Welcome to the world of volatility – politicalbetting.com

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Welcome to the world of volatility – politicalbetting.com

NEW: The Tories have lost up to a third of voters who planned to back the party just four months ago, according to an Ipsos poll for the FT that shows high levels of volatility ahead of the election. Labour lost a quarter of voters in the same period.https://t.co/AcmeShZpBV pic.twitter.com/g7uma0dOOw

Read the full story here

TimS

First.

And FPT because it took me a while to write

Here in Lewisham we got the usual one-off dump of leaflets today via the postman. So in total we have

Vicky Foxcroft (Labour). Slick, standardised and professionally produced Labour leaflet. Little tick-box questionnaire about what we'd like Labour to do in the constituency. 8/10 for the leaflet, only 4/10 for actually being visible or active between elections.

Two from Jean Branch (Lib Dem). Why 2 leaflets, Jean? This is Lewisham North, Labour rosette on donkey territory. Spend your time helping Bobby Dean in Carshalton & Wallington. OK, reasonably personal leaflets but message isn't clear. 6/10

Wrong leaflet from Reform (Marian Newton, Lewisham W and W Dulwich. Should be Edward Powell Lewisham North). Slick turquoise one pager with Nigel and Richard. Stop the boats etc. I'll begrudgingly have to give this 8/10 but with a 2 point deduction to 6 for getting the constituency wrong

[Big] John [Owls] Lloyd (Alliance for green socialism). Quaintly homemade vibe. Classic old trot photo, looking miserable. "John considers Starmer to be as bad as the Tories. The same right wing policies at home....failure to condemn Israeli war crimes in Palestine". SKS fans please explain.

Gwenton Dennis (Workers Party of GB). Another one going to the wrong constituency - he's Lewisham West & West Dulwich too. Maybe the royal mail messed it up. Similar content to John Lloyd but much slicker production values. No mention here of the traditionalist themes Galloway used in Rochdale. Rather touching dedication and picture of candidate's late mum and sister on the back. 7/10

No Green (surprising, must be on the way) or Conservative leaflets yet.

BartholomewRoberts

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.

Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

TheScreamingEagles

The irony is that for 38 years the Scots sang songs about Maradona and wore Argentina shirts and it’s an Argie ref who stiffs them for a stonewall penalty. Absolute theatre last night 😂😂😂 #EURo2024

https://x.com/njones179/status/1805125649431961949

kjh

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

TheScreamingEagles

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

MattW

Taking the Fifth.

This is fun: Sir Winston "Walter Mitty" Churchill. The medals Churchill was not entitled to wear - that he wore.

https://youtu.be/s1VCnnCQP3E

Mark Felton is a small-s socialist.

TimS

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

What's the meaning of spatulas?

FeersumEnjineeya

On topic, yes, there is non-negligible change that, with a bit of luck and some deft leadership, the LDs could end up forming the next but one government.

TimS

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.

Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I wonder if anyone ends up in the top right. You'd have to go into the test thinking "I just like backing winners".

TimS

TheScreamingEagles said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

Ah, got it. I've never been furnished with one of those and have stripped the skin off my hands many times.

El_Capitano

TimS said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

What's the meaning of spatulas?

A less successful Monty Python film?

BartholomewRoberts

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

What? No - I don't want to keep emitting pollution, the exact opposite. And I do want to invest in clean technology - but we can't keep doing what we're doing and just swap out fossil fuels for renewables; we'd still have massive problems. We have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption - deforestation for farming, the issues of topsoil erosion, as well as other pollutants such as those in water. This isn't as simple as slowly transition away from oil and gas to solar, wind and waves - we will have to actively change how energy and resources are produced and distributed, both for efficiency as well as a moral imperative to not just leave the poor to suffer the negative impacts of the changes to the climate we've already caused.

No we don't have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption, we need clean technologies.

With clean technologies we could double everyone's production and consumption and there'd still be no emissions as anything times zero equals zero.

There is no reason to reduce production or consumption, only emissions. Clean science and technology means we can and should be able to increase production cleanly to improve living standards while protecting the environment.

Pissing about reducing production while keeping emissions does nothing for the environment.

I'm not saying we should keep emissions, I'm saying we are never going to have a 100% clean production method. The carbon capture we have at the moment, at it's best, captures around 40% of CO2. The only way to get to reduce the amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere to a point where we can give ourselves the time to manage the consequences of what we have already done is by reducing production and consumption. and the only way to do that is to understand that the states and individuals that overconsume and hoard wealth can no longer to afford to do that.

No, any reduction in consumption or production is going to be fiddling while the planet burns. Its a bad joke, not a serious suggestion.

We don't need massive carbon capture and we don't need to reduce consumption or production, we need 100% clean production methods. Which we are working on and investing in.

Develop 100% clean production techniques and we can have as much production and consumption as we like - and so can the rest of the planet.

And while you may dream of cutting other people's size of their pie, the rest of the planet will not voluntarily cut their own size of the pie. Quite the opposite, the rest of the planet is singularly focused on growing their pie.

What the rest of the world will do is adopt 100% clean production techniques that we develop and adopt too.

Indeed 100% clean technologies can help grow the pie. Extracting oil and gas is expensive, if we can tap freely available, renewable, natural resources like wind and sunshine to get our power instead of importing expensive consumable commodities, then we can invest to grow while helping the planet.

You are not serious about the planet.

I'm not serious? You seem to be suggesting that developing 100% clean production lines is just around the corner, and we are nowhere near them. That moving our entire infrastructure to energy produced through clean methods can and will happen soon and using 100% clean methods themselves. Part of the problem we face is that to get to a clean tech future we do need to do some extractivism now - and we can't offset that yet. Globally, instead of trying to manage our emissions at the point we realised they were a problem to give us time to deal with the problem, we kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Because the logic of growth growth growth and tech will save us meant that it would be a problem solved in the future so it doesn't matter what we do now. But that hasn't happened and we are barrelling towards catastrophe.

100% (net) clean production lines are already here for some things and around the corner for others, yes.

That is what we need to invest in.

Basic and fundamental mathematics are not on your side. 8 billion people reducing consumption by 1% on aggregate does bugger all for the planet.

8 billion people using 100% (net) clean technologies fixes the climate problem.

You are completely wrong to suggest we've done nothing, the opposite is the truth. As recently as in 2012 we got a plurality of our electricity from coal, and most of the rest from gas, and very little from renewables.

As of right now we are getting no power whatsoever from coal and nearly twice as much power from zero-emissions sources than from gas.

We need to do more of the same, develop and invest in clean production lines. And the rest of the world can do the same too.

It does not matter if we get a 1% or 2% increase or decrease in consumption in aggregate. A 100% (net) decrease in emissions does matte though.

viewcode

MattW said:

Taking the Fifth.

This is fun: Sir Winston "Walter Mitty" Churchill. The medals Churchill was not entitled to wear - that he wore.

https://youtu.be/s1VCnnCQP3E

Mark "A Lancaster Was Going To Drop An Atom Bomb Honest" Felton

Heathener

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

TheScreamingEagles

TimS said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

Ah, got it. I've never been furnished with one of those and have stripped the skin off my hands many times.

Some of the those letterboxes snap violently and could take a few digits.

Plus dogs on the otherside are a menace, soz IanB2 and all other PB dog owners.

MattW

TimS said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

What's the meaning of spatulas?

The second dog is the one that gets you.

Joke from the Sun's Rot Spot column circa 1990:

What has four legs and an arm?

Peter_the_Punter

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

viewcode

TimS said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

What's the meaning of spatulas?

they enable you to post leaflets without betting your fingers bitten off.

bondegezou

The hard left, anti-Labour crowd have been talking up Akhmed Yakoob’s chances. This will not help:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/birmingham-election-candidate-akhmed-yakoob-apologises-for-deeply-disturbing-remarks-about-women

MisterBedfordshire

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

James_M

I'm in Harrogate and Knaresborough. A few Lib Dem boards and the odd Conservative
one in fields. Lots of leaflets, Lib Dems
beating Tories but not by much. No canvassing by anyone. At the local by election we couldn't move for Lib Dem councillors. We are in a Lib Dem Council seat so I'm surprised at lack of canvassing. Guess they are going to wards without councillors.

bondegezou

“With an uncertain things can become worse…” Are there some words middling here?

MattW

TimS said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.

Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I wonder if anyone ends up in the top right. You'd have to go into the test thinking "I just like backing winners".

