And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
If you are looking for a conspiracy you are always going to find a conspiracy. However, Stephen Bush is well worth reading in the FT today.
Although Rudakubana has pleaded guilty to possessing Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual, a terrorist how-to-guide, he appears to have been interested in it for its methods rather than its motive. Ursula Doyle, the prosecutor, described him as “a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence”. One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes.
Keir Starmer is right this morning to say that the answer to this question is to expand the definition of terror. At no point has Rudakubana’s case been treated as “terror-related” precisely because of the absence of a clear underlying ideology. That exposes a flaw in how we think about terror and how we identify threats in a changing world.
What you and Starmer are trying to say, is that a radicalised lone-wolf terrorist is an entirely 'new threat' that has never been seen before. Mmmmm.
'One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes' mmmmm.
Would love to know the evidence that leads you (and others) to try and say that he was accessing this information for methods only, not motive. If someone can point to this, would be interested, otherwise it is just more misinformation.
If you are looking for a conspiracy you are always going to find a conspiracy. However, Stephen Bush is well worth reading in the FT today.
Although Rudakubana has pleaded guilty to possessing Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual, a terrorist how-to-guide, he appears to have been interested in it for its methods rather than its motive. Ursula Doyle, the prosecutor, described him as “a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence”. One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes.
Keir Starmer is right this morning to say that the answer to this question is to expand the definition of terror. At no point has Rudakubana’s case been treated as “terror-related” precisely because of the absence of a clear underlying ideology. That exposes a flaw in how we think about terror and how we identify threats in a changing world.
And yet he was referred to Prevent not once, but three times. What happened there ?
Well, exactly. Isn't that one of the reasons for an enquiry? More from Stephen Bush ...
Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of the UK’s terrorism legislation, explained the gap in the state’s threat response this morning on the Today programme:
Prevent will look at individuals who come across their radar, and then counter-terrorism police will be asking themselves, “is this the sort of person who we ought to help, given our terrorism remit?”
You’ll sometimes get cases where counter-terrorism police will say, “ultimately, we just don’t think we can say this guy’s on the trajectory to becoming a terrorist, and so he’s not for us”.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
It's surely not either/or. We need to do both - mitigate and prepare. No?
I can't help thinking that Trump's election will be a footnote in the obituary of the blue planet.
If you are looking for a conspiracy you are always going to find a conspiracy. However, Stephen Bush is well worth reading in the FT today.
Although Rudakubana has pleaded guilty to possessing Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants: The Al-Qaeda Training Manual, a terrorist how-to-guide, he appears to have been interested in it for its methods rather than its motive. Ursula Doyle, the prosecutor, described him as “a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence”. One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes.
Keir Starmer is right this morning to say that the answer to this question is to expand the definition of terror. At no point has Rudakubana’s case been treated as “terror-related” precisely because of the absence of a clear underlying ideology. That exposes a flaw in how we think about terror and how we identify threats in a changing world.
What you and Starmer are trying to say, is that a radicalised lone-wolf terrorist is an entirely 'new threat' that has never been seen before. Mmmmm.
'One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes' mmmmm.
Would love to know the evidence that leads you (and others) to try and say that he was accessing this information for methods only, not motive. If someone can point to this, would be interested, otherwise it is just more misinformation.
No, what I am saying is that Stephen Bush has written an interesting piece about the case and the need for a change in the law in the FT. As I say, if you want to find a conspiracy, a conspiracy you will find. As we are asking for evidence, where is yours that the prosecutors in this case were going to build it on misinformation if the defendant had not pleaded guilty?
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
The obvious implication is that Starmer feared he would be disappeared if he wasn't nice to the niece?
Looks like bad politics again from Labour. Having an allegedly highly dodgy aunt shouldn't disqualify you from office, but it should lead to the extent of any links being carefully investigated before being offered a post.
And it'd be good if you at least partially disowned the allegedly highly dodgy aunt, and did not somehow automagically gain a load of houses...
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
The obvious implication is that Starmer feared he would be disappeared if he wasn't nice to the niece?
Looks like bad politics again from Labour. Having an allegedly highly dodgy aunt shouldn't disqualify you from office, but it should lead to the extent of any links being carefully investigated before being offered a post.
Starmer's position on this is utterly untenable. No problem for him to make someone with a dodgy aunt a minister. Massive problem for him to have not asked enough questions about the relationship with the dodgy aunt to have discovered his prospective minister is living in housing provided by said aunt.
30 years ago, this would have been a resigning matter for him, never mind her. These days I suppose he'll try and brazen it out.
The Greens and LDs won't waste resources at Runcorn.
The Tories need to throw everything at it.
So my feeling is it's not a slam dunk for Reform; Labour doesn't need to defend its left wing; but Reform need to fight it out with the Tories.
10/11 are unattractive odds on Reform.
Agree that the Greens and LDs won't waste resources and both those odds are far too short. I would put them both at 100/1. Often in these scenarios the Greens will beat the LDs for 4th place.
I think Reform are slightly stronger favourites than shown.
I think the Tories will come a bad third, but I am not so confident about that. I think they will come third, but whether very badly or not I am not so confident.
So there's no real edge on Reform: the odds for them are about right.
I'd put them at say 12/10 as I do think the Tories need to go for this; they can't be passive and let Reform become the default right-wing choice.
So the Tories may do enough to let Labour in: vote Tory, get Labour.
I agree the Tories need to go for it, so this is a nightmare by election for them. Their one hope is to rely on Reform's lack of grass root campaigning skills, but even saying that Reform are learning. They produce good leaflets and a decent poster war would be enough to outweigh the Tories skill on GOTV. So for me it is definitely a Lab/Reform battle.
Someone mentioned Tories best hope was Hampstead (that is assuming there is a by election there, which I wouldn't bet on). If there is a Hampstead by election the LDs I anticipate would really go for it.
The Greens will go for it too. The Tories, LDs and Greens were all pretty close, with the Greens ahead of the LDs.
