PowerSwitch

I met a group of Extinction Rebels cycling from the West country to London yesterday and today as they stayed overnight in Newbury. They are planning a week of actions in the capital to highlight climate change. Our contributor RogerCo was one of the leaders. Good to meet another contributor in person.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47935416

The protests look to be well underway, fairly peaceful, though with some criminal damage.

The scale of the protests in parliament square appear to have drowned out or displaced the pro and anti Brexit crowds.
One report stated that that the protesters aim to "bring London to a halt for up to two weeks"
I rather doubt that they will achieve that scale of disruption, but time will tell.

OTOH, the recent drone incident at an airport showed just how easily a small number of persons, perhaps a single protester, can cause a lot of disruption.

adam2 wrote:
OTOH, the recent drone incident at an airport showed just how easily a small number of persons, perhaps a single protester, can cause a lot of disruption.

As per my post in the Transport thread, the Police are taking the line that it is quite possibly an insider job
Link

Also on Panorama tonight

When there are 7.5 billion people on the planet and the population has increased by 23,000,000 so far this year. Projections for 2045 are 9.5 billion.

Causing extinction by human actions/neglect?

Well good luck with that.

Here's the link from another (locked) thread: A modest suggestion for the world’s climate strikers

The total or partial replacement this century of fossil fuels by renewable energy sources, hence, would constitute even more than an unprecedented systemic change in human history: it would represent a fundamental reversal of humanity’s energetic course.

It would mean, in fact, a move towards a lower quality and lower productivity energy system, only capable of supporting a significantly reduced economic footprint.

Well, yes. A few of us know that. Nice to see it said somewhere else though.

I sent the following into the Observer today which relates to Em's post above. Wonder if they will publish it?

I was struck by an element of schizophrenia on the part of your paper in Philip Inman's article "Not enough Babies?" (Observer, 14.04.19)

While your paper's coverage of Climate Change matters is very good, Philip Inman's piece seemed to support the very economic growth which is causing global warming. Since the early 1950s the health and wealth enjoyed in most of the first world has resulted in women having fewer children, often fewer than the replacement rate, and this has caused economic problems which have been solved by mass immigration to keep population and economic growth going. This growth and its necessary increase in fuel use has fueled the climate change which is destroying our habitat on this earth.

Improving health and wealth is now lowering the birth rate across the world to the extent that the UN is forecasting that world population will stop growing by 2050. This will be a significant positive milestone in human development but a disaster for our current economic system. It will mean that humans are likely to take a smaller share of the earth's resources in future which will give whatever wildlife is left on the earth a chance to survive. It will give us a chance to maintain a climate on earth that is suitable for widespread human habitation.

Unfortunately, economists such as Mr Inman are arguing against such a development to keep the cancer of ever increasing growth going rather than arguing for a change to our economic system to one which fits the new paradigm required by the falling population and energy use required to combat Climate Change.

Lord Beria3 wrote:

woodburner wrote:Are all these protesters likely to give up their mobile phones? Their trainers? Will the wearers of fossil derived clothing give that up? Will they turn off their heating? Or do they expect everyone else to do it?

Agree.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019 ... -strikers/

The comments on this website are insightful.

Lots of green activists attacking the idea that individuals should go on a "energy diet" as advocated by the writer.

Astonishing really.

Yes, a very good piece.

What he omits to say is that there will be a drastic change in the near future whether the strikers do and achieve anything or not because climate change will destroy our economic system through changing climate and sea level rise. Changing climate will destroy our ability to produce food as will sea level rise and sea level rise and more intense weather caused by global warming will destroy the ports upon which our trading economy relies.

Forced migration as a result of the above will give us worldwide conflict as nations push back against the tide of starving humanity trying to engulf indigenous populations, or rather the food sources that they control. A large number of humans will have to die in order for some to survive so the "rich" people of the west, and that includes even our poor, will have to decide whether they are going to survive or die.

The climate strikers also have to decide what they wish to do with the psychopaths that currently run the world and the ones among the strikers themselves who have the same tendencies and would take the places of the current ones. The psychopaths aren't actually the government in many parts of the world but the super rich people who control those governments from behind the scenes. They require treatment of some kind but in an energy and food poor future will anyone be willing to lose their ration in order to keep a psychopath alive?

