Despite the ritual dismissing by the Tories of this defection, I cannot recall a more damaging one. It gives RefUK yet another stick to beat Sunak with whilst, at the same time, completely blunting Sunak’s attacks on Labour that they don’t have plan on illegal immigration. If its purpose was to hurt Sunak and is likely to work big time.
It seems downright vindictive - ie very much in the spirit of those right wing tories who are constantly plotting against Rishi Sunak. There's also some synergy with the thread header in that it's a politician doing something reprehensible but for no obvious personal benefit. It might help us electorally, as you say, but a person with her views has no place in Labour imo. As a party member I feel the same about this as I do about Leon's threat to vote for us. The big win is coming (and I can't wait) but our mandate is going to get a bit tainted if we're not careful.
I really respect your honest appraisal of this defection and labour do not need the endorsement of a right wing Johnson Truss Jenrick supporter seeking some kind of revenge against Sunak
If she had been true to her beliefs and the things she has said she should have joined reform
Don’t worry about global warming. We can all move here. Honestly it’s lovely - sunny and green and fertile and it stays cooler in high summer and most of all it’s incredibly empty. The foresta umbra, gargano, puglia. I just walked for four and a half hours - and saw no one. Didn’t even hear a car engine. Just bird song. And skittering lizards. And woodpeckers hammering. The forest floor is scattered with pretty orchids
Looks similar to some ancient woods I walked around in a similar season last year near Tivoli. Straight out of an academy painting. You expect to see pan with a flute and/or Roman centurions rounding the bend.
He must be Karl Pilkington, to travel so much and learn so little.
Well, I’ve learned how to get people to pay for me to go on holiday. Unlike you. So there’s that?
Ian lives on the Isle of Wight where everyday is a holiday.
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
I’m not yet convinced. She was facing the humiliation of defeat, and has found a way out that retains some self respect and settles some scores with her/her husband’s former colleagues. I doubt we’ll hear from her again.
Dan Shafer @DanRShafer Haley is getting more than 120,000 votes in Indiana's Republican presidential primary. It was one thing to see this in the immediate wake of ending her campaign, but it's been more than two months now. Seems like kind of a big deal!
Matt McDermott @mattmfm · 9h If Joe Biden were losing 1 in 4 voters in every primary, it would be the top headline across America. There is a massive protest vote against Trump, and it should be the top headline.
LOL at the Democrats with more spin than Monty Panesar.
Haley has been getting Democrat voters, who have a paper primary thanks to their own party’s refusal to hold debates or hustings, to register as republicans for months now, just to provide totally meaningless results like this.
As transparent as a Met Gala dress.
Nul points. 1. Indiana was a semi-closed primary, so Democrats can't simply shift across to the Republican primary, they have to change registration - and there's no sign in the numbers of that happening to any great degree. 2. Even in fully closed primaries, Haley has been getting 15-20% of the vote.
Conclusions: there is a significant minority of Republican voters who dont want Trump, and the spin on this is coming from the right, not the left.
Wrong.
AP says that they have an open primary, with any registered voter able to choose either party on the day - and there’s also a contested primary for the GOP Governor candidate, as well as for a US Senator, all of which will be safe GOP holds come November.
It’s not a secret that Haley has attracted many Democrat donors, and they’ve been campaigning to get Democrat and Independent voters in a number of states to register as Republicans specifically to vote against Trump.
I agree it isn't terribly relevant as the Presidential primaries are just zombie primaries now.
However, wasn't the high GOP turnout in Indiana relative to Democrats simply because there were some pretty important competitive GOP primaries on the ballot - for Governor candidate and some House seats (all of whom will be well favoured in November in a fairly red state).
In terms of Haley's vote, I agree there is a bit of (effectively) entryism but those sorts of numbers indicate something rather more. The Haley vote was higher in Indiana than elsewhere, and that may relate to Mike Pence, a native Hoosier, who I understand has some beef with his old boss over the minor matter of an angry mob coming to lynch him. I agree it'll broadly melt away - there's a traditional Republican vote that don't much like Trump, but they didn't massively like him in 2016 or 2020, and they just either grit their teeth and vote for him or, in a few cases, refuse.
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
Dan Shafer @DanRShafer Haley is getting more than 120,000 votes in Indiana's Republican presidential primary. It was one thing to see this in the immediate wake of ending her campaign, but it's been more than two months now. Seems like kind of a big deal!
Matt McDermott @mattmfm · 9h If Joe Biden were losing 1 in 4 voters in every primary, it would be the top headline across America. There is a massive protest vote against Trump, and it should be the top headline.
LOL at the Democrats with more spin than Monty Panesar.
Haley has been getting Democrat voters, who have a paper primary thanks to their own party’s refusal to hold debates or hustings, to register as republicans for months now, just to provide totally meaningless results like this.
As transparent as a Met Gala dress.
You are, IMHO, significantly over-estimating the Democratic share of Nikki Haley's 2024 Republican primary voters.
Her results are NOT meaningless. Just how meaningful, remains to be seen.
Dan Shafer @DanRShafer Haley is getting more than 120,000 votes in Indiana's Republican presidential primary. It was one thing to see this in the immediate wake of ending her campaign, but it's been more than two months now. Seems like kind of a big deal!
Matt McDermott @mattmfm · 9h If Joe Biden were losing 1 in 4 voters in every primary, it would be the top headline across America. There is a massive protest vote against Trump, and it should be the top headline.
LOL at the Democrats with more spin than Monty Panesar.
Haley has been getting Democrat voters, who have a paper primary thanks to their own party’s refusal to hold debates or hustings, to register as republicans for months now, just to provide totally meaningless results like this.
As transparent as a Met Gala dress.
Nul points. 1. Indiana was a semi-closed primary, so Democrats can't simply shift across to the Republican primary, they have to change registration - and there's no sign in the numbers of that happening to any great degree. 2. Even in fully closed primaries, Haley has been getting 15-20% of the vote.
Conclusions: there is a significant minority of Republican voters who dont want Trump, and the spin on this is coming from the right, not the left.
Wrong.
AP says that they have an open primary, with any registered voter able to choose either party on the day - and there’s also a contested primary for the GOP Governor candidate, as well as for a US Senator, all of which will be safe GOP holds come November.
It’s not a secret that Haley has attracted many Democrat donors, and they’ve been campaigning to get Democrat and Independent voters in a number of states to register as Republicans specifically to vote against Trump.
Don’t worry about global warming. We can all move here. Honestly it’s lovely - sunny and green and fertile and it stays cooler in high summer and most of all it’s incredibly empty. The foresta umbra, gargano, puglia. I just walked for four and a half hours - and saw no one. Didn’t even hear a car engine. Just bird song. And skittering lizards. And woodpeckers hammering. The forest floor is scattered with pretty orchids
Looks similar to some ancient woods I walked around in a similar season last year near Tivoli. Straight out of an academy painting. You expect to see pan with a flute and/or Roman centurions rounding the bend.
He must be Karl Pilkington, to travel so much and learn so little.
Well, I’ve learned how to get people to pay for me to go on holiday. Unlike you. So there’s that?
Alternatively, people who live in Britain pay for you to leave Britain for long periods of time...
Don’t worry about global warming. We can all move here. Honestly it’s lovely - sunny and green and fertile and it stays cooler in high summer and most of all it’s incredibly empty. The foresta umbra, gargano, puglia. I just walked for four and a half hours - and saw no one. Didn’t even hear a car engine. Just bird song. And skittering lizards. And woodpeckers hammering. The forest floor is scattered with pretty orchids
Looks similar to some ancient woods I walked around in a similar season last year near Tivoli. Straight out of an academy painting. You expect to see pan with a flute and/or Roman centurions rounding the bend.
He must be Karl Pilkington, to travel so much and learn so little.
Well, I’ve learned how to get people to pay for me to go on holiday. Unlike you. So there’s that?
That’s not worth diddly squat, tbh. No-one here would volunteer for that lifestyle, beyond the first trip which we’d all enjoy for free. Spending your time abroad simply proving yourself a complete twat to everyone back home; where’s the pride in that?
