There appears to be some signs of dissent among the Western governments, as revealed here:
via climate science
September 27, 2023 at 01:53AM
Month: September 2023
“Personally , I’ve now reached a point where I believe breaking the law for the climate is the ethically responsible thing to do.” (- Chris Packham, UK Wildlife TV presenter & conservationist)
Andrew Griffiths and Verel Rodrigues, UK climate activists, refuse to question climate alarm and forced energy transformation. They are frustrated despite major (anti-commoner) government intervention for not doing enough. And this in a country that produces about one percent of global GHG emissions.
Instead of checking their premises, Griffiths and Rodrigues (and others) want to double down. So what is the floor on despair–when you “hit bottom” in the vernacular of addiction? Is it open-ended violence.
Verel states:
Watching this eco documentary just after watching Rishi Sunak’s roll back on climate policies genuinely restored hope that there is a significant shift coming. I am grateful for Chris Packham showing leadership and pledging full support to those who break the law for climate.
Andrew states:
This documentary is incredibly powerful and well worth a watch.
The Guardian, of course, gives the eco-documentary a favorable review. Jack Seale’s “Chris Packham: Is It Time to Break the Law? review – the bravest, most anguished TV of the year comes with the subtitle: “This extraordinarily honest eco-documentary sees the nature presenter wrestle with an existential crisis – and he’s so desperate he risks his entire future.”
He goes to state:
Documentary presenters don’t usually make a virtue out of bewilderment, but these are confounding, confusing times. Chris Packham: Is It Time to Break the Law? – an extraordinary, anguished think piece – opens with an audio montage of Packham’s desperate thoughts about the climate crisis, arranged so they chaotically overlap. This chattering inner monologue is accompanied by the unforgettable sight of the presenter’s face slowly being smothered in thick, black crude oil.
OK, the “oil” is probably treacle, but Packham’s film does involve the idea of putting his own safety and future on the line. It is beyond merely thought provoking: it follows him as he deals with a profound dilemma about how to live his life, and what that life is for, and it tells us that this is a decision we at home must also now make. The climate apocalypse is here and, despite fires and floods around the world, there is still – maddeningly – little sign of the change needed to avert the deeper catastrophe that is coming. Voting hasn’t worked. Peaceful protest hasn’t worked. Rational debate hasn’t worked. What now?
Bring on the violence, the article and its subject continues:
Packham, however, is deeply sympathetic towards the ordinary people who have become some of Britain’s most hardline climate activists, via actions organized by the guerrilla pressure group Just Stop Oil. … Packham opines that society ought to feel shame at putting principled people behind high walls and razor wire.
But the risks these pioneers are willing to brave are not confined to retaliation by the state. Viral clips of the actions of Just Stop Oil increasingly feature members of the public taking grim pleasure in reacting with violence, from shoving activists out of the road to driving heavy goods vehicles at them. Packham states that those people have been riled up by “the rightwing media”, referring to a Mail Online article in which Just Stop Oil activists are called “zealots” who have formed a “mob”.
Knowing what is at stake, Packham is still inclined towards extreme measures – not just approving of them, but participating in them himself…. Self-confessedly lost and uncertain, he seeks further counsel. He meets the Swedish ecology professor Andreas Malm, whose book How to Blow Up a Pipeline is worth the publishing deal just for the title. Malm stresses that he doesn’t mean literally blowing things up. Well, not necessarily. But he does advocate sabotaging pipelines or other fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Could nice Chris Packham from the telly, the guy who seems to be Attenborough’s obvious successor as our leading presenter of epic natural history series, really risk throwing all that away by turning up to an oil refinery with a hacksaw and a plan? His final interviewee, Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam, thinks a revered public figure being “banged up” could be the tipping point the movement needs.
In the end, Packham does not make TV history by publicly announcing his intention to commit an imprisonable offence, though he does reiterate his support for climate activists who cross that line. There is one obvious reason to hope he doesn’t get himself sent to jail: it would stop him making programmes as honest, as challenging and as urgently relevant as this.
Reaction on LinkedIn
Verel’s post seconding Packham got a cool reaction. Stated the self-described “Social Entrepreneur, UN Award Recipient, Inventor, Vegan” Theo Cosmora:
Instead of spending hours sitting in the middle of the road stopping others’ important travel, which may well include someone reaching hospital in time for an urgent operation or giving birth, spend the time and resources raising money for and deploying one of these in permitted river locations around the country to deliver clean very low cost 24/7 energy to local communities nationwide.
