went extinct 70,000 odd years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory We would have been pushed to survive (i.e. would not have survived) any of the 5 or 6 great extinction events which we got through by virtue of being little creeping things at the time. And "But here we are" only means that nothing has happened which has not been survived by at least one breeding pair of humans, it says nothing about the pleasantness of the fate of the non survivors.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
You appear to be mixing up predictions based on ignorance of how things work, with ones based on an increasing understanding of how things work.
I am not going to ignore just about every climate scientist in the world because some ancient civilisation thought the sun was a God that might be displeased with us.
@algarkirk is a Lyellian uniformitarian, a doctrine which has taken one hell of a beating since a cocky little bastard started asking questions aqbout iridium deposits.
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
I wonder how @Cyclefree would react to “desperate organisations … will go foolishly deep into grey areas”
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
People are starting to say Elon Musk isn't actually a real engineer. But he definitely said "I don't know why people think Twitter is so complicated. I could fix it in like a weekend." And then proceeded to fuck everything up. That's exactly like an engineer. https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1591233043075067907
I have piled on Republicans taking the House at 1.21 and I'm desperately hoping to lose my bet.
I'm out of it now at a pathetically small profit but I think you'll win. Using my "in play Ryder Cup singles" methodology I make it much shorter than that.
England forward Beth Mead says her recent comments about diversity in the Lionesses squad were "not a true reflection" of her values.
Her crime? For daring to speak the truth.
Nice of Ian Wright to give her a call and bully her into changing her stance. Makes one feel all warm and fuzzy.
usual bollox, if they are not picking the best players there is an issue, otherwise there is no way you should be selected by your skin colour just to get a quota.
I don't think it's usual to have bollox in women's football.
Of course, who knows where we're headed on that at this moment?
Many long years ago I played netball in a mixed league in NZ. Each team had to have a minimum of three female players. There was one team of trans players (or at least, chaps who preferred to play netball as women). They were allowed to play with any number of testicles on the pitch at a time…
I always get muddled up between netball and basketball.
Are you supposed to hold the balls or just slap them away?
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
I wonder how @Cyclefree would react to “desperate organisations … will go foolishly deep into grey areas”
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
Of course they might be right. Predictions of the apocalypse are as old as time. Meteors; sun ceasing to shine; moon turns to blood; divine action to end world; new ice age (I remember that one); radiation from the sun; new Black death; floods; drought; aliens; laws of nature change overnight (never forget the problem of induction).
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
You appear to be mixing up predictions based on ignorance of how things work, with ones based on an increasing understanding of how things work.
I am not going to ignore just about every climate scientist in the world because some ancient civilisation thought the sun was a God that might be displeased with us.
Predictions of the apocalypse are what they are. Yes we get better, though not very good, at predicting. I think the crisis is real and I don't ignore the science.
BTW the science needs practical application. What to do about probabilities is called politics. For example the eco warriors tend to reject Direct Air Capture Technology. But there are those who think it's essential.
Even had we voted Remain in due course we would have ended up on the outer edge with non Eurozone Sweden, Denmark and Poland and Hungary while the rest moved full steam ahead to federal union.
Yes, exactly (except fuller union of the core won't be anything like at 'full steam ahead', more like a snail's pace with long periods of stasis, if it ever happens at all). We'd have had the best of all possible positions: all the advantages of full EU membership, without the excessive bits. It is such an extraordinary tragedy that we, of our own volition, threw it away. As I predicted at the time, we'll spend at least a decade, perhaps longer, painfully trying to claw back some of the lost ground, but we'll never get back to such a favourable position as we had.
And all of it easily avoided if the arrogant clueless europhiles had only given the British people a vote on earlier moments of integration - as they so often promised, yet failed to do
This constant fraudulence led inexorably to the fatal rupture of total Brexit. Consider this
Yes, the EU as it was circa 2005 almost everybody could have lived with*. A halfway house, fine. Had Cameron tried that little bit harder to achieve such a thing, and to sell it he would have carried the day. Sadly, he thought all he had to was reject the Eurosceptics. Inasmuch as he thought about Euroscepticism, he thought it was confined to a fringe of his own party and an even smaller fringe of the far left. He thought that the country thought like Witney. But given Lisbon we had no way to trust that we wouldn't be dragged in further. Blair wanted to be at the heart of Europe, remember, and wanted to join the Euro. Why would we trust our political classes on Europe? So in a forced choice of wholly in or wholly out, out wins.