This seems unnecessarily belligerent. I wouldn't go for that lifestyle - at least, not now I am married with kids. But I can see the attraction. I applaud Leon for arriving at a lifestyle that he enjoys. And if you have managed the same, then I applaud you too.
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
If the weather patterns shift enough then some places currently relied upon for agriculture become no longer productive. This has always happened to an extent with year to year changes in weather patterns, and in recent decades the increases in agricultural productivity, and a global food market, have meant that short-term food deficits in one location can mostly be fixed by moving the global surplus of food around.
But the changes in weather patterns that could follow from global warming if, for example, the East Asian Monsoon is disrupted, are so much larger, and have the potential to kick the world into a global food deficit.
I'm not concerned about people adopting Western lifestyles because, in principle, it should be possible to deliver Western lifestyles with zero fossil fuel emissions. Then it doesn't matter how many people have that lifestyle. 10bn times zero is still zero.
The only challenge there is with food. A high meat consumption diet for the whole world would require more land than exists, even without potential drops in agricultural productivity due to climate change. So there is a risk that a growing global middle class eats the poor into starvation.
A global reduction in meat consumption would give us a lot more room to manoeuvre in terms of food security. Veganism isn't necessary, simply a modest overall reduction.
Dan Shafer @DanRShafer Haley is getting more than 120,000 votes in Indiana's Republican presidential primary. It was one thing to see this in the immediate wake of ending her campaign, but it's been more than two months now. Seems like kind of a big deal!
Matt McDermott @mattmfm · 9h If Joe Biden were losing 1 in 4 voters in every primary, it would be the top headline across America. There is a massive protest vote against Trump, and it should be the top headline.
LOL at the Democrats with more spin than Monty Panesar.
Haley has been getting Democrat voters, who have a paper primary thanks to their own party’s refusal to hold debates or hustings, to register as republicans for months now, just to provide totally meaningless results like this.
As transparent as a Met Gala dress.
Nul points. 1. Indiana was a semi-closed primary, so Democrats can't simply shift across to the Republican primary, they have to change registration - and there's no sign in the numbers of that happening to any great degree. 2. Even in fully closed primaries, Haley has been getting 15-20% of the vote.
Conclusions: there is a significant minority of Republican voters who dont want Trump, and the spin on this is coming from the right, not the left.
Wrong.
AP says that they have an open primary, with any registered voter able to choose either party on the day - and there’s also a contested primary for the GOP Governor candidate, as well as for a US Senator, all of which will be safe GOP holds come November.
It’s not a secret that Haley has attracted many Democrat donors, and they’ve been campaigning to get Democrat and Independent voters in a number of states to register as Republicans specifically to vote against Trump.
That model is a long way away from both the polling and the betting.
I’m just trying to bring some balance, to the prevailing narrative on here that Trump can’t possibly win because he’s the Devil Incarnate.
Personally I don’t particularly like the guy, but follow enough US media to understand why people do.
There’s a difference, as most of us on a betting site know, between who you want to win and who you think will win.
My personal view, FWIW, is that the last three US elections have all been Alien vs Predator, and that both parties need a major kick in the arse to find another Obama or Reagan.
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
I’m not yet convinced. She was facing the humiliation of defeat, and has found a way out that retains some self respect and settles some scores with her/her husband’s former colleagues. I doubt we’ll hear from her again.
She will get a gig on Loose Women, a column in the express to attack Labour’s immigration policies (haha), and then onto Celebritiy get me out of here and a career in the media if she can just avoid going full Katie Hopkins.
Looking at the reactions to the Elphicke sideways jump, Mr Starmer is certainly getting some shtick.
They just seem so incompatible and the quotes on record she has said about Starmer and labour are going to be played on repeat whenever she is on the media
As has been said she should have gone to Reform and you wonder why she didn't
I am surprised at Tory outrage over Elphick being too right wing (OK, she is) especially after Jenrick's odious performance on Nick Ferrari's show this morning.
Whatever the reservations, Rishi's face was comedy gold when he eyeballed her.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds". As if anyone ever expected one plant (or indeed one storage source) to power the entire grid.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants") 2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts") 3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault") 4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
If the weather patterns shift enough then some places currently relied upon for agriculture become no longer productive. This has always happened to an extent with year to year changes in weather patterns, and in recent decades the increases in agricultural productivity, and a global food market, have meant that short-term food deficits in one location can mostly be fixed by moving the global surplus of food around.
But the changes in weather patterns that could follow from global warming if, for example, the East Asian Monsoon is disrupted, are so much larger, and have the potential to kick the world into a global food deficit.
I'm not concerned about people's adopting Western lifestyles because, in principle, it should be possible to deliver Western lifestyles with zero fossil fuel emissions. Then it doesn't matter how many people have that lifestyle. 10bn times zero is still zero.
The only challenge there is with food. A high meat consumption diet for the whole world would require more land than exists, even without potential drops in agricultural productivity due to climate change. So there is a risk that a growing global middle class eats the poor into starvation.
A global reduction in meat consumption would give us a lot more room to manoeuvre in terms of food security. Veganism isn't necessary, simply a modest overall reduction.
Fortunately, technology is having a positive impact on food production too.
I've seen LED lights tuned to emit light only in the wavelength used for photosynthesis. Combine this with vertical farms, and you can get incredibly crop yields in even dense urban areas.
We're also learning how to lab grow meat. Not fake meat, but real meat, that is indistinguishable from that from an animal... only there was not farming involved. The energy efficiency, compared to having animals wandering around a field is going to be off the charts. And - of course - this means no more factory farming with all the inevitable mistreatment of animals.
From an energy and a food perspective, there has never been a better time to be alive. Mankind's ability to live within its resources, while giving people a high standard of living has never been better.
Sadly, the challenges to this are numerous. On the one hand you have the nutters in the US who are passing laws banning the sale of lab grown meat (Hi Florida!). And on the other, you have the Extinction Rebellion lot, who seem woefully ignorant of the extent of the progress that is going on. And who seem personally offended that humankind - from a resources perspective - is thriving.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds". As if anyone ever expected one plant (or indeed one storage source) to power the entire grid.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants") 2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts") 3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault") 4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
5. Pragmatists (“Let’s build a good mix of power sources, favouring renewables but also trying to minimise overcapacity, and keep reviewing as the capital costs of renewables come down over time”)
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
I’m not yet convinced. She was facing the humiliation of defeat, and has found a way out that retains some self respect and settles some scores with her/her husband’s former colleagues. I doubt we’ll hear from her again.
This has a bit of an air of Peter Thurnham about it, if you remember him from the fag end of the Major Government. He was a similar age to Elphicke and held a seat he'd have been doomed to lose had he stood again. He was just rather disaffected with it all and jumped to the Lib Dems - not to further his career but to end it in a way that annoyed a few people who had irritated him. I think he was essentially a nice enough bloke who just decided to stick two fingers up as a final flourish - there was no deal asked for or given, and he disappeared from view (sadly died of cancer a few years ago, not at a young age but without having the retirement he may have hoped for).
I'd not rule out that there was a deal - Quentin Davies and Peter Temple-Morris got peerages, of course, and I certainly don't think Labour is above that sort of thing. I just have a feeling this is an "up yours, I'm off" defection.
Seriously, is Rees-Mogg a possibility? Surely that would appeal to his eccentric sense of mischief and he's presumably no fan of Rishi after the Boris stuff.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Emissions are going to come down because of technology, not because of government diktat. Power is - increasingly - simply cheaper from renewable sources, while batteries are less expensive, and at the same time the oil and gas we're getting is increasingly technically challenging.
In 2022, China accounted for 65% of all the new wind capacity and 51% of all solar capacity installed worldwide. It is also by far the biggest market for battery backup. Everyone talks about new Chinese coal plants, but the same logic is happening there as everywhere else: coal is being outcompeted by gas and by renewables. And then, in time, the same will happen to natural gas.
China is also - by far- the world's largest EV market. 59% of electric vehicles sold worldwide were sold in China.
The world is going green. And it's doing it for economic reasons. (Which is what makes Trump's attempts to turn the clock back so bonkers. You can't make a coal fired power plant economic, because there's no way to make the power it produces cheaper than the alternatives.)
