BS: COP26

Subject: BS: COP26
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Nov 21 - 01:11 PM

Last day of the conference today.

Was it worth it?

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 21 - 02:56 PM

Maybe Mudcatters will start a "Blah blah blah" song challenge.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 21 - 02:56 PM

Its a left handed compliment but it was better than declaring war, but in a way it was. Mobilization comes later.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Nov 21 - 05:31 PM

Whatever warm words of hope emanate from the conference delegates, it matters not a jot unless those delegates can go home and persuade the big corporations, including the oil companies, to comply with what's been agreed.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Nov 21 - 11:41 PM

The big fossil fuel companies not only had the largest delegation, larger than any country, but ran many of the conferences; for instance representatives of car companies chaired most of the transport discussions. There was no real discussion of cycling and ebikes, the only genuine hope for green transport; it was all about electric cars, which are a lot less green than is being presented.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Nov 21 - 02:49 AM

electric cars, which are a lot less green than is being presented.

That is because the world buys new as a fashion. "Fix & repair" is kinder on the environment, and capitalism isn't wired that way. Conspicuous consumption comes at a cost. So would switching to "fix & repair" if it was adopted overnight. We have habituated to: cheap to buy, impossible to repair.

Science & technology has the answers already, but we won't like them.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Nov 21 - 07:40 AM

From being a CND activist and a "nuclear power - no thanks" sort of chap in the 70s and 80s,   I've done a complete Lovelock on nuclear power. I lament the fact that humanity failed to embrace it to anything like the degree needed half a century or more ago and feel that I was utterly wrong-headed. Had we embraced it, and in consequence drastically reduced our dependency on fossil fuels, we wouldn't be anywhere near the crisis we face today. Of course, we shouldn't build nuclear power stations at absolute sea level or in earthquake zones. But the handful of nuclear accidents and the over-hyped "problem" of disposing of nuclear waste have made all the headlines (and call me Mr Conspiracy, but I can't help thinking that those headlines are always enthusiastically driven by the fossil fuel lobby). The nuclear power industry has killed far, far fewer people than the coal and oil industries. All those thousands of miners killed or suffering for life with lung diseases...all those people killed or made sick by air pollution... acid rain... loss of arctic ice... threats to biodiversity all over the planet... no competition. And we face a bleak future now that we've wrecked, via fossil fuels, the planet's systems of checks and balances that kept our atmosphere stable.   Cop 26 is a cop-out, as all such gatherings are. In two or three years' time we'll still be hearing that atmospheric carbon dioxide is still reaching record levels year on year, as it has done every year for years. Nuclear waste has nothing on the most dangerous and all-pervading waste of all, namely carbon dioxide.

I found out last week that the electricity provider I'm signed up with is zero-carbon and that my juice comes mostly from nuclear. I'm very happy with that!

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Nov 21 - 09:34 AM

George Monbiot writing in the Guardian five years ago.


Atomic energy is far less dangerous to human beings and the living world than fossil fuels. The dangers of radioactive discharge and nuclear accidents have been systematically exaggerated by campaigners. As a result, the dangers of fossil fuel burning have been implicitly downgraded.

Remember that even the Fukushima disaster, a level 7 nuclear accident (the highest category), caused by a massive earthquake and tidal wave hitting an antiquated reactor, has so far killed no one as a result of radioactive discharge, and is unlikely to do so in the future. Fossil fuel burning, by contrast, kills hundreds of thousands of people every year through air pollution, and presents a possibly existential threat to civilisation through climate change.

Yep.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 02:46 AM

like I said, we won't like the solutions.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 05:08 AM

Unfortunately, we probably won't see the solutions. Just the consequences of the lack of them.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 07:03 PM

Right, yanks. I'm going to be deliberately extremely provocative now. Here's another thread on the climate crisis that's sinking down the list due to lack of interest. YOUR lack of interest. AMERICAN lack of interest. You tie your president's hands behind his back (I'm not convinced that he's that worried...). Your oil barons rule the roost and there's no sign that that will change. You pay less than half of what we pay for petrol and you don't half love your six-pots, and you daren't change that... You don't care, do you?

But here's something. I heard tonight that the the three biggest carbon dioxide emitters are China, the US and India. Note that I put them in rank order there. But the thing is that the US is second. India is third. India's population is FOUR TIMES that of the US. Geddit?

Yet I've heard a load of flak hurled at India this last couple of weeks. They are reluctant to ditch their coal dependency, etc. Get a grip, India, innit! But what I have heard a lot less of is flak hurled at the US. Oh yes, you seem to have come to a cosy deal with China (who still burn coal like its's going out of fashion and who are still building dozens of new coal-fired power stations). We'll bid deal. That's a lovely get-out-of-jail headline, yeah?

