Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Which leads us back to 'tech will save us', or rather 'tech must save us'. Because we're about a generation too late for the emissions reduction path to a viable future.
I think discussion of inequality needs to be part of a technological future, though. I suspect we'll see a concentration of economic power in a smaller number of globally hegemonic companies, probably Chinese, who are first to market with genuinely game-changing environmental tech (or, more likely, nick it from those with unenforceable IP rights but sell it cheaper).
How we protect against the inequality effects of this should be far more of a discussion point than it currently is.
Bochum have a man sent off against Leverkusen, I guess we will soon be one step closer to Bayer being unbeaten *in all competitions* (that is Bundesliga, German Cup, Europa League) this season, which would be a truly remarkable run
One thing though. You don't mention that a driver towards this utopia is fear. Many Green voters are literally terrified of what we are doing to the climate, calling it an 'emergency' and so on. Radical action is needed etc etc.
Fear drives their vote partly.
And by doing so they invoke a backlash, and therefore make it more likely that there will be no change.
It reminds me somewhat of Israel. Their acting out of fear makes their extinction more, rather than less, likely.
Good point on the Greens. On Israel less so.
I think Israel's survival is more in doubt today, that at any time in life. I am very fearful for them.
We shall see but I don't see a path to its demise. What does it look like.
It’s been obvious for a while now, and Ukraine makes it much more of a concern.
Ha, a defence contractor with products to sell...
But this is something the UK has always done badly, isn't it? I presume the idea is that we're likely to be too far from potential enemies for short range missiles to be much of a threat.
We're part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, so maybe things will change in the future.
To me, the whole concept of solarpunk as described above is dystopian not because it would require authoritarianism to enforce, but because it might develop out of (and certainly would develop into) a monoculture. A thousand distributed villages, all of them the same. A kind of sci-fi feudalism, where you are tied to the land you live, not by restrictions on movement, but because there is nowhere to go, and nothing to see, and everything is the same.
It feels somewhat like a 'utopia' at face values but where do all the non-conforming people go? Many of us leave the village or small conurbation we grow up in because we don't fit in there, and seek other, like minded rebels, misfits and oddballs to get into trouble with.
Solarpunk isn't dystopian because it requires the threat of violence to enforce the concept, it's dystopian because, as Viewcode points out, utopias only work where people agree. And that means a kind of bland conformity where everybody broadly thinks the same and acts the same out of social pressure rather than the threat of violence - nonconforming types tend to leave. Anyone who has lived in a 'village' or even 'two horse town' dynamic knows what I mean. In a solarpunk world, where do the nonconformists go?
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
One thing though. You don't mention that a driver towards this utopia is fear. Many Green voters are literally terrified of what we are doing to the climate, calling it an 'emergency' and so on. Radical action is needed etc etc.
Fear drives their vote partly.
And by doing so they invoke a backlash, and therefore make it more likely that there will be no change.
It reminds me somewhat of Israel. Their acting out of fear makes their extinction more, rather than less, likely.
Good point on the Greens. On Israel less so.
I think Israel's survival is more in doubt today, that at any time in life. I am very fearful for them.
We shall see but I don't see a path to its demise. What does it look like.
Israel pushes Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank out of the area currently controlled by Israel. This causes the fall of governments - like Egypt - that have generally been friendly to Israel. Their replacements are much less friendly to Israel. And when Israel is then attacked, the goodwill in the West, and the desire to support it, no longer exists.
I think the biggest threat to the existence of Israel is the loss of support from secular and Liberal Jews, both in the diaspora and in Israel. The increasing dominance of Israeli society by the ultraorthodox is the seed of the destruction of the state.
Both articles are exaggerating, and much of the increase is accounted for by immigration from Russia and Ukraine, but immigration rates are still up, including from France:
As for Egypt, I doubt the plan is to force many Palestinians to flee there.
Apropos Egypt, they say they will join the South African genocide case at the ICJ. Assuming nobody does a Varadkar, they will be the second Arab country to do so, after Libya. Better late than never. Colombia has also intervened.
Many countries have expressed support for the case without filing a formal intervention. These include Ireland, Turkey, and Belgium.
"Ultraorthodox" is a somewhat quaint term. Some tanks are carrying the symbol of a crown. See Chabad's use of a crown symbol and also the King's Torah.
It’s been obvious for a while now, and Ukraine makes it much more of a concern.
Ha, a defence contractor with products to sell...
But this is something the UK has always done badly, isn't it? I presume the idea is that we're likely to be too far from potential enemies for short range missiles to be much of a threat.
We're part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, so maybe things will change in the future.
Just because someone has an interest doesn't mean its not true.
There has been more than one parliamentary defence select committee report drawing attention to our lack of defences against hypersonic missiles.
It’s been obvious for a while now, and Ukraine makes it much more of a concern.
Part of the military industrial complex suggests we should send more money their way? What a surprise!
Sure, they're talking their own book, but they are not wrong. Vanity projects like a new MBT are a waste of money. Air defense is a basic sine qua non.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
One thing though. You don't mention that a driver towards this utopia is fear. Many Green voters are literally terrified of what we are doing to the climate, calling it an 'emergency' and so on. Radical action is needed etc etc.
Fear drives their vote partly.
And by doing so they invoke a backlash, and therefore make it more likely that there will be no change.
It reminds me somewhat of Israel. Their acting out of fear makes their extinction more, rather than less, likely.
Good point on the Greens. On Israel less so.
I think Israel's survival is more in doubt today, that at any time in life. I am very fearful for them.
We shall see but I don't see a path to its demise. What does it look like.
Nuclear exchange with Iran
I don’t think Iran would risk destroying al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf
Maybe ditching the ever-upward logic of GDP growth and our society’s insatiable appetites would help? Maybe kicking back, relaxing and both consuming and producing less while enjoying our limited time on Earth is a good odea? Much as I love Truss and her zany antics she was dead wrong on one thing - we need to be more lazy, not less.
Maybe ditching the ever-upward logic of GDP growth and our society’s insatiable appetites would help? Maybe kicking back, relaxing and both consuming and producing less while enjoying our limited time on Earth is a good odea? Much as I love Truss and her zany antics she was dead wrong on one thing - we need to be more lazy, not less.
More Global Thermonuclear Wars.
As we give the gift of raising benighted to 10,000,000 degrees C, we create a beneficent reduction in solar flux.