If you do define it as terrorism, then was the Dunblane Massacre terrorism? Hungerford? The Cumbria shootings?
What is the definition of these things that makes something 'terrorism' and an act that causes terror?
The actions of a lone wolf are not terrorism, however terrifying they may be. Terrorism requires a conspiracy of multiple actors using illegal and violent means in the pursuit of damaging the established political order, whether at home or abroad.
The Terrorism Act 2000 has a much wider definition:
In this Act “terrorism” means the use or threat of action where—
(a)the action falls within subsection (2),
(b)the use or threat is designed to influence the government [F1or an international governmental organisation] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
(c)the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious [F2, racial] or ideological cause.
(2)Action falls within this subsection if it—
(a)involves serious violence against a person,
(b)involves serious damage to property,
(c)endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action,
(d)creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
(e)is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
(3)The use or threat of action falling within subsection (2) which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism whether or not subsection (1)(b) is satisfied.
That begs the question - why on earth were the far-right rioters from last year not charged as terrorists? Seems to fit perfectly.
Because then they wouldn't have pleaded guilty, and it was more important to rush them through the courts.
The Greens and LDs won't waste resources at Runcorn.
The Tories need to throw everything at it.
So my feeling is it's not a slam dunk for Reform; Labour doesn't need to defend its left wing; but Reform need to fight it out with the Tories.
10/11 are unattractive odds on Reform.
This is a seat which will never be won by the Tories due to the Merseyside influence.
True. Seats in the Merseyside ambit have been drifting away from the Tories for decades.
A particular problem is that they slipped to third behind Reform in the GE in this seat. That will be all over the Reform literature - lend us your vote to beat Labour. Will likely resonate in a by-election.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
This not an either/or situation. Trying to mitigate climate change has never stood in a way of adapting to its effects. We need to do both.
Russia wants a deal; Putin has stated his starting position many times.
It is essentially a Ukrainian surrender, with Russia gaining territory it does not hold, e.g. all of Kherson.
He said Russia should “make” a deal. That implies a demand for compromise
Interview on R4 this morning with some Trump insider - ex military or foreign service - seen a lot of the plans etc. was fairly sane.
He claimed that Trump will tell Putin “stop or I give Ukraine everything they want” and will tell Zelensky “you haven’t done all you can and should have thrown in the younger men who are fitter and stronger and would massively boost numbers so if you can’t be bothered to call all resources to the colours then why should we make more effort”.
He didn’t seem like a nut, seemed well informed on international relations and pretty balanced so if he does know what will he said then who knows how that would work out.
Look, some of those younger men might have bone spurs.
I think, from previous evidence, that Trump sees “regional wars” as bad things. Somalia, Iraq 2, Afghanistan.
He wants to sell “I am not a neo-con”.
For Ukraine, he wants to act as peacemaker.
- he has an aversion to US peacekeepers - He likes the idea of he Europeans paying for whatever happens
So I could see a pitch of ceasefire in place, European peacekeepers, Ukraine not joint NATO or EU.
The last is because Ukraine joining either is probably existential to Putin - window time for him.
I disagree about him acting as peacemaker.
Trump is not interested in peace in Ukraine. He's interested in something that looks like "not war" whilst he is in the White House.
"Peace" will be a matter of 3 or 5 decades, as it was in the Cold War, and that would require Trump to think beyond the benefits to himself personally, which he will not do. IMO his historic reputation is going to be as a corrupt crim, no matter what he does.
If he shows he is interested in the tens of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children being brought up as Russian, Lebensborn style, then I'll change my view. But the chance is tiny imo.
He claimed that Trump will tell Putin “stop or I give Ukraine everything they want” and will tell Zelensky “you haven’t done all you can and should have thrown in the younger men who are fitter and stronger and would massively boost numbers so if you can’t be bothered to call all resources to the colours then why should we make more effort”.
This about Ukraine 'throwing in more men aged under 25' doesn't stack up to me. Listening to commentary from those close to the war, the limitation on Ukraine is lack of equipment, not lack of personnel. It would not give massive boost to numbers, anyway, as that is the pinch point of the demographic squeeze.
Charlie Bentley-Astor @astor_charlie Misinformation, ay? Come and get me then, big boy.
Nothing I have published or tweeted ahead of the trial has proved to be false. I honoured the contempt of court, which is why you didn't come to get me.
I knew about failed attack on his old school back in September. I kept my mouth shut for the sake of your precious trial. I wish I hadn't. You needed to be exposed.
Citizen journalists and counter-cultural commentators - shunnded media outlets like GBN - are a thorn in the Establishment's side but I for one am not going away!
The UK contempt of court laws are not fit for purpose.
Yeah, really not sure why that information couldn't have been disclosed. It would have made a big difference to how the attack was viewed.
There's already a strict test on whether a defendant's previous convictions are mentioned in court. Spreading rumours of what a defendant may or may not have done may influence the jury's deliberation on the case before them.
But he wouldn't have a conviction for attempting to attack his school.
Blame the CPS for not pressing charges on that one.
Did the police send a file to the CPS. The report I saw said they simpy returned him home after intercepting him.
The Greens and LDs won't waste resources at Runcorn.
The Tories need to throw everything at it.
So my feeling is it's not a slam dunk for Reform; Labour doesn't need to defend its left wing; but Reform need to fight it out with the Tories.
10/11 are unattractive odds on Reform.
This is a seat which will never be won by the Tories due to the Merseyside influence.
True. Seats in the Merseyside ambit have been drifting away from the Tories for decades.
A particular problem is that they slipped to third behind Reform in the GE in this seat. That will be all over the Reform literature - lend us your vote to beat Labour. Will likely resonate in a by-election.
I wonder if one of the tories unhorsed in the GE will fancy a crack at it.
A puff of dust and a whisper of moths will emerge as pb tories unzip their tweed bags if S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, RNR picks up the cudgel. I don't know if Jam Jars is daft enough to admit another leadership contender to the PCP. Perhaps she is.
