UKC

Can we give this environmental stuff a rest purleazze. It's getting really boring and overwhelming on what is a climbing and mountaineering website. There are other media sites to use for what's become greener and holier than thou tendentiousness.

So back to climbing. Who will make the first female ascent of Indian Face and when?

1. Wrong forum

2. Makes a change, for now at least, from **ex*t

Please have a like and a heartfelt "seconded".

I just wasn't brave enough to say it!

The environment actually seems like quite a relevant thing to be discussing on a climbing and mountaineering site. Certainly a lot more relevant than half the guff that gets discussed on here!

Is it really that difficult to make a judgement from the thread titles and ignore the ones that don't interest you?

I suspect that the first female ascent of Indian Face will be a next-generation thing but if it was going to be somebody from the current generation, presumably it would be Emma Twyford or Hazel Findlay.

Too right. A fight back is long overdue... I don't see coral reefs doing f*ck all for me, after all? Barnacled bastards. 

I hate to be the person who points out there is a forum called 'rocktalk'. 

I don't know but maybe Hazel Findlay, for one, can do it

That's not a very nice thing to call Extinction Rebellion ha-ha-ha

Some UKC posters are not going to like this - after all, one of them posted on UKC on 21 April (I challenged the post on that day) that she [quote] "is the most important person alive on the planet without a shadow of a doubt" - but the backlash will start against Greta Thunberg. You can try this article, which in my opinion is balanced and well-argued:

https://fee.org/articles/the-real-problem-with-greta-thunberg-is-not-her-ag...

Hmmm, I wonder why a libertarian think tank that is a big fan of Milton Friedman would be against environmental protection through regulation..?

My take on the article was that despite trying to undermine the ‘scaremongering’ of envieonmental change, the human contribution to CO2 is undeniable and nobody knows precisely how damaging it will be during this century. Perhaps history will be less than kind to the ‘don’t be so dramatic, it will all be fine’ idea in retrospect. 

Well said .... free-market economist scaremongers against activist he accuses of scaremongering by misusing climate science.

Well balanced?. You might need to consider she is likely just be a puppet of a mother whose career never took off globally and then put it to one side to care for her kids, with the help of her best friend who just happens to run an organisation related to climate change. 

Just by chance Gretas mother also has a book out, which has had a cover change to that of an image of her daughter.

There is nothing wrong with Gretas message. But she is a relative child with some level of learning difficulties or challenges who has been thoroughly taken advantage of by her mother and friend. 

What happens when Greta can't change the world, she isn't flavour of the month, she realises it's all about mamma's book deal.. etc.. how will that impact on her mental health ?

Despite umpteen MPs and others loving her, I've yet to hear any of them even pronounce her surname properly. They are using her as much as her parents. 

She denies all of the above.  She isn't stupid, far from it. 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=767646880269801&id=73284649...

In her own words.  

A quick summary.  Autism isn't a learning difficulty.  Quite the opposite in many cases. 

Mum's book money goes to charity.

He parents failed to talk her out of protesting and were against it.  They have now come round.  

Her mental health will be just fine when she isn't flavour of the month because that isn't why she is doing it.  

Summo is displaying a remarkable ignorance of the subject of autism.

My uncle was mildly autistic. He had a job in a warehouse, so wasn't high on the spectrum. But it didn't stop him being taken advantage of at work. As we later discovered when he contracted lung cancer from been given the job of pulling down a load white asbestos without any protection. 

So thanks for your concern, I've a pretty good understanding of her condition. 

I've just broken my self imposed rule for the first time in about three years and given you a dislike.

For my uncle it was, or at least in some areas, not others. 

Even then not every person with autism or asbergers will become a high functioning Alan Turing. 

Many could learn the science behind climate change in an instant, but ask them to sense the emotion, motive, personal feelings of a person asking them to do something and it's just not there. Intelligent, emotional intelligence, common sense etc are vastly different. We just don't know what her mother and 'best' friend have been saying to her for the past umpteen years.

In reality, every person differs.

I've yet to read anything in the Swedish press about that being true. Time will tell. 

From what I can gather that's not the case.

The very first day of her protest her mother had a photographer from the national press there and did a main stream newspaper interview. That doesn't come across as a person trying to protect mummies little darling.

We just don't know that. It's speculation. 

Of coursr, on ukc it's best just to come out with lots of well meaning platitudes or sentiment, but I can cope with the dislikes.  Personally I think he she being used. It will be good in 10 years time to be proved wrong for her sake if nothing else.

Summo, with this follow up you really have doubled down on arrogance & stupidity. It's candidate for UKC's Dunning Kruger award.

Fine with me. 

As i said it will be nice in decade to be proved wrong. I expect if it all goes wrong much of it won't reach UK press. A bit like how the whole parenting back ground of her is easily ignored if you don't see it in your press. 

Yet you feel authoritative enough on what has been said to opine as you have done. 

And lo, you have extrapolated experience with your uncle on to a child you only know through the media.

Well at least I can pronounce her name, which seems a common courtesy her UK worshippers won't give her. 

Thunberg ...Tunn-buy

oh dear, more personal attacks on people trying to do their best. what is that going to achieve?

how about commenting on her message?

Just possibly there has been much more in Swedish press about her and her family over the months and years? 

As i said above every person differs, but to say as someone did that I don't understand the condition is most definitely wrong. 

I'll take endless environmental threads over endless Brexit discussion. At least the former are productive and beneficial.

It's not an attack on Greta and it's not personal. 

I think she has manipulative parents who have very different motives. That's clearly not the same thing.

Done to death on other threads. She isn't wrong in what she says, but the answer will come from science and economics, you can not bank, eat, store carbon or live off sentiment alone. 

You know one person with autism, you know one person.  

Some autisics have learning difficulties as well.  It's not part of autism.  

Some of us don't.  

I don't use the term aspergers, he was a nazi.  

https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0209-...

what kind of economics do you imagine to be the answer? zero-growth presumably?

Irrelevant. You literally told UKC you didn't know what had been said when you wrote, and i quote,

"We just don't know what her mother and 'best' friend have been saying to her for the past umpteen years"

As i said, every person differs. Which is also why why you can't know for certain how this campaign will impact her long term. 

Let's just say that despite living in a more environmentally friendly nation, there is a lot less excitement here about Greta, her speeches, school strikes etc than the UK. That isn't because they don't like Greta, but they can see that she isn't the answer. We are all the answer. But they can also see the whole back story of Greta, her family and the build up. She didn't just appear out of no where instantly.  

I know what's been in the press. Her mother has organised lots of interviews, written a book and her best friend runs an environmental campaign organisation. Greta and her family's campaign isn't new, didn't start this or even last year. Its been going on for sometime. 

What I don't know how is how rounded any up bringing she has had, or if her mother has been conditioning her in this direction. Or just playing the media. There is no end of speculation in the press though and it rarely shines in her mother's favour. Which is a shame because clearly Greta does really believe in her cause. Let's home her family don't let her down. 

Yes. But that's going to need to happen over decades, otherwise there would be economic collapse, depression, wars, starvation, disease... 

Perhaps first;

Less consumerism

Less tourism

Less reproduction

Basically less of everything. 

You can speculate all you want but you said it best when you said, "We just don't know what her mother and 'best' friend have been saying to her for the past umpteen years".

Climbing and interest in the environment have always been synonymous IMO.  It is only in recent years that I have felt that this connection is not as strong as it used to be so I have to disagree with you on this matter.

