London Climate Protests

[Hook]

you are clearly a putin puppet. (see post above)

Whatever. I like to think that most people, including myself, can walk and chew gum at the same time.

I support Chomsky's view that climate change is the biggest threat to life as we know it, but I also believe that interference by any foreign government, including Russia, in US elections is wrong and must be combated. Chomsky's view that it is an irrelevant sideshow is wrong IMO.

As everyone knows, the margin of victory for Trump in 2016 was razor thin. The indictments of Russians, and the fact that Manafort supplied midwest target states and polling data to Kilimnik, strongly indicates that Russia helped Trump to get elected.

I have never said that Russia was the reason Trump was elected, so please don't twist my words. I think it would be impossible to quantify the effects of their efforts. But help Trump they did.

News flash: Trump is a disaster for the environment. Russian interference in the election therefore had a very negative outcome.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I thought the ecoterrorists were the ones destroying the planet's biota.

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Shocking footage of an oranguterrorist attacking a defenceless and innocent bulldozer!

Joe

We need ecoterrorists who will forcibly stop all the above happening and make it too dangerous for anyone to have another go... Extreme situations need extreme measures.

 

[Hook]

They will achieve very little.

You don't seem to understand something very fundamental.

Whether it was feminism, anti-Vietnam war or civil rights, every popular movement started with isolated, dramatic events that the right-wing labelled as meaningless. The goal of any demonstration is not the event itself. The idea is to gain headlines, stimulate awareness, and hopefully accelerate ongoing educational and organizational activity.

You either don't care about the environment, or you have simply given up trying to have a positive influence. I hope it's the latter, and that you are capable of change. Good luck.

 

[Joe]

We need ecoterrorists who will forcibly stop all the above happening and make it too dangerous for anyone to have another go... Extreme situations need extreme measures.

I disagree with so very much about so many many things about the modern world. Can I take extreme measures in all those cases?

Jus askin'.

Who decides what warrants "extreme measures" ? You ? Me ? Someone you profoundly disagree with ?

 

[Joe P]

This thread needs a mountain gorilla, one of the extremely few species of primate whose population is increasing.

Only a thousand individuals exist, so the population is less than the population of a small town, but when I first become interested in them fewer than 400 existed on the whole of Earth. When Dian Fossey was recruited by Louis Leakey to study the species an estimate 280 were left.

Their numbers have increased because people cared and ignored the naysayers who said it was already too late to prevent this critically endangered species from becoming extinct.

Joe

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I disagree with so very much about so many many things about the modern world. Can I take extreme measures in all those cases?

Jus askin'.

Who decides what warrants "extreme measures" ? You ? Me ? Someone you profoundly disagree with ?

Who gets to decide that it's OK to tear down a rain forest? You? Me? No, somebody with loads of money who stands to make loads more by their crime against humanity! Some things are patently and irrefutably wrong.

"For evil to triumph all that is needed is for good men to do nothing".

We are losing equivalent of 27 football pitches per minute of rain forest and over 100 species a day are becoming extinct.
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money". Cree Proverb

Unfortunately peaceful protest does not always work....

 

[35451]

We need ecoterrorists who will forcibly stop all the above happening and make it too dangerous for anyone to have another go... Extreme situations need extreme measures.

You OK if any of your loved ones get injured or killed within the extreme measures you encourage?

 

[MikeMA]

Yep, the UK spends more on petfood in a year than there is funding for fusion research.

My dog is carbon neutral.

 

[35451]

One of the few sensible things I've seen posted on this subject. I would have added that, on top of everything else, and excluding me, there are just too many of us.

Corrective There are too many of us, requiring too much, and living too long. Tis the human condition. We hammer this planet.

Now just who has the best ‘solution’ for population control? the Left? Or the Right? The Church(es) maybe.

Or a bunch of blokes online?

 

[jackbarron]

Emma Thompson has been talking about the Extinction Rebellion demos, which she completely supports. She has flown back to England to do so and says this is to ensure a future for her children and grandchildren.