If you do define it as terrorism, then was the Dunblane Massacre terrorism? Hungerford? The Cumbria shootings?
What is the definition of these things that makes something 'terrorism' and an act that causes terror?
The actions of a lone wolf are not terrorism, however terrifying they may be. Terrorism requires a conspiracy of multiple actors using illegal and violent means in the pursuit of damaging the established political order, whether at home or abroad.
The Oklahoma City bombing was by two people (so not lone wolf...) but was definitely terrorism. The Unabomber was a lone wolf and a terrorist, so I'm unsure your definition fits.
What practical difference does it make labelling an attack as terrorism? I'm genuinely puzzled.
Because people are asking questions like: why didn't you call it terrorism early on?
I'm unsure it does make much of a practical difference in this case.
IMV it matters much more when there are groups or individuals who might be encouraged to perform similar heinous acts.
Apparently because he was under 18 when he committed the offence it makes a difference to the sentencing. If he had been convicted for terrorism he could have been given a full-life tariff. It can't be given for murder for under-18s.
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
The obvious implication is that Starmer feared he would be disappeared if he wasn't nice to the niece?
Looks like bad politics again from Labour. Having an allegedly highly dodgy aunt shouldn't disqualify you from office, but it should lead to the extent of any links being carefully investigated before being offered a post.
Same with Louise Haigh when she was offered a ministerial post.
This was, indeed, a big mistake by Starmer. He’s made himself look very dodgy - and he’s made a lot of voters very angry
What has he gained?
“If you’re explaining you’re losing”
Hypothesis: his abrupt decision to go public is so that he gets out there first. Which means that something he doesn’t want to be trailing is already coming out…
That's part of the problem, isn't it. Lots of foreign slightly to very dodgy politicians and businesspeople buying expensive houses here, and otherwise investing in, particularly, SE Britain.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Here is one for @leon and his take on conspiracy theory:
Someone sane who I am in a Whatsapp group with reported that they found this morning they were 'following' Trump on Facebook and that was news to them. Now in the past both myself and my wife have found we have unintentionally been following someone or something in Facebook and I am sure that is down to fat fingers so I dismissed this, particularly as in our cases it was completely innocuous. It has happened at least half a dozen times for both of us and often the following was set up months prior to our discovery.
Anyway since then there are lots and lots of reports of this happening today. Why? It could be lots of fat fingers over time and the people unaware of it until today when the profile picture changed and they all got notified.
Or is it something spooky? What do you think @leon? You always gone down the spooky line.
I'm going for it being innocuous and that they were unintentionally following him through fat fingers over a number of years and all found out today when the profile changed.
The genuine Trump?
Quite often people follow innocuous pages that get changed to something else, either as a troll or by sale. I've found myself getting spam posts from something I was following but didn't realise and always been able to trace it back to something I actually did once follow.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
The comparison with the ozone hole and the Montreal Protocol is interesting. People seemed to pretty much accept the ozone hole was happening and generally supported systems and laws to combat it. Or is that me misremembering?
Even though the scale of climate change is orders of magnitude greater, it does show the public can be won around.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
For your own country's text books etc you can do it yourself. Hence all those Arab nation text books with Israel missing. Internationally, it is a little more complicated - and I am not aware of any "system".
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
So there's nothing in practice stopping the French from renaming the English Channel the French Passage (for example) ?
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Different countries have different names for the same geographic location. The French do not call the English Channel the English Channel. So the American's can call it the Gulf of America, I very much doubt anyone else will change.
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
The obvious implication is that Starmer feared he would be disappeared if he wasn't nice to the niece?
Looks like bad politics again from Labour. Having an allegedly highly dodgy aunt shouldn't disqualify you from office, but it should lead to the extent of any links being carefully investigated before being offered a post.
Starmer's position on this is utterly untenable. No problem for him to make someone with a dodgy aunt a minister. Massive problem for him to have not asked enough questions about the relationship with the dodgy aunt to have discovered his prospective minister is living in housing provided by said aunt.
30 years ago, this would have been a resigning matter for him, never mind her. These days I suppose he'll try and brazen it out.
It is not as if these connections were unknown either.
She has even been asked about it by news organisations, such as Channel 4, and reacted badly to it as well as making comments to a journalist who felt they were threatening.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
It's still called the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps. Wouldn't take much to change it.
This about Ukraine 'throwing in more men aged under 25' doesn't stack up to me. Listening to commentary from those close to the war, the limitation on Ukraine is lack of equipment, not lack of personnel. It would not give massive boost to numbers, anyway, as that is the pinch point of the demographic squeeze.
They've had 100,000 desertions and people have served at the front for three years. Of course, more troops would help - a lot. Young men are far more effective combat soldiers than the over 25s anyway because they are fitter, more reckless and more susceptible to intense psychological indoctrination.
If Big Z could get an under 25 mobilisation law through the Rada he'd probably do it but the chances of that are slim to zero.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
So there's nothing in practice stopping the French from renaming the English Channel the French Passage (for example) ?
They already do call it something different - Le Manche (Sleeve or Handle). You can call it anything you want so the Trump stuff is really just nonsense. He might be able to enforce some naming stuff in documents I guess, but by and large it is meaningless.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
So there's nothing in practice stopping the French from renaming the English Channel the French Passage (for example) ?
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
So there's nothing in practice stopping the French from renaming the English Channel the French Passage (for example) ?
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
It's still called the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps. Wouldn't take much to change it.
I suspect that Google can already deal with this issue by changing place names based on IP addresses, to avoid just these sort of potential diplomatic incidents.
So US IP addresses will see “Gulf of America” and Mexican IP addresses will see “Gulf of Mexico”.
I see “Arabian Gulf” from UAE, I suspect that other places in the region will see “Persian Gulf”.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
For your own country's text books etc you can do it yourself. Hence all those Arab nation text books with Israel missing. Internationally, it is a little more complicated - and I am not aware of any "system".