*Not me. I was a leaver long before it was unfashionable. But even I was a soft Brexiteer.
Cameron worked very hard and was a good executive chair but was never a deep thinker.
I think he was just a committed europhile. A more neutral PM on the issue could have combined a robust negotiation with some meaningful domestic changes to benefits etc., and come up with a respectable package that would have romped home in the referendum. He didn't want that - he thought the threat of leave would mean that he could force the UK population to swallow the whole hog. Every Euro thing they pushed through after that he'd have reminded anyone who opposed of the 'ringing British endorsement of the EU' etc. Silly and destructive.
Exactly.
The idea that a Remain vote would have seen us a member of an "outer" group is risible - we would have been sucked into the inner core, with the Remain vote used as justification.
The history of British engagement in the EU since the turn of the millennium says otherwise. Staying out of the Euro, exercising the veto, securing carve outs. The history of the EU itself isn’t much different either.
At most we might have had to give up a bit more rebate and agreed to QM voting. The federal superstate thing was always more of a figment of the imagination. Even after the Euro crisis and bailouts the EU is no more integrated now than it was in 2010.
A very rose-tinted view of the situation. Not falsifiable - but also doesn't take into consideration the principle of the ratchet.
It's also false, the EU has used the COVID crisis to write pooled sovereignty debt, something we were assured would never happen. Remainers used to call anyone who suggested that the UK would end up underwriting Italian or Romanian debt a conspiracy theorist and yet had we not left it would be happening now. The Dutch can shout to from rooftops about how this is a one off as much as they like but the principle is established and the mechanism will be normalised over the next decade and when it comes time for the EU to pay off the debt it will also establish its own tax framework.
All of that was said to be impossible. We were assured numerous times that it was impossible for the EU to carry debt of this scale and the idea of a eurobond was fantastical. And yet.
"Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, saying the UK has a “historical responsibility” to pay out"
This will be the same Ed Miliband who pulled the plug on our taking a robust view on the Russian involvement (chemical weapons and all) in Syria. Emboldening Russia to then invade Ukraine because of our feeble response.
Want to talk "historical responsibilty", Ed?
What was the UK going to do to prevent the Russian adventure in Syria if Miliband Minor hadn't flapped his gob?
Based on what we have seen in Ukraine, shoot down enough of the Russian airforce (either ourselves and/or via supplies of MANPADs) so the barrel-bomb dropping bastards legged it back to Mother Russia.
The Russian air force should have a chicken as its logo.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
Yeah, again I don't really disagree. If they were the only green activists they would be counter productive for the reasons you state. But they are not, their contribution is to provide attention, others can provide the logic and solutions.
That only works so long as they tread a careful line and people don't end up associating the whole lot with the loonies. So far they haven't, but too much attention on them and the attention to the useful parts of the movement can suffer.
I think people are able to distinguish. Same happens with the right: a little of people vote conservative (or indeed UKIP/BXP/REF) despite knowing there are certifiable loons on the margins of the former and making up the core of the latter 2, because they get worried about boats, or woke. The loons have a big role in bringing issues to the front.
Likewise people get very worried about climate change and habitat destruction, and the likes of ER and just stop oil increase the salience and coverage, even though most people are inclined to think the protestors themselves are loons. Same is true of Greta Thunberg: I don’t think many people would want her in charge of energy policy for the EU but she has served an important narrative purpose.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
"continuing to increase how much this is each year"
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
By the way, question: are ER, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil all the same bunch, just rebranding to keep themselves fresh? Or are they separate and even competing organisations?