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 07:04 PM

Dammit, that should have read "Well, big deal."

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 21 - 07:45 PM

From the Guardian.

India and China will “have to explain themselves to poor nations” after watering down the Glasgow climate pact, warned the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, adding that their actions had left him “deeply frustrated”.

He told the Guardian: “We are on the way to consigning coal to history. This is an agreement we can build on. But in the case of China and India, they will have to explain to climate-vulnerable countries why they did what they did.”

You tried hard, Alok, and you even shed tears. But you are a typical bloody western politico. You said that India and China have to explain themselves. You didn't say that the US has to explain itself. You let the US off the hook because they did a last-minute, diverting, useless deal with China. The US is, per capita, by far the biggest global heating culprit. But you didn't point the finger. Well, that's the West for you. Just in case you think I'm coming across all anti-US, I see that Australia has quietly got itself off the hook too. They'll continue to mine their coal and iron ore and sell it to China. And their beef exports, all that methane, guys...

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Nov 21 - 03:40 AM

Unfortunately, we probably won't see the solutions. - Oh the solutions creep in all the time.

Let us just start with electric vehicles. And the cry of "Range Anxienty". With no hint of irony in a petrol shortage! And the moans of "I park on the street" - as if they fill up with petrol there.

Re-cycling - just look at the paper bin of some folks. I regularly see plastic wrappers in amongst it. It is too difficult for some people to understand. But bless 'em they are trying.

City centre pay wall traffic zones. They are an affront to personal freedom! Even to people who understand the need! Don't even mention Ultra-Low Emission Zones..........

AND ANOTHER thing..................

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 09:29 AM

COP26 will go down in history as a shockingly nihilistic betrayal of the human race by nations' leaders. (That's if we are lucky enough to have a history for anything to go down in!)

Terrifying. As many concerned 'ordinary people' have pointed out, COP26 leaves us with no other available option than ramping up civil unrest.

Our complacent political representatives are seemingly on the side of death, or perhaps 'anti-life', having given up on any kind of meaningful action.

My prediction for 2022 is it will be the year in which the first acts of what will no doubt be called 'climate terrorism' begin - although for many people the word 'terrorism' will be meaningless, it will simply be a case of a fight for survival of their home.

As the parent of an under-10 I am questioning my job, my time, where I live, our diet... my whole life really, in terms of how I can do anything, however small, to make his future world less of a hell for him than it is already locked into becoming.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 10:01 AM

I think it won't be long before we see a climate refugee crisis too. Hundreds of millions of people live not more than a metre or two above sea level... then there's the millions who land is turning to desert, or getting too hot to live in...

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 10:57 AM

Yes, this article published by the BBC is heartbreaking and indicative of how many people are likely to be displaced, and how this is not something decades away:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59051407

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 11:17 AM

You think New York (New York) isn't going to be under water soon? They have been during a storm surge recently, and that is only going to get more frequent (the storms & the inundation).
Lundun (innit?) has the barrage, which was touted as having a 50 year life, So ten years to go before we need another. And Lundun won't be pleased. Imagine all the merchant bankers flooding into Cormwall. Emmets - there to stay!
(Kingston upon) Hull has had a tidal barrier for more than 30 years.
And as for New Orleans .................

Posh refugees, with attitudes & bloated expectations of entitlement!

It will all end in tears. Trust me.

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Nov 21 - 11:43 AM

I've seen the maps - yes, swathes of the UK threatened.

I've also seen some very good research by flood resilient architects on ways to retrofit existing buildings (including some ingenuous methods of effectively jacking up foundations like a car)

As with every aspect of the climate crisis, there's plenty that could be done if those with power acted RIGHT NOW ... but that ain't happening.

I'm not sure whether merchant bankers will ultimately be able to be merchant bankers: how will speculation on currencies and commodities and properties survive climate change when extreme weather events could wipe out huge chunks of infrastucture or manufacturing unpredictably?

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: skarpi
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 02:38 AM

Hallo, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, bla bla .
Bla bla bla bla bla bla skrúmp.
shame on humans.
all the best Skarpi

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 04:22 AM

Sorry Skarpi. I think some of that was lost in translation!

Subject: RE: BS: COP26
From: matt milton
Date: 18 Nov 21 - 09:48 AM

Apart from the 'shame on humans' bit, Skarpi, that was basically a very accurate summary of what was said at COP26! Your version would have saved a lot of time and expense.

Read Philip Larkins 'The Old Fools' this morning cos I wanted to look up the line 'why aren't they screaming?', which often pops into my head these days. Some very climate change appropriate lines:

"An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here...crouching below
Extinction's alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet"