We need a new Green Policy – Part 1 – politicalbetting.com

SouthamObserver said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

We had common ground on net zero. The right abandoned it.

bondegezou said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Hang on, I thought single issue campaigns were damaging society, but now you’re saying environmentalists should have focused on single issue bottom-up measures???

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Alanbrooke said:

SouthamObserver said:

For me, the point about the UK and net zero is that is a huge opportunity, not a cost or a burden.

I agree that us moving towards it aggressively will not shift the dial on overall heating trends, but it is an area where the UK can lead in terms of showing how to get there and creating systems, strategies and technologies to do it. We can cash in on such leadership in multiple ways - especially if others are delaying. After all, overall there is no alternative to net zero if the world of which we are a part is to have a viable future.

Leaving it to others while moaning about the costs is the typical British response. It has held us back for decades. Let’s try a different approach for a change.

So, I am very interested to see what part 2 brings. I’m not convinced by part 1.

Fair points SO, but we dont lead the world in wind technology or solar so where do you see the technology leadership ?

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

Ratters said:

The three step plan in full:

Step 1: don't take sufficient action to stop climate change running out of control.

Step 2: realise Britain has failed to become a leader in any new technologies as other countries adapt faster.

Step 3: complain about all these new migrants from places that are now inhospitable, Britain's weather is fine thank you very much.

That's rather unfair. Firstly, Britain (yes, under the coalition *and* Conservatives) have made massive strides towards going green. We have adapted fast - and they get f'all credit for it.

Secondly, we're a small country with a (relatively) small industrial base, especially in low-value, high-volume stuff. The chances are we would always be outplayed in high-volume technology.

Thirdly, *nothing* Britain could do would stop climate change running out of control. Even if we had zero emissions, the emissions from the rest of the world would dwarf that.

Fourthly, people need jobs. I daresay people in public service, especially occupations such as the NHS or education, may feel a certain amount of job security. But going green too fast could really damage the economy. Like many things, it is a balancing game.

Where does this "relatively small industrial base" thing come from?

I know it's a meme that has been repeated ad infinitum in various media (decline of manufacturing etc), yet we are in the top 10 in the world.

AIUI (and I may be wrong), we're very good at low-volume, high-tech items. We're less good at what we used to be good at: low-cost, high-volume stuff. The *value* of what we produce is high; the volume is lower. (*)

Sadly, things like solar cells are the latter (and we want them to be low-cost, high-volume).

(*) I might be wrong, though.

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Casino_Royale said:

darkage said:

The net zero policies will self terminate if they punish the poor and benefit the rich, which is how it looks a lot of the time.

Good news is it should actually save people money. See the NIC report last week.

For example, if you electrify your house with solar panels and storage batteries you can cut your electricity bill by anything from 30-70%, ad-infinitum. The issue is being able to shell out the £6-10k up front for all the kit, but even then it repays for itself over 10-12 years, and then makes a profit thereafter.

I know this because I've just ordered. But I can only do so because I have (some) spare capital. HMG should be offering £5k+ discounts on all of this, and to borrow the rest at cost - or make it easy to add to mortgages.

Heat pumps are different. They need to be less shit. They need to pump in 20C+ of heat, with turboboost options for when it's really cold, not just 14-15C and only really working when your house is insulated like an igloo. But, again, once in - no gas bills.

So this will make us wealthier overall, if we get it right.

Human nature, Treasury brain, Anglo Saxon Short Term Capitalism, Boomer "after I've gone"ness...


See British Infrastructure, passim ad nauseum.

There's a lot of prejudice, labelling and confirmation bias in this.

Not sure it's helpful.

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Yes, it is a pity indeed that the Unionists prevent a Stormont government tackling the many problems of NI.

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The sad truth is that so much of our infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Water pipes. Schools. Hospitals. Roads. Public services.

An ocean of cash will have to be invested because the cost of not doing so is higher. The right can complain about the impact on bills but oceans of money have been pocketed by the likes of Thames Water as they leave the infrastructure to crumble. Not that the right care about people anyway.

So we have to spend an ocean of cash to fix this country. Do we spend it on 21st century things or 19th century things? We need power generation - clean tech or coal? And if we need to have all these things does the right really think that importing them is the best approach?

We used to build things for the world. Clean tech is the opportunity to do so again.

So name your technology. Nuclear perhaps then what ?

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Yes, it is a pity indeed that the Unionists prevent a Stormont government tackling the many problems of NI.

Not even decent quality trolling Doc Fox Up your game.

ydoethur said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

Ratters said:

The three step plan in full:

Step 1: don't take sufficient action to stop climate change running out of control.

Step 2: realise Britain has failed to become a leader in any new technologies as other countries adapt faster.

Step 3: complain about all these new migrants from places that are now inhospitable, Britain's weather is fine thank you very much.

That's rather unfair. Firstly, Britain (yes, under the coalition *and* Conservatives) have made massive strides towards going green. We have adapted fast - and they get f'all credit for it.

Secondly, we're a small country with a (relatively) small industrial base, especially in low-value, high-volume stuff. The chances are we would always be outplayed in high-volume technology.

Thirdly, *nothing* Britain could do would stop climate change running out of control. Even if we had zero emissions, the emissions from the rest of the world would dwarf that.

Fourthly, people need jobs. I daresay people in public service, especially occupations such as the NHS or education, may feel a certain amount of job security. But going green too fast could really damage the economy. Like many things, it is a balancing game.

Where does this "relatively small industrial base" thing come from?

I know it's a meme that has been repeated ad infinitum in various media (decline of manufacturing etc), yet we are in the top 10 in the world.

On the others I agree, @JosiasJessop. On the "Europe leading in greening" at present Johnson, Sunak et al are broadly correct, though they never say that the transformation in electricity supply is far more down to Blair and Brown's governments than their own useless butt-sitting - these things have 10-20 year lead times, and Sunak just made a colossal cockup of his wind power licensing round by being Mr Spreadsheet Dunce.

He does rather Excel at that.

However, I take issue with your crediting it to 'Blair and Brown.' If they hadn't dithered for all their time in office over new nuclear, we might have had no coal stations left by now and much less reliance on gas.

Although the latter was an error by the Coalition as much as Blair and Borwn.

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Yes, it is a pity indeed that the Unionists prevent a Stormont government tackling the many problems of NI.

Not even decent quality trolling Doc Fox Up your game.

JosiasJessop said:

bondegezou said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

"Israel offered a ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing all hostages and handing over the bodies of dead Israelis, but Hamas refused, Al Arabiya reported."

