Extinction Rebellion

[kwackers]

I won't hold my breath.

I wouldn't either.

Government doesn't give a monkeys about climate change, it's long term thing and like most folk on the planet they're happy to party now and pay the price later.

And yet, from what I can gather more people support some form of action on climate change than support brexit - so what does that tell you about how our supposed democracy works?

The reality of it is and like it or lump it that most government policies are either dictated by those with cash behind the scenes or by paying lip service to squeaky wheels.

Given those options I'm all for the squeaky wheel if no action is the alternative and if a few people are late for work then ah diddums.
The negatives are so trivial they don't even register compared to what's at stake.

[Lance Dopestrong]

As anti democratic as it may be, we need a commission with genuine powers to make painful decisions, and who are able to do so without having to worry about being re-elected when they take action. The only measures that work, work in a timely manner, and work on a large scale, will doubtless be unpopular with the self-entitled and often bone idle lazy electorate. I can't conceive of anything else that would force change on a meaningful scale within a meaningful time limit.

It'll never happen though.

As for extinction rebellion though. My younger Brother works in London. He normally walks to the station, then trains. and tube to work. Alas, thanks to the grief that Extinct Marillion are causing with public transport he was forced to drove his 6.7 litre Merc Brabus instead. So much for them saving the planet, eh?

[pga]

It is easy to pour scorn on those who are prepared to sit down and be arrested. Yes we are all addicted to technology. I love my bicycles and I watch cycle races on my laptop but that does not stop me for wanting strong government action on climate change. We are all affected. I have exercise induced asthma from a long lifetime cycling in heavily polluted cities. I was lucky. The effects did not kick in until I was in my seventies. My children and grandchildren have not be so lucky. They are already experiencing breathing problems.

Forget Brexit. Climate change demands immediate action and hats off to Extinction Rebellion. I have campaigned with many others for cycling for over fifty years but our efforts have rarely produced a positive response from the decision makers and we have been left with marginal gains every now and then. The younger generation is not prepared to accept that.

[Lance Dopestrong]

I'm not pouring scorn. I actually applaud their view and their conviction - it's their methods I question, counter productive as they have proven by pushing people back to more polluting forms of transport. In that regard it's a poorly thought out effort.

They need the public at large on their side if they ever want to be able to create sufficient pressure for real change - antatonising them serves only to make that an even more remote likelihood.

Morally I'm with them all the way. Pragmatically, they've made themselves even more isolated than they were prior to the whole exercise, which makes it an entirely wasted effort.

[reohn2]

.......In the UK, the US, and many other countries, it is not so much who has the strongest case, but who has the most money.

That may be why some folks see the need for rebellion. Voting has already failed them.

And that is the truth of it in a nutshell!

So can't convince the public by strength of argument so toys out the pram and block roads, trains etc.

i don't think it's so much a "toys out of the pram" but more like protesting against a government that does nothing to very little,toward cutting pollution to a minimum.
Though I agree blocking public transport can be counter productive I don't see how roads can be blocked without buses being stopped,that said trains and trams are perhaps the least polluting means of moving people around.

Not likely to help their case

That remains to be seen.

If they are happy to get locked up I think the police should lock up as many as required to clear the roads.

I think that's part of their strategy.

Want to protest? Go to a park or have a planned march

I doubt it would have the same impact,be that positive or negative.

EDITED as I didn't answer the quote below:-

As for their demand for Citizens Assemblies. We already have them. They are called parliaments
If their policies are popular enough they can get elected

But government isn't worth a light where climate change is concerned

I won't hold my breath.

As I posted,it remains to be seen one way or another.

[reohn2]

.......... he was forced to drove his 6.7 litre Merc Brabus instead. So much for them saving the planet, eh?

Ah! It's the protesters fault your brother is forced to drive a 6.7 litre Merc gas guzzler,I see

[Labrat]

i don't think it's so much a "toys out of the pram" but more like protesting against a government that does nothing to very little,toward cutting pollution to a minimum.

Hmmm

https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/03/ ... nce-1890s/

[reohn2]

i don't think it's so much a "toys out of the pram" but more like protesting against a government that does nothing to very little,toward cutting pollution to a minimum.

Hmmm

https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/03/ ... nce-1890s/

How is it that almost all UK major cities and a big chunk of towns are presently breaking pollution levels set by our own government?