When you push the consequences of climate change to the limits all sorts of ethical questions arise and the above is just the beginning because, by accepting any rise in temperature rather than a return to previous conditions, you are locking the human race into the above.

<snip>because climate change will destroy our economic system<snip>

I agree, but it will not be caused by a mechanism causing rising CO2.

This is certainly a divisive issue on which strong views are held.
In the pub last night, a delivery driver and others stated
"If the police cant keep the roads open, then road users should be allowed to do it themselves. Including by running down protesters"
There was considerable support for this view.

Others of the "deep green" camp felt these protests are actually too mild and timid and that direct action, including killing people, is the only way to limit climate change.
There was some support for this view also.

Todays plan is reportedly to "close down the underground" and possibly other public transport.
This seems perverse in the extreme, surely public transport is part of the answer, even more so if electric as the underground is.

A lot of it comes down to timescales. Today, this week, this month, climate change has essentially no impact on the average Londoner so any disruption is far more impactful.

However, if we continue running society like we do for another few decades the impact of climate change will be far more impactful than this week's protests. How to balance the short and long-term? It's a very personal thing, what's your 'discount rate'?

Closing the underground for a day isn't perverse, if you have a low discount rate. It's not about today's emissions, it's about kicking society onto a different trajectory to significantly move where we'll be years from now.

The "extinction rebellion" crowd are just another bunch of useful liberal idiots, there to provide yet another distraction along the same lines as "me too", pussy hat, "the patriarchy", "rape culture", "trans toilets"..... etc etc

Where were they when the UK was bombing Syria? Or, indeed, when successive neo-liberal governments of both the "left" and "right" were screwing the poor of this country for the last 40 years. These people have absolutely no cultural currency left whatsoever with the ordinary working people of this country any more. This means whatever they support, the working class will reject outright. In other words, the baby and the bathwater. More's the pity since ecological issues should be free of political and cultural contamination since they are, in principle, extremely important issues of science. But, we are where we are.

I'll bet many of these pillocks were the same ones who were prancing around London in their outfits of blue and yellow stars a few weeks back. Blithly oblovious, of course, to the fact that they were supporting a neo-liberal outfit hell bent on pursuing the very neo-liberal globalist model of perpetual economic growth that has led us to this ecological catastrophe in the making.

woodburner wrote:

<snip>because climate change will destroy our economic system<snip>

I agree, but it will not be caused by a mechanism causing rising CO2.

Whatever!!

clv101 wrote:A lot of it comes down to timescales. Today, this week, this month, climate change has essentially no impact on the average Londoner so any disruption is far more impactful. ..............

A heat wave, combined with the urban heat island effect, would certainly impact Londoners. It would kill them by the thousand and make the life of the rest unbearable. One certainly did this to Paris a few years ago.

LJ, different people are animated by different things. There's no harm in that. The fact that climate change animates the Extinction Rebellion people doesn't mean that they are unconcerned by the things you quoted above; in fact I know from talking to them that they would be concerned by some of the things you pointed out but it is climate change and the loss of a habitable world which ignites them.

You could use the same argument that you do against demonstrators for those other causes. Why aren't they campaigning against the loss of our habitat? Who is to say who is doing the right thing?.

Whilst I share the concerns about climate change, I am rather cynical about many of those joining the current protests.

It looks a bit like the usual "stop the city" and similar protests that have occurred over the years.
Whilst a minority of those attending no doubt have knowledge of climate change and feel strongly about mitigating this, an awful lot are probably the usual crowd who attend any demo.

TV pictures showed banners from the Socialist workers. Is that the SAME socialist workers who demonstrated against the closure of coal mines ?
"a plot by the rulers to oppress the workers"

I have yet to see any significant march or demonstration in favour of any specific green project.

A march calling for more wind turbines perhaps.
Or demanding urban trams and trolley buses.
Or greater use of PV.
Or sustainable fire wood harvesting.
Or electrifying railways.
Or a tidal barrage.

Most of the above are strongly opposed.