FPT, but since we’re on the Greens, I think we may be reasonably confident, if there is a Green MP, (which there may not be), it won’t be a Scottish one:
The Scottish Greens appear determined to march back to the political fringes where ideological purity smothers pragmatism. If you’re a cosplaying revolutionary from the West End of Glasgow, daydreaming about wandering through Gaza, handling out puberty-blockers to pleading-eyed children, then the Greens are the lads for you.…
Strangely, it is in the interests of both the SNP and its main opponents that Swinney’s government does not fail (unless some scandal of party-destroying proportions should emerge). Neither Anas Sarwar nor Douglas Ross can risk being seen as wreckers for the sake of sport and, if John Swinney maintains his new calm and reasonable persona, it may be difficult for them not to cooperate with him.
As the Scottish Greens shriek themselves into irrelevance, Scotland's future political direction is going to be dictated by those on the centre ground.
The Sunday Show on BBC Scotland this morning was reviewing the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament. Among the guests were Robin Harper, the first Green MSP and Rosie Kane of the Scottish Socialist Party. Interesting comments were the number of small parties in early parliaments, the Greens, the SSP and the Senior Citizens Unity Party, as well as highly respected independents, the failure of the committee system since chairs have been from the ruling party, and the replacement of MSPs who wanted to represent their electors with career politicians. Robin Harper was also very critical of the Greens in being a major cause of current divisions.
The comment about career politicians also sums up, to me, a major reason for the lack of inspiring leaders at Westminster.
Did Harper say if he thought the Greens support for independence (as opposed to his for the Union) contributed to the current divisions?
There’s definitely a space for a disgruntled old codgers party in Scotland.
Sorry for the delay in replying, @Theuniondivvie, busyness then dinner intervened. Robin Harper didn’t specifically mention independence. He was comparing the way parties and politicians cooperated and compromised in the early days with the fixed positions and unwillingness to compromise now.
I am thinking of starting a disgruntled old codgers party. I may call it the Miserable Ancient Livid Curmudgeons Party.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
It reminds me of The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin. The hero travels from his home planet, an anarchist utopia, to a planet that resembles a more dystopian USA.
But, the thing is there is a dynamism, creativity, and dissent in the USA planet that is lacking in the anarchist planet. The latter is both poor, and stiflingly conformist.
It reminds me of The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin. The hero travels from his home planet, an anarchist utopia, to a planet that resembles a more dystopian USA.
But, the thing is there is a dynamism, creativity, and dissent in the USA planet that is lacking in the anarchist planet. The latter is both poor, and stiflingly conformist.
As I discussed with a few people a while back. The US is the land of The Fee. And The Process. Then you get the occasional dribbling anarchist immigrants, every so often, who set portions of the dump on fire.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
Trees are good but organic so will never have the energy density to remove the volume needed.
The Elphicke saga is a nice example of scorpions in a cage under no obligation to sting each other.
Labour makes a mistake by taking Elphicke into the party when she is plainly unsuited to public life of any serious sort, especially of a centrist/centre left variety.
Having done this, Labour's best plan is for no supporters to say anything; every word spoken prolongs the story.
The Tories have bad stuff about her in the safe in the whip's office, showing she is unsuitable for public office. Releasing it now shows that they are immoral opportunistic stoats who said nothing when it mattered, so their proper option is to say nothing at all.
The best interests of both parties therefore is complete silence.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
So we have two almost opposite reasons being conjectured there.
It may also be that people between say 18 and 35 have grown less interested in having sex.
The fall is huge! To judge from that graph, the birth rate has dropped by about half in seven years.
According to the BBC (reporting on the Kremlin at least) he is just changing chairs. Whether that chair is nearer a loose window or not - we'll see I guess :
One thing though. You don't mention that a driver towards this utopia is fear. Many Green voters are literally terrified of what we are doing to the climate, calling it an 'emergency' and so on. Radical action is needed etc etc.
Fear drives their vote partly.
And by doing so they invoke a backlash, and therefore make it more likely that there will be no change.
It reminds me somewhat of Israel. Their acting out of fear makes their extinction more, rather than less, likely.
Good point on the Greens. On Israel less so.
I think Israel's survival is more in doubt today, that at any time in life. I am very fearful for them.
We shall see but I don't see a path to its demise. What does it look like.
Israel pushes Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank out of the area currently controlled by Israel. This causes the fall of governments - like Egypt - that have generally been friendly to Israel. Their replacements are much less friendly to Israel. And when Israel is then attacked, the goodwill in the West, and the desire to support it, no longer exists.
With the exception of Hamas and Iran there is plenty of cold hard pragmatism in the region. Wasn't one of the causes of the attack in October because of a mooted treaty between Israel and Saudi. Egypt meanwhile has had several flavours of government over the years and a constant has been its relationship with Israel and if you think any new leadership there would attack Israel then you've been on the Leon juice.
What do I think is the solution? A new leadership of the Palestinians which is likewise pragmatic which in turn will create international pressure on Israel to address its activities in the West Bank.
We have seen for decades that Israel tries to play the game and then employs the Millwall approach. That is not too excuse it, rather it is to explain it.
Edit: my question to myself is do the ordinary, decent Palestinians want to co-exist with Israel. I have no idea.
Any solution to the Israel / Palestine problem requires the first with all the land, wealth, water and power to share these with the second who have none of these things. It sees no reason to do so. Palestinians don't in general wish the Israelis well, so why should Israel take a hit to its way of life when it doesn't need to?
This is not to say the stronger party is the worse party. Simply the strong have choices the weak don't have. Talk of existential threat to Israel usually seems to mean suggestions Israel might want to make choices.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
Trees are good but organic so will never have the energy density to remove the volume needed.
Dressing agricultural fields with rock dust would do it, and the carbon catpured would be measurable via soil samples. And it would enrich soils, increasing quality and quantity of crops. And it would make fields drain better and help soil erosion.
@Casino_Royale I wanted to thank you for admonishing me the other day. Firstly I don't want to be a hypocrite and I think we should all be polite here, secondly it made me stop and think about how I should respond to megasaur
Having had time to think I drafted a considered response and got likes from @DavidL and @Richard_Tyndall ard both of whom I respect immensely and with whom I share many views. Richard also gave a very nice reply.