Verel responded:
It’s important to understand that the solutions to all are problems are already here, but they are being delayed by lack of awareness, lack of funding, and delay tactics by the fossil fuel industry. The most important thing is social change. How do we change ourselves if we are not aware of how pressing the issues we face are? Most of the population is just trying to survive, they don’t have the mental capacity to think about how climate change is going to affect them 10 years down the line.
Assuming that technology is going to fix all of our problems without fixing ourselves, is only going to create more problems. It’s a deadly cycle. Worth reflecting on this for a few days
Which garnered this response:
They don’t have the mental capacity. Well, that pretty much says in all about you, does it not? We know, you are special, you are mentally capable. We bow down to your genius.
This critic added:
Given that you are already committed to that reality, you are not open to reason, logic, or fact based-dialog. In other words, your mind is closed and you have moved on to justifying violence in the name of the “greater good.” That makes you no better to the millions who have come before you. They all thought they were right as well.
I had to add my two cents at this point:
Verel: For goodness sakes, check your premises. Don’t assume, study. Human betterment is just the opposite of what you are proposing as the God in the Machine. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Another wise comment:
Yes – there are times when governments pass laws that go against basic morality and those with morals should disobey. However regarding the use of energy to live that some say will bring disaster sometime in the future is hardly a moral imperative. Especially in light of the ongoing debate by good and honest skeptics. It is in fact immoral to silence those who may in fact be right.
But Verel might be beyond saving. He has a religion, the Church of Climate. As he commented to one critic:
I don’t see sitting in the road to raise awareness about how climate change is going to kill so many people across the world as violent. Allowing and being complicit with climate change to killing millions of people is not moral, and I support those who are doing their best to raise awareness about this crisis in whatever way they can, as long as they are not violent.
The post UK Climate Alarmists Debate Violence (hitting bottom?) appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
September 27, 2023 at 01:07AM
Essay by Eric Worrall
If only this was true. The real British conservative energy policy is a lot stranger.
Rishi Sunak has ripped up decades of cross-party consensus on climate change
Published: September 27, 2023 1.13am AEST
Tim Jackson
Professor of Sustainable Development and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), University of Surrey…
I’d had what you might call a front row seat as a political consensus on climate change emerged in the UK. But during the long and uncomfortable 25 minutes of Sunak’s speech, I felt I was witnessing a homage to catatonia.
There was so much patently wrong in the speech that it’s difficult to know where to start. Most obviously, the prime minister’s insistence that the UK can still meet its climate commitments, despite putting a brake on policy, bucks his own advisors’ assessment of the country’s progress towards net zero emissions. It also reveals a deep misunderstanding of the science.
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As my own analysis has shown, the UK’s fair share of the global carbon budget, taking into account the development needs of the poorest parts of the world, will be exhausted before 2030. Forget 2050. The science is clear. Delay is tantamount to capitulation.
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Those costs are already being counted: fires in Europe and Canada, droughts in North America and Africa, floods in Libya. All this will keep getting worse. Homes in some parts of the US are already “essentially uninsurable” because of climate risk.
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It’s no surprise to find an embattled political party trying to draw clear blue water between itself and the opposition. Buoyed by Labour’s narrow defeat in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection (widely attributed to a backlash against London’s Ulez policy) Tory strategy is now turning net zero into election fodder.
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Back in the real world, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not back down from Net Zero, quite the opposite. He just pushed back a few targets, on the reasonable grounds that the current plan was unacceptably expensive for poor people – but sadly left most of the excruciatingly expensive policy package and goals in place.
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No one can watch the floods in Libya or the extreme heat in Europe this summer, and doubt that it is real and happening.
We must reduce our emissions.
And when I look at our economic future, I see huge opportunities in green industry.
The change in our economy is as profound as the industrial revolution and I’m confident that we can lead the world now as we did then.
So, I’ll have no truck with anyone saying we lack ambition.
But there’s nothing ambitious about simply asserting a goal for a short-term headline without being honest with the public about the tough choices and sacrifices involved and without any meaningful democratic debate about how we get there.
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Now I believe deeply that when you ask most people about climate change, they want to do the right thing, they’re even prepared to make sacrifices.
But it cannot be right for Westminster to impose such significant costs on working people especially those who are already struggling to make ends meet and to interfere so much in people’s way of life without a properly informed national debate.