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1717944810718306444

Truth, or infowars?

Al-Arabiyah is in effect an arm of the Saudi government and such a story would suit them well. It would give them an excuse to start edging towards Israel again when the current war ends.

A ground invasion is a very risky move which is why Biden has been trying to stop it (unsuccessfully it would seem). So it isn't impossible.

That said, given his track record I can imagine Netanyahu might make such an offer knowing it would be refused and he would then have a pretext to invade over Biden's objections. Bottom line is, if he is to survive he needs a ground offensive and a major win. Even that may not (hopefully, will not) be enough for his career.

Millions of innocents had to die just so Bush & Blair could be seen to be doing something, even if the something had nothing to do with the cause of 9/11….at least in this case you can join the dots between cause and effect, in terms of target. The issue is the hostages, which Hamas will release at two every week, with lots of taking (through intermediaries) in between, to try and keep Israeli in a painful limbo of inaction.

Well, if that was the intention, it's failed.

And I think that's partly because Hamas are actually not keen on peace either.

Though interestingly, the people of Gaza are, or were. 54% support a 2 state solution, and only 10% support the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Only 24% would vote for Hamas in a democratic election. This polling finished on October 6th. Polling on the West Bank also supported a 2 state solution, though not quite so strongly.

https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2023/10/25/what-palestinians-really-think-of-hamas/content.html

Polling on Hamas's support is understandably all over the place. Here's a 2021 poll:

"Poll finds dramatic rise in Palestinian support for Hamas ... The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party."

https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87

And a problem is this: everyone knows how thoroughly anti-Semitic Hamas is, and what their objective is wrt Jews. You cannot support Hamas and say that you're not anti-Semitic - it's like a German saying they supported the Nazis because they built good roads or had good education policies.

Hamas still exist in Gaza not just because they have power and guns; but because they also have enough support. Sadly, like the Iranian regime.

There’s more polling here: https://thehill.com/opinion/4273883-mellman-do-palestinians-support-hamas-polls-paint-a-murky-picture/ The title sums it up.

I think you are also referencing Hamas’s 1988 founding charter, which is antisemitic. However, Hamas have repudiated the document and issued a new charter in 2017, which talks about a Palestine within the 1967 borders, and explicitly says that Hamas does not seek war against all Jewish people but only against Zionism. This reflects comments going back as early as 2008 that were more moderate than the founding charter. That said, others are sceptical of their sincerity.

'Sceptical' is not a strong enough word. Would you trust a Nazi party that repudiated anti-Semitism? Did Hamas go around asking their victims if they were Zionists or not? No, they wanted to kill Jews.

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Yes, it is a pity indeed that the Unionists prevent a Stormont government tackling the many problems of NI.

Not even decent quality trolling Doc Fox Up your game.

Ok. If it isn’t those dinosaur fuckers in the DUP preventing Stormont from operating, who is it?

SouthamObserver said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

We had common ground on net zero. The right abandoned it.

Stuartinromford said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Casino_Royale said:

darkage said:

The net zero policies will self terminate if they punish the poor and benefit the rich, which is how it looks a lot of the time.

Good news is it should actually save people money. See the NIC report last week.

For example, if you electrify your house with solar panels and storage batteries you can cut your electricity bill by anything from 30-70%, ad-infinitum. The issue is being able to shell out the £6-10k up front for all the kit, but even then it repays for itself over 10-12 years, and then makes a profit thereafter.

I know this because I've just ordered. But I can only do so because I have (some) spare capital. HMG should be offering £5k+ discounts on all of this, and to borrow the rest at cost - or make it easy to add to mortgages.

Heat pumps are different. They need to be less shit. They need to pump in 20C+ of heat, with turboboost options for when it's really cold, not just 14-15C and only really working when your house is insulated like an igloo. But, again, once in - no gas bills.

So this will make us wealthier overall, if we get it right.

Human nature, Treasury brain, Anglo Saxon Short Term Capitalism, Boomer "after I've gone"ness...


See British Infrastructure, passim ad nauseum.

There's a lot of prejudice, labelling and confirmation bias in this.

Not sure it's helpful.

Perhaps not.

But I'm pretty sure that it is the case that the UK has a problem of spending too little on infrastructure and too much on day to day consumption. And that's one of the reasons we are collectively in the pickle we are.

Something is causing that, and we need to find a way round that something, whatever it is.

Alanbrooke said:

SouthamObserver said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

We had common ground on net zero. The right abandoned it.

I always knew you were closet Boris supporter

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The sad truth is that so much of our infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Water pipes. Schools. Hospitals. Roads. Public services.

An ocean of cash will have to be invested because the cost of not doing so is higher. The right can complain about the impact on bills but oceans of money have been pocketed by the likes of Thames Water as they leave the infrastructure to crumble. Not that the right care about people anyway.

So we have to spend an ocean of cash to fix this country. Do we spend it on 21st century things or 19th century things? We need power generation - clean tech or coal? And if we need to have all these things does the right really think that importing them is the best approach?

We used to build things for the world. Clean tech is the opportunity to do so again.

So name your technology. Nuclear perhaps then what ?

Starter for 10: wind. We’re building an awful lot of big wind farms. Why aren’t we developing our own turbines, manufacturing them, and exporting them to other markets?

Off shore wind needs ancillaries- inter connectors, control gear, support ships. Let’s make those.

We’ve given up as an industrial nation. Too hard. Too expensive. Yet we pay more by importing the things we used to export

JosiasJessop said:

An interesting threader, thanks, and I look forward to Part Two.

"A 1.5 degree rise will give us a temperature more akin to central France. "

Part of the issue with climate change (man-made and natural) is that the effects are hard to discern in advance. We were at the National Space Centre yesterday, and there's a model there that highlights quite how far north the UK is. We should have similar climates to Canada and Norway, but we are warmer, thanks to the Gulf Stream. If that gets shifted, then wave bye-bye to any increases in temperature for us.

There are other advantages to 'going green', aside from the climate. My view is that some of the best - perhaps the best - series of legislation to come out of parliament post-WW2 are he various clean air act. They have improved air quality and saved countless lives. Removing ICE cars from the road will be another big step towards a more liveable environment.

But as is often the case, the question then becomes: how fast? How fast can we make this change? How fast should we make this change?

Alanbrooke said:

SouthamObserver said:

For me, the point about the UK and net zero is that is a huge opportunity, not a cost or a burden.