The focus of my reply was comparing to the famous Cook and Moore Tarzan sketch. The sketch does not discriminate against a disabled person, but is funny because it is absurd. That was exactly what I was doing. The group of 3 people were ill suited to the roles they were playing and I joked about it. All credit to them for attempting it though.
I was shocked by megasaur response. It was very offensive. Accusing me of every conceivable bigotry, which as a liberal you can imagine is the worst type of accusation.
As you know I don't agree with you regarding woke, but when there are people who can't distinguish between bigotry and making fun of an absurd situation you may end up converting me to your view point, but I hope not.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
This, happily, is not the case. In the rich world almost nobody needs children for economic purposes. The tiniest attention to the actual state of humanity in the prosperous world shows you that overwhelmingly people have children out of love and a belief that new life is an intrinsic good requiring no further reason than itself. It is the cause of a huge proportion of joy and good in the world. I am fairly sure this is true of less prosperous parts of the world too. It would be a much bleaker world without all this.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
Was there a vast drop in CO2 emissions? Genuinely curious - I hadn't heard that before.
Edit: seeing as I was curious I had a dig - there was a little dip but I wouldn't call it vast.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
Was there a vast drop in CO2 emissions? Genuinely curious - I hadn't heard that before.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
Maybe ditching the ever-upward logic of GDP growth and our society’s insatiable appetites would help? Maybe kicking back, relaxing and both consuming and producing less while enjoying our limited time on Earth is a good odea? Much as I love Truss and her zany antics she was dead wrong on one thing - we need to be more lazy, not less.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
So we have two almost opposite reasons being conjectured there.
It may also be that people between say 18 and 35 have grown less interested in having sex.
The fall is huge! To judge from that graph, the birth rate has dropped by about half in seven years.
Young people still love sex (when they aren't looking at their phones) but kids is a different matter.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
So we have two almost opposite reasons being conjectured there.
It may also be that people between say 18 and 35 have grown less interested in having sex.
The fall is huge! To judge from that graph, the birth rate has dropped by about half in seven years.
The birth rate drop is exaggerated because there are fewer people of childbearing age, caused by the initial introduction of the one child policy. Effectively, there are fewer 20-35 years olds, and they're having somewhat fewer kids, but because it's multiplactive, the effect is sizeable on the overall birthrate.
By far the biggest challenge to humanity is unbalanced population pyramids.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
Yes, there are a lot of online comments that are bullshit.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Nonsense. Economics drives the age you have kids, and how many you have. In poorer countries you have far more of them and as people and nations get richer they have fewer until some stop having them at all.
I know we don't want to think this way, but it does.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
This, happily, is not the case. In the rich world almost nobody needs children for economic purposes. The tiniest attention to the actual state of humanity in the prosperous world shows you that overwhelmingly people have children out of love and a belief that new life is an intrinsic good requiring no further reason than itself. It is the cause of a huge proportion of joy and good in the world. I am fairly sure this is true of less prosperous parts of the world too. It would be a much bleaker world without all this.
I'm afraid it is the case. It's just a truth that dare not speak its name.
I've got two kids, and I love them dearly. Economics absolutely drove the age we had them and the number we chose to have- two.
I can also turn your point on its head: it's precisely because no-one in the rich world needs children for economic reasons that we are having too few of them.
They are being had for reasons of love and self-actualisation alone, whilst being very expensive and energy consuming, and that isn't driving enough output.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
I recently read an online comment that the Conservative candidate had won the 2024 London Mayoral Election. Starting your own online comment with the phrase “I read an online comment to the effect that…” may not be an rhetorical master stroke.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Nonsense. Economics drives the age you have kids, and how many you have. In poorer countries you have far more of them and as people and nations get richer they have fewer until some stop having them at all.
I know we don't want to think this way, but it does.
It's like horses and sailing vessels. They used to be essential, they are now an optional luxury, but there is still quite a lot of them about. Also note that it's a U shaped curve. The very poor need them as manpower and the very rich to have someone other than the CotE to leave stuff to.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
Yes, there are a lot of online comments that are bullshit.
Well yes, and you contribute your fair share - but this one differed from your oeuvre in that it stuck in the mind.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
The whole problem in that region is religion. As such, it's unsurprising that someone who visits pilgrimage sites might lose some compassion and mercy...
It will never catch on here. Stopping traffic is one of the local council’s priorities. As is ensuring that road patches are never the same height as the adjoining road.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
I recently read an online comment that the Conservative candidate had won the 2024 London Mayoral Election. Starting your own online comment with the phrase “I read an online comment to the effect that…” may not be an rhetorical master stroke.
It wasn't planned to be a masterstroke. I should have bookmarked the source (if there were one) at the time but didn't, so I'm not going to give it any more credibility than it deserves.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
Gosh, how unpleasant. I really enjoy your travelogues - and San Sebastian is one of the best places on earth. However, your Middle Eastern commentary leaves much to be desired.
An Israeli Newspaper Presents Truths Readers May Prefer to Avoid Haaretz consistently attempts to wrestle with the realities of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/an-israeli-newspaper-presents-truths-readers-may-prefer-to-avoid … In terms of audience, Haaretz trails far behind the popular tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth and the conservative paper Israel Hayom, which is owned by the family of the late billionaire casino operator Sheldon Adelson. Haaretz’s resources are modest, its reputation primarily ideological; it is left wing in a country that has moved decidedly to the right.
Yet what’s been impressive about the paper lately is the breadth of its reporting and analysis. On a nearly daily basis, Amos Harel and Anshel Pfeffer give unblinkered assessments of brutal military overreach and political folly; Yaniv Kubovich has scored one scoop after another on the failures of the security establishment. Amira Hass, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, has been living in, and reporting from, Gaza and the West Bank for more than three decades. Her anatomization of the structures and the human costs of occupation has been an insistent, if willfully ignored, presence in Israeli public life for more than a generation. Netta Ahituv’s portrait of David Hasan, a Palestinian American neurosurgeon at Duke, who has been treating children and adults in Gaza, provided a glimpse of the suffering in Khan Younis and Rafah. Hasan recalled trying to attend to his countless patients while bombs shook the hospital to its foundation. “I asked the local doctors what to do,” he said, “and they told me . . . I should just keep working to distract myself from the anxiety.”..