A good example of The Welsh Train Station Fallacy. 

really?

'that to postulate alarmist scenarios one needs to postulate uncertain positive feedbacks, whereas, in reality, the net feedback may be zero or negative'

I wonder if that correlates with increasing numbers of people learning to climb indoors before heading outside? 

Are you the only Swede entitled to say these things? You're on the same side as Greta (I'm pronouncing it in English because I can't speak Swedish yet) but she's not you so you feel you've got to come out against her and her family. You're just a contrarian mate.

If you read what I said I'm not against her. But think she's being used by her parents. Two different things. 

You can always choose to ignore the posts!

"This program's shit", change the channel then.

Of course none of this will happen if we simply do nothing.

Used? To boost sales of a book? Is that it? 

I was thinking more career boost and cash in the bank. Russell Brands usual trick, write a book complaining about capitalists, consumerism, environmental damage. Sell thousand, make a few million, cash in bank. Job done. 

Plenty agencies are happy to suddenly pay for interviews, chat show appearances..   it's all pretty shallow really. Playing all innocent, it was just Gretas idea, it's only chance my friend has an campaign organisation, or that national press appeared on her first day of protest many many moons ago, or that she has changed her book cover to an image of her daughter. All just chance. 

   Well, your "take" was wrong. The article was suggesting that it behoves high profile publicists of the dangers of climate change at the very least to use information which is representative of the consensus scientific position on the issue and not to exaggerate either the speed of extent of the danger beyond this consensus.

The consensus on the speed or extent that no one can actually be certain of: a raise of probably 1.5 degrees somewhere during this century, which will have an unpredictable impact on ecosystems all around the globe? That consensus?

edit: just to add I totally agree that science has to be the foundation of the discussion. However, with so many variables in how to measure emissions, what we take as a control point, the regional variations, natural fluctuations and the intense complexity of the ecosystems I don’t think it is fair to argue - as my take (do you prefer the word interpretation or assessment? They just take longer to type i’m afraid) on the point of the article is - that we shouldn’t treat this as an imminent and pressing problem. Even by conservative estimates we are entering uncharted territory and the limit of science to accurately predict should not be used to dismiss those who are genuinely alarmed. 

I find it particularly amusing that one of the loudest complaints that her mum is famous (for singing at Eurovision of all things) comes from Toby “my daddy got me into University” Young.  

It also "behoves high profile publicists" to practice what they preach.  I'm far more inclined to take someone seriously if they are not saying one thing and doing another. I just end up feeling that they don't really believe what they are saying and in the long run do more harm than good to the cause.

I don't understand how anyone who professes their main climbing interest is 'mountaineering' can think that environmental talk is boring and overwhelming on a climbing website. Have you seen the Mer de Glace recently? Have you taken a walk down those endless steps and read the plaques on the way down to the glacier?

It's depressing. So overwhelmingly depressing. But hey it's ok, I'm sure you've climbed the classics you're interested in. Who gives a shit about the next generation?

And for those who haven't set foot on the Mer de Glace:

https://www.chamonix.net/english/news/mer-de-glace-lost-3-61-metres-depth

If in 1988, it took 3 steps to get down to the ice cave, now, Mer de Glace has shrunk so fast that visitors must go down 370 steps to get there.

That's about thirty flights of stairs worth of ice lost since I was born. Thirty flights.

I think when I first went there in 1970 it was just one long ladder of about 200 feet directly down from the Montenvers Hotel to the ice. By 1975, IIRC, it was two ladders, probably about 350 feet in total, but still straight down onto the glacier. My brother went back a few years ago and said it's completely unrecognisable, with the glacier somewhere in the far distance.

I seem to remember Richard Feynmann saying that you can know the name of a bird in many different languages and still know absolutely nothing about the bird.

   No, the consensus framework supplied by the IPPC, an organisation specifically established to  "provide the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change, its natural, political and economic impacts and risks, and possible response options."

  The objectivity of the IPCC is itself the subject of some controversy but it is what we have. Do you believe that Greta Thunberg has qualifications, knowledge or insights that justify her stepping beyond the key forecasts of the IPCC and arguing that the dangers are more pressing than the IPCC outlines?

  The author of the article may or may not believe that the issue is less pressing than the IPCC argues but the article iself is not on that subject. It is on the legitimacy of Greta Thunberg's claims. The author is arguing that she has no discernible basis for them

Are you saying climate change will not affect mountains and our enjoyment of them?

But the most recent report by the IPCC (Oct 2018?) said that confining average change to the 1.5 degrees (itself an arbitrary figure) that the consensus is would at least constrain climate change consequences to a managaeable level would require deep change at almost every level of society?

Precisely, Postmanpat, "the article ... is on the legitimacy of Greta Thunberg's claims" (and that, or rather the backlash it would cause against Greta, was the gist of my post at 5.04 AM today which has 16 dislikes as I write.) This is shown by the article title, "The Real Problem with Greta Thunberg Is Not Her Age"; by the headings - "False Sense of Urgency" and "Fanaticism Is Not Heroism"; and by the author's conclusions - "....is it really brave or enlightened to advocate a cause that has long enjoyed the status of conventional wisdom?", and "The real problem with the climate change activist sensation Greta Thunberg is .... that she is a clueless fanatic who is considered brave and enlightened for promoting a cause that almost everyone agrees with without any study or reflection. And it is the duty of anyone who does not want clueless fanaticism to determine policies affecting billions to call it out as such." But you said it so much better than me, THANKS

So the conventional wisdom is that human beings are having a massive, unpredictable and disastrous impact on the environment. But pointing this out and suggesting that policies ought to be enacted to represent this is mindless fanaticism? I’m confused. 

No - not "pointing this out and suggesting that policies ought to be enacted" - please refer to the article - the author says "Thunberg seems to be wildly misinterpreting" the IPCC report: "Let us focus on an easier issue and ask whether the latest IPCC report even in the (as usual) distorted summary for policymakers says anything remotely similar to Thunberg’s 11-years-left-till-Apocalypse-unless-we-act claim. Unsurprisingly, the summary—biased as it is in favor of alarm—says no such thing. Thunberg seems to be wildly misinterpreting the statement on page 6 of the summary .... There is no implication in the summary that this extent of warming may cause catastrophic planetary consequences."

Thanks for reading my post, Tom, we could keep talking but I've said what I want to say

Indeed. He’s a grade A tw*t. 

Is Greta’s reference to 11 years not the conclusion of the IPCC report that unless trends change by 2030 we will have passed the threshold where the 1.5 degree rise is irreversible and inevitable? Agreed the consequences may not be catastrophic, necessarily, but given current extreme weather patterns/ extinctions it hardly seems alarmist to suggest the consequences are unlikely to be zero sum, as argued in the article linked above. Nice talking to you, too. 

Yes.

  But according the article, and as far as I can tell, Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion are demanding significantly more action than the IPCC and forecasting worse outcomes in their absence.

  For example, the EU is targetting a 40% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 as agreed at the Paris climate accord( in the context of the IPCC's 45% target). Thunberg is demanding 80%

  (Extinction Rebellion says we need to reach net zero by 2025.)Are you arguing that there is no discrepancy?

Thanks Tom. To be honest my brain hurts and it's all a bit too much for me. I'm not kidding. When I see clever authoritative posts by Jimbo W & others I despair a bit

PS I'm in the Far East all month, it's 8 hours ahead, 00.23 AM, here and time for me to sleep

I genuinely wasn’t taking the piss, it’s good to hear from people outside my own bubble!

