CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Tizer]

We haven't been hearing much on this aspect from the contenders...
`Tory leadership race: Where do candidates stand on net zero goal?' LINK
`...None of the five remaining contenders in the Conservative leadership contest openly questions the science on which the net zero policies are based: that humans are warming the planet at an accelerating rate. But differences emerge over whether net zero represents an opportunity or a cost, what should be done, and crucially how fast change should happen. At hustings on Wednesday, each of the remaining leadership candidates were asked to spell out whether they remained committed to the goal of reaching net zero by 2050.

[Stanley]

I've seen some commentators who are very sceptical about any candidate being firmly behind the necessary policies and expenditures. They have other matters in mind that are more pertinent to their job prospects!

[Stanley]

If you've been watching the news from Europe you'll be aware that there are many wildfires. We have escaped them so far but we might see them as this spell of hot weather dries out the moors.....

[Tizer]

I've seen some commentators who are very sceptical about any candidate being firmly behind the necessary policies and expenditures. They have other matters in mind that are more pertinent to their job prospects!

I think the problem is that each of them knows that if they appear to be firmly behind the necessary policies and expenditures to deal with climate change then they won't get chosen by the Tory Party to be PM!

[Stanley]

Do any of them have clear principles and the strength of character to back them up? Or are they all weather vanes, trimming their attitudes and 'convictions' to suit the task in hand, ensuring advancement, a political future and a fat pension pot.
I'm sorry to say it but I think the latter is most likely to be the case so yes Peter, I am agreeing with you....

[plaques]

One would think that now the UK has become 'Global Britain' that we would be acting in a responsible manner and taking the lead on climate change. Not a bit of it. First, the investment required in clean technology is going to be eye watering expensive and having cut everything to the bone there are no reserves to pay for it except by borrowing even more money. Second, these investments are long term and the Tory government doesn't do long term. Third, initially the change to cleaner energy will be expensive and put the UK in a poor trading position if the other countries continue burning fossil fuel. Fourthly, the existing fossil fuel companies are doing very nicely thank you and are reluctant to give up their gravy train.
Ultimately the UK will be forced dragging and screaming into clean energy by outside forces, think Putin, rather than anything we may instigate ourselves.

[Stanley]

Unfortunately, I believe every word of that is true Ken. Our leaders have a hidden agenda that is basically 'look after Number 1' that trumps the public policies backing action against climate change.

[Tizer]

Ultimately the UK will be forced dragging and screaming into clean energy by outside forces, think Putin, rather than anything we may instigate ourselves.

Well timed, Plaques! This appeared last night...
`Russia’s Gazprom tells European buyers it cannot guarantee gas supplies: Force majeure declared in letter to customers concerns supplies via Nord Stream 1 pipeline, says source' Guardian
Unfortunately the response will be to open more coal mines and rack up the CO₂ levels.
Instead we should be using all this as an opportunity to be a world leader in renewable energy technology but we depend on the private sector and they haven't got the motivation and courage to switch away from the old days and ways.

[PanBiker]

The woes of Network Rail having to suspend services because the rails are too hot is a direct result of them still using Victorian technology. It could all have been very different.

Over 60 years ago or thereabouts a rather brilliant Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering by the name of Eric Laithwaite presented successive governments with his developments in linear motor technology and asked for funding to pursue a better system. He was knocked back.

The rest is history, the Japanese have the Shinkansen Bullet Train, which cant fall off the track, (no accidents or recorded incidents in the last 50 years) and as a sideline, various models can cruise at over 200mph - 250mph. We still pusue an antiquated system and this includes the latest HS2 money pit.

[Whyperion]

Ultimately the UK will be forced dragging and screaming into clean energy by outside forces, think Putin, rather than anything we may instigate ourselves.

Well timed, Plaques! This appeared last night...
`Russia’s Gazprom tells European buyers it cannot guarantee gas supplies: Force majeure declared in letter to customers concerns supplies via Nord Stream 1 pipeline, says source' Guardian
Unfortunately the response will be to open more coal mines and rack up the CO₂ levels.
Instead we should be using all this as an opportunity to be a world leader in renewable energy technology but we depend on the private sector and they haven't got the motivation and courage to switch away from the old days and ways.

Russia said pipeline was broken, I undestand Spain? sent a replacement pump.

[Tizer]

`Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years: Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert' Guardian
`The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed. The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply. The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted. The study has yet to be published in an academic journal but three experts at University College London, the London School of Economics and the thinktank Carbon Tracker confirmed the analysis as accurate, with one calling the total a “staggering number”. It appears to be the first long-term assessment of the sector’s total profits, with oil rents providing 86% of the total.'....

[Tripps]

Take a look at George Monbiot's latest thoughts. Agriculture


I think he really is swivelled eyed.

[Stanley]

David, never mind swivel eyed he's barking and always has been. He is convinced he is right and anyone who has a different view is wrong. As I have said over and over again, we need balanced systems of land use, what we used to call 'mixed farming' but now is called 'regenerative land use' where animals are used as nature intended, as part of an eco-system that combines arable, pasture and animals in a regime which continually renews the land and at the same time gives a bonus of surplus meat and arable products that feeds us. The place where we fail in even that system is that we don't automatically return our waste products directly to the land like the animals do.
See my piece 'What's the Beef!'
Peter, that's a staggering amount of money! I knew it was big but not that big. I think back to Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, just oner instance of the profits that were taken and the reason why the US introduced Anti Trust Laws. (It was said that the only thing Standard Oil didn't refine in NJ was the state legislation.....)
Ask yourself why the industry was allowed to get that big and realise that the answer was and still is that the energy companies make sure that they are indispensable to government because of the tax revenue and political contributions they make. Look at the money the British Treasury is taking out of the current explosion in all energy prices. In that respect bugger the poor, the crisis is good for government!
As for global warming, forget that, we'll deal with that later, too busy making money at the moment.....