… The reporting on Netanyahu has been both factual and critical, but Haaretz has also presented a three-dimensional picture of the world in which the Israeli Prime Minister is not the only dangerous actor in the regional drama. Not long ago, Shlomi Eldar interviewed a range of Palestinians––including many Fatah supporters––who had experienced life in Gaza under Hamas rule and then left for Cairo. A former Fatah official named Sufyan Abu Zaydeh told Eldar how, on October 7th, when he saw a jeep racing by carrying an Israeli hostage, he anticipated with despair the war to come: “Gaza was on the road to perdition.” And Eldar’s Palestinian sources described in detail a meeting nearly three years ago at the seaside Commodore Hotel, in Gaza, called “The Promise of the Hereafter Conference.” At that meeting, Eldar’s sources told him, delegates discussed their plans to conquer Israel––or, as the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar put it in a statement, to bring about the “full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river.” Hamas leaders outlined various aspects of what should follow—which Israelis ought to be killed or prosecuted, how to avoid a “brain drain,” and how to divvy up Israeli properties, including apartments, schools, gas stations…
The Elphicke saga is a nice example of scorpions in a cage under no obligation to sting each other.
Labour makes a mistake by taking Elphicke into the party when she is plainly unsuited to public life of any serious sort, especially of a centrist/centre left variety.
Having done this, Labour's best plan is for no supporters to say anything; every word spoken prolongs the story.
The Tories have bad stuff about her in the safe in the whip's office, showing she is unsuitable for public office. Releasing it now shows that they are immoral opportunistic stoats who said nothing when it mattered, so their proper option is to say nothing at all.
The best interests of both parties therefore is complete silence.
Guess what.......
Good evening
Sky headline it on every bulletin today and no doubt tomorrow and on we go
Mind you your description of her seems very succinct
I would just say Trevor Phillips did say to Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning that if it is proved she did try to interfere in the legal process of her husband, she would have to have the labour whip removed which left Jonathan somewhat bemused !!!!
According to the BBC (reporting on the Kremlin at least) he is just changing chairs. Whether that chair is nearer a loose window or not - we'll see I guess :
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to replace his long-standing ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister, the Kremlin has announced.
The 68-year-old has been in the role since 2012 and is to be appointed the head of Russia's Security Council.
Papers published by the upper chamber of the Russian parliament said Mr Shoigu will be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, says the Kremlin wanted to appoint an economic official to run the defense ministry after Russia’s security budget ballooned to 6.6 per cent of gross domestic product.
The Elphicke saga is a nice example of scorpions in a cage under no obligation to sting each other.
Labour makes a mistake by taking Elphicke into the party when she is plainly unsuited to public life of any serious sort, especially of a centrist/centre left variety.
Having done this, Labour's best plan is for no supporters to say anything; every word spoken prolongs the story.
The Tories have bad stuff about her in the safe in the whip's office, showing she is unsuitable for public office. Releasing it now shows that they are immoral opportunistic stoats who said nothing when it mattered, so their proper option is to say nothing at all.
The best interests of both parties therefore is complete silence.
Guess what.......
Good evening
Sky headline it on every bulletin today and no doubt tomorrow and on we go
Mind you your description of her seems very succinct
I would just say Trevor Phillips did say to Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning that if it is proved she did try to interfere in the legal process of her husband, she would have to have the labour whip removed which left Jonathan somewhat bemused !!!!
Absolutely baffling as to why the Tories, and Buckland in particular, didn't discipline Elphicke for trying to interfere in the legal process at the time it happened. In fact, they didn't even mention it. And now they raise it. Wonder why?
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
The Elphicke saga is a nice example of scorpions in a cage under no obligation to sting each other.
Labour makes a mistake by taking Elphicke into the party when she is plainly unsuited to public life of any serious sort, especially of a centrist/centre left variety.
Having done this, Labour's best plan is for no supporters to say anything; every word spoken prolongs the story.
The Tories have bad stuff about her in the safe in the whip's office, showing she is unsuitable for public office. Releasing it now shows that they are immoral opportunistic stoats who said nothing when it mattered, so their proper option is to say nothing at all.
The best interests of both parties therefore is complete silence.
Guess what.......
Good evening
Sky headline it on every bulletin today and no doubt tomorrow and on we go
Mind you your description of her seems very succinct
I would just say Trevor Phillips did say to Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning that if it is proved she did try to interfere in the legal process of her husband, she would have to have the labour whip removed which left Jonathan somewhat bemused !!!!
Now that this nonsense has started it is in Labour's best interest to correct this error by using the good reason that has emerged from Tory sources to suspend her from the party until an enquiry, to be completed the day after the next general election. It looks terrible, but so does her continuing in the party - which also looks grotesque.
Just got back to my hotel from dinner, and I've had the best food of my holiday so far
I decided not to go to a Michelin starred place. I've spent too much on hotels in the last week, so would have been stretching my finances a bit
Instead I went to the second highest rated place on TripAdvisor, a little bar in the old town called Mendaur Berria
It really is small, and was packed out. I walked in and turned around to walk out as I couldn't see anywhere to sit, or any way to get to the bar
Then I heard the music; "Hold On, I'm Coming" by Sam and Dave, and I looked a bit harder. There was one stool free, right in the corner of the bar under the pintxo menu
I had the artichoke (alcachofa), the truffle rice (arroz trufado), then the pig cheeks (carrilleras), followed by the squid (txipiron). All of it was superb
They also carried on playing great soul music all night. I heard seven bands or singers that I've seen live, and nothing that I didn't like
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
All I can offer anecdotally is there was a marked improvement in air quality in London in April and May 2020 with the reduction in traffic volumes especially air traffic. Oddly enough, somehting similar was recorded in North America in the immediate aftermath of September 11th 2001 with the grounding of all non-military aircraft.
I suspect such an improvement was brief and worldwide CO2 emissions may have dipped briefly before returning to trend (represented by the fall off in economic activity at the time).
We also know CO2 is a lagging indicator and the effect of what we have already put into the air and the oceans to increase concentrations will drive climate change even when (or if) we achieve further substantial reductions in the amount of CO2 produced.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
Do you not think these people exist?
Or do you know that they do but want to give them compassion and mercy because Israel?
Green Party policy in the UK - as this article touches on - is fundamentally anti-progress. The utopia it desires is one of fewer people, living simple lives, in harmony with nature.
The fact that nature - as any fleeing wildebeest knows - is not harmonious, doesn't seem to bother them at all.
