Climate Change, and the change in Activism

[Kimbers]

Several things I want to cover here and am really interested in your thoughts. I am very much playing devils advocate here and putting an opposite slant on many of the below points to encourage active debate. I don't always disagree with some issues (like tackling climate change) but there are always opposite views. Please feel free to use this topic to discuss them.

So!

1. I don't deny we have climate change happening. We have had climate change throughout the history of our planet. In Roman times they grew grapes in Scotland and in Victorian times they ice skated every year on the Thames. On that basis, should we interfere with natural climate change that says the only way for the animals (and us) to live is to evolve? And are we changing nature by trying to stop natural evolution? Before anyone points out that Humans have made the climate change worse this time, I understand that. But historically our knee jerk reaction to issues like this have just made things worse. For example "Diesel is evil you need to cut down on diesel use"............ "Oh, for the first time in 12 years Co2 Levels have risen instead of dropped......for the life of me I can't understand why!!". 

2. Why is it that we listen to those who, 10 years ago we wouldn't have listened to? For example Greta Thunberg. Here we have a 16 year old with no life experience whatsoever, who has never earnt a living, paid any taxes or had any input into life whatsoever and who is the daughter of a millionaire Actor father and Millionaire Opera singer mother, so probably won't have to ever earn any money. More importantly, all of her information and "facts" are fed to her not through personal experience (for example as a Climate change scientist travelling around the world for 30 years to understand what is happening) but by dubious sources like other activists (her mother) and organisations. If you really want to know what her message is you should read the below. It's actually quite worrying and includes things such as controlling population by birth control/limiting families and also reducing technology use. It's called "Dark Green Enviromentalism" and she is a firm advocate (1984 anyone). 

https://quillette.com/2019/03/21/when-children-protest-adults-should-tell-them-the-truth/

There is also this article which links her to Big money support and people and organisations with other reasons to push this agenda. I believe this less as it's more of a conspiracy theory (illuminati sort of thing), but I have done a bit more research and there are other articles which confirm some of this article.

http://www.iamawake.co/greta-thunberg-deception-we-dont-have-time-global-warming/

3. How can anyone believe or support an organisation like "Extinction Rebellion"? Their methods of protest have cost the country £25 million so far, not including Policing costs which will double that, pulled away Police from fighting serious crime, actually disrupted the things they are pushing in their agenda, such as public transport and have been infiltrated heavily by professional "Protesters" and Anarchists. For example, one young lady interviewed after being arrested stated (at 19 years old) she was proud to have been arrested for the 4th time this year. Asked "What were you arrested before for?" by the reporter she stated "Unrelated, different protests". When pushed she admitted one was as an animal rights activist another anti Brexit Activist. All of which she had broken the law to protest. Why is this allowed in our society? Has she worked for a living? No. Does she contribute to society? No. Will she be held accountable for her actions? I hope so! Surely an arrest sheet at such a young age will stop her working in future?  Is it fair that there have been 1000 arrests already and yet no one is hugely denouncing them and everything they stand for? Point of comparison Pro-Brexit protesters got very little air time and any arrest was instantly jumped on by the press and declared as criminal activity (all 2 arrests at the last protest).

4. Lastly, why is it we and the majority of the population, as middle aged working men and women who it's been proved pay the majority into society in taxes, NI, Volunteering, contributions etc seem to have less of a voice than anyone else? This new "You must listen to us, we are the future" rise in being told what to do and how to do it, by those with little to no life experience and promotion of this by news and journalism, seems to overlook those who pay in the majority to society. The press haven't mentioned that the majority of the population disagree with the way Extinction rebellion are protesting and instead promote the very small minority who support them or are taking part. If I, as a middle aged, middle class, family man who has 2 jobs and volunteers 30 - 50 hours a month to society for free, said and promoted the fact that these groups are wrong then, like with being a Leaver, I would be....and already have been, called a racist, or blind, or even worse things. I commented on a "friends FB page" that far from supporting Extinction Rebeliion and their criminal activity we should be denouncing it" and got a lot of abuse. Do we just sit back and ignore the fact that a very very small minority are demanding and will highly likely force through massive changes in our country, without us being able to have a say?

What are your thoughts?

[C8RKH]

Excellent post @Kimbers. I need time to reflect on it, to conserve my energy and resources, to wait until the time is right, to respond with a great big fooking rant!  :)

[Barrykearley]

Just blame immigrants/doleys/welsh/Irish/Scots/eniglish/brexit/bbc/youff of today/Putin/China/trump**

 

**delete as applicable 

[Chillidoggy]

“Do we just sit back and ignore the fact that a very very small minority are demanding and will highly likely force through massive changes in our country, without us being able to have a say?