That "drill baby drill" from Trump is another of his cunning dogwhistles to reactionary nostalgia, I think. The idea that the USA aint what it used to be because of soft-belly unAmerican things like civil rights and renewables.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds". As if anyone ever expected one plant (or indeed one storage source) to power the entire grid.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants") 2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts") 3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault") 4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
What's massively frustrating is that all this was predictable - and predicted - well over a decade back (indeed Pres Carter more or less realised it half a century ago).
The west could have subsidised the renewables move to happen a decade earlier (with a lot of the necessary borrowing when interest rates were nearer 1%) if politicians hadn't appeased reactionaries.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds". As if anyone ever expected one plant (or indeed one storage source) to power the entire grid.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants") 2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts") 3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault") 4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
5. Pragmatists (“Let’s build a good mix of power sources, favouring renewables but also trying to minimise overcapacity, and keep reviewing as the capital costs of renewables come down over time”)
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Today it’s Labour who are the utter embarrassment.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
It will damage Starmer with those who already disliked Starmer.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
No it wasn’t. This afternoon every voter now hasn’t a scooby what Starmer’s Labour stands for. Where or what is its soul?
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
Nat’s role is to be poster girl for the Rwanda Scheme being a gimmick and Starmer’s policy being better.
Yes, so what has she been offered for that?
My guess is Starmer has a few more of these lined up for the summer. Will keep disintegration in the headlines for the Tories.
In her statement she says this:
"That’s why I’m honoured to have been asked to work with Keir and the team to help deliver the homes we need."
This sounds very similar to the situation with the other bloke. Dan Poulter. Who is supposedly going to be part of some health reform policy advisory team. So it looks like Labour is creating a bunch of policy-related sinecures for ex-Tory MPs.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
If the weather patterns shift enough then some places currently relied upon for agriculture become no longer productive. This has always happened to an extent with year to year changes in weather patterns, and in recent decades the increases in agricultural productivity, and a global food market, have meant that short-term food deficits in one location can mostly be fixed by moving the global surplus of food around.
But the changes in weather patterns that could follow from global warming if, for example, the East Asian Monsoon is disrupted, are so much larger, and have the potential to kick the world into a global food deficit.
I'm not concerned about people's adopting Western lifestyles because, in principle, it should be possible to deliver Western lifestyles with zero fossil fuel emissions. Then it doesn't matter how many people have that lifestyle. 10bn times zero is still zero.
The only challenge there is with food. A high meat consumption diet for the whole world would require more land than exists, even without potential drops in agricultural productivity due to climate change. So there is a risk that a growing global middle class eats the poor into starvation.
A global reduction in meat consumption would give us a lot more room to manoeuvre in terms of food security. Veganism isn't necessary, simply a modest overall reduction.
Fortunately, technology is having a positive impact on food production too.
I've seen LED lights tuned to emit light only in the wavelength used for photosynthesis. Combine this with vertical farms, and you can get incredibly crop yields in even dense urban areas.
We're also learning how to lab grow meat. Not fake meat, but real meat, that is indistinguishable from that from an animal... only there was not farming involved. The energy efficiency, compared to having animals wandering around a field is going to be off the charts. And - of course - this means no more factory farming with all the inevitable mistreatment of animals.
From an energy and a food perspective, there has never been a better time to be alive. Mankind's ability to live within its resources, while giving people a high standard of living has never been better.
Sadly, the challenges to this are numerous. On the one hand you have the nutters in the US who are passing laws banning the sale of lab grown meat (Hi Florida!). And on the other, you have the Extinction Rebellion lot, who seem woefully ignorant of the extent of the progress that is going on. And who seem personally offended that humankind - from a resources perspective - is thriving.
Yes I agree. Technologically including REDACTED REDACTED is on an exponential curve upwards. What a lot of people don’t get is that the technologies don’t evolve in silos, they synergise, and compound so that one technology hugely benefits another which allows a third to do something totally wow which we didn’t expect
However we are also on a fairly nasty trajectory in terms of climate and culture and geopolitics
Right now it feels like a race around the world to save mankind. Our only hope IS technology, we must pray it wins. But there is a very serious chance it WILL win and it might not even kill us afterwards and then we will be in the sunlit uplands of super abundance
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
I’m not yet convinced. She was facing the humiliation of defeat, and has found a way out that retains some self respect and settles some scores with her/her husband’s former colleagues. I doubt we’ll hear from her again.
This has a bit of an air of Peter Thurnham about it, if you remember him from the fag end of the Major Government. He was a similar age to Elphicke and held a seat he'd have been doomed to lose had he stood again. He was just rather disaffected with it all and jumped to the Lib Dems - not to further his career but to end it in a way that annoyed a few people who had irritated him. I think he was essentially a nice enough bloke who just decided to stick two fingers up as a final flourish - there was no deal asked for or given, and he disappeared from view (sadly died of cancer a few years ago, not at a young age but without having the retirement he may have hoped for).
I'd not rule out that there was a deal - Quentin Davies and Peter Temple-Morris got peerages, of course, and I certainly don't think Labour is above that sort of thing. I just have a feeling this is an "up yours, I'm off" defection.
Temple-Morris was working on Labour policy even during the early Corbyn years. He was an excellent MP for Leominster, even though I canvassed for Pincham to unseat him in 1989. Spoiler- he didn't!
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds". As if anyone ever expected one plant (or indeed one storage source) to power the entire grid.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants") 2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts") 3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault") 4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
5. Pragmatists (“Let’s build a good mix of power sources, favouring renewables but also trying to minimise overcapacity, and keep reviewing as the capital costs of renewables come down over time”)
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
California's batteries will charge from solar all year round though with their 3348 hours of sunlight per year (Nicely distributed) to get through the night. The UK has ~ 1400 or so and it's much more seasonal than LA.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
People get Corbyn wrong on this, I think.
He is, ultimately, a Labour man. He sat at the feet of the likes of Tony Benn and believes all the stuff about being the political wing of organised Labour - the history of it, the grand project. He worries about Labour going astray, as he would see it, but just isn't in the business of replacing it like many of his followers are.
That's not to say he won't personally stand as an independent because he wants to continue being an MP and that's the only way. But the people who think he's going to join or lead a new movement are, I think, missing what he's all about.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
I hadn't but this stuff is very heartening. It gives the lie to the kind of pessimistic stuff we had a few days ago because one single battery backup plant in Eastern England could "only power the entire UK grid for 15 seconds"...
That would be incredibly impressive, were it actually able to deliver power at that rate (it couldn't). But as Robert points out, it's very useful indeed for grid balancing, and will likely pay for itself within two or three years.
I've come to this a little late, so apologies if this has been covered, but as a former member of the Green Party my thoughts my be useful.
It's been handled badly, even several Greens I know are annoyed, but is it more than clumsiness? I'm not convinced it is any more than that, Sian had already clearly signalled her intentions wrt Brighton. I'm not sure how far out the Assembly list had to be put together (internally, not for nominations), but given the way the party operates, it's quite possible that there are some rules that sitting AMs have to be at the top of the list in sneiority order, and that everyone just assumed that if Sian got the Brighton nomination, she'd just step down for the next Green - because that's how the list system works.
Carrying on from that, I';m not sure how this will cut through - as far as voters in London are concerned they voted for three Green assembly members and that's what they got. So, one was called Sian, and now they have Zoe instead. Big deal. AIUI, Sian didn't take any significant part in the campaign, whereas Zoe did, so it's not a case of riding coattails for more votes - Zoe earned it more than Sian did!
It might have some small impact in Brighton, not least if the Argus - which has always had a pro-Labour, anti-Green agenda, not leeast because their politics editor (not sure if he's still in place) was the father of a Labour councillor - pushes it, but I think that Gaza is likely to be more of an impactful issue for many leftie voters, plus the current Labour administration are not covering themselves in glory by closing primary schools,rolling back some popular Green initiatives, and reneging on promises to undo some unpopoular Green actions (because Labour actually like them, and because they're hard to undo).