Technology developing at the most extraordinary rate: as solar panel prices continue to plummet, the future increasingly looks like one where almost every surface will be coated by a light absorbing, electricity emitting sheer.
This means that mankind will not be tethered to fossil fuels (and those who monopolize their production). It means human emissions will collapse.
And it means we'll be able to grow more food than ever before. (Vertical city farms powered by efficient light emitting diodes that only produce light in exactly the wavelengths needed for photosynthesis.) It means that water shortages become mere engineering challenges. Next up will be meat: but we're getting there. We'll be able to grow real meat. It will be indistinguishable from, or perhaps even better than, what comes from farms.
Now, you will accuse me of techno-utopia.
But this is simply the progression of knowledge. We now know how to make photovoltaic cells for 100th of the price we did twenty years ago. Similar progress has been made in batteries and LEDs.
And the progression of knowledge is such that low carbon, is lowest cost.
We will evolve. And we'll evolve around the economic line of least resistance. As Mrs Thatcher said, you can't buck the market. And green and green align here.
The enemies of this are two fold: Firstly there are those who traditional livelihoods are challenged (coal miners, cattle ranchers, old car companies). And you see the passing of laws to try and turn the clock back. (See numerous US states with their absurd bans on lab grown meat.) Secondly, there are those who don't really want progress, they want the world to return to a simpler time. (To whit, the Green Party.)
Us techno-utopians don't need a platform. We don't need to stand for election. We don't need to persuade anyone. Because what we propose is happening inexorably, as knowledge advances, and millions - and billions - of people vote with their wallets, choosing every more efficient vehicles, adding solar to their rooves, and buying whatever food tastes best and costs least.
The Greens don't want to return merely to a simpler time. I think it's often that they want to return to a prelapsarian time.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
I read an online comment to the effect that despite the vast reduction in human CO2 emissions with the various lockdowns and travel restrictions, CO2 was recorded as continuing to rise very much on its previous trajectory. Indicating (according to the commentor) that overall CO2 levels had nothing to do with human activity. I'd like to see more on the impact of Covid on climate change.
All I can offer anecdotally is there was a marked improvement in air quality in London in April and May 2020 with the reduction in traffic volumes especially air traffic. Oddly enough, somehting similar was recorded in North America in the immediate aftermath of September 11th 2001 with the grounding of all non-military aircraft.
I suspect such an improvement was brief and worldwide CO2 emissions may have dipped briefly before returning to trend (represented by the fall off in economic activity at the time).
We also know CO2 is a lagging indicator and the effect of what we have already put into the air and the oceans to increase concentrations will drive climate change even when (or if) we achieve further substantial reductions in the amount of CO2 produced.
Indeed. But the comment was suggesting that carbon recording stations had seen no decline in the trajectory of carbon increases over the period. Which struck me as an unusual claim, and I should have looked at the source and bookmarked it.
It is a not entirely fanciful theory that carbon emissions are caused by increases in global temperatures, not the other way around, which would dovetail nicely with the above claims. Certainly, given the drop of around (according to the figures posted above) 3 billion tonnes of human emissions, one would expect to see that recorded as a noticeable fall recorded carbon levels, if not a devastating fall.
Green Party policy in the UK - as this article touches on - is fundamentally anti-progress. The utopia it desires is one of fewer people, living simple lives, in harmony with nature.
The fact that nature - as any fleeing wildebeest knows - is not harmonious, doesn't seem to bother them at all.
Technology developing at the most extraordinary rate: as solar panel prices continue to plummet, the future increasingly looks like one where almost every surface will be coated by a light absorbing, electricity emitting sheer.
This means that mankind will not be tethered to fossil fuels (and those who monopolize their production). It means human emissions will collapse.
And it means we'll be able to grow more food than ever before. (Vertical city farms powered by efficient light emitting diodes that only produce light in exactly the wavelengths needed for photosynthesis.) It means that water shortages become mere engineering challenges. Next up will be meat: but we're getting there. We'll be able to grow real meat. It will be indistinguishable from, or perhaps even better than, what comes from farms.
Now, you will accuse me of techno-utopia.
But this is simply the progression of knowledge. We now know how to make photovoltaic cells for 100th of the price we did twenty years ago. Similar progress has been made in batteries and LEDs.
And the progression of knowledge is such that low carbon, is lowest cost.
We will evolve. And we'll evolve around the economic line of least resistance. As Mrs Thatcher said, you can't buck the market. And green and green align here.
The enemies of this are two fold: Firstly there are those who traditional livelihoods are challenged (coal miners, cattle ranchers, old car companies). And you see the passing of laws to try and turn the clock back. (See numerous US states with their absurd bans on lab grown meat.) Secondly, there are those who don't really want progress, they want the world to return to a simpler time. (To whit, the Green Party.)
Us techno-utopians don't need a platform. We don't need to stand for election. We don't need to persuade anyone. Because what we propose is happening inexorably, as knowledge advances, and millions - and billions - of people vote with their wallets, choosing every more efficient vehicles, adding solar to their rooves, and buying whatever food tastes best and costs least.
The Greens don't want to return merely to a simpler time. I think it's often that they want to return to a prelapsarian time.
Conflating the two issues that seem to matter most to the Green Party, it appears that what they want is a land from the river to the sea, where blokes in frocks are considered to be women.
The Tories saying they sat on Natalie Elphicke's alleged crimes and then are deciding to release them now she's defected is not the big win Tories think it is. No surprise to see the usual suspects gloating about it.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
So we have two almost opposite reasons being conjectured there.
It may also be that people between say 18 and 35 have grown less interested in having sex.
The fall is huge! To judge from that graph, the birth rate has dropped by about half in seven years.
What I have read and heard anecdotally is that a major factor in China is the incredible cost of education. Parents are driven to employ tutors to such an extent that paying for education for more than one child is prohibitive unless you are extremely rich.
And many potential parents might well conclude that if they can’t give their child a sufficient start it might be better not to have one at all.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
"This year’s out-of-control blazes released 2bn tonnes of CO2 – probably triple the country’s annual carbon footprint."
Until you develop a fireproof tree, you have a problem.
Wildfires resulting from climate change.
A spiral of doom.
Citation needed.
Says the person claiming that the whole scientific community has got the link between CO2 and climate change backwards.
Goodnight.
Er no. I have not made a claim, I've described a comment and given appropriate caveats. You've very much made a claim - one it seems you can't back up.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
Do you not think these people exist?