It seems to want my email address.

TimS

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

Typo on annals there

TheScreamingEagles

bondegezou said:

“With an uncertain things can become worse…” Are there some words middling here?

Just one word.

With an uncertain world things can become worse

Pro_Rata

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

bondegezou

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

RochdalePioneers

MattW said:

Taking the Fifth.

This is fun: Sir Winston "Walter Mitty" Churchill. The medals Churchill was not entitled to wear - that he wore.

https://youtu.be/s1VCnnCQP3E

Mark Felton is a small-s socialist.

Mark Felton makes brilliant videos.

bondegezou

MattW said:

TimS said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.

Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I wonder if anyone ends up in the top right. You'd have to go into the test thinking "I just like backing winners".

It seems to want my email address.

I did not get that. Is that a Google ad trying to trick you?

Pro_Rata

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

On the Tory side it's been less a campaign and more an attempted reenactment of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

Peter_the_Punter

TheScreamingEagles said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

Sound advice, TSE, and not just in respect of letterboxes.

turbotubbs

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

kyf_100

Peter_the_Punter said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

Sound advice, TSE, and not just in respect of letterboxes.

Or, indeed, fingers.

madmacs

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Just to add I live in Gloucester but have been in Cheltenham a lot. There are a number of Lib Dem posters in the Gloucester and Cheltenham wards which are in Tewkesbury constituency (haven't been to Prestbury which is more Conservative. There are, I think , nine Lib Dem councillors. one independent and one green in the five wards in Gloucester and Cheltenham which are now in Tewkesbury constituency. I think the Conservatives have an outside chance of beating Labour in Gloucester, purely because the "sitting" Tory is a good constituency MP, Alex Chalk is almost certainly toast and I agree that Robertson is just favourite in Tewkesbury. I may be wrong but he does not seem to have been a great constituency MP. Safe seat syndrome?

LostPassword

TimS said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.

Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I wonder if anyone ends up in the top right. You'd have to go into the test thinking "I just like backing winners".

The top-right quadrant is essentially "might makes right." I wouldn't be surprised to see a fair number of people there. Though they'll be backing Ukrainian raids on artillery positions in Belgorod if the war goes Ukraine's way.

BartholomewRoberts

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

Its not just international conferences that are vastly better in person, so is almost everything else people fly for too.

Which is why cutting flights is not a credible suggestion and is not going to happen. If it won't happen for these conferences, it won't happen anywhere else either.

What is a credible suggestion is developing net zero clean technologies for flights. Which will take longer to implement than say net zero clean technologies for cars, but should still happen ultimately.

Peter_the_Punter

Pro_Rata said:

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

On the Tory side it's been less a campaign and more an attempted reenactment of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I had to google Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I wish I hadn't.

madmacs

TimS said:

First.

And FPT because it took me a while to write

Here in Lewisham we got the usual one-off dump of leaflets today via the postman. So in total we have

Vicky Foxcroft (Labour). Slick, standardised and professionally produced Labour leaflet. Little tick-box questionnaire about what we'd like Labour to do in the constituency. 8/10 for the leaflet, only 4/10 for actually being visible or active between elections.

Two from Jean Branch (Lib Dem). Why 2 leaflets, Jean? This is Lewisham North, Labour rosette on donkey territory. Spend your time helping Bobby Dean in Carshalton & Wallington. OK, reasonably personal leaflets but message isn't clear. 6/10

Wrong leaflet from Reform (Marian Newton, Lewisham W and W Dulwich. Should be Edward Powell Lewisham North). Slick turquoise one pager with Nigel and Richard. Stop the boats etc. I'll begrudgingly have to give this 8/10 but with a 2 point deduction to 6 for getting the constituency wrong

[Big] John [Owls] Lloyd (Alliance for green socialism). Quaintly homemade vibe. Classic old trot photo, looking miserable. "John considers Starmer to be as bad as the Tories. The same right wing policies at home....failure to condemn Israeli war crimes in Palestine". SKS fans please explain.

Gwenton Dennis (Workers Party of GB). Another one going to the wrong constituency - he's Lewisham West & West Dulwich too. Maybe the royal mail messed it up. Similar content to John Lloyd but much slicker production values. No mention here of the traditionalist themes Galloway used in Rochdale. Rather touching dedication and picture of candidate's late mum and sister on the back. 7/10

No Green (surprising, must be on the way) or Conservative leaflets yet.

I got the Reform leaflet for a different constituency to the one in which I live - must be a common trait

BartholomewRoberts

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

What? No - I don't want to keep emitting pollution, the exact opposite. And I do want to invest in clean technology - but we can't keep doing what we're doing and just swap out fossil fuels for renewables; we'd still have massive problems. We have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption - deforestation for farming, the issues of topsoil erosion, as well as other pollutants such as those in water. This isn't as simple as slowly transition away from oil and gas to solar, wind and waves - we will have to actively change how energy and resources are produced and distributed, both for efficiency as well as a moral imperative to not just leave the poor to suffer the negative impacts of the changes to the climate we've already caused.

No we don't have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption, we need clean technologies.

With clean technologies we could double everyone's production and consumption and there'd still be no emissions as anything times zero equals zero.

There is no reason to reduce production or consumption, only emissions. Clean science and technology means we can and should be able to increase production cleanly to improve living standards while protecting the environment.

Pissing about reducing production while keeping emissions does nothing for the environment.

I'm not saying we should keep emissions, I'm saying we are never going to have a 100% clean production method. The carbon capture we have at the moment, at it's best, captures around 40% of CO2. The only way to get to reduce the amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere to a point where we can give ourselves the time to manage the consequences of what we have already done is by reducing production and consumption. and the only way to do that is to understand that the states and individuals that overconsume and hoard wealth can no longer to afford to do that.

No, any reduction in consumption or production is going to be fiddling while the planet burns. Its a bad joke, not a serious suggestion.

We don't need massive carbon capture and we don't need to reduce consumption or production, we need 100% clean production methods. Which we are working on and investing in.

Develop 100% clean production techniques and we can have as much production and consumption as we like - and so can the rest of the planet.

And while you may dream of cutting other people's size of their pie, the rest of the planet will not voluntarily cut their own size of the pie. Quite the opposite, the rest of the planet is singularly focused on growing their pie.

What the rest of the world will do is adopt 100% clean production techniques that we develop and adopt too.

Indeed 100% clean technologies can help grow the pie. Extracting oil and gas is expensive, if we can tap freely available, renewable, natural resources like wind and sunshine to get our power instead of importing expensive consumable commodities, then we can invest to grow while helping the planet.

You are not serious about the planet.

I'm not serious? You seem to be suggesting that developing 100% clean production lines is just around the corner, and we are nowhere near them. That moving our entire infrastructure to energy produced through clean methods can and will happen soon and using 100% clean methods themselves. Part of the problem we face is that to get to a clean tech future we do need to do some extractivism now - and we can't offset that yet. Globally, instead of trying to manage our emissions at the point we realised they were a problem to give us time to deal with the problem, we kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Because the logic of growth growth growth and tech will save us meant that it would be a problem solved in the future so it doesn't matter what we do now. But that hasn't happened and we are barrelling towards catastrophe.

When do you expect this catastrophe to arrive and what will it look like.

I mean, much of it is already arriving - with the lesser effects of rising global temperatures being more volatile weather, more extreme weather, places suffering from great droughts and then flooding. People are already concerned about the AMOC and the Gulf Stream. Farmers are already raising concerns about crop production. We are already experiencing things that some scientists thought would be decades away. And that's at almost 1.5 above the pre Industrial base line.

Every step closer to 2 degrees above the pre Industrial base line puts us at risk of irreversible tipping points - polar ice sheets melting, loss of permafrost, Amazon loss, monsoon season shifts. Any of these irreversible tipping points will send global shockwaves as we see mass displacement beyond anything already seen, land either uninhabitable or no longer usable for production (whether that is farming or otherwise).

And yet you don't advocate for 100% (net) clean production techniques and net zero emissions, while I do.

Instead you want to fiddle while the planet burns, playing pretend redistribution of resources, rather than fix the problem.

kjh

TheScreamingEagles said:

kjh said:

We have LD branded spatulas for delivering (although I think it is namby pamby personally to use one). Someone has just had his nicked by a dog. The owners are going to return and wonder why the LDs have started delivering cooking equipment.

The spatulas are for pushing leaflets through letterboxes surely?