 What are your thoughts?”

 

I think that’s been happening for years, courtesy of the unelected dictatorship across the Channel that we know so well. Apart from that, I’ll be really cross if the phoney homeless, champagne-socialists disrupt my flight to Florida later this year.

 

 

[Loose Cannon]

Skiving off school is hardly activism or suffrage. When the new generation stop buying tons of worthless shit, porking McDonalds or voluntarily clean a public park instead of playing computer games, then I'll take them seriously.

There seems to be a backlash of hatred about "the older generation" causing the current generation's massive "suffering". I'm sure the youth of 100 years ago would consider their lifestyle heaven compared with going to hard manual work at 14.

 

[Dan E]

Now where to jump in here, so I will make one point only and it is this 

1. Why does this country try to change absolutely everything by taxing it! No forward thinking, no initiative, nothing, in fact can anyone (I stand to be corrected here) tell me how any Gov has done it in any other way. 

2. Apologises that might have been two points

3. Shit that makes it three 

4. I am in trouble here 

 

[PaulCP]

Is it me or do many of these “protesters” resemble a new Greenham Common brigade i.e. protest for the sake of protest since it’s something to do.

What I really object to is the apparent brainwashing of 10-14 year olds in schools etc,, they should be left to make their own minds up!

[Barrykearley]

42 minutes ago, Dan E said:

Now where to jump in here, so I will make one point only and it is this 

1. Why does this country try to change absolutely everything by taxing it! No forward thinking, no initiative, nothing, in fact can anyone (I stand to be corrected here) tell me how any Gov has done it in any other way. 

2. Apologises that might have been two points

3. Shit that makes it three 

4. I am in trouble here 

 

Oh @Dan E comeon - remember tax doesn’t have to be taxing 🤭

[march]

Just started watching Question - it appears this little Greta Thunberg is the new Messiah with both the audience and Politicians blindly jumping on this new band wagon

Oh and Gimli the dwarf was the only one who made sense - although he was practically laughed off the stage when he stated the obvious - there are just too many of us.

If this is the way we are going we are well and truly stuffed.

Gave up watching after 5 minutes so have no idea what else was covered.

[Barrykearley]

Just listen to the advice of John Rhys-Davies and the reactions 👍

[Barrykearley]

The BBC are really struggling to control this. Come the revolution 

End of the world is nigh 👍

[march]

OK went back and watched a bit more.

Gimli son of Gloin knows his stuff - shame the politicians don't. Who needs a balanced view when you have this shower.

[tim_marra]

On ‎24‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 11:58, Kimbers said:

What are your thoughts?

Have you tried a nice bottle of red? 

[mik]

A friend on another forum posted this - which I struggled to disagree with, so post for your interest. Personally I am fine with anyone protesting, but at tbe point you do so by destroying the property of others you lose ALL credibility.

 

Unfortunately, protests like this only tend to entrench people's pre-existing views, and in some ways may serve as a disincentive too .

Basically, and I know I'm personally as guilty of this as the next person, people want their every-increasing consumerist quality of life above all else, and while they quite like the idea of a cleaner, less-fucked planet, they'd rather have their personal guilt assuaged by tickling around the edges than actually grasp the nettle and accept that their fundamental values have to change in order to make a meaningful impact.

Want three foreign holidays a year? Want to eat red meat seven days a week? Want to spend your weekends using pointless retail as a leisure activity? Sure, crack on with all that, so long as you make the right noises, forego plastic straws and sign the odd petition for somebody else to sort the problem. You too can feel smug as fuck as you drop half a dozen bottles off for recycling out of the back of your 3-ton SUV.

At the very very heart of the problem is that reducing environmental damage and increasing national wealth are directly contradictory objectives - tax polluting companies and they move to china, tax car production and people lose jobs, tax imported food and people's grocery bill goes up, tax road travel and people complain that their real wages have fallen due to increased commuting costs. As a nation, we are a million miles from saying "yes, I'm willing to forego more trinkets and baubles to save some animals I'm never going to see or protect a forest that won't even be planted until long after I'm dead". 

And TV images of crusties being dragged away by the cops doesn't do much to sell the kind of fundamental lifestyle and value change that's needed. The sub-conscious messages are that environmentalism is extreme (so the little concessions you makes are a *fair* compromise), that taking any positive steps makes you more like those smelly people you hate (and more importantly, look down on), and that ultimately, it's all a bit pointless anyway.