Fair point, there is a big discrepancy. I guess it depends whether you think activist demands/ headline appeal will contribute positively to the campaign or detract from it. 

“Pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems (high confidence). These systems transitions are unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed, and imply deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options (medium confidence).”

1.5 degrees is projected to hit from 2030 onwards 

1.5 degrees will have a significant effect in the quality of life of Greta’s generation including my kids

if we don’t make the changes by 2030 then we are on our way to 2 degrees, really shitty for the next generation.

seen as no mainstream politician is giving churchillian speeches about stopping this then I have no problem with people challenging the inaction on this. 

I’m not sure what problem you have with the demonstrations or the figures they are quoting, not sure posting an attack piece by an organisation funded in part by climate change deniers helps.

IMO unrealistic ambitious demands and overly alarming claims, that often do not materialise, do more harm than good.  Some honesty would be nice from all sides.

If driving at speed towards a cliff edge slamming on the brakes is usually a better idea than easing up a bit on the accelerator.

unless the plan is to end up like the bus in the Italian job

A man can dream..!

Or, if you give people such an impossible target of zero by 2025, they think why bother and give up. 

I read a state advisor say we should really eat 7-10 fruit or veg a day. But it seems unachievable, so it was decided to say 5 because it appears more feasible and more people will try to achieve it. 

Best give people green goals they can instantly adopt to get the ball rolling. Then year on year, add in more and increase etc..  yeah it isn't enough, but it will be much more than nothing at all. 

I remember several doomsday predictions that were made in the early seventies from a variety of biologists and earth scientists that never came to pass.  I can't be bothered to look up the people and predictions involved but they were in the headlines at that time and are well publicised.  After experiencing a few decades of such alarmist, incorrect and dare I say dishonest information it is only natural that I now display a degree of healthy scepticism.

I think you’ll find one of their key arguments  is not to concentrate on individual goals but for governments and large institutions to except responsibility and move towards collective action.

moving the argument back to individual action is really just playing a game of prisoners dilemma where a lot of the players aren’t even aware of the choices

so your more of a ease up on the accelerator kind of guy

We’ve had 30 years of listening to “realist’s” not really changed much

There is no robust scientific evidence for 7-10 fruit or veg a day.

I agree, but some changes - such as transport, require step change in the face of strong opposition. This is exemplified by the backlash against London's wildly successful cycle infrastructure. Few want to give up their way of life and the 'fruits' of a greener way of life are marginal at an individual level.

Ah I now understand the plan. 

A global move by all governments to meet those 2025 ambitions. 

Most countries aren't even close, so there would be huge job losses in many sectors immediately, perhaps power rationing as those non green sources are turned off, food shortages, economic collapse etc... most economies fail, war, death and we live like it's 1619, with vastly reduced population and near zero emissions by 2025. 

Or perhaps a 15 year plan with precise goals agreed by all nations... oh, the USA, China, Russia etc. would never agree. So that's 2 out of 7 billion not playing already. 

I agree something has to be done, but it's already too late. Most governments are content to dabble including the eu. I think our fate us already decided. But other life will evolve in the gaps extinctions create. We might not be around to see it, as we only evolved because of gaps created in the past. 

I think I heard on the life scientific, so I'd expect it to be fairly credible. 

Tax fuel more. Tax cars more. Ban cars with engines over 1.6 or 1.8l. It's pretty easy to encourage better travel. 

Of zero relevance to the thread but. 

https://se.search.yahoo.com/search?p=science+eat+7+to+10+fruit+veg+per+day&...

“I remember several doomsday predictions that were made in the early seventies from a variety of biologists and earth scientists that never came to pass“

Maybe your referring to the ozone layer and the global ban on CFC’s.

or maybe acid rain which was mitigated in Europe by EU emissions regulations.

FFS sake this thread has been taken over by environmentalists having a go at each other!! THere's no escape. The b*stards are everywhere. Arghhhhh!

There is still acidification though, only less. Much of it comes from agriculture, with no meaningful legislation on the horizon. 

If only they'd act quicker with other bits too. Phasing out of palm oil in fuel to begin in 2023!! Completed by 2030 but that's a moveable goal and there are already written in excemptions. 

Emissions 40% cut by 2030. Eu average though, so some countries will do next to nothing. 

In an interview / spoken diary entry, Angus K said Emma T wasn't interested in it... I might be wrong though and things change, once you've got the itch for a route like that who knows?

We have just introduced a carbon tax here in Canada. It might cost Trudeau the next election (though I doubt it) or significantly reduce his majority.

Cars over here of less than 1.6l are rarer than rocking horse shit so good luck with a ban in the UK having any significant effect on the global situation.

You cannot legislate out of this problem without 1st creating acceptable alternatives which are economically viable.

Ignoring problems won't make them go away. 

There is actually a link to brexit here. It is the same loons arguing for brexit who are arguing climate change can be ignored, here and generally. Some people have difficulty with reality. 

From your link, "However, the study does carry limitations, with the most pertinent being that there could have been other factors (confounders) responsible for the associations seen. These could include smoking history, exercise levels and income.". It's weak science of poor quality.

Without you posting what predictions were made that were alarmist, incorrect or dishonest then it's difficult to argue with that bit, but healthy scepticism isn't the same as cynicism. 

I didn't think I was going to be tested on this   To some extent providing statistical data to back up an argument is not how perceptions are arrived at outside of academia and science.  In real life people experience something and mark it column A or column B in their minds.  After some considerable time one column is bigger than the other and that is where the conclusion forms.  In my life I have formed other perceptions but would struggle to justify them now and certainly not on a climbing forum.  One thing I do specifically remember was the prediction of a new ice age not warming.

Those pesky experts claiming the world was round, smoking gave you cancer, asbestos was bad for you, shooting rhinos might lead ton extinction, alarmist claptrap.

Unfortunately, while much of what you say is true, it's the same process by which prejudices are cemented. Academia and science shouldn't be dismissed lightly.

I wasn't dismissing them but it would be equally wrong to not question which is also a way of cementing prejudices. It seems to me that a lot of people are doing exactly that, especially those with an alternative agenda. I'm not a climate change denier but for every scientist that proposes one thing I can usually find another that proposes the opposite. One scientist says there is too much CO2 another says there is a deficit. That tends to leave me not knowing rather than just accepting one over the other at face value.

I think you'll find it about 999 and 1.

You may be falling into the BBC Balance Trap, which is giving opposing opinions equal weight regardless of credibility or wealth of expert opinion.

^^^^ What Robert said. The science on anthropogenic climate change is as settled as on gravity. There's just less money invested on disproving gravity.

Quite possibly, but I think everyone agrees that gravity is definitely a thing we need to take seriously.

Climbing grades are an excellent proxy, proving the existence of gravity!

Oh, but gravity is not settled.  Einstein knew that general relativity is incomplete, as has everyone working in the area since.  As Robert Duran says, a lot of money is spent looking for the breakdown of predictions made by general relativity.  Gravity Probe B alone was almost a billion dolar experiment.   There’s a vast amount of work going on in the world over gravity.

As well as the known limit of not being able to combine quantum mechanics and general relativity, there are other open questions in general relativity and gravity in general.  What is the origin of inertia?  Why do inertial and gravitational masses always go hand-in-hand?  “Dark matter” is a crisis for gravitation theories until some actually has a testable theory on what the matter actually is.  Is gravity even a force or is it a natural result of thermodynamics governing the entropy of the information content of our universe as stored on its event horizon?