When it comes to letterboxes experience tells you never put your fingers where you cannot see them.

Yep and it grabbed it and pulled it through.

I don't use one, but I do have the scars (literally) for my foolishness. Many years ago a dog did get my hand through the letterbox and wouldn't let go. I just had to yank my hand back and it ripped open one finger down to the bone.

And that led to an interesting conversation with my car insurance company. I couldn't drive so the person I was with drove me in my car to hospital (5 minutes away) where I was stitched up. As he was driving it was on his policy, but obviously only 3rd party for another car. I asked the insurance company what I should have done then and they said call an ambulance, which was nonsense for such a minor injury.

After that I moved to Saga who will cover you comprehensive for someone to drive your car if you become incapacitated to get you to home or a hospital.

jamesdoyle

You know those sculpture trails cities do, where they have an animal shape and different artists decorate it, and they're installed all around the city or town?
Chichester (& Arundel) are just about to start their next one, and as well as the large street sculptures there will be smaller ones to go in shop windows. I'm having one, and it's going to be delivered today.
The trail is called The Big Hoot.

So later on today, or possibly tomorrow, I will legitimately be able to say I have my own owl. And Labour haven't even won yet. Imagine!

LostPassword

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

Yes. And some of the statements are vague.

For example, there's one about "extreme measures in response to being forced off your land." Now, I'd consider military action to be an extreme measure - it's more extreme than writing a letter to the ICJ - but I'd still expect such action to be conducted within the rules of law. Attacking civilians is out of bounds in all circumstances.

I suspect the question is actually asking about support for Hamas terrorism in response to the Nakba, but you could also interpret it in terms of Ukraine attacking oil-related infrastructure in Russia in response to the invasion, depending on your definition of terms.

Chris

Election coverage on both BBC and ITV websites seems to be completely dominated by the Tory betting question.

Ten days before polling day - with postal ballots now being completed and returned - and the dominant issue is Tories being investigated for misconduct and the usual questions about why Sunak isn't taking action against them.

It may not be entirely fair, but could Sunak have imagined, when he decided to jump, that this campaign would turn into such an absolute nightmare?

Peter_the_Punter

madmacs said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Just to add I live in Gloucester but have been in Cheltenham a lot. There are a number of Lib Dem posters in the Gloucester and Cheltenham wards which are in Tewkesbury constituency (haven't been to Prestbury which is more Conservative. There are, I think , nine Lib Dem councillors. one independent and one green in the five wards in Gloucester and Cheltenham which are now in Tewkesbury constituency. I think the Conservatives have an outside chance of beating Labour in Gloucester, purely because the "sitting" Tory is a good constituency MP, Alex Chalk is almost certainly toast and I agree that Robertson is just favourite in Tewkesbury. I may be wrong but he does not seem to have been a great constituency MP. Safe seat syndrome?

You don't hear much about Laurence Robertson here. I've heard say he's lazy, but otherwise he seems to be a fairly low-profile backbencher. He did however rip into Boris over Covid. He also imbibed of much hospitality at the Cheltenham Festival, but that's probably a plus point around here.

He's 33rd in the list of Con safe seats, and 85th target for the LDs. Those numbers probably overestimate his chances but even so I expect him to scrape home.

148grss

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

I'm interested in which answers to which questions are supposed to suggest which direction? Like the question on "ancient and ancestral" history to the land - what do we mean by ancient and ancestral? I would say that Palestinians have that connection to the land - it is ancient and ancestral, with people alive today who can point to grandparents who lived in what is now considered Israel and whose family likely have been in that area for hundreds of years - whereas most of the the Jewish diaspora had not been in that land for thousands of years and so the idea that Israel is somehow a link to something "ancient and ancestral" is a political fabrication. And on the flip side, Putin's history of Ukraine as "Russia" is ideologically minded, but not completely false - I think there is an argument to be made that their is some clear lineage between the people of Ukraine and the people of (at least Western Russia) living in the land that is now Ukraine. But I don't think that gives modern day Russia a territorial claim on modern day Ukraine.

OnboardG1

Peter_the_Punter said:

Pro_Rata said:

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

On the Tory side it's been less a campaign and more an attempted reenactment of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I had to google Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I wish I hadn't.

In those days one might have considered that an omen from God.

SandyRentool

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

LostPassword

jamesdoyle said:

You know those sculpture trails cities do, where they have an animal shape and different artists decorate it, and they're installed all around the city or town?
Chichester (& Arundel) are just about to start their next one, and as well as the large street sculptures there will be smaller ones to go in shop windows. I'm having one, and it's going to be delivered today.
The trail is called The Big Hoot.

So later on today, or possibly tomorrow, I will legitimately be able to say I have my own owl. And Labour haven't even won yet. Imagine!

Will it be in Labour red?

algarkirk

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

Agree. It's epoch making politically, comedy gold, and full of drama and uncertainty. No-one has any idea what the tally will be on Friday week. It's even possible that so many seats will be marginal (Bury St Edmunds knife edge marginal - you could not make it up) that Sir John Curtice won't absolutely nail the degree of Labour victory down at 10 pm.

(Living in Cumbria, with our classic laconic reserve you would have almost no idea there is anything on. No posters, no placards, no canvassing, utterly desultory rubbishy leaflets through the door into the bin. Though the expectation is that every seat bar one will go from blue to red).

OnboardG1

viewcode said:

MattW said:

Taking the Fifth.

This is fun: Sir Winston "Walter Mitty" Churchill. The medals Churchill was not entitled to wear - that he wore.

https://youtu.be/s1VCnnCQP3E

Mark "A Lancaster Was Going To Drop An Atom Bomb Honest" Felton

Ah good old Mark Felton. A man so poor at checking his sources that even milTubers can roast him without crackback.

Ghedebrav

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

MisterBedfordshire

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

What? No - I don't want to keep emitting pollution, the exact opposite. And I do want to invest in clean technology - but we can't keep doing what we're doing and just swap out fossil fuels for renewables; we'd still have massive problems. We have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption - deforestation for farming, the issues of topsoil erosion, as well as other pollutants such as those in water. This isn't as simple as slowly transition away from oil and gas to solar, wind and waves - we will have to actively change how energy and resources are produced and distributed, both for efficiency as well as a moral imperative to not just leave the poor to suffer the negative impacts of the changes to the climate we've already caused.

No we don't have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption, we need clean technologies.

With clean technologies we could double everyone's production and consumption and there'd still be no emissions as anything times zero equals zero.

There is no reason to reduce production or consumption, only emissions. Clean science and technology means we can and should be able to increase production cleanly to improve living standards while protecting the environment.

Pissing about reducing production while keeping emissions does nothing for the environment.

I'm not saying we should keep emissions, I'm saying we are never going to have a 100% clean production method. The carbon capture we have at the moment, at it's best, captures around 40% of CO2. The only way to get to reduce the amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere to a point where we can give ourselves the time to manage the consequences of what we have already done is by reducing production and consumption. and the only way to do that is to understand that the states and individuals that overconsume and hoard wealth can no longer to afford to do that.

No, any reduction in consumption or production is going to be fiddling while the planet burns. Its a bad joke, not a serious suggestion.

We don't need massive carbon capture and we don't need to reduce consumption or production, we need 100% clean production methods. Which we are working on and investing in.

Develop 100% clean production techniques and we can have as much production and consumption as we like - and so can the rest of the planet.

And while you may dream of cutting other people's size of their pie, the rest of the planet will not voluntarily cut their own size of the pie. Quite the opposite, the rest of the planet is singularly focused on growing their pie.

What the rest of the world will do is adopt 100% clean production techniques that we develop and adopt too.

Indeed 100% clean technologies can help grow the pie. Extracting oil and gas is expensive, if we can tap freely available, renewable, natural resources like wind and sunshine to get our power instead of importing expensive consumable commodities, then we can invest to grow while helping the planet.

You are not serious about the planet.

I'm not serious? You seem to be suggesting that developing 100% clean production lines is just around the corner, and we are nowhere near them. That moving our entire infrastructure to energy produced through clean methods can and will happen soon and using 100% clean methods themselves. Part of the problem we face is that to get to a clean tech future we do need to do some extractivism now - and we can't offset that yet. Globally, instead of trying to manage our emissions at the point we realised they were a problem to give us time to deal with the problem, we kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Because the logic of growth growth growth and tech will save us meant that it would be a problem solved in the future so it doesn't matter what we do now. But that hasn't happened and we are barrelling towards catastrophe.