I agree that us moving towards it aggressively will not shift the dial on overall heating trends, but it is an area where the UK can lead in terms of showing how to get there and creating systems, strategies and technologies to do it. We can cash in on such leadership in multiple ways - especially if others are delaying. After all, overall there is no alternative to net zero if the world of which we are a part is to have a viable future.

Leaving it to others while moaning about the costs is the typical British response. It has held us back for decades. Let’s try a different approach for a change.

So, I am very interested to see what part 2 brings. I’m not convinced by part 1.

Fair points SO, but we dont lead the world in wind technology or solar so where do you see the technology leadership ?

MattW said:

Casino_Royale said:

darkage said:

The net zero policies will self terminate if they punish the poor and benefit the rich, which is how it looks a lot of the time.

Good news is it should actually save people money. See the NIC report last week.

For example, if you electrify your house with solar panels and storage batteries you can cut your electricity bill by anything from 30-70%, ad-infinitum. The issue is being able to shell out the £6-10k up front for all the kit, but even then it repays for itself over 10-12 years, and then makes a profit thereafter.

I know this because I've just ordered. But I can only do so because I have (some) spare capital. HMG should be offering £5k+ discounts on all of this, and to borrow the rest at cost - or make it easy to add to mortgages.

Heat pumps are different. They need to be less shit. They need to pump in 20C+ of heat, with turboboost options for when it's really cold, not just 14-15C and only really working when your house is insulated like an igloo. But, again, once in - no gas bills.

I see no rationale for a discount - home owners are relatively well off and do not need free money. The UK Govt attitude, which I think is correct, has been to offer incentives where the market and actual cost / benefit cannot meet the need, or on condition of fabric improvements as applied to solar FIT and now applies far too minimally to Heat Pump grants. In the case of solar I think the market can do it already - a regulatory intervention to unlock the investment would be better value imo.

Given the rapid rise in house prices most can easily borrow such a small sum on a marginal mortgage increase. Perhaps the Govt could offer funding against 1-3% of equity in the house.

Can you elucidate on that "20C+ of heat"? Heat is in kWh or kJ, not Celsius, and heating a house is about amount of heat gained and lost not temperature differences.

(I won't draw attention to igloos being built out of material that are as poor as insulators as a naked brick wall )

Casino_Royale said:

Nigelb said:

JosiasJessop said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

Ratters said:

The three step plan in full:

Step 1: don't take sufficient action to stop climate change running out of control.

Step 2: realise Britain has failed to become a leader in any new technologies as other countries adapt faster.

Step 3: complain about all these new migrants from places that are now inhospitable, Britain's weather is fine thank you very much.

That's rather unfair. Firstly, Britain (yes, under the coalition *and* Conservatives) have made massive strides towards going green. We have adapted fast - and they get f'all credit for it.

Secondly, we're a small country with a (relatively) small industrial base, especially in low-value, high-volume stuff. The chances are we would always be outplayed in high-volume technology.

Thirdly, *nothing* Britain could do would stop climate change running out of control. Even if we had zero emissions, the emissions from the rest of the world would dwarf that.

Fourthly, people need jobs. I daresay people in public service, especially occupations such as the NHS or education, may feel a certain amount of job security. But going green too fast could really damage the economy. Like many things, it is a balancing game.

Where does this "relatively small industrial base" thing come from?

I know it's a meme that has been repeated ad infinitum in various media (decline of manufacturing etc), yet we are in the top 10 in the world.

AIUI (and I may be wrong), we're very good at low-volume, high-tech items. We're less good at what we used to be good at: low-cost, high-volume stuff. The *value* of what we produce is high; the volume is lower. (*)

Sadly, things like solar cells are the latter (and we want them to be low-cost, high-volume).

(*) I might be wrong, though.

Following on from my own post: IMV we'd be better off not trying to produce things we want to be low-cost and high-volume; other countries are much better at us than that, or we ever could be due to our size and resources (*). Therefore things like mass battery or solar-cell production should be left to others; preferably with us investing in them.

What we can excel at is R&D. We should be investing in things like new battery chemistries, then doing deals with people who can mass-produce them. Or even investing in factories elsewhere. We should play to our strengths.

(*) We could be much better at this, but environmental and NIMBY issues make it next to impossible. Remember the nonsense about Able UK's shipbreaking?

Sorry, but that's nonsense.
We had a lot of very interesting battery research a decade or so back. Without being involved in manufacturing, it was meaningless.
You're effectively saying, for example, that we shouldn't have a car industry.

We are getting there though:

"The report said the growth in clean energy and technologies was "impressive". In 2020, one in 25 cars sold was electric. Just three years later this number has risen to one in five."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67198206.amp

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

TimS said:

China is hitting emissions reduction path quickly, and it’s likely to accelerate. Not just policy, demographics and economic logic:

https://x.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/1716736409183146050?s=46

“China coal plants” is just an excuse for Britain to get left behind on major infrastructure transformation, as usual.

A sad little kingdom of asset sweaters.

I was going to like this post, for the first sentence and Twitter link - which is broadly accurate; there should be a massive in Chinese renewables in the next 10 years - but the rest of the post put me off.

Why do so many on the left take such active pleasure in falsely denigrating and hating their own country?

Maybe because it's not the country or its people we hate, but the grifters and swindlers presently running it..

..and I am not on the left btw.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

NOAH WAY Has Noah’s Ark been found? ‘Ruins’ in boat-shaped mound date back to time of the Biblical flood, archaeologists reveal
But some experts believe that the mountains could not be the ark's location
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24553782/has-noahs-ark-been-found-archaelogists-reveal/

Where's the Gazette's archaeology correspondent when he's needed up a Turkish mountain (Ararat)?

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

Well this government is noted for putting shit in our rivers and pollutants in our air.

Many conservatives do care about these things, which is one of many reasons that they are increasingly alienated from the current government.

That's guff. You can criticise them for not cleaning things up fast enough but they did not put them there in. Potentially the biggest natural disaster in the UK is taking place in Lough Neagh the British Isles largest fresh water lake. Thats controlled by Stormont who have been ignoring the problem and killing the lake.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66475360

Ive just spent 3 years working in the water sector and the problems go back decades. Nobody comes out well.

Yes, it is a pity indeed that the Unionists prevent a Stormont government tackling the many problems of NI.

Not even decent quality trolling Doc Fox Up your game.

Ok. If it isn’t those dinosaur fuckers in the DUP preventing Stormont from operating, who is it?