Climate science is far from settled either; but the vast majority of it points in the same direction, with the disagreements being over just how totally screwed we are... 

No, but she has a handle on what is totally open amongst the climate scientific community, that the IPCC report is a very conservative expedient statement about where the scientific consensus resides, with almost all the uncertainty being to the negative,  not the positive.

The basis is a human one, not a scientific one. What the scientists say in public about the climate situation outwith the IPCC is far more severe than what is stated from within the IPCC context. Things like tipping points are not properly factored in the projections, which give the impression of a gradual worsening proportional to emissions where the reality will be abrupt shifts with positive feedbacks. Go and speak to the IPCC scientists. They are almost all on twitter, along with many others. Greta follows many of them, and they aren't shy with their views, and you too can speak to them directly about this.

Carbon prices incentivise the economic alternatives.

Yes. But good luck with persuading people that paying 10% extra at the pumps will all work out in the end. I agree that we don't pay anywhere enough for the fossil fuel we use but governments work on short term policies that will get them voted in at the next election and carbon taxes are very unpopular and slow to show results.

All carbon prices should be redistributed equally to the people. The wealthy are far higher users of fossil fuels than others, and including in canada, the economics suggests this redistribution shpuld be a net benefit to at least lower and lower middle wealth brackets.

Some of the headline "doomsday predictions" you mention were Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book ‘The Population Bomb’ which warned of worldwide famine in the 1970s and 1980s because of overpopulation; the Club of Rome which warned of global resource exhaustion starting in the 1970s; peak oil - the warning that oil discovery and production would peak around 1990 then decline, which goes along with the dire oil crisis warnings made by President Jimmy Carter in 1979; and global cooling (1970s)

A lots of these things related to a lack of understanding about the limits of the production of food, and how technology would effect resource yield. Food production is now in serious trouble relative to population. Grain production has still been gradually increasing, but within the geographical breakdown there is clear evidence that different areas have reached maximum photosynthetic and intensivisation potential. For example European grain yields have been flat for a decade now. And yet globally, soil erosion and drought are downward pressures expected to relentlessly increase, including in the UK. We have been warned we need to desalinate within 20yrs by our water management experts. That might provide for drinking water, but UK farming?

In some parts of the world, the need for more food has been buffered by deforestation which yields only a handful of decent harvests before the soil carbon is lost, and more deforestation is required. And yet with climate breakdown we have to stop deforestation and reforest fast. We can intensify food production and reverse spil erosion with circular permaculture systems with mixed plant, agroforestry, low intensity livestock, no-till planting systems, but they are workforce intensive, and so our entire ideas about work even in western society will have to radically change.

In many areas of the world, including in the US, farming depends on groundwater/fossil aquifers that are increasingly turning brakish. Water resources are another factor that must be considered next to population. There are many countries utilising groundwater from fossil aquifers fast. Many of these aquifers replenish over timescales of 10s to 100s of thousands of years but we are utilising them over less than a century. Iran, US, China and Africa all have areas reaching such hard limits fast. Deglaciation in Asia is also removing  a water source which will clearly get worse fast.

This is why mitigation of climate change is so important. In the UK we need to harvest water and massively increase our capacity, with lots of new resevoirs as well as redesign uplands to slow water transit, mostly by reinstating bogs, trees, flood plains, and using creatures like beavers and in agriculture we will have to adopt keyline ploughing to maximise soil moisture.  Even then, we will need desalination, so need to consider that infrastructure now, and what energy source will be utilised. Its in that context I find Claire Perry MPs confusion about what a climate emergency might look like so incredible. They appear to be insulated away from expertise.

Of course, there may be technological developments that address some of these things. The chinese have developed a perennial rice that matches annual varieties, which should help reverse soil erosion, but perennial wheat, corn etc is having limited success. Nanotech is providing some potential avenues in desalination, but there is very little r&d prioritised here and even less spinout.

One thing that would be good for soil erosion and climate change is biochar which helps retain soil moisture, nutrients, and increase productivity, preventing run-off and representing a carbon fixation. It won't work in all soils, but we know wuite well where it will work, but drspite being identified by the IPCC, governments aren't incentivising it.

One positive is research that suggests population growth may not be projected to increase as much as initially feared with some studies suggesting a high resolution examination of trends suggests population increase tailing off between 8 and 9 billion. Still, thats alot of people to feed and water!

Thanks for the considered reply, we haven’t used the deferred time well, let’s hope we can make the changes we need to. Unfortunately there seems to be a whole new industry that’s been built up around sowing confusion and discord especially around scientific consensus (which is different to healthy scientific debate about exactly how, what, when) we need the 50/60’s faith and optimism in science that fuelled the Saturn program and the smallpox eradication  but directed at solving our impending problems.

Thanks a lot for your reply - great stuff. (PS my post was just filling in the blanks from GridNorth's earlier post - I wasn't commenting on the "doomsday predictions" missing from that post)

This may or may not be true but is not what I have heard her say and it it needs to be firmly evidenced, by her or by you.

I cannot speak to the equivalent number of scientists who contribute to the IPCC reports so how can I know that those on twitter or those that I speak to on Twitter are more representative of the scientific consensus than the IPCC?

Regarding the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations, I support their cause but not their methods. I think Extinction Rebellion did some good and some harm with the recent demonstrations in London. With a bit of perspective and as the heat of the protests dies down I suggest that people will think, where are we now? They've raised a tremendous amount of awareness and thinking; but I believe they've harmed their cause with blocking the Tube and buses/ Oxford Circus and stopping millions (I believe) of Londoners getting to work, smashing bits of the Shell building, gluing themselves to trains, gluing themselves to Corbyn's fence (though that was amusing and not a bad idea), their dance on Waterloo Bridge, Emma Thompson, and their totally unrealistic and careless call to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025”. And with their lack of any democratic political action, e.g. through the Green Party or by forming their own party

Just my opinions of course, thanks for reading

Its not about differences of opinion on the science, its about how that science is translated, and thresholds for inclusion in the IPCC science. For example, big areas of methane research, for example satellite analysis, just dont have the body of work of sufficient size for inclusion into the ipcc reports because of these thresholds, and yet everything that research can tell us about the impact of methane will tell us the situation will be worse, it is just a question of how much worse. The reason why I point you to the scientists on twitter is because they are the same scientists who are reporting for the IPCC, and if you trust the IPCC to be reflective of the spectrum of scientists, then you can see what they say directly. When I talk about expediency above, this isnt about the 97% vs the 3% consensus. This is about messaging. It is about IPCC consensus on how the science is translated into a public message. Having a message that is powerful enough to incentivise action vs having messaging that is so concerning it is deflationary of people and governments. Even so, there is a total unreality involved in interpretation of the actual IPCC reporting. Talk of the urgent need for more than a hundred trillion dollar investment in the switch to clean energy by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5°C should be enough of a wake-up call, because it is already at the limits of economic feasibility and yet the difference in risk between 1.5 and 2°C is monumental, and the costs are going to escalate.

   But the IPCC has about 450 leader authors, approaching a thousand contributors and presumably monitors many thousands of peer reviewed reports. One can obviously only converse on twitter with a tiny proportion of them.

  If Thunberg and ER want to go further than the IPCC version of the situation they need at least to provide names and pack drill of those on whom they base their arguments and the justifications for those arguments.

  Incidentally, I asked this on the ethical vegetables thread but nobody has replied. Any thoughts? "Has anybody found any proper research comparing the carbon emissions of imported fruit and veg versus out of season domestic fruit/veg versus domestically produced meat?"