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
"continuing to increase how much this is each year"
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
Agree about UK, but I am not talking about UK but the planet. One tiny island group in the North Atlantic is pretty marginal to the process.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
"continuing to increase how much this is each year"
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
Yes, in the same way that Labour haven't articulated how they intend to collect billions in a windfall tax from the Qatari state, these oil protestors haven't yet articulated how irritating protests here will stop China and Germany from installing new coal plants and opening new lignite mines. Go and protest outside those embassies
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
I wonder how @Cyclefree would react to “desperate organisations … will go foolishly deep into grey areas”
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
And predictions have error bars. This site can't even call general elections and US mid terms consistently right 24 hours out, despite the pitifully few and well studied variables. When you say "doom laden extreme stories of climate change" you are implicitly ruling out the extremes not because they are unlikely but because they are uncomfortable. You can't do that. They might be right.
You might be right, but I rule them out more based on the evidence of past climate, and the known responses that have been observed. Modelling works with assumptions, ensembles have a range of assumptions. Those at the extremes are useful but are also unlikely, and recent work is showing that the large increases in temperature some studies have suggested are not going to happen.
I agree that my phrase infinitely adaptable was too strong, but we are good at finding solutions.
My take is that we can be very confident in the climate models now given the almost perfectly linear response to emissions up to date. The main variable affecting predictions vs reality has been emissions themselves ie the inputs.
I don’t see any real signs of runaway warming or phase changes. So the 2-3C midpoint looks fairly nailed on to me unless something disastrous happens. Also highly unlikely we keep below 2C unless net zero conversion happens extremely quickly.
We are more adaptable than people assume, I agree. The long term worry is the fact that even at todays temperatures Greenland and West Antarctica will keep melting and sea level will keep rising. That is one verifiable tipping point I think we’ve reached. That does render a lot of land vulnerable.
By the way, question: are ER, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil all the same bunch, just rebranding to keep themselves fresh? Or are they separate and even competing organisations?
IB was founded by a group of ER members. JSO seems to be separate.
One of the reasons EFTA (or similar) was not entertained was simply that Brexiters were so high on their own supply they could not concede that there was any merit at all in doing so.
After all, there were no downsides to Brexit, only considerable upsides; Minford predicted Brexit would deliver falling prices and economic *growth*; a US trade deal was in the wings, and of course the EU was a sclerotic hellhole anyway.
Once Brexiters return to reality-based thinking, and there are signs that this has started, EFTA (or similar) starts to look viable.
FWIW, I said on here before and after the vote I'd be ok with EFTA or EEA-EFTA with an emergency brake on migration.
It's effectively what Cameron said he was trying to negotiate for (albeit inside the EU) and failed to get.
Did you say your wife was from Bulgaria? I had a UBER driver from Bulgaria yesterday. He was fluent in four languages. English french Russian and 'Jewish' As he described it -presumably Hebrew. He came to the UK in 2015 and left after Brexit in 2017 then Israel then France picking up a language driving cabs everywhere he went. He was astonished at the ignorance he found in the UK during the EU debate. It's not often you meet Bulgarians but if your wife is as cultured as Stanisav then you shouln't be short of things to talk about
With respect, what does the national origin of my wife have to do it?
This is very patronising.
The insinuation you're making is I must be some sort of hypocrite because I married a foreigner, and being a "Leaver" means you're a blood and soil nationalist and that's only consistent if you don't believe in associating with anyone who's not true born English.
That says a lot about your prejudices, not mine.
(by the way, she voted Leave)
Bit touchy to a compliment there!
I've had several UTOA Remainer mention my wife's nationality in recent days whenever the subject of Brexit comes up.
By the way, question: are ER, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil all the same bunch, just rebranding to keep themselves fresh? Or are they separate and even competing organisations?
I think it's People's Front of Judea stuff and they're all fishing in the same pond.
Even had we voted Remain in due course we would have ended up on the outer edge with non Eurozone Sweden, Denmark and Poland and Hungary while the rest moved full steam ahead to federal union.
