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UK Politics: The Edge of Destruction


Chaircat Meow

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9 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Moving to 0% carbon emissions in six years would devastate the economy, and could require a very authoritarian government to put down the ensuing opposition.

Well all we would need to do would be to build Wind farms the size of Wales, stop eating meat and nobody should be allowed to fly more than once every 2 years..

Nothing unreasonable there

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Well all we would need to do would be to build Wind farms the size of Wales, stop eating meat and nobody should be allowed to fly more than once every 2 years..

Nothing unreasonable there

You'd rather the planet became an uninhabitable hell hole? Because that is what is happening. Right now. 

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41 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I'm not sure anyone wants the planet to be an uninhabitable hell hole. 

That's like saying you're not sure anyone who consumes a dozen burgers a day wants to become obese. In the same way that a person who is in theory an agnostic lives their life in practice as an atheist, a person who in practice is blase about climate breakdown in theory is happy for the planet to become an uninhabitable hellhole.

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5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Well all we would need to do would be to build Wind farms the size of Wales, stop eating meat and nobody should be allowed to fly more than once every 2 years..

Nothing unreasonable there

Yeh, hoping people will wake up and save themselves is completely unreasonable. Let the human race commit autogenocide if that's what they want. It's what they deserve.

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3 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Yeh, hoping people will wake up and save themselves is completely unreasonable. Let the human race commit autogenocide if that's what they want. It's what they deserve.

Yes and thats why maybe if we want to do something we need to put more pressure on the countries who are causing the most damage.. like maybe China and the USA.

If for example we look at the worlds share of carbon emissions in 2015, China was responsible for 28% of it, the USA 15%. The UK was.. about 1%. 

And its not like the UK has been doing nothing in all this time, UKs Co2 emissions fell to its lowest level since 1890, and were 43% lower than in 1990. Again, this isn't me being some sort of climate change denier or saying we need to put our feet up and relax, but taking over public transport and rolling around on the floor and protesting in such an unfocussed misdirected manner doesn't really seem to do anything except help the egos of the protesters. It probably just gets the publics backs up really, rather than gathering sympathy. If they wanted to really make a difference they would go to China and block the roads or smash up the factories. 

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Yes and thats why maybe if we want to do something we need to put more pressure on the countries who are causing the most damage.. like maybe China and the USA.

If for example we look at the worlds share of carbon emissions in 2015, China was responsible for 28% of it, the USA 15%. The UK was.. about 1%. 

And its not like the UK has been doing nothing in all this time, UKs Co2 emissions fell to its lowest level since 1890, and were 43% lower than in 1990. Again, this isn't me being some sort of climate change denier or saying we need to put our feet up and relax, but taking over public transport and rolling around on the floor and protesting in such an unfocussed misdirected manner doesn't really seem to do anything except help the egos of the protesters. It probably just gets the publics backs up really, rather than gathering sympathy. If they wanted to really make a difference they would go to China and block the roads or smash up the factories. 

Well yes, but Britain HAS been "doing something". Just as the whole world needs to come together to solve this global problem, it's split into nationalistic components. At least China signed up to the Paris Accords whereas the US president believes it's all a Chinese hoax and is deregulating destructive industries. And what has the Uk done? Brexit. Rejects sensible EU regulations; in the name of 'sovereignty' the Uk will lurch to the right and join the US in deregulating environmental measures to try to salvage the crashing economy that is to come.

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2 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Well yes, but Britain HAS been "doing something". Just as the whole world needs to come together to solve this global problem, it's split into nationalistic components. At least China signed up to the Paris Accords whereas the US president believes it's all a Chinese hoax and is deregulating destructive industries. And what has the Uk done? Brexit. Rejects sensible EU regulations; in the name of 'sovereignty' the Uk will lurch to the right and join the US in deregulating environmental measures to try to salvage the crashing economy that is to come.

Brexit is an entirely different issue and there is no reason why Britain would need to be part of a supranational federation in order to fix its own carbon emissions. Thats a leap by you there.

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5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Brexit is an entirely different issue and there is no reason why Britain would need to be part of a supranational federation in order to fix its own carbon emissions. Thats a leap by you there.

I think you're being naive. You'd be right if it was a Corbyn-Brexit, but the far right hijacked the campaign. Why were the likes of Aaron Banks and other top industrialists putting money into LeaveEU? Follow the money. If you want to know what kind of economic policies will result, just look over the Pond.

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1 minute ago, House Cambodia said:

I think you're being naive. You'd be right if it was a Corbyn-Brexit, but the far right hijacked the campaign. Why were the likes of Aaron Banks and other top industrialists putting money into LeaveEU? Follow the money. If you want to know what kind of economic policies will result, just look over the Pond.

The Far Right?

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14 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Well yes, but Britain HAS been "doing something". Just as the whole world needs to come together to solve this global problem, it's split into nationalistic components. At least China signed up to the Paris Accords whereas the US president believes it's all a Chinese hoax and is deregulating destructive industries. And what has the Uk done? Brexit. Rejects sensible EU regulations; in the name of 'sovereignty' the Uk will lurch to the right and join the US in deregulating environmental measures to try to salvage the crashing economy that is to come.

The UK has been pretty successful in reducing carbon emissions, to their lowest level since 1890.  Credit goes to both Conservative and Labour governments for this.

34 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

That's like saying you're not sure anyone who consumes a dozen burgers a day wants to become obese. In the same way that a person who is in theory an agnostic lives their life in practice as an atheist, a person who in practice is blase about climate breakdown in theory is happy for the planet to become an uninhabitable hellhole.

By any standard, cutting carbon emissions by 100% by 2025 would cause an enormous decline in the UK's standard of living, because the government would have to push through huge reductions in the use of power.    It's very hard to see how that could take place in a democracy.