Agreed but when they become politicised and take on the characteristics of a fundamentalist religion we should be wary. This is what is cementing prejudices as much as anything else.

The IPCC recommendations are a watered down version based not so much on what is necessary, but on what is borderline achievable politically.

The entire point of the Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion movements is that conventional politics has failed spectacularly in dealing with an ever more dramatic environmental and climate crisis. Thus, any demands cannot brook further compromise.

CB

Sure. There is a practical point to this, start with the lead authors and team leads. Besides, there are aspects of these things actually discussed in the report and the many appendices itself.

They aren't really going beyond the science. They are going beyond the IPCC messaging associated with the science. And, as I just indicated with just one example of the hundred trillion impact for transitioning to clean energy by 2050 indicated as needed by the IPCC, this is already at the economic limits of feasibility, while costs on water infrastructure, food, floods etc are all going to escalate fast. Just stop, pause and take that one economic fact in, and think about what it actually means. Even then, what we are talking about is limiting harm. 1.5°C will kill a great many more people, and even then the IPCC indicates there is already risk of tipping points at that level, it's just that the risks are less than at 2.0°C. Pause and also take that fact in for a minute: our existing plan recognises that we are risking tipping points - that is positive feedback loops that irreversibly (or at least involving major hysteresis) bring us to a new hotter more energised climate.

So, it is rather the fact we have already run out of time, and the question is really about how much of what we need to do is economically feasible, how much harm we want to try to reduce and what is the political space left where social order is sufficiently maintained to actually leverage change. There is no limit to how much sooner the better everything needs to be, its just that there are hard limits on how fast we can transition (in terms of alternatives) but we do know that the sooner we put in the incentives for clean energy and other tech alternatives, the sooner that will happen. ER and Greta openly are using the language of panic and proportionate ambition that recognises the growing number of lives that will be lost every minute we aren't acting to try and make this change happen . Yet so far, we are hardly doing anything. Indeed in the UK we are still supporting north sea oil exploration and extraction, subsidising the aeronautical industry, and have pulled clean energy support.

  So you are saying that essentially the IPCC reports are political documents?

   And I am asking on what basis they are making these claims and demanding such policies which will create mass poverty, increased inequality and probably require a authoritarian dictatorship to enact, if not the authority of the IPCC?

Do you  not think that the a scientific and economic justification for their views should be demanded of them, even if they are only 16?

The IPCC has to make their recommendations within a somewhat febrile political atmosphere, they are aware that they have a lot of vested interests that want them to fail. All IPCC documents are political due to the high stakes involved. Science has been caught out before by politicians seeing scientific debate as indecision to be exploited.

The ER are making these claims on the basis of of the IPCC reports

you are arguing that we shouldn’t act to prevent mass starvation, drought, ecological devastation, economic chaos, flooding of most major metropolitan centres, mass migration and the ensuing wars.

your only argument being it might cause unemployment??

And your inequality argument is complete bollocks on a global scale. Are we going to welcome the refugees of Bangladesh with open arms, is Trump going to open the gates on his wall as Mexico turns into a desert. Are we going to welcome the boat loads of refugees coming across the Mediterranean as the Sub Sahara  loses its Sub prefix.

Just be honest, your old, don’t like change your unwilling to change or compromise  and ultimately selfish, pretty much every point that ER is trying to make. Either our generation gets on board or gets out of the way, and their perfectly entitled to take that view.

   This is not what either Jimbo or CB are saying so can you please show me where the IPCC demand carbon neutrality by 2025?

  Where did I argue this? My point is rather the opposite: that by demanding radical and very economically harmful policies the radicals will set back the cause of climate change prevention.

  Great rant but bares little relationship to what I said.

  Most notably, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025 wouldn't just cause "unemployment" and I didn't say it would. It would likely cause mass unemployment and with that a collapse in government finances and therefore a collapse in the welfare state, the health system,  etc. As a result it would likely cause civil disorder and at some stage an authoritarian government would be required.

  On a global scale we risk sending the message to  the developing world that it's tough, but they'll just have to stay poor.

  Do you believe that this would encourage other countries to follow the UK's example?

In my experience, environmentalism is the preserve of:

a) Teenagers

b) Recreational drug users

C) Privileged Waitrose types who, let's face it, haven't got much else to worry about. 

As a target net Zero is completely unachievable by 2025, the issue is we are making no significant moves towards it,

it’s politics one side has the inertia of “realism “ and vested interest and the other the fervour if youth and genuine fear for the future and the scientific consensus.

The 12 years is an IPCC figure  for 1.5 degrees, I think putting 2025 out there is a clever move because it is probably a realistic date  for seeing some start to making headway against the inertia we are stuck in and sets a bench mark we can measure our politicians against. 

Every year delay is going to compound the problems I listed and will make the mitigation’s that you fear that more extreme and painful 

JK has pretty much answered the point of the political nature of international reports. If you deny this then you have no idea how much politics is required to agree on any document by any international professional body.

Reading any such reports without interpreting them in the knowledge of their political nature, and decoding the resulting, coded language is therefore a pointless exercise. 

However, if you do the decoding, you will find that the IPCC scientists largely agree with the claims of the FFF and ER movements, but saw no way to get the reports to reflect this outright.

A protest movement does not need to (and must not!) resort to the same coded language. The initial response of politicians here in Germany, especially conservatives and liberals,  was similar to yours, telling the protesting youths to "leave climate politics to the professionals".

Interestingly, this led to an open letter signed by 13.000 scientists stating that they would very much welcome if the politicians started finally heeding their expert advice. This public slapdown already has caused some changes in party programmes, which would have never happened if the FFF/ER movements had not been so explicit.

CB

See how a thread titled 'Can we give this environmental stuff a rest?' leads to people cut and pasting page after page of environmental pseudo science and mumbo jumbo. 

Who they never accuse, because it clashes with their international socialist ideology, are the second and third world nations, who are responsible for overpopulation, for the plastic in the oceans, for most of the CO2, and for antibiotic resistance, which will kill more people than cancer by 2050.

So stop, just stop blaming the West for the world's environmental problems.

And denial of climate issues and ridiculing environmentalist is particularly common amongst right wing idiots such as the AfD here in Germany, who just made denial of climate change part of their EU election manifesto.

Same is true world wide: Idiots, right wingers, and religious nutters tend not to give a f*ck about the environment. Where do you fit into this spectrum?

CB

Well said CB. I would suggest to PMP a good start would be to read the IPCC report.

Germany is the basketcase of Europe cb294, so I won't be taking any political lessons from you, and with your railing against the rightwing and the religious, you sound like you belong on the other side of the Berlin wall. Maybe it's because Germans still feel they have to prove to the world they aren't nazi and go too far the other way, but it's getting corny now.

Carbon neutral in 6 years.

That's every car, motorbike, boat, containership, aeroplane, non electric train etc..  around the world either scrapped or replaced with electric? 

Power generation, no more concrete, so no nuclear, wind etc.. 

Steel.. needs fossil fuel in production. So nothing more made from it.  

Food..  no more heating and lighting in food growth unless carbon neutral sources? No fertiliser as nitrate production would have to stop. 

Clothing... only carbon neutral clothing?

House construction... yippee timber price will go through the roof, early retirement for me. But there isn't enough timber available overall. Carbon neutral glass? Fittings etc.? 