When I worked in Cyprus in the 90s for a short time I found out that the telephone company still produced telephone books with the numbers of people the other side of the Green line even though they weren't there and still provided power for that side even though nobody was paying for it.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
It's still called the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps. Wouldn't take much to change it.
I suspect that Google can already deal with this issue by changing place names based on IP addresses, to avoid just these sort of potential diplomatic incidents.
So US IP addresses will see “Gulf of America” and Mexican IP addresses will see “Gulf of Mexico”.
I see “Arabian Gulf” from UAE, I suspect that other places in the region will see “Persian Gulf”.
The Democrats will have to start calling it 'el golfo de México' with an affected accent in order to signal their rejection of Trump.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Different countries have different names for the same geographic location. The French do not call the English Channel the English Channel. So the American's can call it the Gulf of America, I very much doubt anyone else will change.
I hope no one tells Trump that America is in fact the collective name for (depending on view) a continent or 2 continents, otherwise he'll be wanting to call it the Gulf of US.
Potentially the Greens may be a bigger threat to Labour than Reform. I am doubtful - maybe incorrectly - about the fungibility of Reform and Labour votes, but Labour/Greens very much so.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
They can bring pressure to bear. The Chinese have tried to insist on airlines using designations for Taiwan that do not create the impression it is an independent country and have threatened withdrawal of landing rights for non-compliance.
So there's nothing in practice stopping the French from renaming the English Channel the French Passage (for example) ?
They don’t call it the English Channel anyway.
Interestingly, the first references to the English Channel seem to be in other countries.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
This not an either/or situation. Trying to mitigate climate change has never stood in a way of adapting to its effects. We need to do both.
Agree. In particular we have to avoid the potential for climate change to run away with itself and we become another Venus. We could (may even have done so) get to a situation where this happens and the climate change accelerates without us adding more CO2. Eg if the seas become saturated and stop absorbing CO2 or the icecaps disappear and then we lose the effect of the reflection.
Russia wants a deal; Putin has stated his starting position many times.
It is essentially a Ukrainian surrender, with Russia gaining territory it does not hold, e.g. all of Kherson.
He said Russia should “make” a deal. That implies a demand for compromise
Interview on R4 this morning with some Trump insider - ex military or foreign service - seen a lot of the plans etc. was fairly sane.
He claimed that Trump will tell Putin “stop or I give Ukraine everything they want” and will tell Zelensky “you haven’t done all you can and should have thrown in the younger men who are fitter and stronger and would massively boost numbers so if you can’t be bothered to call all resources to the colours then why should we make more effort”.
He didn’t seem like a nut, seemed well informed on international relations and pretty balanced so if he does know what will he said then who knows how that would work out.
Look, some of those younger men might have bone spurs.
I think, from previous evidence, that Trump sees “regional wars” as bad things. Somalia, Iraq 2, Afghanistan.
He wants to sell “I am not a neo-con”.
For Ukraine, he wants to act as peacemaker.
- he has an aversion to US peacekeepers - He likes the idea of he Europeans paying for whatever happens
So I could see a pitch of ceasefire in place, European peacekeepers, Ukraine not joint NATO or EU.
The last is because Ukraine joining either is probably existential to Putin - window time for him.
I disagree about him acting as peacemaker.
Trump is not interested in peace in Ukraine. He's interested in something that looks like "not war" whilst he is in the White House.
"Peace" will be a matter of 3 or 5 decades, as it was in the Cold War, and that would require Trump to think beyond the benefits to himself personally, which he will not do. IMO his historic reputation is going to be as a corrupt crim, no matter what he does.
If he shows he is interested in the tens of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children being brought up as Russian, Lebensborn style, then I'll change my view. But the chance is tiny imo.
He claimed that Trump will tell Putin “stop or I give Ukraine everything they want” and will tell Zelensky “you haven’t done all you can and should have thrown in the younger men who are fitter and stronger and would massively boost numbers so if you can’t be bothered to call all resources to the colours then why should we make more effort”.
This about Ukraine 'throwing in more men aged under 25' doesn't stack up to me. Listening to commentary from those close to the war, the limitation on Ukraine is lack of equipment, not lack of personnel. It would not give massive boost to numbers, anyway, as that is the pinch point of the demographic squeeze.
Strange take on more men not making a difference. If you can’t rotate troops out of the front lines more regularly - made possible by having more available men - they will be in better physical and mental condition so when they are engaged with the enemy they can fight longer but also will be more attentive and able to react better.
More men also means you can have a thicker line of defence where needed.
If Ukraine weee able to give 500,000 more men weapons and training then it would clearly make a big difference on the ground.
I'd ordinarily take the line that Tulip Siddiq is not responsible for her aunt's misdeeds. But she has certainly not disassociated herself away from her aunt and her wider family.
The obvious implication is that Starmer feared he would be disappeared if he wasn't nice to the niece?
Looks like bad politics again from Labour. Having an allegedly highly dodgy aunt shouldn't disqualify you from office, but it should lead to the extent of any links being carefully investigated before being offered a post.
And it'd be good if you at least partially disowned the allegedly highly dodgy aunt, and did not somehow automagically gain a load of houses...
Part of the issue is that the perceived dodginess of the aunt has varied. When she was in power, it was politic to she her as legitimate. Now she's been ousted and the new Bangladeshi government is out to get her (for good reasons, I should add), she looks much more dodgy.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
It's still called the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps. Wouldn't take much to change it.
I suspect that Google can already deal with this issue by changing place names based on IP addresses, to avoid just these sort of potential diplomatic incidents.
So US IP addresses will see “Gulf of America” and Mexican IP addresses will see “Gulf of Mexico”.
I see “Arabian Gulf” from UAE, I suspect that other places in the region will see “Persian Gulf”.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
I'm not sure if the numbers support that for some places eg the USA.