[Psamathe]

Makes you wonder if the planet stands any chance at all when some people get in such a stew because they are inconvenienced a bit. Wonder how inconvenienced they or their offspring will feel as the impacts progress e.g. few months ago I visited a glacier in rapid retreat where the metal content in the recently exposes rock is leaching out and polluting the valley destroying the agriculture. Ok, those inconvenienced today might not be disrupted by that but it’s undoubtedly spreading. After an hour or two they carry on, but when the climate causes the inconvenience it will last more than a few hours.

Ian

[irc]

I won't hold my breath.

And yet, from what I can gather more people support some form of action on climate change than support brexit - so what does that tell you about how our supposed democracy works?

Brexit voters were 52% in the referendum. In the last UK election the Greens got 1.6%.

In any case you can support some form of action on climate change without supporting the Extinction Rebellion ludicrous suggestion of zero net CO2 by 2025.

[Mike Sales]

Makes you wonder if the planet stands any chance at all when some people get in such a stew because they are inconvenienced a bit. Wonder how inconvenienced they or their offspring will feel as the impacts progress e.g. few months ago I visited a glacier in rapid retreat where the metal content in the recently exposes rock is leaching out and polluting the valley destroying the agriculture. Ok, those inconvenienced today might not be disrupted by that but it’s undoubtedly spreading. After an hour or two they carry on, but when the climate causes the inconvenience it will last more than a few hours.

Ian

I live in the Fens, in an village built on what was once a low island in the fen, at about 5m. above present sea level, which is referenced to O.S. Datum. This is mean sea level in Newlyn. A few years ago the sea overtopped the banks of the Witham in Boston. The town was built there eight or nine hundred years ago because it was relatively safe from flood. The oldest part of the town, around the ancient church of St. Botolph, the Stump was flooded. On a wall of the church flood levels over the centuries are chiselled. The highest is the latest. My boat, in a yard by the Welland, floated into another boat, with damage.
The rises in sea level already inevitable are damaging enough. If the ice caps melt (and they will, unless we change our way of life) the Fens will be very damp.
I see no sign that the yellowbellies appreciate this. They are agitating for a Boston bypass.
After the 1953 floods the town banks were raised, and it is proposed to build a barrage below the town and more banks. These will not be enough.
I will probably not need the two dinghies I keep at home, because of my age. I will suggest my nephews keep them handy.
These gradual changes tend to occur in sudden fits and advances.

[reohn2]

Posted by vorpal on another thread:- http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019041 ... killing-us

[irc]

i don't think it's so much a "toys out of the pram" but more like protesting against a government that does nothing to very little,toward cutting pollution to a minimum.

Hmmm

https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/03/ ... nce-1890s/

How is it that almost all UK major cities and a big chunk of towns are presently breaking pollution levels set by our own government?

Local problems while UK wide air pollution is at record lows

[kwackers]

i don't think it's so much a "toys out of the pram" but more like protesting against a government that does nothing to very little,toward cutting pollution to a minimum.

Hmmm

https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/03/ ... nce-1890s/

There's a fair bit of "carbon laundering" in that headline.
If you allow for the stuff we get made and imported where the CO2 ends up on someone else's tab then the picture is one of continually rising CO2 rather than falling.
Also claiming you now create less CO2 than the 1890's is a bit like saying you now murder less people than Stalin. The 1890's was a great decade where inefficient steam engines drove our industries and provided our transport. Given how much cleaner all that stuff is these days comparing yourself to back then is to my mind more an indication of how far we've got to go.
CO2 neutral by 2050? At 2.5% a year - during a time of economic sluggishness?
It's not really that great is it?

Other points are the removal or reduction in subsidies for 'green' stuff, like new boilers, insulating old buildings or domestic solar.
The putting back of rail electrification and numerous other nibbles at stuff which requires any form of government investment in favour of stuff favouring the making of ever more money for an ever shrinking group of people.

[kwackers]

I won't hold my breath.

And yet, from what I can gather more people support some form of action on climate change than support brexit - so what does that tell you about how our supposed democracy works?

Brexit voters were 52% in the referendum. In the last UK election the Greens got 1.6%.

In any case you can support some form of action on climate change without supporting the Extinction Rebellion ludicrous suggestion of zero net CO2 by 2025.

Are you suggesting that only folk who voted Green have any interest in green issues?

Sounds a bit like Labours daft idea that anyone who voted for them in the last GE wanted brexit, I voted for them and I most definitely don't want brexit.
I may even vote for them again but it'll be more about removing the tories than supporting whatever the idiots in charge of the party suppose that I want.