Or do you know that they do but want to give them compassion and mercy because Israel?
I ran a 2 week course once for Palestinian doctors at a charitable hospital in the West Bank. There as in Malawi, where I have also run courses people have big families. Both had a TFR of over 4 when I was there. These are poor societies, with meagre incomes and high unemployment. So why do they have so many children?
The answer is that they have few other pleasures in life, other than community and children so even if a further child is economic burden rather than benefit, they have more.
While in richer societies dominated by consumerism like our own, or China or South Korea people have the options for other pleasures. Consumer goods, stimulating careers, academic study, travel, fancy foods, so are less interested in the simple pleasures of domesticity, hearth and family. We see it within our own societies too where there often was an inverse relationship between wealth and TFR, though in recent years less so.
Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at least 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major- socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity
This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown
This states the unstateable problem succinctly. If the science is right, then what is needed for catastrophe is already in place. Even cutting emissions by 50% by 2030 (or whenever) makes no difference except for delaying the outcome by a few years. Emissions are like inflation. Reducing inflation still means rising prices. Reducing emissions still means rising CO2. Only a scheme of mass scale global level removal of CO2 would change things. Whether this is possible I don't know. But nothing else will do it at all, if the science is right. People are working on it, eg:
Interesting. That looks like the efficiency is 50-70% (if you're lucky) of a FOAK plant that will do a maximum of 35,000 tonnes removal pa that's actually removed and stored.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
I've got a few Direct Air Capture plants in my garden. More commonly referred to as trees.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
"This year’s out-of-control blazes released 2bn tonnes of CO2 – probably triple the country’s annual carbon footprint."
Until you develop a fireproof tree, you have a problem.
Wildfires resulting from climate change.
A spiral of doom.
Citation needed.
Jones, Matthew W. , Smith, Adam J. P., Betts, Richard, Canadell, Josep G., Prentice, I. Colin and Le Quéré, Corinne (2020) Climate Change Increases the Risk of Wildfires: January 2020. ScienceBrief. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/77982/
The United Kingdom wasn't the least popular song with the public vote, but almost all the countries rated it meh, the closest we got to getting a point was from Ukraine and Ireland (both 14th) but the only country that ranked us last was Albania.
Slovenia was ranked dead last by 8 countries and bottom five by a further 24, but they still got points from Croatia (2nd) and Serbia (9th).
Portugal was also rated on average worse than the UK with 26 countries having them in the bottom five but diaspora voting helped with Luxembourg (5th) and Switzerland (9th),
Norway got only 4 points from the public but was so close to getting points from many more countries, 11th place from Denmark, Estonia and Iceland and 12th place from Czechia, Latvia, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.
Ireland only failed to score from five countries, Albania, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland all placed them 11th, Israel had them 19th.
When Ukraine won the Song Contest in 2022, their worst public vote was Serbia who only gave them 7 points, this year their worst country was again Serbia with 0 points (11th place). It's probably good for Ukraine that Slovakia and Hungary aren't doing Eurovision Song Contest right now.
It will never catch on here. Stopping traffic is one of the local council’s priorities. As is ensuring that road patches are never the same height as the adjoining road.
There's an interesting documentary on the Oxford Circus temporary bridge on BBC archive. Worth a watch if you're interested.
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
Do you not think these people exist?
Or do you know that they do but want to give them compassion and mercy because Israel?
I ran a 2 week course once for Palestinian doctors at a charitable hospital in the West Bank. There as in Malawi, where I have also run courses people have big families. Both had a TFR of over 4 when I was there. These are poor societies, with meagre incomes and high unemployment. So why do they have so many children?
The answer is that they have few other pleasures in life, other than community and children so even if a further child is economic burden rather than benefit, they have more.
While in richer societies dominated by consumerism like our own, or China or South Korea people have the options for other pleasures. Consumer goods, stimulating careers, academic study, travel, fancy foods, so are less interested in the simple pleasures of domesticity, hearth and family. We see it within our own societies too where there often was an inverse relationship between wealth and TFR, though in recent years less so.
Including in our society where my three years younger, now dead, smack addict cousin had more kids to get extra benefits and a bigger house. They all ended up in care, and she on the streets, of course
But the "safety net" helped to trap her and the poor kids she had
Off-topic: what are the reasons for such a large and fast fall in the Chinese birth rate?
Create a shitty environment for women to have children in?
People don't have kids if they don't need to have kids.
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
That's daft. Almost all of us would be better off without children in financial terms.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
Do the Palestinians who want their kids to be martyrs have kids because they want dead Jews, or because they want the Hamas endowment?
I see travel hasn't broadened your mind, nor pilgrimage sites taught you compassion or mercy.
Do you not think these people exist?
Or do you know that they do but want to give them compassion and mercy because Israel?
I ran a 2 week course once for Palestinian doctors at a charitable hospital in the West Bank. There as in Malawi, where I have also run courses people have big families. Both had a TFR of over 4 when I was there. These are poor societies, with meagre incomes and high unemployment. So why do they have so many children?
The answer is that they have few other pleasures in life, other than community and children so even if a further child is economic burden rather than benefit, they have more.
While in richer societies dominated by consumerism like our own, or China or South Korea people have the options for other pleasures. Consumer goods, stimulating careers, academic study, travel, fancy foods, so are less interested in the simple pleasures of domesticity, hearth and family. We see it within our own societies too where there often was an inverse relationship between wealth and TFR, though in recent years less so.
I would have thought access to and education about contraception came into the picture
Comments
I think discussion of inequality needs to be part of a technological future, though. I suspect we'll see a concentration of economic power in a smaller number of globally hegemonic companies, probably Chinese, who are first to market with genuinely game-changing environmental tech (or, more likely, nick it from those with unenforceable IP rights but sell it cheaper).
How we protect against the inequality effects of this should be far more of a discussion point than it currently is.
Exclusive: Key defence contractor says UK’s capabilities are ‘very limited’ as a result of long-term under-investment
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/12/uk-given-stark-warning-over-very-limited-air-defence-systems
It’s been obvious for a while now, and Ukraine makes it much more of a concern.
But this is something the UK has always done badly, isn't it? I presume the idea is that we're likely to be too far from potential enemies for short range missiles to be much of a threat.
We're part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, so maybe things will change in the future.