Stormont was collapsed by Martin McGuiness in 2017. There has been no Stormont government since. Though were still paying the gits,

The Lough Neagh problems go back decades since they are a combination of slurry run off and no investment in sewage.

In typical NI fashion the local politicians will scream how bad things are and then blame the brits,

Just so we’re clear - the reason why Stormont cannot meet in 2023 is because of Martin McGuinness in 2017?

Even blaming the Renewable Heat scandal on him and not Foster is a stretch. But you’ve had multiple elections since then. And McGuinness has been dead for 6 years. I know a corpse is preventing Stormont meeting, but that corpse is the DUP, not McGuinness

Sean_F said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

TimS said:

China is hitting emissions reduction path quickly, and it’s likely to accelerate. Not just policy, demographics and economic logic:

https://x.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/1716736409183146050?s=46

“China coal plants” is just an excuse for Britain to get left behind on major infrastructure transformation, as usual.

A sad little kingdom of asset sweaters.

I was going to like this post, for the first sentence and Twitter link - which is broadly accurate; there should be a massive in Chinese renewables in the next 10 years - but the rest of the post put me off.

Why do so many on the left take such active pleasure in falsely denigrating and hating their own country?

Maybe because it's not the country or its people we hate, but the grifters and swindlers presently running it..

..and I am not on the left btw.

The government is shit, we all know that, full of arseholes, but for a very large majority of people, this is a very good place to live in. The same is true of most rich world countries.

Compared to any previous generation, our problems are modest ones.

I think it was Hume who said his toothache caused him more anxiety than the Lisbon earthquake, which sums it up.

Nigelb said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The sad truth is that so much of our infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Water pipes. Schools. Hospitals. Roads. Public services.

An ocean of cash will have to be invested because the cost of not doing so is higher. The right can complain about the impact on bills but oceans of money have been pocketed by the likes of Thames Water as they leave the infrastructure to crumble. Not that the right care about people anyway.

So we have to spend an ocean of cash to fix this country. Do we spend it on 21st century things or 19th century things? We need power generation - clean tech or coal? And if we need to have all these things does the right really think that importing them is the best approach?

We used to build things for the world. Clean tech is the opportunity to do so again.

So name your technology. Nuclear perhaps then what ?

Starter for 10: wind. We’re building an awful lot of big wind farms. Why aren’t we developing our own turbines, manufacturing them, and exporting them to other markets?

Off shore wind needs ancillaries- inter connectors, control gear, support ships. Let’s make those.

We’ve given up as an industrial nation. Too hard. Too expensive. Yet we pay more by importing the things we used to export

Ive been arguing for years here along with @another_richard that we have been throwing away our manufacturing . However a lot of the technology lead on wind sits with people like Siemens. The make things here but a multinational always suits itself. Unless we have more domestically controlled businesses I cannot see us recovering technologies. The RR mini nuclear plants may be somewhere we can establish a lead but we're screwing that up atm.

So let’s invest in business then. The Thatcher revolution was to stop investing and to start selling. We sold off the utilities and encouraged British industrial giants like ICI and GEC to split themselves apart and hive off chunks for a quick profit today and don’t worry about tomorrow.

We need to change that. We built up industrial capability before and we can do it again - but we have to invest. And sadly the right seems to see investment as communism - or close to it. Why tie up money investing for the long term when your spiv mates could be making a profit now?

You really have to get over Thatcher. Firstly she's dead and scondly she left office in the last century. Blair killed more of our engineering that she did. Here's Gordon telling the City what fine chaps they are.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/jun/22/politics.economicpolicy

But imo we can have a manufacturing recovery. It wont be in high volume products but more in niche batch produced ones. We should encourage capital investment in new machinery to revive what we have and encourage new start ups. As a first step we should focus on import substitution rather than export since this is easier to get our industrial base going.

We have done common ground here - though I think you're wrong to rule out high volume manufacturing.

And yes, we do need to get over Thatcher. She made choices which continue to determine where we are now - the destruction of some of our large industries was one of the consequences of those choices.
The point isn't to reopen old wounds, but to accept that we ought to have an industrial strategy that's a bit more than laissez faire.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

I am broadly in favour of Net Zero but would like to see it achieved by British investment so we do not find ourselves paying Americans and Europeans for electricity generated by their wind, solar and tidal farms in our country (which is where we are now with many utilities).

LostPassword said:

edmundintokyo said:

> China 29% of world emissions, I can’t honestly see them take the remotest interest

If we're going to have posts that don't have any betting content than that's fine and I do appreciate that it takes a lot of effort to write them. But just a little bit of research to check your assumptions might be nice?

Yes. China are installing masses of renewables, and they seem to be aware that they face massive risks from climate change.

The whole argument of we shouldn't do anything until China does argument falls down a bit in the face of China's rollout of zero carbon technologies. The argument is two decades out of date.

Daveyboy1961 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

biggles said:

Foxy said:

biggles said:

Sean_F said:

kinabalu said:

Alanbrooke said:

Roger said:

It will possibly have blown over by then but there are few issues in British and European politics as visceral as apartheid. And since South Africa this is seen (certainly on the left) as the next great injustice.

(This woman on question time speaks for many; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaXNkCfLF6A)

I'm sure Starmer will water down his intemperate comments but if he doesn't there will be a backlash. A lot will depend what happens in the next few months. Blair was able to lose his support in a short time with a wrong decision on Iraq and so could Starmer over Palestine

I'm always fascinated by the way the british Left decides it can willy nilly tell other people how to run their countries . Its just imperialism by other means.

But as imperialisms go I'd say campaigning against apartheid beats invading Iraq.

In South Africa, there was an obvious good guy, and an obvious bad guy.

Despite what Roger and the Corbynistas think, Israel doesn't fill the role of obvious bad guy, nor do the Palestinians fill the role of obvious good guy.

Yup. The talk of a “ceasefire” is a good example. In most conflicts when we say “ceasefire” we mean both sides. In this case, people seem to mean unilateral from Israel, and for Israel to just sit there and take continued rocket strikes during it, because it is the baddie and it deserves it.

What makes you say most people want a unilateral ceasefire?

Because I assume no one is silly enough to entertain the thought that Hamas would respect one.

If Hamas won't respect a ceasefire then Israel surely have nothing to lose by calling a ceasefire knowing Hamas will break it anyway. An easy propaganda victory. But Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

What a perverted logic. Hamas started the fight, and Israel haven't got in their retaliation yet.

So your logic is that Israel should just have a ceasefire giving Hamas an opportunity to strike them with no recourse? How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Israel should have a ceasefire once Hamas have been destroyed.