Anyhoo, Chump has just reconnected them there in some measure.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Same as the Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf. What it’s called depends on which country’s cartographers you’re asking!
It's still called the Gulf of Mexico on Google Maps. Wouldn't take much to change it.
I suspect that Google can already deal with this issue by changing place names based on IP addresses, to avoid just these sort of potential diplomatic incidents.
So US IP addresses will see “Gulf of America” and Mexican IP addresses will see “Gulf of Mexico”.
I see “Arabian Gulf” from UAE, I suspect that other places in the region will see “Persian Gulf”.
It's so dumb because "America" is shorthand for "United States of America" and properly refers to the continents of North and South America and the Central American isthmus that joins them. In other words "America" is too vague a term, geographically speaking, to usefully refer to a gulf that is bordered by only a small part of it. "Gulf of Mexico" is a far more accurate name. You could call it the "Gulf of Texas" or "Gulf of Florida" if you wanted to be more specific, but Mexico has a longer shoreline bordering the Gulf than either of those states - and presumably the gulf was named when Mexico included Texas and so had an even greater claim to the name, before the US's war of agression and territorial acquisition. It's just another example of Trump's idiocy, but no doubt will appeal to his mouth breather supporters.
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
I wish I understood this process more. If there is so much bigly demand why can't the price be higher and therefore lower yield???
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
It's because of Greta types that we've made any progress at all. If we'd sat back and listened to the deniers and now the defeatists we'd be pumping far more carbon into the atmosphere than we are now.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
It's surely not either/or. We need to do both - mitigate and prepare. No?
I can't help thinking that Trump's election will be a footnote in the obituary of the blue planet.
If mitigation were possible, yeah. But it wasn't, and attempts to do so merely impoverished the countries attempting it relative to those who didn't bother.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
There is the International Maritime Organization, but I don't think they do naming. There's the International Hydrographic Organization, who do oversee charts. Navigational charts have to meet requirements set out in the SOLAS (Safety of Lives at Sea) Convention, which the IMO oversees. To meet said requirements, charts must conform to internationally recognised standards laid out by the IHO. But I think that each country does charts for its coast, so each country can use whatever names it wants???
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
This not an either/or situation. Trying to mitigate climate change has never stood in a way of adapting to its effects. We need to do both.
Agree. In particular we have to avoid the potential for climate change to run away with itself and we become another Venus. We could (may even have done so) get to a situation where this happens and the climate change accelerates without us adding more CO2. Eg if the seas become saturated and stop absorbing CO2 or the icecaps disappear and then we lose the effect of the reflection.
Even if we were to burn the all the remaining fossil fuel reserves, it's unlikely that it would initiate a runaway greenhouse effect a la Venus. James Hansen used to think it would, but later calculations indicate otherwise.
However, that is small comfort. Converting all the remaining reserves to atmospheric CO2 would probably cause the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps to melt almost completely, raising the sea level by around 60m. It would also render a lot of the tropics uninhabitable without air conditioning. That is on a timescale of hundreds of years though; that ice takes a long time to melt.
I'd say the value is with Reform. Conservatives have to work hard on it, can't just write it off, have to make it respectable. Big chance for LD or Green, probably Green, to take Labour votes. It'd be a thankless task, but they do need to try to be an alternative.
Starmer surely can't go on having bad days like this. But he will. Confirms he knew all along.
Employment down by nearly 80k straight after budget, it's only heading one way.
Tulip Siddiq scandal is going to roll and roll because he doesn't have control on it and it will roll him up too. Just depends how tightly.
Pointless for Greens or LDs to use limited resources winning a few percent off Labour. They both lack presence and support in this constituency.
However, the Tories have to do everything they can to put a spoke in the Reform bandwagon. Though highly unlikely they themselves can win it.
A Labour hold is better for the Tories than a Reform win.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
About 30 years ago I thought of it as a four question process:
(1) Is the climate changing? (2) If so, is it caused by human activity? (3) If so, can we stop it? (4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
I'm not sure if the numbers support that for some places eg the USA.
Anyhoo, Chump has just reconnected them there in some measure.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
The comparison with the ozone hole and the Montreal Protocol is interesting. People seemed to pretty much accept the ozone hole was happening and generally supported systems and laws to combat it. Or is that me misremembering?
Even though the scale of climate change is orders of magnitude greater, it does show the public can be won around.
There were pretty pictures showing the hole in the ozone layer. And the costs of addressing it on the average person were effectively nil.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
There is the International Maritime Organization, but I don't think they do naming. There's the International Hydrographic Organization, who do oversee charts. Navigational charts have to meet requirements set out in the SOLAS (Safety of Lives at Sea) Convention, which the IMO oversees. To meet said requirements, charts must conform to internationally recognised standards laid out by the IHO. But I think that each country does charts for its coast, so each country can use whatever names it wants???
Thank you. It seems like a right can of worms lol!
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
I had a lengthy chat with my son last night about bond prices, yields, and interest rates. He's doing A level economics and had got very confused about the whole thing. I realised it's quite hard to explain. Then I decided to use the analogy of house prices and rental yields, and somehow that is way easier to articulate even though the underlying maths is the same.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
The comparison with the ozone hole and the Montreal Protocol is interesting. People seemed to pretty much accept the ozone hole was happening and generally supported systems and laws to combat it. Or is that me misremembering?
Even though the scale of climate change is orders of magnitude greater, it does show the public can be won around.
There were pretty pictures showing the hole in the ozone layer. And the costs of addressing it on the average person were effectively nil.
Yeah, that's true. If hair spray and deodorant had been banned rather than just the CFC's inside them, people might have made more of a stink (literally)
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
About 30 years ago I thought of it as a four question process:
(1) Is the climate changing? (2) If so, is it caused by human activity? (3) If so, can we stop it? (4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
With regards to (3), we can't stop it, but we can mitigate it so that it isn't as bad as it would otherwise be. Indeed, we already have, thanks to the efforts of the last 20 years or so. It's not enough though, if, say, we want to avoid London eventually vanishing below the waves.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
About 30 years ago I thought of it as a four question process:
(1) Is the climate changing? (2) If so, is it caused by human activity? (3) If so, can we stop it? (4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
That's nonsense. It's not a binary, so question (3) is poorly worded. It's not about stopping climate change versus not stopping it. It's about how much climate change occurs, less or more.
