PIRC Climate Safety Launch

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Potemkin Villager
Posts: 1990
Joined: 14 Mar 2006, 10:58
Location: Narnia

PIRC Climate Safety Launch

Post by Potemkin Villager »

On Thursday 27th November 2008, PIRC will launch the report "Climate Safety" at Friends Meeting House, Euston, London starting at 7PM.

Are any powerswitchers in the SE planning to be at this event as I am considering attending cos I will be over in London next week.
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
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Potemkin Villager
Posts: 1990
Joined: 14 Mar 2006, 10:58
Location: Narnia

Post by Potemkin Villager »

Climate Emergency Briefing

Out of sheer curiosity, and seapite no response on this forum, I attended the launch of the Public Information Research report "Climate Safety" during my recent trip to London. It was a wet, cold and miserable Thursday evening and I had spent the day zooming around town on a bus pass to the museums in South Kensington, visiting a few haunts from my student days, and doing a few Charring Cross Road book shops.

I estimate about 500 people or so had braved the elements to hear the cheerful news but I missed the beginning of the session and had to, and was glad to, leave early. The message is basically shock horror things are even, even, much, much, much worse than previously thought and we should be aiming for Zero Carbon, as fast as is humanly possible and what on earth are we going to do?

To answer that question Professor Monbiot was on hand with the 25 best things the UK government can do first, though strangely enough the “N” word was not uttered.

There was a Q+A session and it was clear most people, though obviously very concerned, were not at all convinced much of these things were going to be done despite all the government green-wash. One view was that we were all suffering information overload on Global Warming and thought the detailed bad news more inclined to send people down the pub rather than to a public meeting. This was certainly the view of my host who has been involved in environmental protests of one form or another for at least 30 years. He had declined to accompany me along to the event preferring instead the company of a good book!

The view I took away that the organisers and platform party were very narrowly focussed on busying themselves “solving climate change” and little else. The great unwashed in the audience had a much wider view and seemingly tacit acceptance that little may well end up being done and many things may not at all be fixable.
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
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