Umm, you seem to 100% agree with me that Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

I very strongly object to the insinuation that Israel should want a ceasefire, or there's anything wrong with them not wanting one, while Hamas still exists and holds hostages.

When the hostages are free and Hamas have been eradicated, that would be the time for a ceasefire, would it not?

Is there a tipping point to your opinion? How many Palestinians would need to be bombed to death?

..just asking...

MaxPB said:

Interesting that Saudi state media is suggesting that Israel offered a ceasefire in return for the hostages being released and Hamas rejected it, hence the ground invasion being approved. I don't see what the Saudis would get out of fabricating something that makes Israel looks like the reasonable party so I'm inclined to believe that it is true and the offer was probably made through Saudi intermediaries.

Israel has every right to do whatever it takes to bring back the hostages, and allies will be rock solid in their support until the hostages are released. Hamas are responsible for all of the death and destruction in Gaza by refusing the Israeli offer, but since when have they given any fucks about civilians.

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

TimS said:

China is hitting emissions reduction path quickly, and it’s likely to accelerate. Not just policy, demographics and economic logic:

https://x.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/1716736409183146050?s=46

“China coal plants” is just an excuse for Britain to get left behind on major infrastructure transformation, as usual.

A sad little kingdom of asset sweaters.

I was going to like this post, for the first sentence and Twitter link - which is broadly accurate; there should be a massive in Chinese renewables in the next 10 years - but the rest of the post put me off.

Why do so many on the left take such active pleasure in falsely denigrating and hating their own country?

Maybe because it's not the country or its people we hate, but the grifters and swindlers presently running it..

..and I am not on the left btw.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

biggles said:

Foxy said:

biggles said:

Sean_F said:

kinabalu said:

Alanbrooke said:

Roger said:

It will possibly have blown over by then but there are few issues in British and European politics as visceral as apartheid. And since South Africa this is seen (certainly on the left) as the next great injustice.

(This woman on question time speaks for many; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaXNkCfLF6A)

I'm sure Starmer will water down his intemperate comments but if he doesn't there will be a backlash. A lot will depend what happens in the next few months. Blair was able to lose his support in a short time with a wrong decision on Iraq and so could Starmer over Palestine

I'm always fascinated by the way the british Left decides it can willy nilly tell other people how to run their countries . Its just imperialism by other means.

But as imperialisms go I'd say campaigning against apartheid beats invading Iraq.

In South Africa, there was an obvious good guy, and an obvious bad guy.

Despite what Roger and the Corbynistas think, Israel doesn't fill the role of obvious bad guy, nor do the Palestinians fill the role of obvious good guy.

Yup. The talk of a “ceasefire” is a good example. In most conflicts when we say “ceasefire” we mean both sides. In this case, people seem to mean unilateral from Israel, and for Israel to just sit there and take continued rocket strikes during it, because it is the baddie and it deserves it.

What makes you say most people want a unilateral ceasefire?

Because I assume no one is silly enough to entertain the thought that Hamas would respect one.

If Hamas won't respect a ceasefire then Israel surely have nothing to lose by calling a ceasefire knowing Hamas will break it anyway. An easy propaganda victory. But Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

What a perverted logic. Hamas started the fight, and Israel haven't got in their retaliation yet.

So your logic is that Israel should just have a ceasefire giving Hamas an opportunity to strike them with no recourse? How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Israel should have a ceasefire once Hamas have been destroyed.

Umm, you seem to 100% agree with me that Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

I very strongly object to the insinuation that Israel should want a ceasefire, or there's anything wrong with them not wanting one, while Hamas still exists and holds hostages.

When the hostages are free and Hamas have been eradicated, that would be the time for a ceasefire, would it not?

Is there a tipping point to your opinion? How many Palestinians would need to be bombed to death?

..just asking...

Yes there is a tipping point. Two binary ones of them in fact.

Are the hostages free? Yes, or no?

Have Hamas been eradicated? Yes, or no?

In war you need to proportionately try to reduce the other sides civilian casualties while still seeking to achieve your objectives, and Israel quite rightly are doing that. Once the objectives are complete, with as few civilian casualties as is realistically feasible, the war should end.

If other nations want to offer refuge to civilians to avoid the conflict while it rages, then that would keep civilians alive, if they don't, then more civilians will die but that's not Israel's fault. Israel has to achieve its objectives first and foremost.

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

LostPassword said:

edmundintokyo said:

> China 29% of world emissions, I can’t honestly see them take the remotest interest

If we're going to have posts that don't have any betting content than that's fine and I do appreciate that it takes a lot of effort to write them. But just a little bit of research to check your assumptions might be nice?

Yes. China are installing masses of renewables, and they seem to be aware that they face massive risks from climate change.

The whole argument of we shouldn't do anything until China does argument falls down a bit in the face of China's rollout of zero carbon technologies. The argument is two decades out of date.

Thats to misunderstand the argument. Assuming China unwinds there are lots of others to take its place. India is largely coal powered and expanding fast,

So to go back to my earlier question to you left unanswered: what do you propose? Because someone is still burning coal that so should we?

The coal we have left is uneconomical to dig up after binning the mining industry. So if we pull coal power stations out of mothballs we’re burning coal from Brazil.

Or do you prefer gas? We already burned most of the North Sea gas, we don’t want Russian gas, so ship it from Qatar?

Nuclear? We co-invented it but thanks to the Thatcherite industrial settlement we have to pay £vast to foreign governments to build power stations. We do not own, control, or have capability to do fossil fuel power generation, or even nuclear. But we could do renewables. Or, as Tory spies want, just keep paying other people.

Beibheirli_C said:

malcolmg said:

MattW said:

Casino_Royale said:

darkage said:

The net zero policies will self terminate if they punish the poor and benefit the rich, which is how it looks a lot of the time.

Good news is it should actually save people money. See the NIC report last week.

For example, if you electrify your house with solar panels and storage batteries you can cut your electricity bill by anything from 30-70%, ad-infinitum. The issue is being able to shell out the £6-10k up front for all the kit, but even then it repays for itself over 10-12 years, and then makes a profit thereafter.

I know this because I've just ordered. But I can only do so because I have (some) spare capital. HMG should be offering £5k+ discounts on all of this, and to borrow the rest at cost - or make it easy to add to mortgages.

Heat pumps are different. They need to be less shit. They need to pump in 20C+ of heat, with turboboost options for when it's really cold, not just 14-15C and only really working when your house is insulated like an igloo. But, again, once in - no gas bills.