When do you expect this catastrophe to arrive and what will it look like.

I mean, much of it is already arriving - with the lesser effects of rising global temperatures being more volatile weather, more extreme weather, places suffering from great droughts and then flooding. People are already concerned about the AMOC and the Gulf Stream. Farmers are already raising concerns about crop production. We are already experiencing things that some scientists thought would be decades away. And that's at almost 1.5 above the pre Industrial base line.

Every step closer to 2 degrees above the pre Industrial base line puts us at risk of irreversible tipping points - polar ice sheets melting, loss of permafrost, Amazon loss, monsoon season shifts. Any of these irreversible tipping points will send global shockwaves as we see mass displacement beyond anything already seen, land either uninhabitable or no longer usable for production (whether that is farming or otherwise).

And yet you don't advocate for 100% (net) clean production techniques and net zero emissions, while I do.

Instead you want to fiddle while the planet burns, playing pretend redistribution of resources, rather than fix the problem.

We would all like 100% net clean production techniques and emissions.

Thinking it is remotely possible even if someone cracks fusion (the energy holy grail) is dangerous utopian nonsense.

Even if we didn't use it for fuel, there are a million and one other things we use oil for, from plastics to fertilizer.

So we would still need to extract most of it and distill it to get the byproducts. Then just burn off the petrol and gas if no one wanted it for fuel (which used to happen in a big way with gas before international LPG shipments took off in a big way).

Barnesian

Trump's odds are drifting on Betfair. And the Republican party. Still odds on though.

Nunu5

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Trying to get a good policy out of them is like pulling teeth

MisterBedfordshire

BartholomewRoberts said:

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

Its not just international conferences that are vastly better in person, so is almost everything else people fly for too.

Which is why cutting flights is not a credible suggestion and is not going to happen. If it won't happen for these conferences, it won't happen anywhere else either.

What is a credible suggestion is developing net zero clean technologies for flights. Which will take longer to implement than say net zero clean technologies for cars, but should still happen ultimately.

They could travel by ship/rail if it was really necessary to be there.

Just as they could live in a three bed terraced house like I do with my family rather than a vast carbon guzzling mansion with eight bathrooms.

BartholomewRoberts

MisterBedfordshire said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

What? No - I don't want to keep emitting pollution, the exact opposite. And I do want to invest in clean technology - but we can't keep doing what we're doing and just swap out fossil fuels for renewables; we'd still have massive problems. We have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption - deforestation for farming, the issues of topsoil erosion, as well as other pollutants such as those in water. This isn't as simple as slowly transition away from oil and gas to solar, wind and waves - we will have to actively change how energy and resources are produced and distributed, both for efficiency as well as a moral imperative to not just leave the poor to suffer the negative impacts of the changes to the climate we've already caused.

No we don't have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption, we need clean technologies.

With clean technologies we could double everyone's production and consumption and there'd still be no emissions as anything times zero equals zero.

There is no reason to reduce production or consumption, only emissions. Clean science and technology means we can and should be able to increase production cleanly to improve living standards while protecting the environment.

Pissing about reducing production while keeping emissions does nothing for the environment.

I'm not saying we should keep emissions, I'm saying we are never going to have a 100% clean production method. The carbon capture we have at the moment, at it's best, captures around 40% of CO2. The only way to get to reduce the amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere to a point where we can give ourselves the time to manage the consequences of what we have already done is by reducing production and consumption. and the only way to do that is to understand that the states and individuals that overconsume and hoard wealth can no longer to afford to do that.

No, any reduction in consumption or production is going to be fiddling while the planet burns. Its a bad joke, not a serious suggestion.

We don't need massive carbon capture and we don't need to reduce consumption or production, we need 100% clean production methods. Which we are working on and investing in.

Develop 100% clean production techniques and we can have as much production and consumption as we like - and so can the rest of the planet.

And while you may dream of cutting other people's size of their pie, the rest of the planet will not voluntarily cut their own size of the pie. Quite the opposite, the rest of the planet is singularly focused on growing their pie.

What the rest of the world will do is adopt 100% clean production techniques that we develop and adopt too.

Indeed 100% clean technologies can help grow the pie. Extracting oil and gas is expensive, if we can tap freely available, renewable, natural resources like wind and sunshine to get our power instead of importing expensive consumable commodities, then we can invest to grow while helping the planet.

You are not serious about the planet.

I'm not serious? You seem to be suggesting that developing 100% clean production lines is just around the corner, and we are nowhere near them. That moving our entire infrastructure to energy produced through clean methods can and will happen soon and using 100% clean methods themselves. Part of the problem we face is that to get to a clean tech future we do need to do some extractivism now - and we can't offset that yet. Globally, instead of trying to manage our emissions at the point we realised they were a problem to give us time to deal with the problem, we kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Because the logic of growth growth growth and tech will save us meant that it would be a problem solved in the future so it doesn't matter what we do now. But that hasn't happened and we are barrelling towards catastrophe.

When do you expect this catastrophe to arrive and what will it look like.

I mean, much of it is already arriving - with the lesser effects of rising global temperatures being more volatile weather, more extreme weather, places suffering from great droughts and then flooding. People are already concerned about the AMOC and the Gulf Stream. Farmers are already raising concerns about crop production. We are already experiencing things that some scientists thought would be decades away. And that's at almost 1.5 above the pre Industrial base line.

Every step closer to 2 degrees above the pre Industrial base line puts us at risk of irreversible tipping points - polar ice sheets melting, loss of permafrost, Amazon loss, monsoon season shifts. Any of these irreversible tipping points will send global shockwaves as we see mass displacement beyond anything already seen, land either uninhabitable or no longer usable for production (whether that is farming or otherwise).

And yet you don't advocate for 100% (net) clean production techniques and net zero emissions, while I do.

Instead you want to fiddle while the planet burns, playing pretend redistribution of resources, rather than fix the problem.

We would all like 100% net clean production techniques and emissions.

Thinking it is remotely possible even if someone cracks fusion (the energy holy grail) is dangerous utopian nonsense.

Even if we didn't use it for fuel, there are a million and one other things we use oil for, from plastics to fertilizer.

So we would still need to extract most of it and distill it to get the byproducts. Then just burn off the petrol and gas if no one wanted it for fuel (which used to happen in a big way with gas before international LPG shipments took off in a big way).

Who said anything about not using oil?

We can and will continue to use oil cleanly and indefinitely, for industrial, medicinal and all sorts of other processes.

And dealing with any waste emissions is much easier to do when its done industrially rather than eg in an internal combustion engine.

Clean technologies is not utopian nonsense, its the real world.

madmacs

Peter_the_Punter said:

madmacs said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Peter_the_Punter said:

FPT

madmacs said:

» show previous quotes
Cheltenham is awash with Lib Dem posters, a few Tory and seen no Labour posters. Also many leaflets, letters etc from the yellow perils. Labour clearly focusing on Gloucester




Thanks Mac. Can you please keep posting your reports.

There's an abundance of LD diamonds in Winchcombe, and even more in Bishop Cleeve, which is their stronghold in Tewkesbury constituency. Seen one Labour poster in our High Street, and that's it. Have now had leaflets from every candidate except the Labour lady. Apparently she skipped a radio hustings programme last week. Unfortunately the bookies seem to have cottoned on now to her being a bit of a no-show and the bet which I so proudly trumpeted on here is no longer such good value, but at least I can feel that I have not led our brethren astray.

Best guess is that Laurence Robertson holds on by a couple of thousand so his odds of 4/9 are probably about right.

Just to add I live in Gloucester but have been in Cheltenham a lot. There are a number of Lib Dem posters in the Gloucester and Cheltenham wards which are in Tewkesbury constituency (haven't been to Prestbury which is more Conservative. There are, I think , nine Lib Dem councillors. one independent and one green in the five wards in Gloucester and Cheltenham which are now in Tewkesbury constituency. I think the Conservatives have an outside chance of beating Labour in Gloucester, purely because the "sitting" Tory is a good constituency MP, Alex Chalk is almost certainly toast and I agree that Robertson is just favourite in Tewkesbury. I may be wrong but he does not seem to have been a great constituency MP. Safe seat syndrome?

You don't hear much about Laurence Robertson here. I've heard say he's lazy, but otherwise he seems to be a fairly low-profile backbencher. He did however rip into Boris over Covid. He also imbibed of much hospitality at the Cheltenham Festival, but that's probably a plus point around here.

