Topic: More climate change protests in Central London

[Howj Begg]

https://decolonialatlas.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/names-and-locations.png

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” – Utah Phillips

Just 100 companies are responsible for more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. The guys who run those companies – and they are mostly guys – have gotten rich on the backs of literally all life on Earth. Their business model relies on the destruction of the only home humanity has ever known. Meanwhile, we misdirect our outrage at our neighbors, friends, and family for using plastic straws or not recycling. If there is anyone who deserves the outrage of all 7.5 billion of us, it’s these 100 people right here. Combined, they control the majority of the world’s mineral rights – the “right” to exploit the remaining unextracted oil, gas, and coal. They need to know that we won’t leave them alone until they agree to Keep It In The Ground. Not just their companies, but them. Now it’s personal.

Houston tops this list as home to 7 of the 100 top ecocidal planet killers, followed by Jakarta, Calgary, Moscow, and Beijing. The richest person on the list is Russian oil magnate Vagit Alekperov, who is currently worth $20.7 billion.

The map is in the form of a cartogram which represents the size of countries by their cumulative carbon dioxide emissions since industrialization.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sam Neill is such a G.

[gout_pony]

Will give In the Mouth of Madness another watch tonight, great film.

It is - my friend Ali's had my copy for almost a decade and I want to watch it again!!

[Buelligan]

Yeah, ‘a few years’ is a bit much, and I say that as card-carrying, sandwich-board-wearing, bell-tolling catastrophist.

For some, arguably, lack of rain/food, catastrophic weather events, mean that they have far less than a few years, most of us are safe though, for a bit.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Some will be caught up in natural disasters but people won't hang around to die, they'll move. Then the story will be mass migration and war - yay!

[BlodwynPig]

Some will be caught up in natural disasters but people won't hang around to die, they'll move. Then the story will be mass migration and war - yay!

As has been predicted for a couple of decades - The deserts of Southern Europe will be the front line of the war.

[squiggle]

I'm finding it increasingly hard to relate to anyone who doesn't feel deep sadness and horror daily around this... I don't even have kids, but even thinking about the fate in store for the toddlers of friends and relatives is enough, let alone the sheer amount of death and suffering that has already unfolded just to line the pockets of a tiny tiny tiny section of humanity. Remember, if fossil fuel companies hadn't put millions into hiding and discrediting their own research back in the 1980s, we could have decardbonised by just a percentage or two year after year and saved humanity and most of the world's creatures from extinction. Hitler and Stalin have nothing on that.

Yes, and 'Climate change' are similar phrases are euphemisms, and I hope people generally start naming what's happening for what it is - ecocide (and also very possibly omnicide eventually) - something human beings and the especially the most powerful are actively doing - and as people here are saying, it's killing people now, and hurts the poorest first.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Labour will this week force a vote in parliament to declare a national environmental and climate change emergency as confidential documents show the government has spent only a fraction of a £100m fund allocated in 2015 to support clean air projects.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party will demand on Wednesday that the country wakes up to the threat and acts with urgency to avoid more than 1.5°C of warming, which will require global emissions to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” before 2050.

The move will place Conservative MPs under pressure to back the plan, or explain why they refuse to do so, now fears over the combined problems of air pollution and climate change have risen to the top of the political agenda.

On Saturday night Corbyn said the recent wave of protests were “a massive and necessary wake-up call” that demanded “rapid and dramatic action, which only concerted government action and a green industrial revolution can deliver.” He said that if parliament backed the move and became the first national legislature to declare a climate emergency it would “trigger a wave of action from governments around the world”...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/27/corbyn-declares-national-climate-emergency

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

They've seized the initiative on this well, just the right point too.

Someone made an interesting, or at least recognisably accurate remark a while ago in how disregard for other human beings tends to be accompanied by disregard for the health or maintenance of the surrounding environment.

My hope is that this will put Lib Dems and CHUK on the backfoot, the former have a lot of economically centre-right NIMBYs and parochial environmentalists in their ranks. Be interesting to see what policies they commit to.

[Twit 2]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/28/david-attenborough-documentary-climate-anxiety-bbc

[Fambo Number Mive]

Extinction Rebellion says a meeting with Environment Secretary Michael Gove was "very disappointing" because he refused to declare a climate emergency.

The group - who carried out 10 days of climate change protests across London - met Mr Gove on Tuesday for talks.

But its youth representative, 14-year-old Felix Ottaway O'Mahony, said: "The rebellion has to continue because... our futures are not safe."

Mr Gove said he "shared their high ideals" to tackle climate change.

Earlier, the group also met shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who promised to engage with the group's demands, but activists said Labour needed to be "more ambitious" with its targets...Mr Gove said the group's first demand was "on the money" and agreed there needed to be a deeper level of public understanding over climate change.

He also said he was "open-minded" about the possibility of citizens' assemblies.

But the environment secretary said, while he believed the state of carbon emissions was a "grave" one, there were questions around the timescale to reduce them and whether declaring a climate emergency was necessary.

"There is an open question to what the date should be and I am open to a higher level of ambition for this government than we have seen in the past," he said.

"We have got to take action and what I would like this government to be judged by is, not what it proclaims, but what it achieves, and there is much more that we need to do."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48109764

[gout_pony]

"I am open to a higher level of ambition for this government than we have seen in the past"

"I am open to the potentiality of considering the possibility of reflecting that past ambitions may not have been quite ambitious enough, relatively speaking."