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Read more: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-net-zero-20-september-2023
Why is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak so confident Britain can hit Net Zero despite backpedaling on policies which likely would already have been inadequate for the task?
This is where it gets a little strange.
Hasty changes to Sunak’s climate strategy reveal a warring Tory party
Fiona Harvey Environment editor
Fri 31 Mar 2023 04.05 AEDTMajor omissions and a last-minute refocus on energy security rather than net zero suggest a prime minister buffeted by internal factions
Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, headed to Oxfordshire on Thursday to visit a development facility for nuclear fusion, the early-stage concept that promises unlimited clean energy at an unspecified future point, if only some hefty physical constraints can be overcome.
He was accompanied by Grant Shapps, energy and net zero secretary, for the biggest energy and climate change announcement of his premiership, a comprehensive package of measures encompassing everything from onshore wind and solar power to carbon taxes and heat pumps.
“When global energy supplies are disrupted and weaponised by the likes of Putin, we have seen household bills soar and economic growth slow around the world,” said Sunak, of the “powering up Britain” energy package. “We have stepped in to shield people from its worst impacts by helping to pay around half the typical energy bill. But we are also stepping up to power Britain and ensure our energy security in the long term, with more affordable, clean energy from Britain, so we can drive down energy prices and grow our economy.”
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British conservative energy policy appears to be a confident assumption that the rollout of commercial nuclear fusion is imminent. They’ve even started picking out generator sites.
Another STEP towards near limitless, low-carbon energy at West Burton
FEATUREDGENERAL NEWS
8th February 2023
Updated: 8th February 2023The future of abundant low-carbon energy without the need for fossil fuels could be in sight after Science Minister George Freeman announced the creation of a new delivery body for the UK’s fusion programme, named UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd.
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On the visit to the future site of the UK’s first prototype fusion energy plant at West Burton, near Retford, the minister urged energy companies and investors to recognise the vast potential fusion energy could have for both the UK and the wider world.
The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) plant will be constructed by 2040 to demonstrate the ability to use fusion energy to generate electricity for the UK grid.
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And more;
Nottinghamshire’s lost mining jobs ‘could be replaced’ by nuclear site
An inquiry will look into why the UK’s former mining areas are ‘lagging behind’
By Oliver Pridmore Agenda Editor
04:00, 3 DEC 2022MPs in Nottinghamshire’s former coalfield communities say the construction of the UK’s first nuclear fusion site in the county could replace some of the jobs lost from coal mining. A national inquiry has launched to consider questions such as whether the job losses from the coal industry have been fully replaced and whether these jobs are adequate in terms of pay and opportunities.
A devolution deal to give more power to Nottinghamshire councils has also been highlighted as something which could improve long-term opportunities for people living in former coalfield areas. Nottinghamshire was home to several pits in areas such as Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Mansfield, but most of them closed in the 90s and early 2000s, with the county’s last working colliery at Thoresby closing in 2015.
Since then, studies have shown people in these former mining areas find it harder to get good jobs than in other areas of the country. A 2019 report by Sheffield Hallam University found the former coalfields have only 55 employee jobs per 100 residents of working age, compared to a national average of 73.
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Read more: https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/nuclear-site-could-replace-nottinghamshires-7877382
The British Conservative suggestion nuclear fusion is imminent claim is so absurd, betting the entire country on such a gamble is so reckless, there are times I wonder if their minds have snapped.
Britain has made noteworthy contributions to nuclear fusion. The British spherical tokamak is a significant advance on traditional donut shaped nuclear fusion tokamaks, the spherical configuration substantially addresses magnetic containment defects inherent to traditional donut shaped tokamaks. But so do other improvements on the original tokamak such as the Stellarator – and that was developed decades ago.
None of these fusion innovations are ready for prime time. There are still huge problems still to address, like whether they scale, how to move from a few seconds plasma stability to hours or days, research into breakthrough reactor core materials which can withstand the blast of radiation from the fusion plasma without crumbling into dust (a far greater challenge than fission reactors), and how to make the reactors affordable if they in fact do turn out to be scalable.
Yet the British Conservative Government is giving every impression that fusion jobs are all the benefits are about to happen. Squeezing votes and continued support out of working class people whose lives were ruined by green energy policy madness, encouraging desperate voters to believe in false hopes of an imminent fusion renaissance, to say I’m disgusted with such vile political messaging would be an understatement.
via Watts Up With That?
September 27, 2023 at 12:03AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 