He's 33rd in the list of Con safe seats, and 85th target for the LDs. Those numbers probably overestimate his chances but even so I expect him to scrape home.

Ironic that Cheltenham racecourse is in Tewkesbury constituency and I think most of the course is in Tewkesbury Borough

Peter_the_Punter

Ghedebrav said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

Just filling in, I expect.

PedestrianRock

https://x.com/9andrewmcdonald/status/1805259442499305729?s=46

Interesting exchange in the Facebook comments under this video, between Tory candidate James Cracknell and one of his fans

"Who knows who will be leading the party come 5th July", Tory candidate Cracknell said — adding a winking smiley face

Ghedebrav

Chris said:

Election coverage on both BBC and ITV websites seems to be completely dominated by the Tory betting question.

Ten days before polling day - with postal ballots now being completed and returned - and the dominant issue is Tories being investigated for misconduct and the usual questions about why Sunak isn't taking action against them.

It may not be entirely fair, but could Sunak have imagined, when he decided to jump, that this campaign would turn into such an absolute nightmare?

Betting, D-Day and the accompanying drumbeat of minor gaffes may not have been predictable in specific terms, but they are all products of an organisation whose culture has, in many ways, gone to shit. Drained of talent, funding and absent a moral compass and any desire to actually govern.

This really set in with the Spaffer Ascendency, though he left Day Boy Rishi to eat the Nemesis as he oozes his way round the speaker circuit, characteristically avoiding all responsibility.

algarkirk

148grss said:

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

I'm interested in which answers to which questions are supposed to suggest which direction? Like the question on "ancient and ancestral" history to the land - what do we mean by ancient and ancestral? I would say that Palestinians have that connection to the land - it is ancient and ancestral, with people alive today who can point to grandparents who lived in what is now considered Israel and whose family likely have been in that area for hundreds of years - whereas most of the the Jewish diaspora had not been in that land for thousands of years and so the idea that Israel is somehow a link to something "ancient and ancestral" is a political fabrication. And on the flip side, Putin's history of Ukraine as "Russia" is ideologically minded, but not completely false - I think there is an argument to be made that their is some clear lineage between the people of Ukraine and the people of (at least Western Russia) living in the land that is now Ukraine. But I don't think that gives modern day Russia a territorial claim on modern day Ukraine.

Jolly good luck with the idea of delinking the Jewish diaspora community from the land mass currently called Israel. I think at best that is a work in progress. And historically, Kiev has a better claim to Moscow than Moscow has to Kiev/Kyiv.

Farooq

TheScreamingEagles said:

The irony is that for 38 years the Scots sang songs about Maradona and wore Argentina shirts and it’s an Argie ref who stiffs them for a stonewall penalty. Absolute theatre last night 😂😂😂 #EURo2024

https://x.com/njones179/status/1805125649431961949

I don't think it was stonewall penalty. I wanted it given, but objectively speaking it wasn't a terrible decision not to give it.

I do think there was a question off offside on the Hungary goal, but honestly that only made a difference to them, not us. A draw wasn't enough. Good luck to Hungary. We were 4th best in the group overall, so there's no use moaning about the result.

MisterBedfordshire

Its a tory betting "Ring" now according to the mail.....

Peter_the_Punter

OnboardG1 said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Pro_Rata said:

Heathener said:

OMG I’m still laughing at that James Cracknell post

This campaign will enter the annals and for as long as there are humans left on earth, still they will refer back to it

On the Tory side it's been less a campaign and more an attempted reenactment of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I had to google Erfurt Latrine Disaster.

I wish I hadn't.

In those days one might have considered that an omen from God.

Evidence that God has a sense of humour perhaps? - although that should be self-evident from the fact he gave men testicles, and women brains.

Ghedebrav

Nunu5 said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Trying to get a good policy out of them is like pulling teeth

Not much to them when you drill down.

MisterBedfordshire

BartholomewRoberts said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

TOPPING said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

What? No - I don't want to keep emitting pollution, the exact opposite. And I do want to invest in clean technology - but we can't keep doing what we're doing and just swap out fossil fuels for renewables; we'd still have massive problems. We have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption - deforestation for farming, the issues of topsoil erosion, as well as other pollutants such as those in water. This isn't as simple as slowly transition away from oil and gas to solar, wind and waves - we will have to actively change how energy and resources are produced and distributed, both for efficiency as well as a moral imperative to not just leave the poor to suffer the negative impacts of the changes to the climate we've already caused.

No we don't have to tackle overproduction and overconsumption, we need clean technologies.

With clean technologies we could double everyone's production and consumption and there'd still be no emissions as anything times zero equals zero.

There is no reason to reduce production or consumption, only emissions. Clean science and technology means we can and should be able to increase production cleanly to improve living standards while protecting the environment.

Pissing about reducing production while keeping emissions does nothing for the environment.

I'm not saying we should keep emissions, I'm saying we are never going to have a 100% clean production method. The carbon capture we have at the moment, at it's best, captures around 40% of CO2. The only way to get to reduce the amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere to a point where we can give ourselves the time to manage the consequences of what we have already done is by reducing production and consumption. and the only way to do that is to understand that the states and individuals that overconsume and hoard wealth can no longer to afford to do that.

No, any reduction in consumption or production is going to be fiddling while the planet burns. Its a bad joke, not a serious suggestion.

We don't need massive carbon capture and we don't need to reduce consumption or production, we need 100% clean production methods. Which we are working on and investing in.

Develop 100% clean production techniques and we can have as much production and consumption as we like - and so can the rest of the planet.

And while you may dream of cutting other people's size of their pie, the rest of the planet will not voluntarily cut their own size of the pie. Quite the opposite, the rest of the planet is singularly focused on growing their pie.

What the rest of the world will do is adopt 100% clean production techniques that we develop and adopt too.

Indeed 100% clean technologies can help grow the pie. Extracting oil and gas is expensive, if we can tap freely available, renewable, natural resources like wind and sunshine to get our power instead of importing expensive consumable commodities, then we can invest to grow while helping the planet.

You are not serious about the planet.

I'm not serious? You seem to be suggesting that developing 100% clean production lines is just around the corner, and we are nowhere near them. That moving our entire infrastructure to energy produced through clean methods can and will happen soon and using 100% clean methods themselves. Part of the problem we face is that to get to a clean tech future we do need to do some extractivism now - and we can't offset that yet. Globally, instead of trying to manage our emissions at the point we realised they were a problem to give us time to deal with the problem, we kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Because the logic of growth growth growth and tech will save us meant that it would be a problem solved in the future so it doesn't matter what we do now. But that hasn't happened and we are barrelling towards catastrophe.

When do you expect this catastrophe to arrive and what will it look like.

I mean, much of it is already arriving - with the lesser effects of rising global temperatures being more volatile weather, more extreme weather, places suffering from great droughts and then flooding. People are already concerned about the AMOC and the Gulf Stream. Farmers are already raising concerns about crop production. We are already experiencing things that some scientists thought would be decades away. And that's at almost 1.5 above the pre Industrial base line.

Every step closer to 2 degrees above the pre Industrial base line puts us at risk of irreversible tipping points - polar ice sheets melting, loss of permafrost, Amazon loss, monsoon season shifts. Any of these irreversible tipping points will send global shockwaves as we see mass displacement beyond anything already seen, land either uninhabitable or no longer usable for production (whether that is farming or otherwise).

And yet you don't advocate for 100% (net) clean production techniques and net zero emissions, while I do.

Instead you want to fiddle while the planet burns, playing pretend redistribution of resources, rather than fix the problem.

We would all like 100% net clean production techniques and emissions.

Thinking it is remotely possible even if someone cracks fusion (the energy holy grail) is dangerous utopian nonsense.

Even if we didn't use it for fuel, there are a million and one other things we use oil for, from plastics to fertilizer.

So we would still need to extract most of it and distill it to get the byproducts. Then just burn off the petrol and gas if no one wanted it for fuel (which used to happen in a big way with gas before international LPG shipments took off in a big way).

Who said anything about not using oil?

We can and will continue to use oil cleanly and indefinitely, for industrial, medicinal and all sorts of other processes.

And dealing with any waste emissions is much easier to do when its done industrially rather than eg in an internal combustion engine.

Clean technologies is not utopian nonsense, its the real world.