Etc. Combine all those industries..  millions of uk jobs gone in under 6 years? All won't be replaced by carbon neutral jobs. So that's a huge benefit burden and a truly massive loss of tax revenue. In a world where most economies are saddled with huge debts.

Economic collapse for most of the west would be months away. The West stops buying. The east stops producing and their collapse would follow soon after. Global starvation, war, disease and by 2026. 

Great if you are a prepper, live in your bunker for 12mths and emerge to the new world, where most humans have starved, killed each other, or died because basic medicines weren't available. 

So the world could go carbon neutral by 2025, but more folk would die by 2026, than trying to go carbon neutral sensibly by 2040. I guess it depends if you think you'd be one of those who would survive to see 2027. I would, I live rurally and have a gun or two. 

You do not need political lessons, you need an education in general.

edit: And a citizen of Brexitland declaring Germany a basket case? Cute. 

CB

If you read what I said I said, I said it was unachievable but it would be good to see some movement towards it and 2025 would be a good date to see the start of that. Climate change has been scientific fact for over 30 years and our unwillingness to plan action and set dates has meant we have failed and this is being pointed out to us.

uncomfortable for the cool Britannia generation to have to sit on the naughty step and be told we blew our chance at saving the planet.

ps. I wasn’t trying to imply you were in any way cool

In reply to Paul King:

They would anyway be wasted on fact resistant characters like you.

CB

The planet doesn't need saving. Life will evolve without us long after we've gone. 

Come back to me when Germany leaves the EU in 15 or 20 years cb294.

I’m aware that the earth is resilient, I studied earth science at Uni

but my kids could do with a little help from the previous generation if their not to be stuck with the shit we leave them.

Apart from a link to a rambling FEE hit piece the cut and paste has all been from the IPCC report 2018.

if you think this is Mumbo jumbo then let us know so we all know where we stand.

Im surprised you’ve not brought your reasoned debate to the Brexit  forums

  I am not denying it at all. The obvious conclusion is that if the IPCC reports are largely political that actually that we have no reliable public scientific consensus.

80% of Germans were pro EU as of last weekend (both major weekly polls). Looks like the AfD have thankfully about maxed out their voter pool in Germany at the last elections (with the likely and unfortunate exception of Saxony, where the last state elections were early during the rise of the AfD).

Also, their representatives in the various parliaments are either making fools out of themselves, have a back stabbing contest, or are already defecting back to the conservatives, who are in two minds about allowing them back in.

I would happily take any bet that we will still be inside the EU in 2040. 

That is all from me on this issue, though, let's not derail the thread any further.

CB

Yes we know it is infeasible, but its the right level of ambition and proportionate to the challenge. It means investing in every aspect of carbon fixation as a balance to emissions:

Introduce carbon tax with equal redistribution to the people.

Allow mitigative investment in any global CO2 fixation (reforestation with firest protection)

Brute force carbon fixation plants that as proposed may fix 1000000 tonnes of CO2  per year. Invest in a few.

Setting up a massive international industrial competition for state support for uk based new CO2 fixation methods.

Support carbon fixation and clean energy r&d and spin outs.

Incentivising biochar, use as a soil adjuvant

Setting up reforestation, peat bog reinstitution, upland water management, reintroduction of top predators etc. Increase marine protection zones.

Starting conversion of UK agriculture to agroforestry, keylines, and incentivising permaculture farms.

Introduce human waste nutrient recycling through mass composting systems, alleviating haber bosch demand.

Reintroduce clean energy incentives and invest in transport electrification, public transport, support cycoe infrastructure.

Restrict licenses of air flights to areas of need. Restrict consumer flights by licenses delivered by lottery to families/individuals.

Etc

This does not follow at all. There absolutely IS a clear scientific consensus, but you will not find it spelled out in a paper like the IPCC report, and it would be incredibly naive to expect that you could. You can either try and distinguish the scientific message (e.g. about the urgency of decabornization) from the political packaging of the report, or simply resort to the actual scientific literature.

CB

Thank you for providing some coherence.

  So the climate change act of 2008 didn't set any targets or dates?

 And we have failed? 

"UK emissions UK emissions fell by 3% in 2017. Measured from 1990, emissions have now fallen by 43%, over a period when the economy grew by over 70%. This is the most substantial emissions reduction in the G7, over a period when economic growth was above the G7 average. The UK can rightly claim early leadership on decarbonisation and the governance framework to deliver it, but the Government must not be complacent. Market-led developments explain much of the fall since 1990: energy efficiency improvements, a shift from coal to gas in the power sector and a broader shift to less energy-intensive UK industry.The concerted effort this decade to decarbonise the power sector is the best demonstration of strong UK policies prompting a clear market and technological response. E missions from electricity generation fell by 59% between 2008 and 2017, while security of supply was maintained and average energy bills fell. In 2017, as in each of the preceding four years, power sector emission reductions were largely responsible for the fall in economy-wide emissions..."

(committee for climate change)

  I recognise that the net emission figure is not 43% and that there are many areas of failure, but simply ignoring the targets and progress that have been made just undermines the argument for radical action.

We have been making some progress, however hidden in those figures is the fact we have reduced our manufacturing base and not part of any higher environmental plan but for the neoliberal ideal of cheaper manufacturing abroad.

so if measure what we produce locally then yes we can pat ourselves on the back in  a self congratulatory way (unless you live in the ex manufacturing heartlands of the NE etc. ) however measured globally I think you’ll find the per capita figures for the UK are not as impressive as your headline figures , however we have been doing better than a lot of countries.

the best performers in reducing per capita carbon emissions are new countries entering the EU adapting to stricter EU regulations.

go EU!

go top down regulation!

This apparently obvious conclusion is wrong.

First, the IPCC reports are grounded in scientific consensus, including consensus on things like ranges of uncertainty. I work with people who play a significant role in the writing the reports. The IPCC reports then go through a line by line political process about how to frame things and so on but that is not the same thing 

Second, as for the broader science itself, the percentage of scientific research that concludes that global warming is mostly caused by human activity (power, transportation, food production etc.) is over 99.99% - only 4 out of 69,406 papers published in 2013-2014 (0.0058%) on the subject disagree. See https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0270467616634958. The more research is done the more confirmation there is. This is an increase from the 97-98% consensus reported by earlier studies. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/107/27/12107.full.pdf and https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024/meta. Benestad et al reviewed what was then the remaining 2% of denial papers and found them to be scientifically flawed https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5

This world is warming, mainly due to human activity, and we are the midst of an accelerating biosphere catastrophe. The scientific consensus on the fundamentals is overwhelming.

Sorry, the impression you have is fundamentally wrong. as for the broader science itself, the percentage of scientific research that concludes that global warming is mostly caused by human activity (power, transportation, food production etc.) is over 99.99% - only 4 out of 69,406 papers published in 2013-2014 (0.0058%) on the subject disagree. See https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0270467616634958 . The more research is done the more confirmation there is. 

To rephrase what you wrote: for every scientist whose research disputes human-caused global warming, I can find 17,532 scientists whose research find that human-caused warming is occurring.

I think we probably agree and just have slightly a different route to the same goal.

But. Do you actually think 10billion people could live on earth sustainably, with our current standard of living without some pretty staggering scientific break through? 

I don't think so. Most measures are dabbling. We'd be better of taxing them and put every penny into research, fusion and new materials that can replace plastics. Etc. 

If you ignore power generation and deforestation in Poland, Hungary, Romania.... yeah amazing.. oh and Germany after they went non nuclear. 