Also, speaking to lefty friends in Brighton, of which I have a lot, there's really strong feeling even among the more Labour-leaning ones that they like supporting a Green voice in parliament, Not just Caroline, but any Green voice. So I think there are Labour voters (not members, just voters) who will back a Green locally because they see it as important.
The deadline for nomination papers for the Assembly election was 4pm on Wednesday 27 March 2024. She resigned as a councillor on 20 October 2023 because she was focused on Brighton, 5 months earlier. The logic of her not being a councillor is the same as the logic of her not being an Assembly member. So why stand for the Assembly? The Green Party had plenty of time to pick a replacement for their Assembly list, or indeed they could just have had one less candidate.
The election is for a specific list of people. OK, most voters aren't bothered by which names are on those lists, but there are names. You are voting for specific people. Garbett lost the mayoral vote and she lost in the Assembly vote: why the shenanigans to give her a seat?
I specifically said the internal deadline, *not* for nominations. The Greens can be a bit bureaucratic about internal organisation, so it's possible the list was sorted out long beforehand. But, I don't know - it's just based on experience. Could be entirely wrong.
As to names on a list - as you say yourself, people vote for a list, not for a specific name. There may have been a few votes more or fewer because of Sian being on there, or because Zoe was on there. (For my money, the one big plus is Caroline Russell, she's excellent). Do you honestly tinhk there are many voters today thinking, if I'd known Sian was going to resign and Zoe would take her place, I wouldn't have voted Green? And this followed exactly the procedure laid down - an elected candidate resigned, and the next on the list takes the seat. Hardly shenanigans.
Honestly, I think it's cockup more than anything. And now we have Elphicke to talk about, so phew.
I do not see how Green internal processes could be any block on Berry choosing not to stand. How is that an excuse?
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
California's batteries will charge from solar all year round though with their 3348 hours of sunlight per year (Nicely distributed) to get through the night. The UK has ~ 1400 or so and it's much more seasonal than LA.
Unsure of the wind battery situation though. Perhaps that's more favourable ?
Solar is awesome when your demand peak is for air conditioning in the summer.
Less so, when it’s for heating on that calm and cold day in January.
That said, as the price of solar keeps coming down, the idea of a British solar farm in Morocco, with a massive cable connecting it to the UK Grid, doesn’t seem quite as totally bonkers as it did a few years ago.
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
Nat’s role is to be poster girl for the Rwanda Scheme being a gimmick and Starmer’s policy being better.
Yes, so what has she been offered for that?
My guess is Starmer has a few more of these lined up for the summer. Will keep disintegration in the headlines for the Tories.
In her statement she says this:
"That’s why I’m honoured to have been asked to work with Keir and the team to help deliver the homes we need."
This sounds very similar to the situation with the other bloke. Dan Poulter. Who is supposedly going to be part of some health reform policy advisory team. So it looks like Labour is creating a bunch of policy-related sinecures for ex-Tory MPs.
If they were used to red team the development of genuinely radical policies (sadly unlikely), that might actually have been very productive.
Watch carefully what happens to Natalie Elphicke next.
She'll almost certainly have been offered something.
Nat’s role is to be poster girl for the Rwanda Scheme being a gimmick and Starmer’s policy being better.
Yes, so what has she been offered for that?
My guess is Starmer has a few more of these lined up for the summer. Will keep disintegration in the headlines for the Tories.
In her statement she says this:
"That’s why I’m honoured to have been asked to work with Keir and the team to help deliver the homes we need."
This sounds very similar to the situation with the other bloke. Dan Poulter. Who is supposedly going to be part of some health reform policy advisory team. So it looks like Labour is creating a bunch of policy-related sinecures for ex-Tory MPs.
I am not particularly reassured that Labour are outsourcing policy advisory roles to people who supported this rubbish government.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
People get Corbyn wrong on this, I think.
He is, ultimately, a Labour man. He sat at the feet of the likes of Tony Benn and believes all the stuff about being the political wing of organised Labour - the history of it, the grand project. He worries about Labour going astray, as he would see it, but just isn't in the business of replacing it like many of his followers are.
That's not to say he won't personally stand as an independent because he wants to continue being an MP and that's the only way. But the people who think he's going to join or lead a new movement are, I think, missing what he's all about.
I agree that he's unlikely to do something like that but am just trying to think of ways in which the next six months could play out differently to the way everyone is expecting.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
People get Corbyn wrong on this, I think.
He is, ultimately, a Labour man. He sat at the feet of the likes of Tony Benn and believes all the stuff about being the political wing of organised Labour - the history of it, the grand project. He worries about Labour going astray, as he would see it, but just isn't in the business of replacing it like many of his followers are.
That's not to say he won't personally stand as an independent because he wants to continue being an MP and that's the only way. But the people who think he's going to join or lead a new movement are, I think, missing what he's all about.
Also a lot of Green members would not have him - I think enough to keep him out if he wanted to join. There are centre / right leaning members, and lots of members believe that he would be used as a stick to beat the party with.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
California's batteries will charge from solar all year round though with their 3348 hours of sunlight per year (Nicely distributed) to get through the night. The UK has ~ 1400 or so and it's much more seasonal than LA.
Unsure of the wind battery situation though. Perhaps that's more favourable ?
I wondered about something like this a few years ago, but after doing the sums I didn't think it would be practical due to the huge amounts of mass you'd need to shift up and down. Apparently it is now a thing though:
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
Team Starmer has some very best Krug in the fridge for just this very occurrence.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Yes. But not in this particular case. If Corbyn tales activists with him to Greens, it both strengthens Starmer’s SDP tribe in Labour and undermines how the Greens have been getting away with being thought of. Corbyn was actually pals with Hamas leadership, hanging out with them in their Gazan eyrie.
Explain your thinking in case we are missing something.
Despite the ritual dismissing by the Tories of this defection, I cannot recall a more damaging one. It gives RefUK yet another stick to beat Sunak with whilst, at the same time, completely blunting Sunak’s attacks on Labour that they don’t have plan on illegal immigration. If its purpose was to hurt Sunak and is likely to work big time.
It seems downright vindictive - ie very much in the spirit of those right wing tories who are constantly plotting against Rishi Sunak. There's also some synergy with the thread header in that it's a politician doing something reprehensible but for no obvious personal benefit. It might help us electorally, as you say, but a person with her views has no place in Labour imo. As a party member I feel the same about this as I do about Leon's threat to vote for us. The big win is coming (and I can't wait) but our mandate is going to get a bit tainted if we're not careful.
I really respect your honest appraisal of this defection and labour do not need the endorsement of a right wing Johnson Truss Jenrick supporter seeking some kind of revenge against Sunak
If she had been true to her beliefs and the things she has said she should have joined reform
Maybe Elphicke knows what is in her heart better than we do.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
Team Starmer has some very best Krug in the fridge for just this very occurrence.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Yes. But not in this particular case. If Corbyn tales activists with him to Greens, it both strengthens Starmer’s SDP tribe in Labour and undermines how the Greens have been getting away with being thought of. Corbyn was actually pals with Hamas leadership, hanging out with them in their Gazan eyrie.
Explain your thinking in case we are missing something.
You are missing something: A couple of rabbits short of a warren.
Despite the ritual dismissing by the Tories of this defection, I cannot recall a more damaging one. It gives RefUK yet another stick to beat Sunak with whilst, at the same time, completely blunting Sunak’s attacks on Labour that they don’t have plan on illegal immigration. If its purpose was to hurt Sunak and is likely to work big time.
It seems downright vindictive - ie very much in the spirit of those right wing tories who are constantly plotting against Rishi Sunak. There's also some synergy with the thread header in that it's a politician doing something reprehensible but for no obvious personal benefit. It might help us electorally, as you say, but a person with her views has no place in Labour imo. As a party member I feel the same about this as I do about Leon's threat to vote for us. The big win is coming (and I can't wait) but our mandate is going to get a bit tainted if we're not careful.
I really respect your honest appraisal of this defection and labour do not need the endorsement of a right wing Johnson Truss Jenrick supporter seeking some kind of revenge against Sunak
If she had been true to her beliefs and the things she has said she should have joined reform
Maybe Elphicke knows what is in her heart better than we do.