Good luck finding anyone to extract it if you are going to make them bin the profitable bits (Petrol and Gas)

bondegezou

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

It is shocking that it took COVID-19 to teach us how much we can use online calls for our international collaborations, and the vast majority of collaboration is now done online. (Most meetings I have with colleagues at the same university as me I do on Teams, rather than getting us all to meet up.)

However, I don't think that's an excuse for MisterBedfordshire or anyone else to believe or push batshit crazy conspiracy theories.

williamglenn

PedestrianRock said:

https://x.com/9andrewmcdonald/status/1805259442499305729?s=46

Interesting exchange in the Facebook comments under this video, between Tory candidate James Cracknell and one of his fans

"Who knows who will be leading the party come 5th July", Tory candidate Cracknell said — adding a winking smiley face

Would they need a leader with the number of MPs they'll have? They could be the coxless fours.

bondegezou

BartholomewRoberts said:

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

Its not just international conferences that are vastly better in person, so is almost everything else people fly for too.

Which is why cutting flights is not a credible suggestion and is not going to happen. If it won't happen for these conferences, it won't happen anywhere else either.

What is a credible suggestion is developing net zero clean technologies for flights. Which will take longer to implement than say net zero clean technologies for cars, but should still happen ultimately.

It's not either/or. We can cut some flights, and should, and we should also be developing and implementing clean technologies.

The problem is so great that doing one of the things won't be enough. We need to do all of the things!

MattW

FPT:

Flatlander said:

MattW said:

Flatlander said:

MattW said:

An "interesting" story, with several sides.

Farmer in Devon deliberately sprays wild camper, camping on the margin of a field that had already been cut, with slurry.

He could just have asked him to move on, but planned and executed an assault, then had it reported in the Soaraway Sun.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'd say that it somewhat increases the likelihood of right to roam in England being addressed by the next Government.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/28620921/farmer-shoots-poo-slurry-wild-camper-tent/

Committed an assault and documented it? Not the brightest.


A right to roam in England will be difficult.

There is a lot more land next to urban sprawl and plenty of anti-social behaviour to go with it.

There is also a right of way network which doesn't really exist in Scotland and we already have access land in some suitable places.

Extend Access Land? - yes.
A blanket right to roam? - a recipe for trouble.

Yep - I agree it's a can or worms, which I think is why New Labour only went so far.

AIUI the Scottish setup has been quite effective, so that is a good, but maybe partial due to population density etc, model.

The RoW network is very badly neglected, with some bizarre general practices such as newly created publicly funded multiuser paths not being dedicated as RoWs. The current Govt has been as chaotic about this, as they are about everything else - with for example Theresa Coffey being a patsy for the landowner lobby.

My preference is for the role of LHAs to be broadened to be Public Highway bodies, rather than "Roads" Bodies with nods to other things, and public highway policing to become a statutory responsibility of police forces.

Access land in England is a mess - there are hundreds of areas of access land everywhere which cannot be reached without trespassing to get there. There's a good video by Paul Whitewick on that issue here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0GiPtOHI7U

It all seems ripe for a tidy up, and it will be popular with pretty much all of Sir Keir Starmer's support base. I don't see a political downside for him.

Agree, a tidy up would be good.

I'm not averse to a bit of trespass myself depending on the circumstances but I always do so responsibly.

A number of RoWs round here are impassible to sane people (very high vegetation, rutted and swampy) but also have very rare plants on them which would not benefit from them being cleared and surfaced.

We were asked to collect some seeds for Kew from one.

Poor maintainance of signage and stiles / gates is endemic, though, and that could be fixed with a few quid.

One of my favourite bloggers at present is Kate Ashbrook, who was a Ramblers' trustee for about 30 years - the kind of Englishwoman who writes about organising ~100 path-check volunteers for a couple of decades in Buckinghamshire in her spare time, as if it was like boiling an egg. She was the protagonist in the Hoogstraten case, and resolving it involved minor things such as getting new clauses in the CROW Act 2000.

You and others might enjoy; I'm slowly working my way through 14 years of ~3-weekly blogging.

Since we have been on access, here's a short piece she wrote about a walk designed to show Richard Benyon the Minister about problems with access land in England:

https://campaignerkate.wordpress.com/2022/07/31/walk-for-a-minister/

FF43

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

Very pro Ukraine and somewhat pro Palestine in my case. Which I guess is about right, even though I think it's complicated and the questions somewhat simplistic.

Phil

NB. On the Letby retrial. I was fairly neutral on the whole “Letby is innocent” thing, leaning pretty strongly towards a “there was a long court case & the jury saw all the evidence & got to make their judgement” position but this kind of thing is making me question that:

https://x.com/LucyLetbyTrials/status/1804980240139366627

Obviously this is a pro-Letby Twitter account, but seriously? The evidence in the original trial /reversed/ the entry & exit of every single person involved? So key witnesses in the original trial claimed “very strong recollections” of things that the entry / exit records suggest simply didn’t happen?

WTF were the police doing?

MisterBedfordshire

bondegezou said:

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

It is shocking that it took COVID-19 to teach us how much we can use online calls for our international collaborations, and the vast majority of collaboration is now done online. (Most meetings I have with colleagues at the same university as me I do on Teams, rather than getting us all to meet up.)

However, I don't think that's an excuse for MisterBedfordshire or anyone else to believe or push batshit crazy conspiracy theories.

Since when is the rich wanting the pie for themselves and the crumbs for the plebs a batshit crazy conspiracy theory?

Its been the norm throughout most of recorded history

jamesdoyle

LostPassword said:

jamesdoyle said:

You know those sculpture trails cities do, where they have an animal shape and different artists decorate it, and they're installed all around the city or town?
Chichester (& Arundel) are just about to start their next one, and as well as the large street sculptures there will be smaller ones to go in shop windows. I'm having one, and it's going to be delivered today.
The trail is called The Big Hoot.

So later on today, or possibly tomorrow, I will legitimately be able to say I have my own owl. And Labour haven't even won yet. Imagine!

Will it be in Labour red?

Don't know yet - update as soon as possible!

kinabalu

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

I've fetched up in the middle of the bottom right square which I think makes me pro Palestine and pro Russia. The first I knew about but the second is a real surprise. I thought I was (very) strongly pro Ukraine as regards its barbaric and 0% justified violation by Russia. However I accept the findings, unpleasant as they are. Viva Vlad.

Chris

PedestrianRock said:

https://x.com/9andrewmcdonald/status/1805259442499305729?s=46

Interesting exchange in the Facebook comments under this video, between Tory candidate James Cracknell and one of his fans

"Who knows who will be leading the party come 5th July", Tory candidate Cracknell said — adding a winking smiley face

Loyalty famously used to be the Troies' "secret weapon".

It seems to have completely evaporated now.

rcs1000

MisterBedfordshire said:

bondegezou said:

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

It is shocking that it took COVID-19 to teach us how much we can use online calls for our international collaborations, and the vast majority of collaboration is now done online. (Most meetings I have with colleagues at the same university as me I do on Teams, rather than getting us all to meet up.)

However, I don't think that's an excuse for MisterBedfordshire or anyone else to believe or push batshit crazy conspiracy theories.

Since when is the rich wanting the pie for themselves and the crumbs for the plebs a batshit crazy conspiracy theory?

Its been the norm throughout most of recorded history

It becomes a conspiracy theory when you start assuming the conspiring.

Everyone wants more for themselves. That is simple human nature.

MisterBedfordshire

deleted as its sub judice

Stuartinromford

williamglenn said:

PedestrianRock said:

https://x.com/9andrewmcdonald/status/1805259442499305729?s=46

Interesting exchange in the Facebook comments under this video, between Tory candidate James Cracknell and one of his fans

"Who knows who will be leading the party come 5th July", Tory candidate Cracknell said — adding a winking smiley face

Would they need a leader with the number of MPs they'll have? They could be the coxless fours.

Depdends on how Sir Geoffrey gets on in Torridge and Tavistock. 24k majority last time, so must be a knife-edge marginal now.

TimS

FF43 said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

Very pro Ukraine and somewhat pro Palestine in my case. Which I guess is about right, even though I think it's complicated and the questions somewhat simplistic.

That's where I was too. Roughly WSW on the compass.

Ghedebrav

FF43 said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

Very pro Ukraine and somewhat pro Palestine in my case. Which I guess is about right, even though I think it's complicated and the questions somewhat simplistic.