Yes, exactly (except fuller union of the core won't be anything like at 'full steam ahead', more like a snail's pace with long periods of stasis, if it ever happens at all). We'd have had the best of all possible positions: all the advantages of full EU membership, without the excessive bits. It is such an extraordinary tragedy that we, of our own volition, threw it away. As I predicted at the time, we'll spend at least a decade, perhaps longer, painfully trying to claw back some of the lost ground, but we'll never get back to such a favourable position as we had.
And all of it easily avoided if the arrogant clueless europhiles had only given the British people a vote on earlier moments of integration - as they so often promised, yet failed to do
This constant fraudulence led inexorably to the fatal rupture of total Brexit. Consider this
Yes, the EU as it was circa 2005 almost everybody could have lived with*. A halfway house, fine. Had Cameron tried that little bit harder to achieve such a thing, and to sell it he would have carried the day. Sadly, he thought all he had to was reject the Eurosceptics. Inasmuch as he thought about Euroscepticism, he thought it was confined to a fringe of his own party and an even smaller fringe of the far left. He thought that the country thought like Witney. But given Lisbon we had no way to trust that we wouldn't be dragged in further. Blair wanted to be at the heart of Europe, remember, and wanted to join the Euro. Why would we trust our political classes on Europe? So in a forced choice of wholly in or wholly out, out wins.
*Not me. I was a leaver long before it was unfashionable. But even I was a soft Brexiteer.
Cameron worked very hard and was a good executive chair but was never a deep thinker.
I think he was just a committed europhile. A more neutral PM on the issue could have combined a robust negotiation with some meaningful domestic changes to benefits etc., and come up with a respectable package that would have romped home in the referendum. He didn't want that - he thought the threat of leave would mean that he could force the UK population to swallow the whole hog. Every Euro thing they pushed through after that he'd have reminded anyone who opposed of the 'ringing British endorsement of the EU' etc. Silly and destructive.
Exactly.
The idea that a Remain vote would have seen us a member of an "outer" group is risible - we would have been sucked into the inner core, with the Remain vote used as justification.
The history of British engagement in the EU since the turn of the millennium says otherwise. Staying out of the Euro, exercising the veto, securing carve outs. The history of the EU itself isn’t much different either.
At most we might have had to give up a bit more rebate and agreed to QM voting. The federal superstate thing was always more of a figment of the imagination. Even after the Euro crisis and bailouts the EU is no more integrated now than it was in 2010.
A very rose-tinted view of the situation. Not falsifiable - but also doesn't take into consideration the principle of the ratchet.
It's also false, the EU has used the COVID crisis to write pooled sovereignty debt, something we were assured would never happen. Remainers used to call anyone who suggested that the UK would end up underwriting Italian or Romanian debt a conspiracy theorist and yet had we not left it would be happening now. The Dutch can shout to from rooftops about how this is a one off as much as they like but the principle is established and the mechanism will be normalised over the next decade and when it comes time for the EU to pay off the debt it will also establish its own tax framework.
All of that was said to be impossible. We were assured numerous times that it was impossible for the EU to carry debt of this scale and the idea of a eurobond was fantastical. And yet.
Anyone who believed fanciful stories about the EU and money once there was the Euro and the ECB deserves all they get. Currencies are what they are and the rules don't change really.
(Remarkably the SNP know this in relation to the pound but not the Euro! Perhaps their single biggest weakness, to be put alongside the high fences at Gretna and Berwick.)
I have piled on Republicans taking the House at 1.21 and I'm desperately hoping to lose my bet.
I'm out of it now at a pathetically small profit but I think you'll win. Using my "in play Ryder Cup singles" methodology I make it much shorter than that.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
"continuing to increase how much this is each year"
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
Agree about UK, but I am not talking about UK but the planet. One tiny island group in the North Atlantic is pretty marginal to the process.
Then anyone blocking that island's motorways etc is anti science, aren't they?
By the way, question: are ER, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil all the same bunch, just rebranding to keep themselves fresh? Or are they separate and even competing organisations?
I think it's People's Front of Judea stuff and they're all fishing in the same pond.