What's in her heart is her business. What's come out of her mouth is everyone's.
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Today it’s Labour who are the utter embarrassment.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
It will damage Starmer with those who already disliked Starmer.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
No it wasn’t. This afternoon every voter now hasn’t a scooby what Starmer’s Labour stands for. Where or what is its soul?
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Today it’s Labour who are the utter embarrassment.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
It will damage Starmer with those who already disliked Starmer.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
No it wasn’t. This afternoon every voter now hasn’t a scooby what Starmer’s Labour stands for. Where or what is its soul?
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
What planet are you on, Moon?
I don't think the moon counts as a planet.
Moon is certainly on the special sauce as usual, though.
I've come to this a little late, so apologies if this has been covered, but as a former member of the Green Party my thoughts my be useful.
It's been handled badly, even several Greens I know are annoyed, but is it more than clumsiness? I'm not convinced it is any more than that, Sian had already clearly signalled her intentions wrt Brighton. I'm not sure how far out the Assembly list had to be put together (internally, not for nominations), but given the way the party operates, it's quite possible that there are some rules that sitting AMs have to be at the top of the list in sneiority order, and that everyone just assumed that if Sian got the Brighton nomination, she'd just step down for the next Green - because that's how the list system works.
Carrying on from that, I';m not sure how this will cut through - as far as voters in London are concerned they voted for three Green assembly members and that's what they got. So, one was called Sian, and now they have Zoe instead. Big deal. AIUI, Sian didn't take any significant part in the campaign, whereas Zoe did, so it's not a case of riding coattails for more votes - Zoe earned it more than Sian did!
It might have some small impact in Brighton, not least if the Argus - which has always had a pro-Labour, anti-Green agenda, not leeast because their politics editor (not sure if he's still in place) was the father of a Labour councillor - pushes it, but I think that Gaza is likely to be more of an impactful issue for many leftie voters, plus the current Labour administration are not covering themselves in glory by closing primary schools,rolling back some popular Green initiatives, and reneging on promises to undo some unpopoular Green actions (because Labour actually like them, and because they're hard to undo).
Also, speaking to lefty friends in Brighton, of which I have a lot, there's really strong feeling even among the more Labour-leaning ones that they like supporting a Green voice in parliament, Not just Caroline, but any Green voice. So I think there are Labour voters (not members, just voters) who will back a Green locally because they see it as important.
The deadline for nomination papers for the Assembly election was 4pm on Wednesday 27 March 2024. She resigned as a councillor on 20 October 2023 because she was focused on Brighton, 5 months earlier. The logic of her not being a councillor is the same as the logic of her not being an Assembly member. So why stand for the Assembly? The Green Party had plenty of time to pick a replacement for their Assembly list, or indeed they could just have had one less candidate.
The election is for a specific list of people. OK, most voters aren't bothered by which names are on those lists, but there are names. You are voting for specific people. Garbett lost the mayoral vote and she lost in the Assembly vote: why the shenanigans to give her a seat?
I specifically said the internal deadline, *not* for nominations. The Greens can be a bit bureaucratic about internal organisation, so it's possible the list was sorted out long beforehand. But, I don't know - it's just based on experience. Could be entirely wrong.
As to names on a list - as you say yourself, people vote for a list, not for a specific name. There may have been a few votes more or fewer because of Sian being on there, or because Zoe was on there. (For my money, the one big plus is Caroline Russell, she's excellent). Do you honestly tinhk there are many voters today thinking, if I'd known Sian was going to resign and Zoe would take her place, I wouldn't have voted Green? And this followed exactly the procedure laid down - an elected candidate resigned, and the next on the list takes the seat. Hardly shenanigans.
Honestly, I think it's cockup more than anything. And now we have Elphicke to talk about, so phew.
I do not see how Green internal processes could be any block on Berry choosing not to stand. How is that an excuse?
For the rest of the world, it's not: it's a 'computer says no' answer. However, it is a plausible explanation. And if it is the explanation, the Greens need to think about their processes because as/if they become more successful, these sort of things will happen more often.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
The only thing that’s not invisible to voters is the bill at the end of the month.
The political skill is to manage the retail price of energy - as we’ve seen with mixed results in recent years.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
People get Corbyn wrong on this, I think.
He is, ultimately, a Labour man. He sat at the feet of the likes of Tony Benn and believes all the stuff about being the political wing of organised Labour - the history of it, the grand project. He worries about Labour going astray, as he would see it, but just isn't in the business of replacing it like many of his followers are.
That's not to say he won't personally stand as an independent because he wants to continue being an MP and that's the only way. But the people who think he's going to join or lead a new movement are, I think, missing what he's all about.
Yes, having used him once they seek to do so again. Not happening, I agree.
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
“I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Maybe I am just naïve, but I think part of why the Greens are growing (slowly) is because it is clear that the current consensus is not going to provide a safely habitable planet in the near or long term future. We have seen more fossil fuel usage since 2008 then prior to it. It is not a byproduct of the current system we live under that the environment is being destroyed - it is the only outcome. There is a saying in engineering "the purpose of a system is what it does". Well, if that's the case, the purpose of modern states is to destroy the world.
As for Sian Berry - this hardly seems to rank in the cynical moves of politicians, in my view. The entire point of a list system is that you aren't voting for individuals - you're voting for a party and, sure, you know who you're likely to get based on the vote, but at the end of the day you also know who will replace people in the event they drop out. Is it a good look? Of course not. But I wouldn't call it antidemocratic, nor would I compare it to the cynical actions of politicians who do material harm to people to progress their own careers. In two weeks no one will care; yet we will still have a government trying to put human beings seeking refuge in ships or on planes to Rwanda in the hope they can up their vote share by 2-3%.
If you want to sort global warming, take on Beijing, not Brighton or Bristol.
Given Chinese emissions now, and into the foreseeable future, our best bet in Britain is (1) strategic independence, or at least, co-dependence with Europe, on energy and security, and (2) mitigation of the inevitable effects that will result from large regimes that have no interest in cutting emissions and can't be pressured into it. Reducing our reliance on carbon is sensible on that count - and helpfully plays a part on global heating too - but Britain's contribution either way is pretty minimal and while setting an example is useful, more important is anticipating and reacting to the hostile actions of others.
As an island nation, the UK ultimately has more than most to lose from a failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. If humanity goes ahead and burns all the fossil fuels that can be exploited, then the resulting rise in global temperature will eventually melt almost all of the surface ice and raise the sea level by around 60 m. This will take a long time - hundreds of years - but once started is very difficult to stop, even if the global will can be found to do so. We need to do everything in our power to persuade the big emitters to wind down their emissions, and I doubt that backtracking on our own commitments is going to do much to bolster our arguments.
Considering that the UK has cut emissions more than any G20 member, I think we're in a pretty decent place from which to make the case.
But the reality of it is that the big emitters - and China especially: by *far* the biggest emitter - isn't interested in listening. Nor India. Nor the US, particularly, Nor Russia. Nor the Middle East. Electing Greens or anyone else in the UK isn't going to make a difference to that. What we can do is prepare for a hotter, wetter, stormier climate and higher sea levels (though not by 60m - Antarctica isn't going to melt to that extent).
Oh the US get it, and so do China. The US is spending upwards of a trillion dollars on tax incentives for green energy investment under the inflation reduction act and China is flooding the European market with cheap green tech. Unlike us and our European neighbours they actually understand the economic opportunities available from net zero.
As for the Middle East and Russia, the sooner we all get free from energy dependency on that lot (and we've already largely managed with Russia), the better.
Parts of the US gets it; others resolutely refuse to. China is a mixed bag but is on a mercantalist mission to leverage trade dependencies into political influence. But it emits more CO2 per head than all but 3 members of the EU (Lux, Poland, Czech) and close to twice as much as the UK - for a far lower GDP per capita.
Those coal fired power stations are powering the crucibles which create the silicon ingots for nearly 90% of the world's solar panel production. It's far from the ideal way to get where we need to be, but until Biden got into the White House, the U.S. had pretty well abandoned the industry.
At some point that coal will be replaced by renewable power, and the virtuous circle will have extraordinary momentum.