We can do a wide variety of different things to reduce climate change. We have done and are doing many of those. We consider the costs of those actions and some things aren't done or are pushed back because of their costs.
Your claim that (4) is "rarely considered" would be the most bonkers thing said on today's discussion if it wasn't for Leon. (4) is considered all the time.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
There is the International Maritime Organization, but I don't think they do naming. There's the International Hydrographic Organization, who do oversee charts. Navigational charts have to meet requirements set out in the SOLAS (Safety of Lives at Sea) Convention, which the IMO oversees. To meet said requirements, charts must conform to internationally recognised standards laid out by the IHO. But I think that each country does charts for its coast, so each country can use whatever names it wants???
Thank you. It seems like a right can of worms lol!
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
There is the International Maritime Organization, but I don't think they do naming. There's the International Hydrographic Organization, who do oversee charts. Navigational charts have to meet requirements set out in the SOLAS (Safety of Lives at Sea) Convention, which the IMO oversees. To meet said requirements, charts must conform to internationally recognised standards laid out by the IHO. But I think that each country does charts for its coast, so each country can use whatever names it wants???
Thank you. It seems like a right can of worms lol!
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
About 30 years ago I thought of it as a four question process:
(1) Is the climate changing? (2) If so, is it caused by human activity? (3) If so, can we stop it? (4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
3. Well we can stop it unless we let it get far enough to set off a feedback loop (e.g. permafrost methane) which melts the poles and sinks all cities near the coasts. 4. See 3. Do we want to save all our major cities?
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
And yet with all that, we've still reached 1.5.
1.5 is better than 2. 2 is better than 3. 3 is better than 4 and so on. Just because something is disastrous doesn't mean it couldn't be even more disastrous. As Boris said, there are disasters, and there are opportunities, and there are opportunities for fresh disasters.
We are already tracking below the BAU emissions scenarios from the 1990s and noughties in terms of both anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration. Unfortunately we're not yet tracking the mitigation scenarios.
That's why presenting mitigation and adaptation as somehow two mutually exclusive options is misplaced.
PB brains - How does renaming Gulf Of Mexico work in practice?
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
There is the International Maritime Organization, but I don't think they do naming. There's the International Hydrographic Organization, who do oversee charts. Navigational charts have to meet requirements set out in the SOLAS (Safety of Lives at Sea) Convention, which the IMO oversees. To meet said requirements, charts must conform to internationally recognised standards laid out by the IHO. But I think that each country does charts for its coast, so each country can use whatever names it wants???
Thank you. It seems like a right can of worms lol!
Naming is a linguistic thing. In France and Spain where the right form in controlled then there is some control. I was surprised about Mount McKinley - didn't realise it had been changed and I am with the president on that one. In NZ Mount Egmont is now Taranaki and that seems to be settled. Attempts to rename Mount Cooke have been less well received. The name of a place is what people call it. vide Saigon, Ho Chi Min City, Leningrad, Saint Petersburg
There is no formal international agreement or protocol for the naming of maritime areas, and no international body has the final word on maritime names, although the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB) seeks to standardise names and resolve disputes.
Unlike other measures announced by Trump on his first day as the 47th US president, the name change was not the subject of an executive order – although he said that would happen in “a short time from now”.
In theory, Trump action would be sufficient to change the Gulf’s name in official documents within the US, but other countries would not be obliged to follow suit.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A good part of that 20 years was also wasted on arguing with those who denied absolutely that there was such a thing as climate change. I accept that most have now accepted its existence though you still get an occasional Hiroo Onoda holding out..
About 30 years ago I thought of it as a four question process:
(1) Is the climate changing? (2) If so, is it caused by human activity? (3) If so, can we stop it? (4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
That's nonsense. It's not a binary, so question (3) is poorly worded. It's not about stopping climate change versus not stopping it. It's about how much climate change occurs, less or more.
We can do a wide variety of different things to reduce climate change. We have done and are doing many of those. We consider the costs of those actions and some things aren't done or are pushed back because of their costs.
Your claim that (4) is "rarely considered" would be the most bonkers thing said on today's discussion if it wasn't for Leon. (4) is considered all the time.
Yes, this binarism is a logical fallacy. It's what I call the white trainer fallacy. When they're new we take great care to keep any dirt off them. Then as soon as they get a bit of mud or a grass stain it's open season. When it would make a lot more sense to try to keep them reasonably clean.
Some people think global carbon emissions have peaked. Per capita they probably have. Hopefully even despite Trump the world will continue on the right trajectory. The UK could make a big contribution through its science and R&D budgets... figure out wave power, make nuclear cheaper etc.
Solar is probably going to be the way to go soon for almost all of the world except places like Northern Europe...
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
And yet with all that, we've still reached 1.5.
So the argument is that we then do nothing?
How about 'We don't catch all the criminals so let's get rid of all the police'
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
I wish I understood this process more. If there is so much bigly demand why can't the price be higher and therefore lower yield???
Because yield is being driven 90% by interest rate expectations. So there may be plenty of demand for government bonds but it'll be at coupon rates that reflect current yield expectations. If they were trying to issue bonds at mid 2010s coupons they wouldn't get any buyers.
Potentially the Greens may be a bigger threat to Labour than Reform. I am doubtful - maybe incorrectly - about the fungibility of Reform and Labour votes, but Labour/Greens very much so.
I think it depends where. In seats full of young student types then Greens are a threat.
Where I live they are very much a threat.
Labour is at risk of a classic pincer movement here. Greens on the left, Reform on the right.