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The UK has been pretty successful in reducing carbon emissions, to their lowest level since 1890.  Credit goes to both Conservative and Labour governments for this.

By any standard, cutting carbon emissions by 100% by 2025 would cause an enormous decline in the UK's standard of living, because the government would have to push through huge reductions in the use of power.    It's very hard to see how that could take place in a democracy.

Yes, democracy is broken. Democracy can only work if the electorate is informed, but this shift to fake news/conspiracy theory/don't trust experts nonsense has destroyed the benefits of democracy. Now electorates only elect morons and liars. It's interesting that the Chinese politburo consists entirely of technocrats - highly educated and well experienced academics, businessmen and industrialists. That's not to say their policies are always correct, but at least their IQ levels vastly outperform the US and UK administrations.

And this single focus on carbon emissions - it's just one aspect of climate breakdown. you need to confront the whole ecological picture to prevent catastrophe.

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2 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

And this single focus on carbon emissions - it's just one aspect of climate breakdown. you need to confront the whole ecological picture to prevent catastrophe.

Ok so you accept the UK has been taking action on Carbon Emissions then?

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4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Ok so you accept the UK has been taking action on Carbon Emissions then?

Oh yes, but my view is that it's not a great deal better than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Too little too late in global terms.

Bear in mind I'm in a country that is so poor and undeveloped that it contributes virtually zero to the matter of climate breakdown. Yet we are suffering. We're into the second year of a likely 3-4 year drought which is devastating farmers, and here in the city, our electricity is cut off for 6 hours every day because there isn't enough water to drive the hydro-electric power. Climate change isn't some hypothetical future issue - while the UK is playing nice and reducing the carbon emissions it's been pumping into the atmosphere for 250 years, it's killing us now.

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6 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Oh yes, but my view is that it's not a great deal better than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Too little too late in global terms.

Again, I'm not quite sure why you are looking at Britain to blame here. I think you have closer neighbours who would be a better target.

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2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Again, I'm not quite sure why you are looking at Britain to blame here. I think you have closer neighbours who would be a better target.

I'm not singling out the UK. I joined a conversation at a point where there was an attempt to absolve the UK of all blame which is quite strange since that's where the Industrial Revolution began. I can see why you don't want to consider the history - after becoming a developed power by pioneering polluting industry, cutting down all the forests and reducing half the population of the world to poverty through war and colonisation, when rising nations aspire to the same standard of living the Uk reached through such means, you want to deny them that.

My view is that I'm not comfortable with those levels of hypocrisy, and that there is no way the whole of Asia and Africa can achieve the living standards of the UK on a sustainable planet. The planet can only survive if there is an immediate and drastic reduction in global living standards, and the West should take the lead. Of course, that's not going to happen and things are only going to get worse and worse.

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The UK ranks fifteenth, worldwide, for CO2 emissions per capita. Source:

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

While it's true that this is way behind China, the USA and India, the first and third of those are develiping countries and while we were at their stage of development, our CO2 emissions were a lot higher too. All climate change treaties acknowledge that it is both unfair and unfeasible to pretend that developing countries should be treated the same as developed ones.

The key point, however, is that UK CO2 emissions are unsustainable at the current rate, wherever it ranks in comparison to China. And, well, these protesters are protesting in the UK. They are attempting to influence their government. As voters, and prospective voters, and citizens. Furthermore, part of their agenda is to lobby the UK government to press for stronger international treaties covering countries including China. So these protests are already actually doing what little they can to influence the situation globally.

The argument 'but what about China' really is the most intellectually barren bit of waffle that I've seen in this thread for some time, and we've been discussing Brexit.

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1 minute ago, House Cambodia said:

after becoming a developed power by pioneering polluting industry, cutting down all the forests and reducing half the population of the world to poverty through war and colonisation, when rising nations aspire to the same standard of living the Uk reached through such means, you want to deny them that.

Thats certainly.. a take. hmm.

I'm certainly not absolving the UK of blame, we have our part to play, and we are doing an 'ok' job, we could do better, but we are doing something. 

The protests in London recently just seem to sum up a lot of the attitudes of people who protest in this manner.. they are just unfocussed attacks, with little strategy or idea of what they are doing or what they want. You could say it mirrors Brexit in that regard.

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8 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

I'm not singling out the UK. I joined a conversation at a point where there was an attempt to absolve the UK of all blame which is quite strange since that's where the Industrial Revolution began. I can see why you don't want to consider the history - after becoming a developed power by pioneering polluting industry, cutting down all the forests and reducing half the population of the world to poverty through war and colonisation, when rising nations aspire to the same standard of living the Uk reached through such means, you want to deny them that.

My view is that I'm not comfortable with those levels of hypocrisy, and that there is no way the whole of Asia and Africa can achieve the living standards of the UK on a sustainable planet. The planet can only survive if there is an immediate and drastic reduction in global living standards, and the West should take the lead. Of course, that's not going to happen and things are only going to get worse and worse.

But, the Industrial Revolution can't be repealed.  In fact, industrialisation has been a very good thing for humanity.   Trying to reduce global living standards would be a disaster all round.

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7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Thats certainly.. a take. hmm.

I'm certainly not absolving the UK of blame, we have our part to play, and we are doing an 'ok' job, we could do better, but we are doing something. 

The protests in London recently just seem to sum up a lot of the attitudes of people who protest in this manner.. they are just unfocussed attacks, with little strategy or idea of what they are doing or what they want. You could say it mirrors Brexit in that regard.

I agree the protests lack vision and strategy and will be ineffective, but their hearts are in the right places. They do understand there is no time to pussyfoot around and extreme measures need to be taken immediately. I was an environmental activist myself 20 years ago - now I have no hope left.

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