[Tizer]

Details of how the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) mobilised vast funds and many people to counter the scientific evidence and protect the vast profits of the polluting industries....
`The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change' LINK

[Stanley]

The thing that strikes me about that Peter is that in all these cases mentioned like pesticides and chemicals, the effects can be measured in the rise of the number of deaths. We knew about this after Minimata and Bhopal but nothing has ever been done to sanction companies for what was quite plainly murder, not manslaughter because they all knew what the result would be, deaths. This applies to arguing against climate change also.
I could bang on for hours about the consequences of legislation. How many people will die as a result of adverse effects stemming from Brexit? Cutting benefits? Under funding the NHS? add your own to the list.

[Tizer]

The politicians are too busy fighting each other but the kids are ahead of them when it comes to understanding the threat of climate change...
`Climate change: First bill written by children on climate education' LINK

[Tripps]

So already the fires which occurred last week are put down to 'climate change' without question from the BBC.

Nadia Whittome MP identifies as queer.[37] She speaks fluent French and German.[38][39] In May 2021, Whittome announced that she had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and would be taking a leave of absence. On 6 September 2021, she returned to her duties in the House of Commons.[40] She is a vegan.[41] Whittome has described herself as a baptised Catholic who does not follow any religion, and has taken affirmation rather than an oath of office.[42]


For another view try Simon Bell

I don't agree with all he says, but the points of scepticism he raises are worth considering.

Believe what you want - I don't care.

[Tripps]

Headline from The hated (on here) Daily Mail. As usual when the headline is a question - the answer is no.

Did the capital narrowly avoid a new 'Great Fire of London'? Expert says unusually low winds stopped dozens of blazes spreading across city on Britain's hottest day

Horrific fires swept through homes on Tuesday as UK recorded hottest day ever
Expert revealed the impact could have 'been far worse if we had more wind'
He said it could have spread in the same way as Great Fire of London in 1666
Comes as homes in UK were destroyed amid highs of record-breaking 40C

[Stanley]

You lost me completely with the clip about Nadia Whittome. Simon Bell isn't worth listening to, does he believe anything?

[plaques]

Did the capital narrowly avoid a new 'Great Fire of London'? Expert says unusually low winds stopped dozens of blazes spreading across city on Britain's hottest day

Horrific fires swept through homes on Tuesday as UK recorded hottest day ever
Expert revealed the impact could have 'been far worse if we had more wind'
He said it could have spread in the same way as Great Fire of London in 1666
Comes as homes in UK were destroyed amid highs of record-breaking 40C

I think they are over egging the comparison here. London in 1666 was mainly timber built with thatched roofs and buildings cheek by jowl with no spacing between them. but it was from the Daily Mail, (wash your mouth out) biased? not a bit of it.

[Tripps]

Believe what you want - I don't care.

[Tizer]

So already the fires which occurred last week are put down to 'climate change' without question from the BBC.

Tripps, Which BBC do you read, watch or listen to? It's obviously different to the one I see/hear. They say the fires are made worse by climate change, not that they are caused by climate change.

[plaques]

Take a trip round some of the YouTube videos showing the affect of drought in Europe. Desperate crop failures with an long term problems with water supplies. The south of England is also starting to suffer. Up here in rainy Lancashire we aren't doing too bad. Standing back and looking at the overall picture there are some very nasty scenarios facing us. 1) we are growing less of our own food due to the embargo on foreign workers. 2) Land is being taken up for tree growing for carbon offsets, 3) We are importing more food from Europe which can be restricted if they run into trouble, 4) We are becoming more reliant on distant countries with higher transportation costs and lower food standards.

The government wants to get a grip on this situation while we still have some time left but unfortunately capitalism works best when there are shortages then profits are maximised. The small trader goes to the wall and the big outfit flourishes.

[Tizer]

Some interesting new technologies...
`Celebrating new ways of reducing CO2 - the art of cutting carbon' LINK

[Stanley]

Ken, I have been banging on about the danger of food shortages for yonks but nobody seems to be listening. We are seeing shortages now 'due to drought' they say but some of them due to the fact that some crops haven't been planted because input costs are greater than farm gate prices. You're right about tree planting, it takes land out of food production for at least 100 years.
Others have seen the danger and are investing in Vertical Farming, see THIS Wikipedia article if you aren't familiar with it. Very interesting and useful but not on a scale large enough to save us from the consequences of our own stupidity. DEFRA's own agricultural policy document made no mention at all of food production. Useless Eustise thinks that the Ukraine War will not affect our food supplies, the man is an idiot.
It used to be said that there was enough food being grown to feed the world population but many doubt if this is still true as good land is used for growing crops for use as fuel or supporting fake carbon credits to mention only two. Add in the fact that we are concreting the rest at an alarming rate and we will all be living off farmed insects eventually.....