Some people think global carbon emissions have peaked. Per capita they probably have. Hopefully even despite Trump the world will continue on the right trajectory. The UK could make a big contribution through its science and R&D budgets... figure out wave power, make nuclear cheaper etc.
Solar is probably going to be the way to go soon for almost all of the world except places like Northern Europe...
Within a couple of decades the "capita" denominator will be declining too. Question is how high the crest of the emissions wave will be and how prolonged. I think we are close to the crest already but feedbacks may keep it going in the wrong direction for a while.
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
Of course the truth is that Thunberg has repeatedly criticised China and has been attacked by the Chinese government for it, if you are interested in facts.
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
What about Bill Gates? I propose Uranus. Not to be purile (though the word Uranus is always genuinely funny) but because he was from a previous generation and was supplanted, but remains powerful ... [realises grasp of Greek mythology is much shakier than imagined and tails off]
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
I wish I understood this process more. If there is so much bigly demand why can't the price be higher and therefore lower yield???
Because yield is being driven 90% by interest rate expectations. So there may be plenty of demand for government bonds but it'll be at coupon rates that reflect current yield expectations. If they were trying to issue bonds at mid 2010s coupons they wouldn't get any buyers.
But why can't it be done by reverse auction to make sure the sale always succeeds but is never oversubscribed - and thus the lowest possible yield for the government?
And who would be the recipients of these reparations and manage them.
Organisations like Oxfam, of course. Organisations interested in managing problems, do they ever solve any ? If they did their raison d'etre disappears.
Britain should pay reparations to India, an Oxfam International report has suggested.
It argued that former colonial powers should pay reparations to former colonies to compensate for the transfer of wealth it claims took place under imperial rule.
It cited analysis that showed that between 1765 and 1900, Britain extracted $64.82 trillion (£52.58 trillion) from India.
“The cost of reparations should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism.”
It is the first time the charity has called for such a move.
The report proposed that Western countries commit to paying former colonies a minimum of $5 trillion (£4 trillion) annually in reparations and “climate debt” – the amount of money Western countries are said to owe poorer ones to account for the costs of climate change.
The current fad for this sort of thing is going to be quite short lived as in principle it is endless and in practice is impossible.
Two things really, and I hope you are right, firstly govts like ours have quite a few people whose backgrounds are in organisations like Oxfam and they will try to influence policy.
Secondly this is more bargaining, stating a position to try to lever something. Same with the so-called climate reparations. They demanded 1 Trillion a year off nations at the last COP and ended up with $325 Billion and moaned about that not being enough.
It is all one big grift.
I doubt that there's much point in trying to mitigate climate change now. The world simply doesn't have the political will to it. Trump and Putin clearly couldn't give a fuck. China and Europe are making progress, but too slowly and I doubt they'll keep going when the other big emitters do nothing. Without sufficient funding from richer countries, poorer countries won't industialise cleanly.
The best we can do as a nation is to start preparing for the gradual loss of our low-lying areas to the sea.
There never was the political will on a global scale. China may be coming on board now but has done a lot of damage in recent decades and you don't even mention India. We've wasted at least 20 years, probably more, in a futile quest to mitigate climate change when we should have been adapting to it.
A lot has been done to mitigate climate change in the last 20 years. Solar Wind Batteries Electric vehicles More efficient vehicles of all types House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Which is why there’s pushback against the Greta-types, who insist the West has done nothing and that the solution is communism and economic recession, but never seem to mention China and India still building more coal power stations.
It's because of Greta types that we've made any progress at all. If we'd sat back and listened to the deniers and now the defeatists we'd be pumping far more carbon into the atmosphere than we are now.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
Bollocks. We were making progress well before crank Greta and her XR/JSO fringe nutcases came along.
They way these people go on is, as Sandpit says, as if we have done nothing when we have done plenty and continue to do so.
Just realised that the Tech Titans have become weird mythic figures. They are the Greek deities of our time
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
OK...
Think about it
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
So where does that leave Trump: the human who would have deities worship him?
A positive signal for the gilt market: the UK government just tapped (issued more of) an existing 2040 bond via syndication (placement through several banks), seeking £8.5bn and receiving bids of £119bn, a new record high. Clearly there is plenty of market demand, albeit at elevated yields.
Comments
'One reason why Rudakubana was not picked up when he should have been is that he did not fit neatly into any of the usual boxes' mmmmm.
Would love to know the evidence that leads you (and others) to try and say that he was accessing this information for methods only, not motive. If someone can point to this, would be interested, otherwise it is just more misinformation.
Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of the UK’s terrorism legislation, explained the gap in the state’s threat response this morning on the Today programme:
Prevent will look at individuals who come across their radar, and then counter-terrorism police will be asking themselves, “is this the sort of person who we ought to help, given our terrorism remit?”
You’ll sometimes get cases where counter-terrorism police will say, “ultimately, we just don’t think we can say this guy’s on the trajectory to becoming a terrorist, and so he’s not for us”.
https://www.ft.com/content/e78330c5-cbe0-47be-a637-66f62fe3189b
I can't help thinking that Trump's election will be a footnote in the obituary of the blue planet.
30 years ago, this would have been a resigning matter for him, never mind her. These days I suppose he'll try and brazen it out.
https://x.com/natchjourneyman/status/1881469632336498716
Lab: 26% (no change from 12-13 Jan)
Ref: 24% (-1)
Con: 22% (=)
Lib Dem: 14% (=)
Green: 9% (+1)
SNP: 3% (=)
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51428-voting-intention-lab-26-ref-24-con-22-19-20-jan-2025
A particular problem is that they slipped to third behind Reform in the GE in this seat. That will be all over the Reform literature - lend us your vote to beat Labour. Will likely resonate in a by-election.
London is a butler for foreign kleptocrats
Pratinav Anil"
https://unherd.com/2025/01/how-bangladesh-bought-britain/
Well, we survived our first night with Trump as POTUS... Just another 1460 to go...