I see no rationale for a discount - home owners are relatively well off and do not need free money. The UK Govt attitude, which I think is correct, has been to offer incentives where the market and actual cost / benefit cannot meet the need, or on condition of fabric improvements as applied to solar FIT and now applies far too minimally to Heat Pump grants. In the case of solar I think the market can do it already - a regulatory intervention to unlock the investment would be better value imo.

Given the rapid rise in house prices most can easily borrow such a small sum on a marginal mortgage increase. Perhaps the Govt could offer funding against 1-3% of equity in the house.

Can you elucidate on that "20C+ of heat"? Heat is in kWh or kJ, not Celsius, and heating a house is about amount of heat gained and lost not temperature differences.

(I won't draw attention to igloos being built out of material that are as poor as insulators as a naked brick wall )

Solar panels make your house look like shit.

Malcolm - You are just saying that because Scotland gets no sunshine....

[Ducks and runs for cover]

JosiasJessop said:

bondegezou said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

ydoethur said:

JosiasJessop said:

"Israel offered a ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing all hostages and handing over the bodies of dead Israelis, but Hamas refused, Al Arabiya reported."

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1717944810718306444

Truth, or infowars?

Al-Arabiyah is in effect an arm of the Saudi government and such a story would suit them well. It would give them an excuse to start edging towards Israel again when the current war ends.

A ground invasion is a very risky move which is why Biden has been trying to stop it (unsuccessfully it would seem). So it isn't impossible.

That said, given his track record I can imagine Netanyahu might make such an offer knowing it would be refused and he would then have a pretext to invade over Biden's objections. Bottom line is, if he is to survive he needs a ground offensive and a major win. Even that may not (hopefully, will not) be enough for his career.

Millions of innocents had to die just so Bush & Blair could be seen to be doing something, even if the something had nothing to do with the cause of 9/11….at least in this case you can join the dots between cause and effect, in terms of target. The issue is the hostages, which Hamas will release at two every week, with lots of taking (through intermediaries) in between, to try and keep Israeli in a painful limbo of inaction.

Well, if that was the intention, it's failed.

And I think that's partly because Hamas are actually not keen on peace either.

Though interestingly, the people of Gaza are, or were. 54% support a 2 state solution, and only 10% support the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Only 24% would vote for Hamas in a democratic election. This polling finished on October 6th. Polling on the West Bank also supported a 2 state solution, though not quite so strongly.

https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2023/10/25/what-palestinians-really-think-of-hamas/content.html

Polling on Hamas's support is understandably all over the place. Here's a 2021 poll:

"Poll finds dramatic rise in Palestinian support for Hamas ... The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party."

https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87

And a problem is this: everyone knows how thoroughly anti-Semitic Hamas is, and what their objective is wrt Jews. You cannot support Hamas and say that you're not anti-Semitic - it's like a German saying they supported the Nazis because they built good roads or had good education policies.

Hamas still exist in Gaza not just because they have power and guns; but because they also have enough support. Sadly, like the Iranian regime.

There’s more polling here: https://thehill.com/opinion/4273883-mellman-do-palestinians-support-hamas-polls-paint-a-murky-picture/ The title sums it up.

I think you are also referencing Hamas’s 1988 founding charter, which is antisemitic. However, Hamas have repudiated the document and issued a new charter in 2017, which talks about a Palestine within the 1967 borders, and explicitly says that Hamas does not seek war against all Jewish people but only against Zionism. This reflects comments going back as early as 2008 that were more moderate than the founding charter. That said, others are sceptical of their sincerity.

'Sceptical' is not a strong enough word. Would you trust a Nazi party that repudiated anti-Semitism? Did Hamas go around asking their victims if they were Zionists or not? No, they wanted to kill Jews.

Alanbrooke said:

Nigelb said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The sad truth is that so much of our infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Water pipes. Schools. Hospitals. Roads. Public services.

An ocean of cash will have to be invested because the cost of not doing so is higher. The right can complain about the impact on bills but oceans of money have been pocketed by the likes of Thames Water as they leave the infrastructure to crumble. Not that the right care about people anyway.

So we have to spend an ocean of cash to fix this country. Do we spend it on 21st century things or 19th century things? We need power generation - clean tech or coal? And if we need to have all these things does the right really think that importing them is the best approach?

We used to build things for the world. Clean tech is the opportunity to do so again.

So name your technology. Nuclear perhaps then what ?

Starter for 10: wind. We’re building an awful lot of big wind farms. Why aren’t we developing our own turbines, manufacturing them, and exporting them to other markets?

Off shore wind needs ancillaries- inter connectors, control gear, support ships. Let’s make those.

We’ve given up as an industrial nation. Too hard. Too expensive. Yet we pay more by importing the things we used to export

Ive been arguing for years here along with @another_richard that we have been throwing away our manufacturing . However a lot of the technology lead on wind sits with people like Siemens. The make things here but a multinational always suits itself. Unless we have more domestically controlled businesses I cannot see us recovering technologies. The RR mini nuclear plants may be somewhere we can establish a lead but we're screwing that up atm.

So let’s invest in business then. The Thatcher revolution was to stop investing and to start selling. We sold off the utilities and encouraged British industrial giants like ICI and GEC to split themselves apart and hive off chunks for a quick profit today and don’t worry about tomorrow.

We need to change that. We built up industrial capability before and we can do it again - but we have to invest. And sadly the right seems to see investment as communism - or close to it. Why tie up money investing for the long term when your spiv mates could be making a profit now?

You really have to get over Thatcher. Firstly she's dead and scondly she left office in the last century. Blair killed more of our engineering that she did. Here's Gordon telling the City what fine chaps they are.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/jun/22/politics.economicpolicy

But imo we can have a manufacturing recovery. It wont be in high volume products but more in niche batch produced ones. We should encourage capital investment in new machinery to revive what we have and encourage new start ups. As a first step we should focus on import substitution rather than export since this is easier to get our industrial base going.

We have done common ground here - though I think you're wrong to rule out high volume manufacturing.

And yes, we do need to get over Thatcher. She made choices which continue to determine where we are now - the destruction of some of our large industries was one of the consequences of those choices.
The point isn't to reopen old wounds, but to accept that we ought to have an industrial strategy that's a bit more than laissez faire.

I agree HMG has no plan. We can have a return to volume manufacturing but it wont be from home grown industries since we havent any left. Maybe we could speak nicely to Mr Dyson. However if we want volume work we need to attract so large scale foreign companies to assemble here. The benefits will chiefly be in a localised supply chain. However the balance of payments needs it.