If change is going to happen, it has to happen *within* the realm of established social and political norms. I hate to say it, but those pushing for change need to learn a lesson from the UKIP playbook - sell an idea that genuinely speaks to people's fears and desires, convert the support of the people you persuade into ballot box numbers, and scare mainstream political parties into incorporating the narrative into their own ideologies

[Kimbers]

If 1000 Right wing Protesters had been arrested while they were ..... protesting (damn).... how do you think our media and more importantly the BBC would have reported it? 

Just because these criminals (and thats what they are) are protesting climate change, nobody is pointing out the obvious "These people are criminals"!! How on earth can they say it's apeaceful protest when 1000 are arrested in 2 weeks? As I put on facebook, their whole message was more money and change for climate change yet they were going about it totally arse about face!

"What do we want?"
"Money to Tackle Climate Change"
"When do we want it?"
"After costing the country £12 million in just 3 days to cope with our criminal activity!" (not including cost of Policing).
"What else do we want?"
"People to get rid of their cars and use public transport"
"When do we want it?"
"After disrupting Public transport throughout London to stop people using it"

 

[Loose Cannon]

16 hours ago, march said:

OK went back and watched a bit more.

Gimli son of Gloin knows his stuff - shame the politicians don't. Who needs a balanced view when you have this shower.

I'm only looking at online comments about that Question Time programme because of this thread, but its ironic the same people banging on about ignoring him because he is only an actor don't seem to have a problem if its Emma "air miles" Thompson.

 

He speaks a lot of sense but his Brian Blessed school of delivery will never go down well with the hand-wringers and hell always be condemned as a dinosaur.

BIG ISSUE INTERVIEW

 

 

 

[oilmagnet477]

Forgive my somewhat simplistic view but I'll put it down anyway and see what you think. Before I do, I'd just like to reference the fact (and I forget the exact specifics but you'll get my drift) that according to general opinion, if the life of the World is viewed as a 24hr period, Human kind have been around only in the last minute of the 24th hour. With that in mind:

If I can use an analogy of a glass of water to represent Earth. Imagine that glass of water gets frozen. (Ice Age?). The ice takes some time to melt but as more ice melts, the ratio of 'warmer water' to 'colder ice' increases, thereby accelerating the rate of melt. Looking at the state of the world today, this analogy would I guess equate to a glass of water with 2 ice cubes floating in it.

I have absolutely zero doubt that humans have had a negative impact on carbon release and global warming but referring to my first point, how much difference have we actually made?

I have a somewhat depressing view of the future of the globe but I'm not sure that anything we could do is likely to ultimately make the slightest difference to the end result. Future generations are likely to bare the brunt of whatever happens but Nature will win out at the end of the day and something will happen to redress any current imbalance (assuming there is one?). Dinosaurs once roamed the planet - something happened to wipe them out but life went on and here we are. In future, we are likely to be the 'new  dinosaurs' and life will go on again thereafter with evolution taking care of whatever comes along.

In some respects I envy the Dinosaurs - at least they weren't clever enough to be aware of their own demise, even if there was nothing they could have done to prevent the inevitable.................

 

[oilmagnet477]

Maybe if the Dinosaurs had been Vegan, they'd still be around today? 😋 but then again, they didn't know about bandwagons back then.

[Geoffers]

1 hour ago, oilmagnet477 said:

Maybe if the Dinosaurs had been Vegan, they'd still be around today? 😋 

Some were but it didn't make any difference, they were wiped out too!

[oilmagnet477]

Don't know if anyone heard the interview on R4 yesterday morning but Emma Thompson basically destroyed her own argument:

Dame Emma Thompson has defended flying from Los Angeles to London to join climate change protests, saying: “It’s very difficult to do my job without occasionally flying.”

The actress was accused of hypocrisy last week after taking the 5,400-mile journey to join Extinction Rebellion demonstrators in the capital. Dame Emma told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she understood the criticism, but said she offsets her carbon footprint by planting trees. She said:

“It’s very difficult to do my job without occasionally flying, although I do fly a lot less than I did. But we are caught, because to travel at all by aeroplane is impossible without causing damage to the planet. I’m in the very fortunate position of being able to offset my carbon footprint, but most people can’t.”

Basically "I'm alright Jack but screw everyone else" What is offsetting carbon anyway? How many F'king trees do you need to plant to IMMEDIATELY mitigate a flight. One sapling does not digest as much CO2 as a 200 year old tree...........

[Neal H]

She could get a different job that doesn't involve any flying. Or does her need to increase her already considerable material wealth exceed her need to save the planet?

I'm also thinking that making an appearance in the pink boat with the worlds media looking on is good PR which may help with the former, or am I being a bit cynical now?

Anyway, I doubt we'll kill the planet. We could make ourselves extinct, which on balance may not be a bad thing.