The US could be doing that in Texas now, had the political will been there. (Note that the oil state is already building renewables faster than any of the other 49 - because it makes economic sense even in the short term.)
In related news it's the best day of the year so far for solar generation. Over 8gw currently in GB, the largest single source. Not often that happens.
Nuclear is doing OK at the moment too (5.3gw) and has been for a month or two. Presumably a favourable phase in their maintenance schedule.
In just three years, battery backup has completely transformed the California electricity supply market. In 2021 they were irrelevant. Now batteries are supplying around 20% of evening demand.
There's a similar story in Texas, where batteries are working to smooth out the wind supply (and completely without subsidy or even government encouragement.) There, they are pumping out 2GW of electrical power - on average - at 8pm every evening when demand peaks.
As battery production capacity continues to grow worldwide, they're coming to the UK. And that's a disaster for gas peaking plants.
California's batteries will charge from solar all year round though with their 3348 hours of sunlight per year (Nicely distributed) to get through the night. The UK has ~ 1400 or so and it's much more seasonal than LA.
Unsure of the wind battery situation though. Perhaps that's more favourable ?
Solar is awesome when your demand peak is for air conditioning in the summer.
Less so, when it’s for heating on that calm and cold day in January.
That said, as the price of solar keeps coming down, the idea of a British solar farm in Morocco, with a massive cable connecting it to the UK Grid, doesn’t seem quite as totally bonkers as it did a few years ago.
Peak demand for energy in California does not match peak insolation:
Peak demand is at c. 8pm in California in April, after the sun has set. That chart shows that batteries are starting to have a massive impact on extending the usage of solar. And - by the way - that increase in battery usage in California has happened in just three years:
The key thing here is cost.
Solar used to be insanely expensive. In 2008, the price per watt of a panel was about $5. By 2011, it had fallen to $2. It was under $1 by 2014, and $0.50 by 2018. In 2022, it was $0.25. Currently, I can get panels for $0.16-0.18/watt.
Prices have been halving every four years or so.
Now, obviously there are other costs which don't fall (or at least not so quickly): like labour, aluminium and even the cost of inverters. But if you're building a new house today, the incremental cost of adding solar (and cutting your electricity bill in half) is negligible. If you're building an office or a factory or a warehouse or a shop... you might as well spend the extra. And as those costs inexorably and inevitably continue to drop, and as battery capacity continues to get rolled out, and as electric car penetration continues to increase, then fossil fuel usage will die.
The thing people really don't get is that new solar (and to a lesser extent wind) capacity never goes away. You produce a panel, it will generate electricity for decades. By contrast, with fossil fuels, you need to dig the coal up every single year.
This is one of the greatest changes in human history (soon to be followed by an agrictulture wave). And the only way we fuck it up is if we try and demand people wear hair shirts.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
If inconvenienced = more expensive then yes it does.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
The only thing that’s not invisible to voters is the bill at the end of the month.
The political skill is to manage the retail price of energy - as we’ve seen with mixed results in recent years.
Where it helps if one of the world's largest oil, coal and gas producers doesn't invade a neighbour.
Because that's what drove prices up: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it's also sped the adoption of renewables.
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
Team Starmer has some very best Krug in the fridge for just this very occurrence.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Yes. But not in this particular case. If Corbyn tales activists with him to Greens, it both strengthens Starmer’s SDP tribe in Labour and undermines how the Greens have been getting away with being thought of. Corbyn was actually pals with Hamas leadership, hanging out with them in their Gazan eyrie.
Explain your thinking in case we are missing something.
In 2017, the election campaign began with everyone expecting Theresa May to cruise to a massive majority, but that sense of inevitability created space for Oh, Jeremy Corbyn to look like an attractive alternative.
Maybe the seeming inevitability of a massive Starmer majority will also create space for unexpected movements to gain momentum.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
If inconvenienced = more expensive then yes it does.
Power is more expensive today because Russia has been largely removed from the European energy mix.
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Today it’s Labour who are the utter embarrassment.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
It will damage Starmer with those who already disliked Starmer.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
No it wasn’t. This afternoon every voter now hasn’t a scooby what Starmer’s Labour stands for. Where or what is its soul?
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
What planet are you on, Moon?
I don't think the moon counts as a planet.
Moon is certainly on the special sauce as usual, though.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
If inconvenienced = more expensive then yes it does.
Power is more expensive today because Russia has been largely removed from the European energy mix.
Yeah whatever. I don't care I'm just saying that people care if any particular green enterprise is more expensive. If not then they are neutral and couldn't care less. Look at ESG in the US.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
The only thing that’s not invisible to voters is the bill at the end of the month.
The political skill is to manage the retail price of energy - as we’ve seen with mixed results in recent years.
Where it helps if one of the world's largest oil, coal and gas producers doesn't invade a neighbour.
Because that's what drove prices up: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it's also sped the adoption of renewables.
Indeed.
Worst political decision of this century so far goes to Angela Merkel, for prematurely shutting down Germany’s nuclear capacity in favour of Russian gas, and now they’re facing a severe recession as a result.
Sea temperatures set record levels every single day in the last year.
It is highly depressing. Seriously starting to find it difficult to look at the children in my family and not feel heartbroken about what the future holds for them.
What do you think it holds for them? Serious question. We have challenges around climate change, but we are also good at solving them. Crop yields continue to increase. Population growth (the biggest contributor to climate change is too many humans) is going into reverse across the developed world. We are learning how to do without fossil fuels. Someone asked what the government(s) of the UK had done since 2010 - well look at how much renewable power we have now.
Its not enough yet, but there is a path. 2.5 degrees is a challenge, but the challenge is more about how we deal with human society.
2.5 degrees isn't a 'challenge', it's a disaster.
Show your working for that. What is the disaster? Step back from the rhetoric and look at the science.
2.5 degrees dooms the Greenland Ice Sheet. You lose a lot of valuable river deltas and agricultural land as a result, plus almost all existing coastal infrastructure.
The consequences for rainfall patterns are much harder to predict, but what indications there are, are not good, particularly for Southern Europe and China. In many respects China is one of the countries whose agriculture is most vulnerable to global warming.
The numbers of climate refugees from, for example, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc, would be astronomical.
It would have been a lot cheaper to stop using fossil fuels earlier.
Time scale for the Greenland Ice sheet? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? The issue is how we handle the effects. Some have argued we are already seeing climate refugees, although I think that was disputed. We certainly see a lot around wars. I'm certainly not claiming climate change is not a huge, huge challenge - it is, but we are already taking huge strides. More will be needed. I think I am just a more optimistic person than some.
Greenland Ice Sheet relatively slow, because it will melt in situ. Possibly a couple of thousand years to completely melt. But the Nile Delta becomes useless for agriculture because of salt long before it melts completely.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a much bigger potential threat, because it could slip into the ocean very quickly. I don't think anyone has put a lower bound on the timescale, but it's much more uncertain.
There are now tentative signs in the data that the rate of warming and sea level rise have started to accelerate. And, globally, we haven't yet peaked carbon dioxide emissions.
I'm more optimistic than I was ten years ago. I think technology has made some huge strides forward. But the impacts on agriculture are very concerning. You just have to look at the disruption Russia's temporary blockade on Ukrainian grain exports created to see how vulnerable the global food market is. Even in the best case scenario it's going to be a damned close run thing.
A dispassionate look at crop yields suggests we are getting higher yields than ever. And though I will be mocked for this, increased CO2 in the atmosphere can be beneficial for plant growth. We will I am sure see shifting weather patterns, issues with low lying land. Nothing that cannot be solved, if the will is there. The harder point is we all (i.e. everyone on the planet) wants the western lifestyle - and why shouldn't they aspire to it? We love it, after all. How you do that for the global south whilst getting to net zero and dealing with potential climate refugees is the challenge.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the data you've shown - but can't that be true at the same time as what I've shared above because your data is about tonnes per hectare? It's possible that we are more efficient at growing crops but crops are still reducing. As in - we can grow more tonnage of crops per hectare but we are losing hectares of land to grow because of adverse weather effects?