They are not necessarily the same organisation but the same people are involved in all of them. This fella, for example, has been prominent in both ER and IB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hallam_(activist)
Er... 'targeting the wealthy' would require a wealth tax, surely? This is targeting the high-earners; not necessarily the same thing.
Are you saying that it's ok to earn shedloads as long as you spend it? Targeting wealth rather than income penalises prudence and modest lifestyles.
And ignoring wealth allows windfall gains on asset price to create a massive damaging divide in society between the generations. Especially as those windfall gains over the last decade are mostly due to govt funded QE.
Also the thresholds on a WT can be set such that people whose wealth has accrued principally from prudence and a modest lifestyle are wholly or largely unaffected.
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
I wonder how @Cyclefree would react to “desperate organisations … will go foolishly deep into grey areas”
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
In a decade, there has been exactly one referendum, which was lost.
Pretty unsurprising- nobody wants to pay more tax, irrespective of the prevailing level.of tax. And in the short term, there's always a way to put off the evil day, often by postponing the sort of repairs and rebuilds that need to happen sometime.
Thurrock screwed up badly, investing too much borrowed money in something questionable. But the underlying principle- using capital to chase returns to fill revenue gaps- is something that pretty much every council does, because the financial landscape set by the government leaves them little choice.
I have piled on Republicans taking the House at 1.21 and I'm desperately hoping to lose my bet.
It seems insane to me. Not at the level on betting on trump to lose the election after the election but definitely in the zone.
I've put another chunk on this morning at 1.21
It's almost entirely wiped out my Senate losses now.
If we get to Republicans on 216 or 217 seats with the final 2-3 seats looking (cosmetically) still close I expect the odds to drift to 1.5-1.6 so I'm saving back some cash for that too.
I have piled on Republicans taking the House at 1.21 and I'm desperately hoping to lose my bet.
I'm out of it now at a pathetically small profit but I think you'll win. Using my "in play Ryder Cup singles" methodology I make it much shorter than that.
Why did you trade out?
It was a combo of the amount on - bigger than my norm for a "buying money" bet - and the inexplicable (to me) volatility of it and the possible long settlement period, also this vague sense that maybe there might be something funny in there involving challenges and court cases and all of that stuff I now associate with US elections. So I put some overnight open lays on at various sub 1.1 prices and, lo, this morning found they'd all been taken.
Solar energy firm Toucan has fallen into administration after racking up more than half a billion pounds in debt to a local authority in Essex, England https://trib.al/1DDI7RZ
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.
Given what's happened in the Electricity market, solar farms ought to be making unprecedented windfall profits, not falling into bankruptcy.
Something very, very dodgy has surely happened there. Hope it gets a criminal investigation.
More to the point WTF was Essex County Council doing lending £665 million to a commercial entity?
As for why... I've not been following the scandal in detail, but there have been a few cases of councils doing questionable investments in the hope that the profits will prop up the council budget. After all, if your government grants are falling and you aren't allowed to raise Council Tax much and you need more money to fund social care, what are you meant to do?
How about using the money you have to fund social care rather than pissing it away in dodgy dealings?
Councils are businesses too. If the money they have isn't sufficient, shouldn't they try to increase their income?
Unfortunately, they can't raise Council Tax because the Government won't let them - they can't dispose of assets because the funds raised can't be used to fund services and they can't borrow from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in Investment Property or other similar investments because the Government again won't let them.
it seems curious a Conservative Government won't allow Conservative-run councils to act in a more overtly business like way.
The next stage for struggling Councils is a Section 114 notice and the Government then sends in Commissioners to tell you how to run your council.
There’s a fundamental misconception in your analysis. Councils are not businesses.
Yes they should spend wisely, be careful how they allocate capital, keep overheads to a minimum and seek to enhance growth. That’s all standard stuff.
But they raise taxes in order to fund public services. They are not raising taxes to provide a pool of capital for investment.