Worth signing this as to feel that a few seconds of your day in this Hellscape have been potentially worthwhile, perhaps:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/254607?fbclid=IwAR2IO6xYoDSW2gEdqBHh9JJQGX1_b4Ws7822DL7zsxqROcaFCjyan6APgB8

[Fambo Number Mive]

Campaigners have lost a High Court challenge against the government's decision to approve plans for a third runway at London's Heathrow airport.

Five councils, residents, environmental charities and London Mayor Sadiq Khan brought the action after MPs backed the plans in June.

The campaigners said the runway would effectively create a "new airport", having a "severe" impact on Londoners.

But lawyers representing the government said the case was "unarguable"...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48118100

Expect Heathrow to be asking for a fourth runway in 2020. It's like building motorways - there will always be more and more demand.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Conservative MP Ed Vaizey on calls for a climate change emergency:

“Politicians being in danger of telling people what to do, rather than bringing them with you”

He said UK has an “amazing record” on climate change

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1123539171275038720

What does "bringing them with you" mean? Is this some kind of Change UK style buzzword rubbish?

[hummingofevil]

When did this become such a ubiquitous thing with the Tories. Once you spot it you hear it everywhere. It can't be accidental.

There will be a story pointing out some problem of situation or issue or lack of funding or whatever with current Tory policy. The experts or those involved will raise it, the press will cover it and then the Tories will comment that no, actually everything is fine and everything they are doing it fine.

Happened this morning. 5 Live was reporting that "£3Billion more in funding was needed for children's services". It was then explained by experts why that is followed by the stock phrase "a government spokesman says that the Conservative government are commited to spending millions of pounds on children's services in the term of this parliament".

Every time. Police cuts, NHS, transport and now Climate Change. "The world is fucked and we need to do something about it" claims science, "a government spokesman says that the Conservatives have a great record in this area".

Is it just lying cunts or are they genuinely mental?

[hummingofevil]

Sorry about all the typos. The world is fucked and we are all doomed so can't be arsed correcting them.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Lib Dems leader Sir Vince Cable asks if the control of carbon emissions should take priority over the expansion of Heathrow.

Mrs May replies that she takes climate change “incredibly seriously”, describing it as “one of the greatest challenges world is facing”.

She says the UK has been "decarbonising" since 2010 and the country is leading on the issue among industrialised nations.

So she didn't answer the question.

[hummingofevil]

So she didn't answer the question.

She has a great record on this issue.

[BlodwynPig]

Sorry about all the typos. The world is fucked and we are all doomed so can't be arsed correcting them.

whither Guy Fawkes?

[phes]

Now that we have official CLIMATE EMERGENCY I look forward to a full and frank discussion about animal agriculture.


Not! 

Sorry.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Open Streets seems like an interesting idea, although I feel Blue Badge vehicles should be exempt given that public transport in much of the UK is often accessible for people with disabilities: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-48139403

[Noonling]

Don't worry folks, tech will save us and then we won't have to deal with the pesky idea of living within our means:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48069663

[phes]

BBC's answer to the sixth mass extinction is to pack less when flying. Genuine biggest laugh out loud of the day at this story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-48206946/how-to-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-when-you-fly

Don't worry folks, tech will save us and then we won't have to deal with the pesky idea of living within our means:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48069663

Just imagine the amount of energy required to rapidly geoengineer global climate. I'm going to have a wild stab in the dark and say the figures won't add up

[Fambo Number Mive]

There was an Extinction Rebellion protest going on outside Question Time last night: https://twitter.com/emilyhewertson/status/1126539672379895808

For those who mention protesting in China, there is an Extinction Rebellion Hong Kong: https://twitter.com/alexhofford/status/1124616272342159360

[BlodwynPig]

BBC's answer to the sixth mass extinction is to pack less when flying. Genuine biggest laugh out loud of the day at this story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-48206946/how-to-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-when-you-fly

Just imagine the amount of energy required to rapidly geoengineer global climate. I'm going to have a wild stab in the dark and say the figures won't add up

Its going to be monetized and repackaged as a middle-class opportunity. Fuck the bbc

[Fambo Number Mive]

I think this is a good idea

Drivers who repeatedly leave their engines running while parked could receive instant fines under proposals being considered by the government to give local authorities more power to reduce pollution.

Councils have been calling for tougher laws to help tackle idling, with officers unable to impose penalties unless drivers ignore an initial warning and remain stationary for at least another minute.

The environment secretary, Michael Gove, told the Times that instant fines for repeat offenders should be considered but stressed that any new powers should be “used proportionately” by councils...

The number of vehicles I see on a daily basis who leave their engine idling is quite shocking. Yesterday a minibus picking up people sat there for 5 - 10 minutes with its engine running, driver just sitting there waiting for them to emerge and get on the bus. Would make a complaint but I can't remember the firm's name.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/14/patience-exhausted-drivers-who-sit-with-engines-idling-could-face-instant-fines

[phantom_power]

I remember being told when I was starting to drive that leaving you car idling for 5 minutes was more fuel efficient than stopping and starting because starting the car uses up more petrol. Was this bollocks or have cars changed so that is no longer the case or is it still true?

[Endicott]

Used to be true in the days of carburettors but I'm pretty sure modern cars have changed. Fuel injection and engine management systems mean once your engine is warmed up it's no longer true.

[Endicott]

Claim here is that if you're idling for more than about 7 seconds, it's more fuel efficient to switch off. Note though that if your car isn't designed for this and you do it a lot you might wear out your starter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo

[baptist]

There was an Extinction Rebellion protest going on outside Question Time last night: https://twitter.com/emilyhewertson/status/1126539672379895808

For those who mention protesting in China, there is an Extinction Rebellion Hong Kong: https://twitter.com/alexhofford/status/1124616272342159360

Hong Kong is not in China though.