Wildcard: what if Jeremy Corbyn defected to the Greens?
Team Starmer has some very best Krug in the fridge for just this very occurrence.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Yes. But not in this particular case. If Corbyn tales activists with him to Greens, it both strengthens Starmer’s SDP tribe in Labour and undermines how the Greens have been getting away with being thought of. Corbyn was actually pals with Hamas leadership, hanging out with them in their Gazan eyrie.
Explain your thinking in case we are missing something.
In 2017, the election campaign began with everyone expecting Theresa May to cruise to a massive majority, but that sense of inevitability created space for Oh, Jeremy Corbyn to look like an attractive alternative.
Maybe the seeming inevitability of a massive Starmer majority will also create space for unexpected movements to gain momentum.
It will, but that vote will be in places where the Greens are not particularly strong. If they get an extra 15 or 20% in a few Northern English towns, while shedding voters in the South, good news for Starmer.
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Today it’s Labour who are the utter embarrassment.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
It will damage Starmer with those who already disliked Starmer.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
No it wasn’t. This afternoon every voter now hasn’t a scooby what Starmer’s Labour stands for. Where or what is its soul?
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
If inconvenienced = more expensive then yes it does.
Power is more expensive today because Russia has been largely removed from the European energy mix.
Yeah whatever. I don't care I'm just saying that people care if any particular green enterprise is more expensive. If not then they are neutral and couldn't care less. Look at ESG in the US.
People don't care much about the cost of any particular generating capacity. Otherwise we wouldn't still be building the large nuclear power plants - or have so long delayed their construction that financing costs went through the roof.
And it was obvious a decade back that the renewable price trend would only be in one direction, over time.
We had all the facts we needed to make much greater investments quite some time back - and had we done so, it might have saved us billions during the first year of the Ukraine invasion.
I've come to this a little late, so apologies if this has been covered, but as a former member of the Green Party my thoughts my be useful.
It's been handled badly, even several Greens I know are annoyed, but is it more than clumsiness? I'm not convinced it is any more than that, Sian had already clearly signalled her intentions wrt Brighton. I'm not sure how far out the Assembly list had to be put together (internally, not for nominations), but given the way the party operates, it's quite possible that there are some rules that sitting AMs have to be at the top of the list in sneiority order, and that everyone just assumed that if Sian got the Brighton nomination, she'd just step down for the next Green - because that's how the list system works.
Carrying on from that, I';m not sure how this will cut through - as far as voters in London are concerned they voted for three Green assembly members and that's what they got. So, one was called Sian, and now they have Zoe instead. Big deal. AIUI, Sian didn't take any significant part in the campaign, whereas Zoe did, so it's not a case of riding coattails for more votes - Zoe earned it more than Sian did!
It might have some small impact in Brighton, not least if the Argus - which has always had a pro-Labour, anti-Green agenda, not leeast because their politics editor (not sure if he's still in place) was the father of a Labour councillor - pushes it, but I think that Gaza is likely to be more of an impactful issue for many leftie voters, plus the current Labour administration are not covering themselves in glory by closing primary schools,rolling back some popular Green initiatives, and reneging on promises to undo some unpopoular Green actions (because Labour actually like them, and because they're hard to undo).
Also, speaking to lefty friends in Brighton, of which I have a lot, there's really strong feeling even among the more Labour-leaning ones that they like supporting a Green voice in parliament, Not just Caroline, but any Green voice. So I think there are Labour voters (not members, just voters) who will back a Green locally because they see it as important.
The deadline for nomination papers for the Assembly election was 4pm on Wednesday 27 March 2024. She resigned as a councillor on 20 October 2023 because she was focused on Brighton, 5 months earlier. The logic of her not being a councillor is the same as the logic of her not being an Assembly member. So why stand for the Assembly? The Green Party had plenty of time to pick a replacement for their Assembly list, or indeed they could just have had one less candidate.
The election is for a specific list of people. OK, most voters aren't bothered by which names are on those lists, but there are names. You are voting for specific people. Garbett lost the mayoral vote and she lost in the Assembly vote: why the shenanigans to give her a seat?
I specifically said the internal deadline, *not* for nominations. The Greens can be a bit bureaucratic about internal organisation, so it's possible the list was sorted out long beforehand. But, I don't know - it's just based on experience. Could be entirely wrong.
As to names on a list - as you say yourself, people vote for a list, not for a specific name. There may have been a few votes more or fewer because of Sian being on there, or because Zoe was on there. (For my money, the one big plus is Caroline Russell, she's excellent). Do you honestly tinhk there are many voters today thinking, if I'd known Sian was going to resign and Zoe would take her place, I wouldn't have voted Green? And this followed exactly the procedure laid down - an elected candidate resigned, and the next on the list takes the seat. Hardly shenanigans.
Honestly, I think it's cockup more than anything. And now we have Elphicke to talk about, so phew.
I do not see how Green internal processes could be any block on Berry choosing not to stand. How is that an excuse?
For the rest of the world, it's not: it's a 'computer says no' answer. However, it is a plausible explanation. And if it is the explanation, the Greens need to think about their processes because as/if they become more successful, these sort of things will happen more often.
It's not a plausible explanation. Berry could have said on 26 March that her heart wasn't in it. Greens then put in an Assembly list that is one shorter. This causes no problems.
In a Commons debate last month Elphicke made a strong attack on the renters (reform) bill, saying that it had been made too favourable to landlords. She worked in housing, and on housing policy, before becoming an MP and has published reports on how social housing can be funded.
It seems clear that, on housing policy at least, Elphicke is much closer to Labour than the government. She may even end up being to the left of a cautious Starmer on housing policy.
A lot of the comment discussing her defection in terms of her being a right-winger has been far too simplistic.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
The only thing that’s not invisible to voters is the bill at the end of the month.
The political skill is to manage the retail price of energy - as we’ve seen with mixed results in recent years.
Where it helps if one of the world's largest oil, coal and gas producers doesn't invade a neighbour.
Because that's what drove prices up: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it's also sped the adoption of renewables.
Yes: my (amateur) view is that Russia's invasion of Ukraine will make Western Europe richer in the long term, because it will spur the development of renewables, which, once we are over the hill of initial investment, will result in a cheaper overall energy mix in the long term.
On the climate it's very simple. Humanity (you and me, baby) don't want to do anything dramatic to mitigate any changes we may or may not be seeing as a result of our using fossil fuels beyond what we are already doing.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
Most of what we need to do is invisible to most people - e.g. using one type of machine to generate electricity rather than another. The people who have done most to delay the transition are - surprise - the people who made money out of using the old machines instead of the new ones.
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
If inconvenienced = more expensive then yes it does.
Power is more expensive today because Russia has been largely removed from the European energy mix.
Yeah whatever. I don't care I'm just saying that people care if any particular green enterprise is more expensive. If not then they are neutral and couldn't care less. Look at ESG in the US.
People don't care much about the cost of any particular generating capacity. Otherwise we wouldn't still be building the large nuclear power plants - or have so long delayed their construction that financing costs went through the roof.
And it was obvious a decade back that the renewable price trend would only be in one direction, over time.
We had all the facts we needed to make much greater investments quite some time back - and had we done so, it might have saved us billions during the first year of the Ukraine invasion.
I'd argue (and have on here...) that the green investments we have made over the last twenty years *did* save us billions over the last couple of years and the Russia-caused price spikes. The question then becomes how much further we could have gone earlier, especially with immature storage technology.
Comments
If she had been true to her beliefs and the things she has said she should have joined reform
However, wasn't the high GOP turnout in Indiana relative to Democrats simply because there were some pretty important competitive GOP primaries on the ballot - for Governor candidate and some House seats (all of whom will be well favoured in November in a fairly red state).