The catch with that argument- which is a strong one- is the practical cap on Council Tax increases (thanks to the referendum rule) coupled with big increases in social care needs. The numbers don't really add up, and even some non-messed up councils are looking nervously over their shoulders at looming Section 114 notices. (Special Measures or bankruptcy for councils).
Desperate organisations are like desperate people. They will go foolishly deep into grey areas to try and make things work.
I wonder how @Cyclefree would react to “desperate organisations … will go foolishly deep into grey areas”
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
I had some sympathy with ER when it was created. But now? According to Roger Hallam:
‘So what will happen is episodes where someone, a gang of young men, come into your house, they take your girlfriend, they take your mother, they put her on to the table, and they gang rape her, in front of you, and then after that they take a hot stick and they poke out your eyes and they blind you. That’s the reality of the annihilation project that you face.’
I find it quite easy to maintain some sympathy for them, find them a pain at times and expect a lot of their activists to be twats.
Yes they are annoying at times, but on the big picture they are broadly right, apart from not recognising the progress made to date. They are part of ensuring we continue to make and accelerate progress, which is more important than the annoyance.
It is also a credit to our society that they can do what they do.
I find them incoherent and scientifically illiterate. One spokesperson on the radio yesterday said that if the U.K. government issues new fossil fuel seeking permission, 50 % of the food supply will fail next year. How? It was gibberish. There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though. What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
I don't particularly disagree with you, but still think they are a useful part of ensuring we have enough attention and momentum on how we can protect the environment.
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
They risk alienating people if they continue with their stunts. I want the world to be fully sustainable for all as as soon as possible, and the world is working on that. The image these idiots give is that they would rather go back to 1500 as a way of life, rather than try to move forward.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
On CO2, it is continuing to be emitted, and continuing to increase how much this is each year, and once there at the moment there it stays. Recently it has been accepted that 1.5C limit won't be met (though this has been obvious for years to normal people). It is only a matter of time until higher figures won't be met either.
The only options are: mitigation a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it) huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look) hope the science is wrong novus actus interveniens find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
"continuing to increase how much this is each year"
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
Yes, in the same way that Labour haven't articulated how they intend to collect billions in a windfall tax from the Qatari state, these oil protestors haven't yet articulated how irritating protests here will stop China and Germany from installing new coal plants and opening new lignite mines. Go and protest outside those embassies
Indeed these scientifically ignorant fools are probably harming the cause more than they help it.
The UK has spent years and lots of money adapting to cleaner technologies to reduce our emissions, leading by example what the rest of the world are doing.
We need to encourage the rest of the world to do what we are doing, but instead leaders of other countries will look at what is happening here and be thinking that raising the profile of climate change is the last thing they want to do. That if they do, even reducing their own emissions won't avoid civil disturbance.
Comments
How? It was gibberish.
There has been huge progress by governments and we are pushing hard. Some of the present CoL crisis is undoubtedly due to green policies over the last twenty years. Still the right thing to do though.
What does ‘Just stop oil’ want? Do they want no more oil products to be used as of today? Have they thought through the implications?
Fair does, the Russian armed forces must be the finest drilled in the world at retreating. Morale must be horrific though.
When I played any given sport, I preferred to keep the soles of my feet on the pitch as far as possible.
Your alternative sounds - painful.
In terms of the house that’s still not called and the big question there in California , some suggestions that late votes there are breaking for the Dems which could see some Rep incumbents losing their seats .
The Reps are still strong favourites for the House but it could be an absolute razor thin margin .
See Paul Kingsnorth:
https://orionmagazine.org/article/confessions-of-a-recovering-environmentalist/
Long essay but he nails it. Extract:
"...green politics was fast becoming a refuge for disillusioned socialists, Trots, Marxists, and a ragbag of fellow travelers who could no longer believe in communism or the Labour Party or even George Galloway, and who saw in green politics a promising bolthole. In they all trooped, with their Stop-the-War banners and their Palestinian solidarity scarves, and with them they brought a new sensibility.
Now it seemed that environmentalism was not about wildness or ecocentrism or the other-than-human world and our relationship to it. Instead it was about (human) social justice and (human) equality and (human) progress and ensuring that all these things could be realized without degrading the (human) resource base that we used to call nature back when we were being naïve and problematic ...."