Not sure how I got myself backed into this corner, I got sidetracked into trying to explain what causes my scepticism e.g. the exaggerated claims of both extremes  So lets be clear, I believe that climate change is happening.  I believe that humans are contributing towards it.  I believe that we should do something about it but I think that this is where we may part ways. I'm not convinced that taking extreme, unilateral action that is likely to bring our economy to it's knees whilst the USA, China and India continue to thrive and pollute is the answer.  If they took their protests to those countries embassies I would be more sympathetic.

Im not sure what your point is. the figures below are per capita reductions in C02 emissions a more realistic measure, most countries in the world are still showing a major number on the plus side and that isn't just developing countries.

I understand that there is a way to go on deforestation in some EU countries but the UK has the lowest % of woodland in Europe 13% as apposed to European average of 35%

If we were interested in affecting change we could form some sort of pan European group that affects positive change and helps new members achieve targets through some sort of grant systems and collective standards. Im sure it would need constant monitoring and adapting to changing needs but with active involvement I'm sure it would work.

The figures for per capita carbon reduction are below

Germany -4%

Poland -13%

Cech -13

Hungry -1%

UK -1%

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissio...

That most of Europe aren't leading the way or doing anything ground breaking at all. It's business as usual. 

Hence the eu plan to start reducing palm oil in fuel from 2023... don't want to rush in there and upset industry. 

The UK is irrelevant. Eastern block nations have clear felled plenty ancient woodland in the last few years. And got away with it. 

There is already, but they like eu wide goals so countries that do lots, make up for those that do nothing. As they won't pursue nations. 

A small percentage reduction in a large amount, still leaves a large amount. The decrease is less important than the actual value they are polluting. 

Germany power house of Europe, massive global manufacturer, hardly leading the way? 

Germany and Poland still get a huge amount of energy from coal and have plants which have been built in the last 10 to 15years. Germany and poland probably generates more than pretty much all the rest of the eu added together. 

I actually think there is some evidence that human population will stabilise around 8-9 billion not taking account of the negative pressure from climate breakdown.

Thinking about this in terms of nutrient cycling and as an issue of raw physics  (thermodynamics), we have a practically limitless energy sources (the sun) and there is no reason for nutrients not to remain recyclable when there is a constant energy input ie entropy shouldn't be an issue. On paper there is a vast excess of carbon, nitrogen as well as small nutrients in the system to feed such a large populations, which makes sense when you see that non ice age respiring biomass has been larger than now. When you see that a permaculture farm is capable of 40x the productivity of conventional agriculture when nature is mimicked, using small inputs, you start to see just how productive land can really be. Our main issues are that we till, we don't even try to recycle nutrients, and as a result we destroy downstream ecosystems and biomass. I think if we we did no-till agroforestry and farmed along intensified permaculture lines, ate meat in proportion to its use as a utility on the land (probably around about 1/week to 1/month) and recycled all our nutrients, we would support a population larger than todays, perhaps even as much as 10billion. We would have had to have deforested some of what we have, but with agroforestry and associated biodiversity that wouldn't have had the carbon impact. What would be different is that thete would be far more people working directly with the land. Though I like that thought.

If in terms of standards of living you mean access to thoughtless consumption of unnecessary goods, then I dont think that is supportable and it would be too environmentally destructive. Could we have developed a reasonable system of healthcare, yes I think we could. So it depends how you define it. So much of current standards of living are intimately associated with environmental problems like plastic waste. But, I think in theory we could love decent lives as a large population.

This is liking arguing about brexit with you

if you bothered to read the link Germany the great manufacturing power house still produces only marginally more C02 than service oriented industrial wasteland UK but is reducing per Per capita at a faster rate than ourselves.

Most but not all the Eastern Europeans have lower per capita C02 and are reducing it at a faster rate than us.

I bow to your superior knowledge but how much does our being a far more densely populated country contribute to that? Looking at the positive side I understood that at a national level we were doing better than France and the USA in decreasing CO2 levels. In order to be convincing I think you should present a more balanced view and put forward the positives as well as the negatives.  You are better equipped to do that than I am.  Unfortunately I am exactly the kind of simpleton that you have to convince.

It doesn't go away, though, the need to be greener, I'm glad it's being discussed on here more.

Yes, and this is hugely embarrassing and one of the reasons why I despise Merkel's cowardice so much: Instead of shutting down the main coal power stations in Saxony and Brandenburg when the energy companies decided to get rid they sold them to a Czech led consortium that now produces coal generated electricity almost exclusively for export to the Czech Republic (and to a lesser extent Poland).

If they had instead decided to pay the energy producers (and the coal miners) off and shut the plants down the German CO2 balance would look MUCH better. The main reason for instead supporting the sale was that the Conservatives were afraid that even more people in these areas would start supporting the AfD nazis. I am sick and tired of the fact that these regions are continuously rewarded for being complete arseholes.

The less said about the PISheads in Poland the better.

CB

I don't agree, I think you just had a pretty good understanding of your uncle's. I know of two people with Asperger's, and they're very very different in what triggers anxiety in them, and how they find social interactions, and 'the paths of logic' they tend to follow. People with autism/Asperger's are as individual as everybody else. 

As i said numerous times, every person is different and I wasn't targeting her, only her manipulative parents. But that doesn't seem to get in the way of a ukc flaming!!

You may wish to listen to cbs comments on Germany's energy policy. They live there. 

I’m sure things could improve in Germany and I’m sure the AFD is as embarrassing to CB as UKIP and Brexit is to us, but that is the whole point of the ER the whole world needs to up its game and indulge in a little les whataboutry, I’m only passing comment on the figures and only mentioned Germany because the figures disproved the assumptions you pulled out of thin Air, though I do agree  that pandering to the right wing of politics is disastrous both environmentally, socially and economically.

   I've had a quick look at the links and I don't understand why you have posted them. They appear simply to demonstrate that the vast majority of papers analysing the causes of of global warming believe that the causes are primarily anthropomorphic.

  That wasn't the consensus under discussion. The question was whether the claims by Thunberg and ER about  the speed and extent of the warming and the the speed and extent of the measures therefore required to combat it reflected the scientific consensus. They don't appear to reflect the scientific consensus as represented in the IPCC reports so I was asking how we know that the consensus is more radical than that represented by the IPCC. Is there another,publicly available, summary and analysis of this alternative consensus?

You praised eu. I highlighted some major failings or hypocrisies. They get excited over a few percent points, whilst being quite happy to see forest chopped down elsewhere for palm oil which they could ban tomorrow. 

''So thanks for your concern, I've a pretty good understanding of her condition''

I was only on what you posted bud, no flaming from me. 

I don't fall into any of those categories, am I not allowed to care about the environment?

In my experience, not caring about the environment is the preserve of:

A) the selfish

B) the uninformed

C) the stupid

Do you fall into any of those categories?

Its probably good to see what Greta Thunberg says for herself:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=773676963000126&id=73284649...

A great and mature response to people who are doubting her motives.

I'm not doubting what comes out of her mouth, I'd heard of her long before she became ukcs flavour of the month. It's if she has been groomed by her parents and friends as they have their agenda, a book to sell etc.  It doesn't mean Greta doesn't believe what she says etc.. her mother strikes me as a bit of Judy Murray type. It doesn't detract from Gretas intentions, only that those around her might not quite have the same motives. 