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

LostPassword said:

edmundintokyo said:

> China 29% of world emissions, I can’t honestly see them take the remotest interest

If we're going to have posts that don't have any betting content than that's fine and I do appreciate that it takes a lot of effort to write them. But just a little bit of research to check your assumptions might be nice?

Yes. China are installing masses of renewables, and they seem to be aware that they face massive risks from climate change.

The whole argument of we shouldn't do anything until China does argument falls down a bit in the face of China's rollout of zero carbon technologies. The argument is two decades out of date.

Thats to misunderstand the argument. Assuming China unwinds there are lots of others to take its place. India is largely coal powered and expanding fast,

So to go back to my earlier question to you left unanswered: what do you propose? Because someone is still burning coal that so should we?

The coal we have left is uneconomical to dig up after binning the mining industry. So if we pull coal power stations out of mothballs we’re burning coal from Brazil.

Or do you prefer gas? We already burned most of the North Sea gas, we don’t want Russian gas, so ship it from Qatar?

Nuclear? We co-invented it but thanks to the Thatcherite industrial settlement we have to pay £vast to foreign governments to build power stations. We do not own, control, or have capability to do fossil fuel power generation, or even nuclear. But we could do renewables. Or, as Tory spies want, just keep paying other people.

MaxPB said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

LostPassword said:

edmundintokyo said:

> China 29% of world emissions, I can’t honestly see them take the remotest interest

If we're going to have posts that don't have any betting content than that's fine and I do appreciate that it takes a lot of effort to write them. But just a little bit of research to check your assumptions might be nice?

Yes. China are installing masses of renewables, and they seem to be aware that they face massive risks from climate change.

The whole argument of we shouldn't do anything until China does argument falls down a bit in the face of China's rollout of zero carbon technologies. The argument is two decades out of date.

Thats to misunderstand the argument. Assuming China unwinds there are lots of others to take its place. India is largely coal powered and expanding fast,

So to go back to my earlier question to you left unanswered: what do you propose? Because someone is still burning coal that so should we?

The coal we have left is uneconomical to dig up after binning the mining industry. So if we pull coal power stations out of mothballs we’re burning coal from Brazil.

Or do you prefer gas? We already burned most of the North Sea gas, we don’t want Russian gas, so ship it from Qatar?

Nuclear? We co-invented it but thanks to the Thatcherite industrial settlement we have to pay £vast to foreign governments to build power stations. We do not own, control, or have capability to do fossil fuel power generation, or even nuclear. But we could do renewables. Or, as Tory spies want, just keep paying other people.

That's not true, it was Blair and Brown that wound down British nuclear and starved it of investment. BNFL was sold to Westinghouse in 2000 iirc by Gordon Brown who then proceeded fumble it all and all of the expertise in our nuclear industry either went overseas or retired with no replacements entering from universities.

Also, the UK is a hotbed of gen 4 and gen 5 nuclear reactors as well as fusion. We have the second highest rate of private investment in experimental reactors in the world, what we lack is commercialisation which needs state subsidies and I don't see this government or Labour putting up the £10-20bn requires to get those designs from labs to power generation by 2035. It is feasible but as ever, the UK government will decide that the NHS, pensions and other old people benefits are more important and our reactor IP will be bought up by American companies who will commercialise them with state subsidies and sell the reactors to us at a huge profit.

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kamski said:

biggles said:

Foxy said:

biggles said:

Sean_F said:

kinabalu said:

Alanbrooke said:

Roger said:

It will possibly have blown over by then but there are few issues in British and European politics as visceral as apartheid. And since South Africa this is seen (certainly on the left) as the next great injustice.

(This woman on question time speaks for many; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaXNkCfLF6A)

I'm sure Starmer will water down his intemperate comments but if he doesn't there will be a backlash. A lot will depend what happens in the next few months. Blair was able to lose his support in a short time with a wrong decision on Iraq and so could Starmer over Palestine

I'm always fascinated by the way the british Left decides it can willy nilly tell other people how to run their countries . Its just imperialism by other means.

But as imperialisms go I'd say campaigning against apartheid beats invading Iraq.

In South Africa, there was an obvious good guy, and an obvious bad guy.

Despite what Roger and the Corbynistas think, Israel doesn't fill the role of obvious bad guy, nor do the Palestinians fill the role of obvious good guy.

Yup. The talk of a “ceasefire” is a good example. In most conflicts when we say “ceasefire” we mean both sides. In this case, people seem to mean unilateral from Israel, and for Israel to just sit there and take continued rocket strikes during it, because it is the baddie and it deserves it.

What makes you say most people want a unilateral ceasefire?

Because I assume no one is silly enough to entertain the thought that Hamas would respect one.

If Hamas won't respect a ceasefire then Israel surely have nothing to lose by calling a ceasefire knowing Hamas will break it anyway. An easy propaganda victory. But Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

What a perverted logic. Hamas started the fight, and Israel haven't got in their retaliation yet.

So your logic is that Israel should just have a ceasefire giving Hamas an opportunity to strike them with no recourse? How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Israel should have a ceasefire once Hamas have been destroyed.

Umm, you seem to 100% agree with me that Israel doesn't want a ceasefire.

I very strongly object to the insinuation that Israel should want a ceasefire, or there's anything wrong with them not wanting one, while Hamas still exists and holds hostages.

When the hostages are free and Hamas have been eradicated, that would be the time for a ceasefire, would it not?

nico679 said:

Is it legitimate to flatten a building housing hundreds of civilians to kill a few Hamas fighters ?

Where do you draw the line ?

MaxPB said:

Interesting that Saudi state media is suggesting that Israel offered a ceasefire in return for the hostages being released and Hamas rejected it, hence the ground invasion being approved. I don't see what the Saudis would get out of fabricating something that makes Israel looks like the reasonable party so I'm inclined to believe that it is true and the offer was probably made through Saudi intermediaries.

Israel has every right to do whatever it takes to bring back the hostages, and allies will be rock solid in their support until the hostages are released. Hamas are responsible for all of the death and destruction in Gaza by refusing the Israeli offer, but since when have they given any fucks about civilians.

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

TimS said:

China is hitting emissions reduction path quickly, and it’s likely to accelerate. Not just policy, demographics and economic logic:

https://x.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/1716736409183146050?s=46

“China coal plants” is just an excuse for Britain to get left behind on major infrastructure transformation, as usual.