Rishi Sunak is planning to target the wealthy in bid to balance books by dragging 250,000 into 45p rate of income tax
The Times has been told he’s likely to lower 45p rate threshold from £150,000 to £125,000
Move will raise £1.3bn
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1591352315931680769
Want to talk "historical responsibilty", Ed?
But some councils did go too far. The issue was salient at least as long ago as 1991!
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12177255.day-the-bank-went-broke/
https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1591356755690524677
A team of academics might have a more coherent plan, but neither plan is going to get implemented anyway, and the academic with the better plan has less utility if they can't get enough attention.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1591181876815106048
Gobsmacking. Calling for Putin's death and a Russian revolution.
The butthurt in para 1 is hilarious.
I think, for a lot of them, they have swallowed the doom laden extreme stories of climate change rather too well. The 20 year old I heard on the radio declares herself as terrified for the future. The autistic Norwegian was terrified.
We have done this by using scare tactics to bring about change. Recognise that tactic? We did the same over covid, and now we have people not leaving their houses for three years.
Actions have consequences.
The daughter blown up by the Ukrainians for being supportive of Putin.*
The father about to suffer a mysterious fall from a window for pissing Putin off.
*although that was probably a mistake, as it seems they were after her father.
https://twitter.com/dragos78/status/1591182276465152001
I have a lot of admiration for the non-Hallams in their ranks, whose persistent passion and energy I think has played a role in shifting the attitude of society and still can.
But you can be passionate and unyielding without ignoring genuine achievements or adopting childish interpretations with stubborn pride at the simplicity. A tipping point might be reached where they stop making headway because, politically, they don't want to admit when they've had some success!
It may have been the economy that won it for Bill Clinton in 1992, but in 2022, it was a mix of the economy and abortion rights that has hopefully saved America – and the world – from another term of President Donald Trump. Women – young, old, black, Latina, suburban and rural – came out in their millions to vote Democrat last Tuesday. Unlike King Canute, the women of America held back the Republican wave that threatened to engulf the country’s democracy.
The exit polls speak for themselves. The latest from NBC News show that 53 per cent of female voters chose the Democrats, compared to only 45 per cent of men. It’s the women’s vote, stupid.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/donald-trump-has-discovered-the-power-of-womens-votes-to-his-cost-keir-starmer-and-anas-sarwar-should-take-heed-susan-dalgety-3914928
Make people feel they are being selfless and generous in doing it, rather than demanding it for the sins of their forebears, seems better to me.
https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022
“…. all these politicians today. Bunch of snowflakes and idiots. I ‘ad that King Zog in the back, once, Proper gent, tipped right. Not like these bleeding furriners you get all over Tirana these days…. Right, that £143.26. No, I don’t take cards.”
The only options are:
mitigation
a long term reduction in CO2 output (this will take a lot of decades so get over it)
huge hoovers a la Climeworks (worth a look)
hope the science is wrong
novus actus interveniens
find the upsides (Greenland bananas, Siberia becomes habitable).
The completely useless people are those who simply reject the science; the mirror image of the quasi religious eco fascists.
SF 32% (+2)
DUP 27% (+3)
Alliance 15% (-1)
UUP 9% (-2)
SDLP 7% (-)
TUV 5% (-1)
https://twitter.com/SuzyJourno/status/1591191161468702720?s=20&t=y9WqJCI6HlpOuzcF3cmdoA
I'm hopeful that we will avoid the worst case scenario by a wide margin, and be able to continue to feed the global population as it peaks, and then begins to decline later this century.
However there are many currently very agriculturally productive areas that are very vulnerable to climate change. There are definitely downside risks.
The hard bit is making sure it does impact on billions of people en route to that. Pakistan was horrific (and under reported in navel gazing Britain, obsessed by our pointless government shenanigans). Floods have always happened in the area, but it’s highly likely climate change has worsened the effects, and frankly it doesn’t matter to the person who’s home has been destroyed.