We emit 35 billion tonnes a year so we'd need between 1.4 to 2 million of these plants, worldwide, to break even. And then you need the geology to be right.
[Of course, that's very conservative. I'm assuming emissions don't go down and there's no other effect of net zero policies but this is one thing Western countries can do to mitigate what other countries don't or won't.]
It's probably realistic to get plant numbers up to the tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. But that will take time and there are only c. 60,000 power plants of all types worldwide today so this will only ever be about 5% of the solution unless there's a massive ramp up in capacity and efficiency with sufficient geologically locked storage options, and it can be deployed very quickly at scale.
"Huge surge in aliyah applications since the war began" (Feb 2024)
Both articles are exaggerating, and much of the increase is accounted for by immigration from Russia and Ukraine, but immigration rates are still up, including from France:
"France sees 430% increase in opening of immigration files since Hamas massacre".
As for Egypt, I doubt the plan is to force many Palestinians to flee there.
Apropos Egypt, they say they will join the South African genocide case at the ICJ. Assuming nobody does a Varadkar, they will be the second Arab country to do so, after Libya. Better late than never. Colombia has also intervened.
Many countries have expressed support for the case without filing a formal intervention. These include Ireland, Turkey, and Belgium.
"Ultraorthodox" is a somewhat quaint term. Some tanks are carrying the symbol of a crown. See Chabad's use of a crown symbol and also the King's Torah.
There has been more than one parliamentary defence select committee report drawing attention to our lack of defences against hypersonic missiles.
Vanity projects like a new MBT are a waste of money. Air defense is a basic sine qua non.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/12/ban-sales-of-petrol-motorcycles-2040-to-be-announced/
I don’t think Iran would risk destroying al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/may/12/eurovision-loses-almost-quarter-uk-viewers-olly-alexander
As we give the gift of raising benighted to 10,000,000 degrees C, we create a beneficent reduction in solar flux.
If this group was a train it would be the CHATanooga choo choo.
I am thinking of starting a disgruntled old codgers party. I may call it the Miserable Ancient Livid Curmudgeons Party.
Reforestation, peat bog restoration, etc. all act to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in a much more amenable fashion than the various versions of DAC under development.
Adding carbon capture to energy from waste plants is also a good net negative approach, since around half of the CO2 they emit is biogenic. Of course, you need to apply it to half of the EfW fleet before you break even.
https://x.com/ozkaterji/status/1789725482235158912?s=61
The Brits act was abysmal. They picked a charisma vacuum and a terrible song. Even titillation couldn’t save it !
Oh, oh, oh
But, the thing is there is a dynamism, creativity, and dissent in the USA planet that is lacking in the anarchist planet. The latter is both poor, and stiflingly conformist.
From a premise that too many people are total twats, this just looks like wishful thinking of the highest order.
I can only see an authoritarian approach getting humankind to do what is right for the planet.
But other than Wor Lass and her fellow travellers, who's going to vote for that?
Labour makes a mistake by taking Elphicke into the party when she is plainly unsuited to public life of any serious sort, especially of a centrist/centre left variety.
Having done this, Labour's best plan is for no supporters to say anything; every word spoken prolongs the story.
The Tories have bad stuff about her in the safe in the whip's office, showing she is unsuitable for public office. Releasing it now shows that they are immoral opportunistic stoats who said nothing when it mattered, so their proper option is to say nothing at all.
The best interests of both parties therefore is complete silence.
Guess what.......
It's a bit heartless but much of what drives it is, in truth, economics and if you're really well off and can't be arsed then, well, you don't have kids at all.
It may also be that people between say 18 and 35 have grown less interested in having sex.
The fall is huge! To judge from that graph, the birth rate has dropped by about half in seven years.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-69000698
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to replace his long-standing ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister, the Kremlin has announced.
The 68-year-old has been in the role since 2012 and is to be appointed the head of Russia's Security Council.
Papers published by the upper chamber of the Russian parliament said Mr Shoigu will be replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov.
This is not to say the stronger party is the worse party. Simply the strong have choices the weak don't have. Talk of existential threat to Israel usually seems to mean suggestions Israel might want to make choices.
Having had time to think I drafted a considered response and got likes from @DavidL and @Richard_Tyndall ard both of whom I respect immensely and with whom I share many views. Richard also gave a very nice reply.
The focus of my reply was comparing to the famous Cook and Moore Tarzan sketch. The sketch does not discriminate against a disabled person, but is funny because it is absurd. That was exactly what I was doing. The group of 3 people were ill suited to the roles they were playing and I joked about it. All credit to them for attempting it though.
I was shocked by megasaur response. It was very offensive. Accusing me of every conceivable bigotry, which as a liberal you can imagine is the worst type of accusation.
As you know I don't agree with you regarding woke, but when there are people who can't distinguish between bigotry and making fun of an absurd situation you may end up converting me to your view point, but I hope not.
"This year’s out-of-control blazes released 2bn tonnes of CO2 – probably triple the country’s annual carbon footprint."
Until you develop a fireproof tree, you have a problem.
Edit: seeing as I was curious I had a dig - there was a little dip but I wouldn't call it vast.
We have them for non-economic reasons.
By far the biggest challenge to humanity is unbalanced population pyramids.
I know we don't want to think this way, but it does.
I've got two kids, and I love them dearly. Economics absolutely drove the age we had them and the number we chose to have- two.
I can also turn your point on its head: it's precisely because no-one in the rich world needs children for economic reasons that we are having too few of them.
They are being had for reasons of love and self-actualisation alone, whilst being very expensive and energy consuming, and that isn't driving enough output.
"In Switzerland, a mobile overpass bridge is used to carry out road work without stopping traffic"
https://twitter.com/TansuYegen/status/1789526872298008603
Not mobile, but I think they built a temporary bridge over Oxford Circus decades ago whist they expanded the tube station?
Edit: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/50-years-ago-a-huge-steel-umbrella-for-oxford-circus-tube-station-8955/
"Putin decided to change the Minister of Defense Sergei #Shoigu.
Russian dictator proposed appointing Andrey Belousov as the new Minister of Defense, who previously served as the First Deputy Prime Minister."
https://twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1789724030922018991
Andrey Belousov:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Belousov
(Amusingly, several Wiki pages have already been updated with this change...)
I really enjoy your travelogues - and San Sebastian is one of the best places on earth.
However, your Middle Eastern commentary leaves much to be desired.