Trump is not interested in peace in Ukraine. He's interested in something that looks like "not war" whilst he is in the White House.
"Peace" will be a matter of 3 or 5 decades, as it was in the Cold War, and that would require Trump to think beyond the benefits to himself personally, which he will not do. IMO his historic reputation is going to be as a corrupt crim, no matter what he does.
If he shows he is interested in the tens of thousands of abducted Ukrainian children being brought up as Russian, Lebensborn style, then I'll change my view. But the chance is tiny imo.
He claimed that Trump will tell Putin “stop or I give Ukraine everything they want” and will tell Zelensky “you haven’t done all you can and should have thrown in the younger men who are fitter and stronger and would massively boost numbers so if you can’t be bothered to call all resources to the colours then why should we make more effort”.
This about Ukraine 'throwing in more men aged under 25' doesn't stack up to me. Listening to commentary from those close to the war, the limitation on Ukraine is lack of equipment, not lack of personnel. It would not give massive boost to numbers, anyway, as that is the pinch point of the demographic squeeze.
A puff of dust and a whisper of moths will emerge as pb tories unzip their tweed bags if S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, RNR picks up the cudgel. I don't know if Jam Jars is daft enough to admit another leadership contender to the PCP. Perhaps she is.
Shoddy from the govt.
Can Trump/America just come along and rename it Gulf Of America? Isn't there like an international agency that governs things like country/ocean/sea names that America would have to apply to to get GOM changed to GOA?
Quite often people follow innocuous pages that get changed to something else, either as a troll or by sale. I've found myself getting spam posts from something I was following but didn't realise and always been able to trace it back to something I actually did once follow.
Even though the scale of climate change is orders of magnitude greater, it does show the public can be won around.
She has even been asked about it by news organisations, such as Channel 4, and reacted badly to it as well as making comments to a journalist who felt they were threatening.
Classy MP’s in Labour
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tulip-siddiq-apologises-for-remark-about-pregnant-journalists-labour-a3705151.html
They've had 100,000 desertions and people have served at the front for three years. Of course, more troops would help - a lot. Young men are far more effective combat soldiers than the over 25s anyway because they are fitter, more reckless and more susceptible to intense psychological indoctrination.
If Big Z could get an under 25 mobilisation law through the Rada he'd probably do it but the chances of that are slim to zero.
Are they freezing Nigel out now the useful idiot has served his purpose?
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/britain-topples-germany-to-become-europe-s-top-investment-spot/ar-AA1xxjsD?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=4f890257c4e145c4b40d744a198417f8&ei=13
So US IP addresses will see “Gulf of America” and Mexican IP addresses will see “Gulf of Mexico”.
I see “Arabian Gulf” from UAE, I suspect that other places in the region will see “Persian Gulf”.
Solar
Wind
Batteries
Electric vehicles
More efficient vehicles of all types
House insulation
We've decoupled energy growth from GDP growth worldwide.
The worrying developments are the huge energy demands of AI and crypto.
Interestingly, the first references to the English Channel seem to be in other countries.
More men also means you can have a thicker line of defence where needed.
If Ukraine weee able to give 500,000 more men weapons and training then it would clearly make a big difference on the ground.
Anyhoo, Chump has just reconnected them there in some measure.
It's just another example of Trump's idiocy, but no doubt will appeal to his mouth breather supporters.
Every gram counts, particularly when you take into account tipping points. 1.5C is better than 2.5C. But 2.5c is much better than 3.5c.
However, that is small comfort. Converting all the remaining reserves to atmospheric CO2 would probably cause the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps to melt almost completely, raising the sea level by around 60m. It would also render a lot of the tropics uninhabitable without air conditioning. That is on a timescale of hundreds of years though; that ice takes a long time to melt.
However, the Tories have to do everything they can to put a spoke in the Reform bandwagon. Though highly unlikely they themselves can
win it.
A Labour hold is better for the Tories than a Reform win.
(1) Is the climate changing?
(2) If so, is it caused by human activity?
(3) If so, can we stop it?
(4) If so, do the costs of stopping it outweigh the benefits?
And you're quite right that too much time was wasted on questions 1 and 2 and not enough on questions 3 and 4. Even today, 3 is still pretty much just assumed without thought to be yes, and 4 is rarely considered.
..
We can do a wide variety of different things to reduce climate change. We have done and are doing many of those. We consider the costs of those actions and some things aren't done or are pushed back because of their costs.
Your claim that (4) is "rarely considered" would be the most bonkers thing said on today's discussion if it wasn't for Leon. (4) is considered all the time.
4. See 3. Do we want to save all our major cities?
We are already tracking below the BAU emissions scenarios from the 1990s and noughties in terms of both anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration. Unfortunately we're not yet tracking the mitigation scenarios.
That's why presenting mitigation and adaptation as somehow two mutually exclusive options is misplaced.
Unlike other measures announced by Trump on his first day as the 47th US president, the name change was not the subject of an executive order – although he said that would happen in “a short time from now”.
In theory, Trump action would be sufficient to change the Gulf’s name in official documents within the US, but other countries would not be obliged to follow suit.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/20/trump-gulf-mexico-executive-order
Solar is probably going to be the way to go soon for almost all of the world except places like Northern Europe...
How about 'We don't catch all the criminals so let's get rid of all the police'
You can actually name them
Zuckerberg with his new curls is obviously Apollo, ever youthful
Jeff Bezos, bald and smaller; is Hades
Musk is Zeus. Madly arrogant, capricious and wilful, but the most powerful of all
Where I live they are very much a threat.
Labour is at risk of a classic pincer movement here. Greens on the left, Reform on the right.
They walk amongst us yet they have vast, inhuman powers. We both fear and worship them (however reluctantly). They have very human traits - jealousy, anger, lust, greed - yet operate in a different higher world. And they fly about in the air a lot
They way these people go on is, as Sandpit says, as if we have done nothing when we have done plenty and continue to do so.