I'm not even saying stop protesting and attention seeking. That can have value. Just that ignoring facts because the cause justifies it will hurt them eventually.
But here we are. They have all been wrong so far. Yes, they might be right this time. That's always been true.
I agree that my phrase infinitely adaptable was too strong, but we are good at finding solutions.
I am not going to ignore just about every climate scientist in the world because some ancient civilisation thought the sun was a God that might be displeased with us.
[as an aside it is deeply depressing that some of the malevolent elements on here chased her away]
Just because they struggle to raise funds elsewhere doesn’t mean they should do idiotic things like this. Raise council tax. Fight a referendum if you need to - democrats shouldn’t be afraid to make a case to the voters.
https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1591233043075067907
Are you supposed to hold the balls or just slap them away?
BTW the science needs practical application. What to do about probabilities is called politics. For example the eco warriors tend to reject Direct Air Capture Technology. But there are those who think it's essential.
(And here we still are.)
All of that was said to be impossible. We were assured numerous times that it was impossible for the EU to carry debt of this scale and the idea of a eurobond was fantastical. And yet.
The Russian air force should have a chicken as its logo.
Likewise people get very worried about climate change and habitat destruction, and the likes of ER and just stop oil increase the salience and coverage, even though most people are inclined to think the protestors themselves are loons. Same is true of Greta Thunberg: I don’t think many people would want her in charge of energy policy for the EU but she has served an important narrative purpose.
This is a line repeatedly used by Just Stop Oil fools and their useful idiots, along with the idea that UK hasn't done anything to address the problem. But that's categorically not true at all in the UK. Emissions are rapidly going down each year in the UK, not up.
So anyone parroting that line is rejecting the science. The science is that the UK is reducing emissions, not increasing them.
He's trying to pull some political karma for the fact Kwasi tried to abolish the top rate.
Yet another way Truss/Kwasi have screwed me.
They are clearly finding the least politically unpalatable ways to raise more revenue, and absolutely nothing else.
It reminds me of “how do you get 5 prime ministers in a mini”… “two in the back, two in the front and Mrs Ghandi in the ashtray”
I don’t see any real signs of runaway warming or phase changes. So the 2-3C midpoint looks fairly nailed on to me unless something disastrous happens. Also highly unlikely we keep below 2C unless net zero conversion happens extremely quickly.
We are more adaptable than people assume, I agree. The long term worry is the fact that even at todays temperatures Greenland and West Antarctica will keep melting and sea level will keep rising. That is one verifiable tipping point I think we’ve reached. That does render a lot of land vulnerable.
It pisses me off.
(Remarkably the SNP know this in relation to the pound but not the Euro! Perhaps their single biggest weakness, to be put alongside the high fences at Gretna and Berwick.)
The logical thing for me to do is to squirrel even more away into my pension.
This fella, for example, has been prominent in both ER and IB.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hallam_(activist)
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05682/
In a decade, there has been exactly one referendum, which was lost.
Pretty unsurprising- nobody wants to pay more tax, irrespective of the prevailing level.of tax. And in the short term, there's always a way to put off the evil day, often by postponing the sort of repairs and rebuilds that need to happen sometime.
Thurrock screwed up badly, investing too much borrowed money in something questionable. But the underlying principle- using capital to chase returns to fill revenue gaps- is something that pretty much every council does, because the financial landscape set by the government leaves them little choice.
It's almost entirely wiped out my Senate losses now.
If we get to Republicans on 216 or 217 seats with the final 2-3 seats looking (cosmetically) still close I expect the odds to drift to 1.5-1.6 so I'm saving back some cash for that too.
tldr - CHICKENED OUT
The UK has spent years and lots of money adapting to cleaner technologies to reduce our emissions, leading by example what the rest of the world are doing.
We need to encourage the rest of the world to do what we are doing, but instead leaders of other countries will look at what is happening here and be thinking that raising the profile of climate change is the last thing they want to do. That if they do, even reducing their own emissions won't avoid civil disturbance.