Alright, my bad.
They fecked over people with no power to change things, though, and shouldn't have done what they did, is that more accurate?
Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity
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Alright, my bad.
They fecked over people with no power to change things, though, and shouldn't have done what they did, is that more accurate?
I take your point, but still dont think the two are comparable,
Why not though? It's obviously a different cause, but in both cases we have people feeling powerless against the politically mighty, and using the one way available to them (public disruption) to get attention for their case. The people in the picture did it in a particularly racist area of the US, the climate protesters go to a place of great emissions. The people in the picture probably angered some road users as well, who may have subsequently be less sympathetic to their case.
If nothing else, trying to fight climate change by causing more emissions seems like a bloody stupid way to go about it, and in the civil rights example ( I could be entirely wrong, I know next to nothing about it) Im assuming they had a far greater number of people who were already on their side, rather than trying desperately to change the minds of the majority. Also in the civil rights movement the concession of rights to PoC wouldnt impact the day to day lives of most whites, the changes required to fight climate change will have direct impacts on the lives of those they are trying to convince, goodwill is important here.
How's causing more emissions though? Is there something I missed?
Actually, a lot of people felt (and still do) that giving other people more rights diminishes theirs - they felt actively threatened by that. Like a zero-sum game, I guess.
in any case, so what do you suggest would be impactful action protesters could do that doesn't inconvenience random people and gets attention and changes minds at the right level?
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Id suggest a 30 mile tailback would definitely cause more emissions, the majority of those vehicles are going to be sat with their engines idling, so aircon etc can be used, plus extending the journey times of all those involved will also increase the emissions.
Ill bow to your second point, I really dont know enough about it to argue with you.
For the third, direct protest where the power brokers are, constant and repeated protest. Johnsons schedule is fairly public. Mass protests at every function he attends, every PR/Photo Op, same for other members of the cabinet, same for CEOs of the most polluting companies, inconvenience and disrupt those with the power to generate change.
Unless the protesters all walk there then that would cause increased emissions. Even that would cause increased emissions compared to staying on the couch.
Not as bad as a 2/3 hour 30 mile tailback on the UKs busiest stretch of road.
No, not as bad, but worse than nothing.
Is your argument that contributing to global warming while protesting global warming is perfectly fine, but not if you contribute to the large extent of approximately zero?
No, one of several arguments is that deliberately causing greater emissions to protest against emissions is bloody stupid. Emissions caused by travelling to a protest is one thing, deliberately extending tens of thousands of journey times is another.
They're not deliberately causing greater emissions in either case. They're not travelling to cause emissions, and they're not blocking traffick to cause emissions. Emissions are caused by travelling and by traffick lines.
Well unless they are morons, then its fairly obvious a 3 hour 30 mile queue of traffic is going to vastly increase the environmental damage in that area for the day.
It's not going to vastly increase it at all, the effect will be above but close to zero. It will increase, just like it'll increase if they were to travel to wherever Boris is hanging out.
Unless you think 10000 protesters are going to travel to where ever the moron in chief is, each in their own vehicles, it isnt remotely the same thing.
How much extra CO2 do you think we're talking about here?
I dont know, but 10000 cars and trucks idling for 2/3 hours, that has to be a lot surely.
@NotThatSoph Anyway, Im out for a few hours, so tbc. Good debating with you.
In the context of global warming, no. Literally nothing. A bit like punching a hurricane, maybe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58600723
Goodness me. If anyone is in any way pessimistic about the likelihood of the worst effects of man made climate change happening, this will ring true.
Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the pledged 45%, they are on course to increase by 16%.
Staggeringly stupid.
Goodness me. If anyone is in any way pessimistic about the likelihood of the worst effects of man made climate change happening, this will ring true.
Instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the pledged 45%, they are on course to increase by 16%.
Staggeringly stupid.
This is quite interesting, given how environmental concerns continue to be a major black mark on electric cars. If their batteries are this recyclable, much of that disappears.
Full article: https://spectrum.ieee.org/recycled-batteries-good-as-newly-minedNature Briefing said:
While on the subject, that reminds me of another article on electric cars I read last week. It's about these cars being relatively heavy, and should get lighter to become safer and cleaner.
Full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02760-8Nature Briefing said:
In any form of transport that requires some type of propulsive force to move, mass is the enemy of efficiency. Force = Mass X Acceleration.
Almost every new version of a car gets bigger and heavier.
SUVs are a classic case in point.
Shrinking batteries and lighter frames will be a good option when charging points will become more widespread. I like the idea of taxing heavy cars.
Some people here might struggle to understand it, including me.
Love your Olde English by the way. Or was it Anglo-Saxon.
Well, I get the general idea.
But that's a problem with the current trend in cars: many people are looking to get bigger, so they are more comfortable and feel safer - but generally they make things more dangerous for others. Not evenjust because of the weight, but also because you can't see kids as well from an SUV. And now electric cars are making this worse, as their parts are heavier. Plus heavier cars obviously require more energy to generate the same motion, so getting an electric pick-up truck might not be all that much more clean than a Fiat 500. (Except if eletricity generation is completely clean in your region, I suppose. But that's not the case for many people yet.)
Well, I get the general idea.
But that's a problem with the current trend in cars: many people are looking to get bigger, so they are more comfortable and feel safer - but generally they make things more dangerous for others. Not evenjust because of the weight, but also because you can't see kids as well from an SUV. And now electric cars are making this worse, as their parts are heavier. Plus heavier cars obviously require more energy to generate the same motion, so getting an electric pick-up truck might not be all that much more clean than a Fiat 500. (Except if eletricity generation is completely clean in your region, I suppose. But that's not the case for many people yet.)
That was my exact point.
Sorry, yeah, I did think I might add a Captain Obvious comment at the end of my post!
Well, I get the general idea.
But that's a problem with the current trend in cars: many people are looking to get bigger, so they are more comfortable and feel safer - but generally they make things more dangerous for others. Not evenjust because of the weight, but also because you can't see kids as well from an SUV. And now electric cars are making this worse, as their parts are heavier. Plus heavier cars obviously require more energy to generate the same motion, so getting an electric pick-up truck might not be all that much more clean than a Fiat 500. (Except if eletricity generation is completely clean in your region, I suppose. But that's not the case for many people yet.)
To be fair many new SUVs these days have all sorts of technical assets to improve safety and visibility. Mine has sonar, a rear-view camera and automatic braking if anything gets too close.
So are we just like definitively screwed now?
Absolutely 100%. Unfortunately many will take this to mean we shouldn't do anything at all.
You have no need at all to apologise.
I always read your posts with great interest. You are passionate about man made climate change, as am I.
It is a seriously important subject for us all.
Yeah, we still have a choice between being totally massively enormously screwed (do nothing or let things get even worse), or just being a bit more screwed than we are already (do as much as we can to limit emissions and prepare for the varous disaster scenarios) - or anything in between.
Thanks man - likewise.
Do we still have deniers or sceptics on the cafe or have they all been flushed out?
My understanding is that we needed to make drastic changes in the 80s and 90s to reverse what's coming our way. At this point we're completely fecked and it's only a matter of time. Things we do now aren't going to save us from the worst of it as that is already set in motion.
That being said we should try to make the changes in case any of us survive.
Yeah, ideally. Global temperature is definitely rising and we can't undo that. But what we do can still influence how much they will rise - that's what the IPCC projections scenarios are all about. But given the enormous international tardiness in really (and I mean REALLY) getting things done, you're right that we're not really deviating much from the worst scenarios in practice.