Which we could Ban tomorrow, have you written to your MEP

The EU is not perfect and I’ve never claimed that it is 

One of the major arguments  put forward for inaction is if we do something positive then other countries will take advantage, we are however just about a member of an organisation set up to prevent that, it is not perfect and could do so much more but collectively the environmental bar is much higher in the EU than it would have been with 28 countries acting independently. 

Ironically those arguing most vehemently against the EU an organisation about level playing fields and collective standards are also arguing most against action mitigating climate change because it will disadvantage us against our neighbours, a circular argument of mind blowing idiocy.

climate change    

*Action needs to happen

*immediately

*scientific consensus is unanimous in the important aspects of climate change

*dramatic collective action along with quite dramatic personal actions, meaningful  change within society requires both for it to work.

*the problem can’t be seen as just an economic problem to be solved, we’ve gone beyond that point.

*the way we do politics and business and the economy  will have to change and the longer we leave it the harder and more dramatic and potentially painful it will be.

* we all have to be visibly in this together, if section of society and the globe are penalise and left behind then it won’t work.

*The above statement doesn’t apply to the 1% as they will have to sacrifice quite a lot of frivolous stuff (but considerably less than a goat herder in sub Saharan Africa or Bangladeshi rice farmer)

* We do have the knowledge, skills resources, and collective spirit to claw some of this back whilst still moving forward on health, education and the important things in life. 

* putting up walls and withdrawing from collective’s like the UN and EU isn’t going to work, if you don’t like it fix it don’t break it, it’s all we have to work with and we don’t have time to create a new UN.

Have you read her statement that Jimbo linked to?

It directly contradicts your view that her parents were thet inspiration or are the driving force.

Do you think she is lieing in her statement? Of course it is possible but unless you have some solid evidence (other than, her mum seems like a bit of a Judy Murray type), it would seem more likely and sensible to believe she is telling the truth.

The reality is no one on here is able to do what's needed. Travel for leisure needs to be an annual treat. Like the old fashioned factory fortnight where you went to the nearest resort and no further. We can kid ourselves we are making difference then we load our cars with toys made of plastic and metal, drive for hours just to exercise. Many on here, whilst loving the outdoors, probably drive to climb oil based products indoors. Even if you stretch your green ego on a carbon calculator, it's rarely even close to enough. 

As i said way up the thread. Read about the mother, her friends, national media interviews her mother organised from day 1, her book, her friends eco organisation. 

As i said, I've heard and read about Greta for many many months. There was stuff in the press here that doesn't quite paint the same picture of her family. There has certainly been more diverse press than the uks messiah worshipping. 

Criticism of the motive of her parents, isn't the same as targeting Greta or her message.

You haven't answered my question, have you read her statement? She says she was the initial driving force behind her strike and her parents didn't want her to do it. 

Do you think she is lieing about this? I don't understand why you are strongly trying to make out she is being manipulated when she is obviously an intelligent and independent young woman and she says she isn't.

Some people trying to say she is a puppet seem to be doing so because they have a vested interest in putting her down and ignoring her message. You sound quite environmentally aware and concerned but are still questioning her motives without providing any clear reasoning as to why you think the puppet story is more likely than her own story.

Apart from a bit of energy used in production, what do plastics have to do with climate change? They're made from oil but that oil is not being burnt. It seems to me that the problem is not with plastics as such but with how we dispose of them - if they were carefully disposed of in landfill, then what's the problem? Just don't chuck them in the sea!

But maybe I'm missing something?

I'm agreeing with you here though.

You are selectively quoting, he does refer (twice) to long drives.

I'm unclear on the environmental impact of plastic toys.

Yes, of course I am being selective. I'm not sure why people keep mentioning plastics during discussions on climate; it seems to be conflating two separate issues.

It hardly matters if she is a puppet (I don't believe she is), she is getting across a vital message. The snide remarks and attempts to dismiss here, here and generally a,re very revealing about those making them. 

Exactly, and I am extremely angry at those doubting the motives of the protesters that include my children, who were all active in the environmental and climate movements already before the current ER/FFF movements (which they are of course participating in).

CB

Really?, I have consistently said we need collective action that also makes it easier for people to make tough personal choices and so have most of the pro action people on here and that’s your answer another “everyones a hypocrite on here” we aren’t going to change etc. Rant

answer this are we going to holiday locally unless air travel is made overly expensive or rationed or do we leave it to individual choice.

I’m not proposing flights stop tomorrow but they should be more expensive across the board next year and a bit more expensive the year after that, claiming tax back on the cost of flights for businesses should be incrementally reduced year on year as well (with exceptions for certain categories of vocations)

how do we manage useful flights, like medical and scientific conferences for the exchange of idea etc

should a hen party to Prague be given equal priority to a medical conference? 

How do excelerate  research to enable modes of flights so that at some level we can stay connected globally 

can we improve fast speed rail to allow even faster and higher capacity pan European travel.

How are we going to facilitate rural travel as cars and fuel become more expensive, we’ve cut most of the buses (also a major argument of the the Gillet Juan in France)

non of these can be answered individually they require collective answers

I fully accept that the future is going to be restricted, what we need to do is make those restrictions equitable, fair and across the board, something that’s never going to happen if we rely on individual action.

Summo isn't Swedish, he is just taking advantage of Sweden's hospitality as a consequence of our EU membership, whilst agitating for everyone else to be deniged that right.

It's catch 22. Any rapid government intervention on stopping or discouraging the bad elements, would kill the income stream needed to fund the good. So any change on their part will be slow. 

Us however. We simply need to make do with less. Easier said than done for 99% of folk, including me. It doesn't really matter if we vote green, worship Greta, offer lots of climate emergency sentiment etc.. It's our physical actions that matter. 

It’s only catch 22 under our present system of politics and economics.

And there isn't another country in the world that is successfully running another option. 

Cuba

If you ignore the fact they have absolutely no choice. The housing for many is still sub standard and they live with permanent rationing. Akin to post ww2 in Europe. 

Their ahead of the curve then

as far as housing we are doing our best in the UK to catch up.

But that's as much to do with what the population has been conditioned into thinking is good. Brick and detached (separated by a wind tunnel just wide enough for a wheelie bin). 

Then convinced by endless makeover programmes into spending £10k every decade on new kitchens and bathrooms, but cringe at the idea of spending half that to insulate the house properly for the rest of it's life. 

I don’t disagree with you in that respect, but also lack of social housing and minimum standards.

and a lack of imagination in urban planning and an obsession with suburban living.

I remember that prediction (news papers loved it) but when I read the articles associated, they invariably had to admit that they were talking about a possibility of an Ice age within the next ten thousand years.

And that 1 is owned by an oil company (and is a geologist!)

I remember reading that they've had financial support from Russia in the past, so I don't know if that's still true.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/10/russia-writes-off-cuban-debt

In 2014 Russia wrote off a 32 billion dollar debt, though. Sorry to possibly rain on your parade.

A Slightly ironic suggestion, but certainly a less consumer driven relatively low impact society but still politically a dead end.

As with all experiments there are still lessons to be learned and things that can be adapted. 

Edit: Interestingly, having a job in marketing is seen as being incompatible with Buddhist value - I found out when I went on a short course, because it can trigger things like desire and any resulting unhappiness, and consumerism.  I didn't absorb as much as I could have, but that bit stuck. 

The amount of choice we currently have and freedom to choose, is something which is going to need to be looked at if we're going to be successful in tackling our impact on the climate. I read something in New Scientist recently, of studies done in countries like Holland and one or two others doing relatively well in becoming greener, which found that people only do half as well as they need to if left to their own devices in making changes in how they live.