A sad little kingdom of asset sweaters.

I was going to like this post, for the first sentence and Twitter link - which is broadly accurate; there should be a massive in Chinese renewables in the next 10 years - but the rest of the post put me off.

Why do so many on the left take such active pleasure in falsely denigrating and hating their own country?

Maybe because it's not the country or its people we hate, but the grifters and swindlers presently running it..

..and I am not on the left btw.

Fine, but that's not what I'm hearing: "a sad little kingdom of asset sweaters".

yes, and who are the asset sweaters?

MaxPB said:

nico679 said:

Is it legitimate to flatten a building housing hundreds of civilians to kill a few Hamas fighters ?

Where do you draw the line ?

The answer is no, hence the ground invasion which will result in far, far fewer civilian deaths in Gaza than aerial bombardment but at a huge cost for Israel both in blood and treasure.

Casino_Royale said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Alanbrooke said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The sad truth is that so much of our infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Water pipes. Schools. Hospitals. Roads. Public services.

An ocean of cash will have to be invested because the cost of not doing so is higher. The right can complain about the impact on bills but oceans of money have been pocketed by the likes of Thames Water as they leave the infrastructure to crumble. Not that the right care about people anyway.

So we have to spend an ocean of cash to fix this country. Do we spend it on 21st century things or 19th century things? We need power generation - clean tech or coal? And if we need to have all these things does the right really think that importing them is the best approach?

We used to build things for the world. Clean tech is the opportunity to do so again.

So name your technology. Nuclear perhaps then what ?

Starter for 10: wind. We’re building an awful lot of big wind farms. Why aren’t we developing our own turbines, manufacturing them, and exporting them to other markets?

Off shore wind needs ancillaries- inter connectors, control gear, support ships. Let’s make those.

We’ve given up as an industrial nation. Too hard. Too expensive. Yet we pay more by importing the things we used to export

Ive been arguing for years here along with @another_richard that we have been throwing away our manufacturing . However a lot of the technology lead on wind sits with people like Siemens. The make things here but a multinational always suits itself. Unless we have more domestically controlled businesses I cannot see us recovering technologies. The RR mini nuclear plants may be somewhere we can establish a lead but we're screwing that up atm.

So let’s invest in business then. The Thatcher revolution was to stop investing and to start selling. We sold off the utilities and encouraged British industrial giants like ICI and GEC to split themselves apart and hive off chunks for a quick profit today and don’t worry about tomorrow.

We need to change that. We built up industrial capability before and we can do it again - but we have to invest. And sadly the right seems to see investment as communism - or close to it. Why tie up money investing for the long term when your spiv mates could be making a profit now?

You should be thanking Thatcher.

She was the first major leader to recognise the threat of climate change, and to deliver a UN speech on it. It was partly because of her the 1990 baseline was established, which we've cut against ever since. Because she understood the science.

It's remarkable people keep forgetting this, and that goes for fellow Conservatives too.

MaxPB said:

[snip!]

Also, the UK is a hotbed of gen 4 and gen 5 nuclear reactors as well as fusion. We have the second highest rate of private investment in experimental reactors in the world, what we lack is commercialisation which needs state subsidies and I don't see this government or Labour putting up the £10-20bn requires to get those designs from labs to power generation by 2035. It is feasible but as ever, the UK government will decide that the NHS, pensions and other old people benefits are more important and our reactor IP will be bought up by American companies who will commercialise them with state subsidies and sell the reactors to us at a huge profit.

Leon said:

Sean_F said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Casino_Royale said:

TimS said:

China is hitting emissions reduction path quickly, and it’s likely to accelerate. Not just policy, demographics and economic logic:

https://x.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/1716736409183146050?s=46

“China coal plants” is just an excuse for Britain to get left behind on major infrastructure transformation, as usual.

A sad little kingdom of asset sweaters.

I was going to like this post, for the first sentence and Twitter link - which is broadly accurate; there should be a massive in Chinese renewables in the next 10 years - but the rest of the post put me off.

Why do so many on the left take such active pleasure in falsely denigrating and hating their own country?

Maybe because it's not the country or its people we hate, but the grifters and swindlers presently running it..

..and I am not on the left btw.

The government is shit, we all know that, full of arseholes, but for a very large majority of people, this is a very good place to live in. The same is true of most rich world countries.

Compared to any previous generation, our problems are modest ones.

I think it was Hume who said his toothache caused him more anxiety than the Lisbon earthquake, which sums it up.

That’s really not true any more: it is the Panglossian verdict of the 1990s-00s

AI alone is probably the biggest existential threat mankind has ever faced. Yes it may be utopian, it could also be apocalyptic. Truly. And it is coming - this is not some maybe or could be

Add to that the fractured geopolitical world, climate change, the rise of autocratic China, and our problems are not “modest”, sadly

Alanbrooke said:

Nigelb said:

Alanbrooke said:

SouthamObserver said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

TimS said:

Foxy said:

Alanbrooke said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

One point of what may seem like pedantry but is actually quite important. The 1.5C target is 1.5C OVER PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS. Estimates are that we are at 1.2C over such levels. So if the world manages to hit its target (which it won't), and if we're exactly representative of that, we're looking at an increase of only 0.3C. Which, sadly, won't make London into Lyon.

Quite conceivably climate change could make Britain colder and wetter as a result of changes to the Atlantic currents. So London more like Belfast in climate than Lyon.

The prediction was hotter summers and wetter autumns. But like all predictions it could be wrong.

It was the other way round this year.

Summer was warmer than average including the hottest June on record.

Autumn is rapidly becoming a very wet one after a dry start.

Though August was a washout and September unseasonably warm. Increased unpredictability of an already unpredictable climate is not a good thing.

Starmers Green Prosperity Plan does poll well incidentally. Strongly too with the "Loyal Nationalists" of the "Red Wall".

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1717811493410889927?t=DQb_YrF0-fw1sNprh_IEMQ&s=19

Well maybe, but everybody agrees on doing nice things until the bills come in. When the policies hit the pocket thats when we see if they really support it or not.

There is widespread polling support for green policies.

There are even a lot of Tories who don't want to trash the country and planet.

Well youre letting your views on conservatives blind the reality. Most conservatives support a clean environment, its in the name. You simply highlight that Lefties dont know how to get to common ground. If you spent less time making everything a political campaign and more time on bottom up measures we would all make more progress.

We had common ground on net zero. The right abandoned it.

I always knew you were closet Boris supporter

Not even decent quality trolling AB Up your game.

Must try harder