Kind of similar; agree that it's a bit simplistic. I feel moderately annoyed with myself for having done it.

Daveyboy1961

Peter_the_Punter said:

Ghedebrav said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

Just filling in, I expect.

more wisdom required i think

Chris

FF43 said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

Very pro Ukraine and somewhat pro Palestine in my case. Which I guess is about right, even though I think it's complicated and the questions somewhat simplistic.

Same for me. But I think Israel/Palestine is an almost impossibly unique case, and it will be almost impossible to characterise the rights and wrongs by means of generic questions like these.

bondegezou

148grss said:

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

I'm interested in which answers to which questions are supposed to suggest which direction? Like the question on "ancient and ancestral" history to the land - what do we mean by ancient and ancestral? I would say that Palestinians have that connection to the land - it is ancient and ancestral, with people alive today who can point to grandparents who lived in what is now considered Israel and whose family likely have been in that area for hundreds of years - whereas most of the the Jewish diaspora had not been in that land for thousands of years and so the idea that Israel is somehow a link to something "ancient and ancestral" is a political fabrication. And on the flip side, Putin's history of Ukraine as "Russia" is ideologically minded, but not completely false - I think there is an argument to be made that their is some clear lineage between the people of Ukraine and the people of (at least Western Russia) living in the land that is now Ukraine. But I don't think that gives modern day Russia a territorial claim on modern day Ukraine.

You're doing the Palestinian people a disservice by only going back hundreds of years. The Palestinians are mostly the descendants of the people of the area who converted to Christianity and/or Islam. They have the same ancient, ancestral roots as the Jewish people.

AlsoLei

TimS said:

First.

And FPT because it took me a while to write

Here in Lewisham we got the usual one-off dump of leaflets today via the postman. So in total we have

Vicky Foxcroft (Labour). Slick, standardised and professionally produced Labour leaflet. Little tick-box questionnaire about what we'd like Labour to do in the constituency. 8/10 for the leaflet, only 4/10 for actually being visible or active between elections.

Two from Jean Branch (Lib Dem). Why 2 leaflets, Jean? This is Lewisham North, Labour rosette on donkey territory. Spend your time helping Bobby Dean in Carshalton & Wallington. OK, reasonably personal leaflets but message isn't clear. 6/10

Wrong leaflet from Reform (Marian Newton, Lewisham W and W Dulwich. Should be Edward Powell Lewisham North). Slick turquoise one pager with Nigel and Richard. Stop the boats etc. I'll begrudgingly have to give this 8/10 but with a 2 point deduction to 6 for getting the constituency wrong

[Big] John [Owls] Lloyd (Alliance for green socialism). Quaintly homemade vibe. Classic old trot photo, looking miserable. "John considers Starmer to be as bad as the Tories. The same right wing policies at home....failure to condemn Israeli war crimes in Palestine". SKS fans please explain.

Gwenton Dennis (Workers Party of GB). Another one going to the wrong constituency - he's Lewisham West & West Dulwich too. Maybe the royal mail messed it up. Similar content to John Lloyd but much slicker production values. No mention here of the traditionalist themes Galloway used in Rochdale. Rather touching dedication and picture of candidate's late mum and sister on the back. 7/10

No Green (surprising, must be on the way) or Conservative leaflets yet.

Interesting, I've also received a Refuk leaflet for the wrong constituency (in this case, Hornsey and Friern Barnet rather than Islington North).

It's very similar otherwise to the one you got, and it arrived with leaflets for the Lib Dems (correct constituency) and a chicken shop - so clearly a paid delivery, but no stamp so I'm not sure if it was Royal Mail or not.

Have Refuk screwed something up badly, I wonder?

I doubt it matters, though - their potential voters will be motivated by party rather than candidate everywhere but Clacton and perhaps Boston and Skegness.

Ghedebrav

Daveyboy1961 said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Ghedebrav said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

Just filling in, I expect.

more wisdom required i think

I dunno, they're on the cuspid of an electoral breakthrough.

Carnyx

Daveyboy1961 said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Ghedebrav said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

Just filling in, I expect.

more wisdom required i think

Get to the roots of the matter, too. Might reach a cusp of debate in the next few years the way things have already gone.

Farooq

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

I, too, am very green. Instead of burning lots of calories staying warm, I insulate my uppermost extremity by donning a cylindrical structure of thin metal that reflects back infrared emitted from my scalp.

It also reflects... external... electromagnetic waves...

algarkirk

Chris said:

PedestrianRock said:

https://x.com/9andrewmcdonald/status/1805259442499305729?s=46

Interesting exchange in the Facebook comments under this video, between Tory candidate James Cracknell and one of his fans

"Who knows who will be leading the party come 5th July", Tory candidate Cracknell said — adding a winking smiley face

Loyalty famously used to be the Troies' "secret weapon".

It seems to have completely evaporated now.

Yes. I am a moderate loyal Tory from the egg, always voted for them in general elections as the better of the options available, since 1974, brought up in middle class, public service class, Telegraph reading London household. My loyalty to the Toryism I have inherited is demonstrated by the fact I am voting Labour this time, as are most of the Tories I know.

Daveyboy1961

Carnyx said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Ghedebrav said:

SandyRentool said:

Green Party talking about dentistry.

Surely there are plenty of topics to do with environmentalism they could be getting their teeth into instead?

Is there a molar in Green Party HQ?

Just filling in, I expect.

more wisdom required i think

Get to the roots of the matter, too. Might reach a cusp of debate in the next few years the way things have already gone.

they've got a nerve...

Nigelb

Pro_Rata said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

FPT

bondegezou said:

TimS said:

Have we done this fun test yet?

https://www.idrlabs.com/conflict-coordinates/test.php

My conflict coordinates are 75% Palestine, 80.56% Ukraine. I don't think that's wrong, but I'm not certain about the value of this test. I tried to answer questions in the abstract, but it was very obvious which questions related to what Israeli/Palestinian/Russian/Ukrainian claims.

Indeed, I thought similar. I agree with where I ended up and will use my image of the day on it, but not sure how meaningful it is.


Fun test though, thank you TimS for sharing it.

I've come out as completely neutral on Russia / Ukraine and halfway into the Palestinian half of the field. That is way out

Trouble with general principles is that, for example, yes, some of the things Russia say they are doing can in some circumstances be legitimate, except for the fact they are talking total rubbish, and answering for the general principle doesn't say whether you believe that principle applies in a given circumstance.

I answered quite a lot of the questions in the middle, as while the 'general principle' sounded plausible, if you considered it in the context of green lighting a country starting an armed conflict with a neighbour, it certainly wasn't.

Similarly "prepared to negotiate peace", as we've seen recently with serial treaty violator VP, doesn't necessarily mean "prepared to negotiate peace".

I still ended up pretty close to the Ukraine side - and only just below half way between Israel and Palestine.
Which is where I'd have placed myself without such a list.

Flatlander

Farooq said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

I, too, am very green. Instead of burning lots of calories staying warm, I insulate my uppermost extremity by donning a cylindrical structure of thin metal that reflects back infrared emitted from my scalp.

It also reflects... external... electromagnetic waves...

Surely you'd be better letting the microwaves through to get an extra bit of heating?

Farooq

Flatlander said:

Farooq said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

I, too, am very green. Instead of burning lots of calories staying warm, I insulate my uppermost extremity by donning a cylindrical structure of thin metal that reflects back infrared emitted from my scalp.

It also reflects... external... electromagnetic waves...

Surely you'd be better letting the microwaves through to get an extra bit of heating?

That's what they want you to think

Carnyx

Flatlander said:

Farooq said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

I, too, am very green. Instead of burning lots of calories staying warm, I insulate my uppermost extremity by donning a cylindrical structure of thin metal that reflects back infrared emitted from my scalp.

It also reflects... external... electromagnetic waves...

Surely you'd be better letting the microwaves through to get an extra bit of heating?

Doesn't it absorb RF energy and downgrade it to warmth anyway?

BartholomewRoberts

bondegezou said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

turbotubbs said:

bondegezou said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

If you don’t want to sound like a stark raving conspiracy theorist, perhaps drop the bit about the WEF and… well, the conspiracy theory bit.

Thing is there is a bit of a point about scientists sounding alarm bells about global travel and then all meeting up after travelling thousands of miles, usually by air. Now you and I both know that international conferences are vastly better for information exchange, project seeding etc than teams/zoom meetings etc. But it is all too easy for the lay person to look at that and think that if it were really serious* then the scientists would lead by example.