Haaretz consistently attempts to wrestle with the realities of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/20/an-israeli-newspaper-presents-truths-readers-may-prefer-to-avoid
… In terms of audience, Haaretz trails far behind the popular tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth and the conservative paper Israel Hayom, which is owned by the family of the late billionaire casino operator Sheldon Adelson. Haaretz’s resources are modest, its reputation primarily ideological; it is left wing in a country that has moved decidedly to the right.
Yet what’s been impressive about the paper lately is the breadth of its reporting and analysis. On a nearly daily basis, Amos Harel and Anshel Pfeffer give unblinkered assessments of brutal military overreach and political folly; Yaniv Kubovich has scored one scoop after another on the failures of the security establishment. Amira Hass, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, has been living in, and reporting from, Gaza and the West Bank for more than three decades. Her anatomization of the structures and the human costs of occupation has been an insistent, if willfully ignored, presence in Israeli public life for more than a generation. Netta Ahituv’s portrait of David Hasan, a Palestinian American neurosurgeon at Duke, who has been treating children and adults in Gaza, provided a glimpse of the suffering in Khan Younis and Rafah. Hasan recalled trying to attend to his countless patients while bombs shook the hospital to its foundation. “I asked the local doctors what to do,” he said, “and they told me . . . I should just keep working to distract myself from the anxiety.”..
… The reporting on Netanyahu has been both factual and critical, but Haaretz has also presented a three-dimensional picture of the world in which the Israeli Prime Minister is not the only dangerous actor in the regional drama. Not long ago, Shlomi Eldar interviewed a range of Palestinians––including many Fatah supporters––who had experienced life in Gaza under Hamas rule and then left for Cairo. A former Fatah official named Sufyan Abu Zaydeh told Eldar how, on October 7th, when he saw a jeep racing by carrying an Israeli hostage, he anticipated with despair the war to come: “Gaza was on the road to perdition.” And Eldar’s Palestinian sources described in detail a meeting nearly three years ago at the seaside Commodore Hotel, in Gaza, called “The Promise of the Hereafter Conference.” At that meeting, Eldar’s sources told him, delegates discussed their plans to conquer Israel––or, as the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar put it in a statement, to bring about the “full liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river.” Hamas leaders outlined various aspects of what should follow—which Israelis ought to be killed or prosecuted, how to avoid a “brain drain,” and how to divvy up Israeli properties, including apartments, schools, gas stations…
Sky headline it on every bulletin today and no doubt tomorrow and on we go
Mind you your description of her seems very succinct
I would just say Trevor Phillips did say to Jonathan Ashworth on Sky this morning that if it is proved she did try to interfere in the legal process of her husband, she would have to have the labour whip removed which left Jonathan somewhat bemused !!!!
“This demands special attention,” he told reporters.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1789736103898939615
A spiral of doom.
Weatherpunk?
I decided not to go to a Michelin starred place. I've spent too much on hotels in the last week, so would have been stretching my finances a bit
Instead I went to the second highest rated place on TripAdvisor, a little bar in the old town called Mendaur Berria
It really is small, and was packed out. I walked in and turned around to walk out as I couldn't see anywhere to sit, or any way to get to the bar
Then I heard the music; "Hold On, I'm Coming" by Sam and Dave, and I looked a bit harder. There was one stool free, right in the corner of the bar under the pintxo menu
I had the artichoke (alcachofa), the truffle rice (arroz trufado), then the pig cheeks (carrilleras), followed by the squid (txipiron). All of it was superb
They also carried on playing great soul music all night. I heard seven bands or singers that I've seen live, and nothing that I didn't like
This was the menu I sat under
I suspect such an improvement was brief and worldwide CO2 emissions may have dipped briefly before returning to trend (represented by the fall off in economic activity at the time).
We also know CO2 is a lagging indicator and the effect of what we have already put into the air and the oceans to increase concentrations will drive climate change even when (or if) we achieve further substantial reductions in the amount of CO2 produced.
Or do you know that they do but want to give them compassion and mercy because Israel?
It is a not entirely fanciful theory that carbon emissions are caused by increases in global temperatures, not the other way around, which would dovetail nicely with the above claims. Certainly, given the drop of around (according to the figures posted above) 3 billion tonnes of human emissions, one would expect to see that recorded as a noticeable fall recorded carbon levels, if not a devastating fall.
Sounds like a tough ask.
Goodnight.
And many potential parents might well conclude that if they can’t give their child a sufficient start it might be better not to have one at all.
The answer is that they have few other pleasures in life, other than community and children so even if a further child is economic burden rather than benefit, they have more.
While in richer societies dominated by consumerism like our own, or China or South Korea people have the options for other pleasures. Consumer goods, stimulating careers, academic study, travel, fancy foods, so are less interested in the simple pleasures of domesticity, hearth and family. We see it within our own societies too where there often was an inverse relationship between wealth and TFR, though in recent years less so.
Front Ecol Environ 2021; 19(7): 387–395, doi:10.1002/fee.2359 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fee.2359
Di Virgilio, G., Evans, J. P., Blake, S. A. P., Armstrong, M., Dowdy, A. J., Sharples, J., & McRae, R. (2019). Climate change increases the potential for extreme wildfires. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 8517–8526. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083699 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL083699
The United Kingdom wasn't the least popular song with the public vote, but almost all the countries rated it meh, the closest we got to getting a point was from Ukraine and Ireland (both 14th) but the only country that ranked us last was Albania.
Slovenia was ranked dead last by 8 countries and bottom five by a further 24, but they still got points from Croatia (2nd) and Serbia (9th).
Portugal was also rated on average worse than the UK with 26 countries having them in the bottom five but diaspora voting helped with Luxembourg (5th) and Switzerland (9th),
Norway got only 4 points from the public but was so close to getting points from many more countries, 11th place from Denmark, Estonia and Iceland and 12th place from Czechia, Latvia, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.
Ireland only failed to score from five countries, Albania, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland all placed them 11th, Israel had them 19th.
When Ukraine won the Song Contest in 2022, their worst public vote was Serbia who only gave them 7 points, this year their worst country was again Serbia with 0 points (11th place). It's probably good for Ukraine that Slovakia and Hungary aren't doing Eurovision Song Contest right now.
But the "safety net" helped to trap her and the poor kids she had
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1789443620187099264
He sounds…. low energy.