In terms of Haley's vote, I agree there is a bit of (effectively) entryism but those sorts of numbers indicate something rather more. The Haley vote was higher in Indiana than elsewhere, and that may relate to Mike Pence, a native Hoosier, who I understand has some beef with his old boss over the minor matter of an angry mob coming to lynch him. I agree it'll broadly melt away - there's a traditional Republican vote that don't much like Trump, but they didn't massively like him in 2016 or 2020, and they just either grit their teeth and vote for him or, in a few cases, refuse.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/10/uk-food-production-down-record-rainfall-farmers
Crop yields down:
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/crop-yields-reduced-climate-extremes-finds-study
Impact on Crop Yields expected within 10 years (from 2021):
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3124/global-climate-change-impact-on-crops-expected-within-10-years-nasa-study-finds/
Global wheat production reducing:
https://www.agriculturedive.com/news/wheat-production-decline-ukraine-russia-grain-deal/693551/
LOL. The Tories really are an utter embarrassment, aren’t they?
Her results are NOT meaningless. Just how meaningful, remains to be seen.
Honestly, it's the next logical step.
And if you have managed the same, then I applaud you too.
But the changes in weather patterns that could follow from global warming if, for example, the East Asian Monsoon is disrupted, are so much larger, and have the potential to kick the world into a global food deficit.
I'm not concerned about people adopting Western lifestyles because, in principle, it should be possible to deliver Western lifestyles with zero fossil fuel emissions. Then it doesn't matter how many people have that lifestyle. 10bn times zero is still zero.
The only challenge there is with food. A high meat consumption diet for the whole world would require more land than exists, even without potential drops in agricultural productivity due to climate change. So there is a risk that a growing global middle class eats the poor into starvation.
A global reduction in meat consumption would give us a lot more room to manoeuvre in terms of food security. Veganism isn't necessary, simply a modest overall reduction.
Getting the Tories out is not a message that works, by letting all the Tories in starting with the most mouthy right wing baggarts.
I’m just trying to bring some balance, to the prevailing narrative on here that Trump can’t possibly win because he’s the Devil Incarnate.
Personally I don’t particularly like the guy, but follow enough US media to understand why people do.
There’s a difference, as most of us on a betting site know, between who you want to win and who you think will win.
My personal view, FWIW, is that the last three US elections have all been Alien vs Predator, and that both parties need a major kick in the arse to find another Obama or Reagan.
Whatever the reservations, Rishi's face was comedy gold when he eyeballed her.
I think there's a political compass on ecology like there is on most things:
1. Pessimistic sceptics ("why should we cut emissions when China is building more coal plants")
2. Optimistic sceptics ("Greta Thunberg types are just watermelons who want us all to wear hairshirts")
3. Pessimistic environmentalists ("we're all going to die and it's capitalism's fault")
4. Optimistic environmentalists ("let's build more solar farms")
I've seen LED lights tuned to emit light only in the wavelength used for photosynthesis. Combine this with vertical farms, and you can get incredibly crop yields in even dense urban areas.
We're also learning how to lab grow meat. Not fake meat, but real meat, that is indistinguishable from that from an animal... only there was not farming involved. The energy efficiency, compared to having animals wandering around a field is going to be off the charts. And - of course - this means no more factory farming with all the inevitable mistreatment of animals.
From an energy and a food perspective, there has never been a better time to be alive. Mankind's ability to live within its resources, while giving people a high standard of living has never been better.
Sadly, the challenges to this are numerous. On the one hand you have the nutters in the US who are passing laws banning the sale of lab grown meat (Hi Florida!). And on the other, you have the Extinction Rebellion lot, who seem woefully ignorant of the extent of the progress that is going on. And who seem personally offended that humankind - from a resources perspective - is thriving.
The absurdity was probably worth the risk.
I'd not rule out that there was a deal - Quentin Davies and Peter Temple-Morris got peerages, of course, and I certainly don't think Labour is above that sort of thing. I just have a feeling this is an "up yours, I'm off" defection.
My guess is Starmer has a few more of these lined up for the summer. Will keep disintegration in the headlines for the Tories.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/braggart
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The west could have subsidised the renewables move to happen a decade earlier (with a lot of the necessary borrowing when interest rates were nearer 1%) if politicians hadn't appeased reactionaries.
A position on Loose Women surely beckons. Right age and appropriate thickness of facial creosote.
Today has been one of the most hugely damaging to Labour since the 1980s.
And as is obvious from Todays PMQs, Sunak’s Team has been preparing him well for PMQs, they are writing great things for him, and he has raised his delivery and game and form considerably. Today’s PMQs was another in sequence of wins for Sunak, despite the armoury Starmer had at his disposal.
"That’s why I’m honoured to have been asked to work with Keir and the team to help deliver the homes we need."
This sounds very similar to the situation with the other bloke. Dan Poulter. Who is supposedly going to be part of some health reform policy advisory team. So it looks like Labour is creating a bunch of policy-related sinecures for ex-Tory MPs.
So we are just going to have to live with it.
However we are also on a fairly nasty trajectory in terms of climate and culture and geopolitics
Right now it feels like a race around the world to save mankind. Our only hope IS technology, we must pray it wins. But there is a very serious chance it WILL win and it might not even kill us afterwards and then we will be in the sunlit uplands of super abundance
LOL!
Ha!
https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,Los-Angeles,United-States-of-America
https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,London,United-Kingdom
Unsure of the wind battery situation though. Perhaps that's more favourable ?
He is, ultimately, a Labour man. He sat at the feet of the likes of Tony Benn and believes all the stuff about being the political wing of organised Labour - the history of it, the grand project. He worries about Labour going astray, as he would see it, but just isn't in the business of replacing it like many of his followers are.
That's not to say he won't personally stand as an independent because he wants to continue being an MP and that's the only way. But the people who think he's going to join or lead a new movement are, I think, missing what he's all about.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1788204903032066469?s=19
It's got nothing to do with normal people being inconvenienced by having their electricity generated by a wind turbine instead of coal combustion.
But as Robert points out, it's very useful indeed for grid balancing, and will likely pay for itself within two or three years.
Less so, when it’s for heating on that calm and cold day in January.
That said, as the price of solar keeps coming down, the idea of a British solar farm in Morocco, with a massive cable connecting it to the UK Grid, doesn’t seem quite as totally bonkers as it did a few years ago.
Two massive gravity batteries are nearing completion in the US and China
Explain your thinking in case we are missing something.
Moon is certainly on the special sauce as usual, though.
The political skill is to manage the retail price of energy - as we’ve seen with mixed results in recent years.
From Our World in Data
Peak demand is at c. 8pm in California in April, after the sun has set. That chart shows that batteries are starting to have a massive impact on extending the usage of solar. And - by the way - that increase in battery usage in California has happened in just three years:
The key thing here is cost.
Solar used to be insanely expensive. In 2008, the price per watt of a panel was about $5. By 2011, it had fallen to $2. It was under $1 by 2014, and $0.50 by 2018. In 2022, it was $0.25. Currently, I can get panels for $0.16-0.18/watt.
Prices have been halving every four years or so.
Now, obviously there are other costs which don't fall (or at least not so quickly): like labour, aluminium and even the cost of inverters. But if you're building a new house today, the incremental cost of adding solar (and cutting your electricity bill in half) is negligible. If you're building an office or a factory or a warehouse or a shop... you might as well spend the extra. And as those costs inexorably and inevitably continue to drop, and as battery capacity continues to get rolled out, and as electric car penetration continues to increase, then fossil fuel usage will die.
The thing people really don't get is that new solar (and to a lesser extent wind) capacity never goes away. You produce a panel, it will generate electricity for decades. By contrast, with fossil fuels, you need to dig the coal up every single year.
This is one of the greatest changes in human history (soon to be followed by an agrictulture wave). And the only way we fuck it up is if we try and demand people wear hair shirts.
Because that's what drove prices up: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it's also sped the adoption of renewables.
Maybe the seeming inevitability of a massive Starmer majority will also create space for unexpected movements to gain momentum.
Worst political decision of this century so far goes to Angela Merkel, for prematurely shutting down Germany’s nuclear capacity in favour of Russian gas, and now they’re facing a severe recession as a result.
NEW THREAD
And it was obvious a decade back that the renewable price trend would only be in one direction, over time.
We had all the facts we needed to make much greater investments quite some time back - and had we done so, it might have saved us billions during the first year of the Ukraine invasion.
A lot of the comment discussing her defection in terms of her being a right-winger has been far too simplistic.
This thread has just defected to Labour