*It is.

Its not just international conferences that are vastly better in person, so is almost everything else people fly for too.

Which is why cutting flights is not a credible suggestion and is not going to happen. If it won't happen for these conferences, it won't happen anywhere else either.

What is a credible suggestion is developing net zero clean technologies for flights. Which will take longer to implement than say net zero clean technologies for cars, but should still happen ultimately.

It's not either/or. We can cut some flights, and should, and we should also be developing and implementing clean technologies.

The problem is so great that doing one of the things won't be enough. We need to do all of the things!

I disagree. The problem is so great we need to be doing clean technologies.

Cutting a few flights does piss all. If 99% of flights still take off, then reducing the flights by 1% does bugger all.

OTOH ensuring the flights that take off emit 10% less in one step, and then emit nothing eventually, transitions us to clean flights without cutting anything.

The latter is a serious, credible, scientific way to address the problem.

Nigelb

Farooq said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The irony is that for 38 years the Scots sang songs about Maradona and wore Argentina shirts and it’s an Argie ref who stiffs them for a stonewall penalty. Absolute theatre last night 😂😂😂 #EURo2024

https://x.com/njones179/status/1805125649431961949

I don't think it was stonewall penalty. I wanted it given, but objectively speaking it wasn't a terrible decision not to give it.

I do think there was a question off offside on the Hungary goal, but honestly that only made a difference to them, not us. A draw wasn't enough. Good luck to Hungary. We were 4th best in the group overall, so there's no use moaning about the result.

It was a very poor decision not to have a look at VAR.
(In the view of this football ignoramus.)

FF43

Phil said:

NB. On the Letby retrial. I was fairly neutral on the whole “Letby is innocent” thing, leaning pretty strongly towards a “there was a long court case & the jury saw all the evidence & got to make their judgement” position but this kind of thing is making me question that:

https://x.com/LucyLetbyTrials/status/1804980240139366627

Obviously this is a pro-Letby Twitter account, but seriously? The evidence in the original trial /reversed/ the entry & exit of every single person involved? So key witnesses in the original trial claimed “very strong recollections” of things that the entry / exit records suggest simply didn’t happen?

WTF were the police doing?

I wouldn't go as far as saying Letby is innocent. Ultimately you have to take a call on these things on the evidence in front of you. But I have a nagging uncomfortable feeling about just how safe this conviction is.

wooliedyed

Focaldata stuff is out on their website in the blog VI 41 23 16 12 5 I think

MisterBedfordshire

Farooq said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FPT.

Luckyguy1983 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

148grss said:

stodge said:

148grss said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Peter Hitchens: "Yes, it was a lawless putsch. My inch-by-inch and line-by-line examination of the illegal overthrow of Ukraine's legitimate President in 2014 (swiftly condoned, to their lasting shame, by the Western democracies)". [Plus link to an article he wrote on the subject in April 23

https://x.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1805178596496916957?t=FbkrYEX9BLIRAmfyfRtbcg&s=19

Peter Hitchens confirms once again he's as thick as pigshit, thanks for the reminder.

Climate change denier too. Moron status confirmed.

Another issue where the three main parties and their fellow travellers have the same view, view anyone who dissents as a cretin and then wonder why people like Meloni, Le Pen and Farage start getting lots of votes and decide it is because they are thick and bigoted, in much the same way a Georgian Aristocrat regarded the peasants.

Anthropogenic climate change is happening - that is a fact. The main issue is how to tackle the issue. The neoliberals want to allow big business to thrive whilst also paying lip service to the idea of being environmentally friendly, so they move taxes onto consumers rather than producers of CO2 - the petrol hikes that many rural Europeans so despise because it makes rural living more expensive is a good example of this. The right / far right want to pretend climate change isn't happening and move on to a scarcity model of politics - there isn't enough left for the Volk, so we must kick out the foreigner (and the dissenters who aren't really people like us anyway). The left propose the only viable alternative - investment in renewable energy and a reduced reliance on fossil fuels. This will mean huge phase shifts (reduced plastic use, reduced usage of hydrocarbon based fertilisers, etc), but at least the left are willing to say what the problem is (excess production and consumption for the benefit of capital) and where to get the resources to tackle the issue (those who already hoard capital) without having to scapegoat immigrants.

There is another option and that's to value sustainability and ecological impact beside profit as a business motive. It's no good making money if you're destroying the world. Supporting businesses which are ecologically sustainable and seek to mitigate the impact of climate change would be sensible options for a more business-oriented Government and if that means companies who refuse to be sustainable go to the wall so be it.

There is a fine line but Govenrment can also be about influencing public behaviour and educating people as to what is happening, why it is happening and the consequences especially for those parts of the world where the impacts are more keenly and immediately felt.

We too face issues from rising sea levels and a climate with more frequent extremes of weather and that means sensible thinking on houses including not building housing developments on flood plains.

The problem with capitalistic growth is that it is ideologically wedded not only to profit, but ever growing profit, which demand ever more extraction and squeezing of labour, along with increasingly trying to foist externalities onto public coffers (or ignoring them completely) makes it really difficult. Already we have right wingers and big businesses saying there is too much green tape and regulation etc. We also know that consumption and CO2 production is skewwed heavily towards the extremely wealthy - both globally and within individual nations. The answer, more equitable distribution of resources and an overall decrease in consumption reliant on fossil fuels, doesn't really square with the continuation of the profit motive as it currently exists.

You don't believe in net zero, do you?

If we have net zero, why do we need "equitable distribution of resources" for climate reasons, considering we can scale up or down consumption/production and anything times zero equals zero.

If we don't have net zero, how do we stop climate change?

If you were serious about tackling climate change, you wouldn't believe any of the garbage you're spouting.

I mean, I don't think globally we're going to get to net zero because many of the people saying we will are hoping carbon capture works better than it currently does - atm efficiency is too low to depend on it. So to get to net zero it will not just be countries sequestering any carbon output to equal zero (as the tech to sequester is currently not good enough), it will require a reduction in emissions. Reduction in emissions will require a reduction in production and consumption. If the logic of growth for the average worker is "you get a smaller slice, but we'll grow the pie", the logic of static growth or even degrowth for the average worker should be "you get a bigger slice, but we're slowly shrinking the pie". That will have to come via wealth redistribution - those who have a huge amount will have to give up their hoarded resources for the benefits of those who have less or none.

So you don't give a fuck about the planet and want to trash the environment and keep emitting pollution then.

Pissing about with marginal reductions in "the size of the pie" will do bugger all to reduce emissions, since we'll still have billions of people making emissions globally and the rest of the world has no desire to shrink their size of the pie - quite rightly too.

Only investing in clean technology gets us to net zero and that requires no change in pie size. And clean technologies can be adopted by the rest of the planet too.

It doesn't take much scraping the green away to reveal the nasty anti-growth agenda beneath. Carbon capture needn't even be about 'storage technology' - it can be done by dressing UK fields with basalt, to the tune of 45% of Britain's overall net zero target, and the level of carbon uptake can be verified easily by testing of soils. Terrifying for the likes of 148grss because it doesn't involve the forced decimation of the economy, which is their actual goal.

It also remineralises the soil and makes it far more fertile.

I used SEER rockdust on my allotment and it was very effective.

Funny thing is they smear me as a climate denier but I grow my own veg travel mostly by public transport and drive very little (had the car since new the thick end of two decades ago and will keep it till it packs up (the greenest way possible of driving due to the carbon cost of construction and disposal). Probably one of the greenest here in terms of what I actually do.

If they actually believed what they say then the COP and WEF summits would be held by videoconference.

What they really mean is that they want a subsistence existence stuck in 15 minute cities for most so that there is unspoiled Lebensraum for them and they can air condition their mansions and fly their private jets without the earth running out of resources any time soon. Oil isn't infinite. Lets not let the plebs waste it, what?

I, too, am very green. Instead of burning lots of calories staying warm, I insulate my uppermost extremity by donning a cylindrical structure of thin metal that reflects back infrared emitted from my scalp.

It also reflects... external... electromagnetic waves...

I hope you earth it then otherwise you are wasting your time. PS don't wear it during thunderstorms.

Scott_xP

@MajorPazuzu

8 years to the day since this happy couple expressed their unbridled joy at winning the referendum.

Be careful what you wish for.



These asshats are about to find out what happens when voters take back control...