Thompson climbed on board the pink boat moored at Oxford Circus and said, according to the BBC: "We are here in this little island of sanity and it makes me so happy to be able to join you all and to add my voice to the young people here who have inspired a whole new movement." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47987891

The Mail think the police have used Thompson as bait to lure in protestors, but then they would. According to the newspaper the police formed "a ring of steel" around the boat as the actress read "a love poem to the Earth." When she finished they began arresting people.

In a different interview Thompson talked about what a hypocrite Cameron is. He went to Europe in 2016 to sign a bill concerning climate change, then came back to England and ratified 200 fracking proposals.

Thompson says hypocrisy in the government about climate change is unbelievable.

Jack

 

[jackbarron]

My dog is carbon neutral.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia are found in dog farts.

Jack

 

[vuk]

I support Chomsky's view that climate change is the biggest threat to life as we know it, but I also believe that interference by any foreign government, including Russia, in US elections is wrong and must be combated.

yet, in all this time, i have never heard you mention international political interference in the past, nor have i heard you or anyone else comment on the ongoing US attempt to overthrow the government in venezuela. it very hard to believe that you really care about the concept in a general sense. chomsky has cared about and documented it all his life, which puts him in a position of expert authority to comment on the trump matter and dismiss it as relatively trivial, even laughable.

 

[vuk]

I'm not missing the point. Firstly, as Cav says, you're not as smart (or as informed) as you think you are - your Mars comment laid that bare for all to see, but when I pointed it out, rather than exhibiting humility and acknowledging the error, you doubled down.

i really wish i'd said pluto, to make the aspect you keep coming back to even more annoying.

the idea was of a barren planet, not whether it was hot, cold, with or without atmosphere. yes, i didn't pick the best analogy available, but that wasn't the point and i fully admit i am not an expert on astro-climatology -- far from it -- and that you probably know a lot more than me. i do stand by my position, however, that none of us know with anything remotely close to certainty what will eventually happen (the "doubling down"), but that isn't important here either. it looks as it will all be over for us relatively soon, millions of years before we get to the planetary resting state.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

You OK if any of your loved ones get injured or killed within the extreme measures you encourage?

Yes.

You OK to see crimes against humanity go unchecked because you explained to them just how wrong their actions are and asked them nicely to stop.... and they told you to feck off... so you did?

I guess this all goes so much further than ecology etc and to the nature of right and wrong, crime and punishment, the human condition even.... Throughout history the man with the biggest stick has prevailed... unfortunately most on the left who want to make the world a better place refuse to fight force with force and are therefore doomed to lose 99 times out of 100. Might is not right!

Personally I think that all attempts to save the planet are doomed due to capitalism. We must become much poorer, there must be far fewer of us, we must cease using planes to go on holiday, universal car ownership must end etc etc.
For capitalism to work it needs to increase its profits every year... this is the biggest problem! They need increasing numbers of both workers and consumers and so won't reverse the over population. Meanwhile the increasing population uses an ever increasing proportion of the earths resources and generates ever more pollution in the process... As "they" will not cease the wealth generating activities which cause the pollution and dwindle the earths resources it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy that the earth will eventually be destroyed....

Does anyone think the likes of Ryanair, KLM, British Airways, Boeing, Air Bus, Ford, Toyota, BMW, ESSO, Shell, BP, Total, Amazon, Tesco etc etc etc are going to voluntarily give up operating the businesses which make them so rich and provide us with such lovely goods and services that we consider essential to a civilised life these days? Would the public allow it? Would the government?
No more foreign holidays... Want to go somewhere? wait for the electric tram to come along.. or for your villages' one electric bus to return and pick up more passengers... Whose going to vote for that? We're doomed I tell ye, DOOMED!

All no doubt part of the big experiment by The Mice

 

[vuk]

Personally I think that all attempts to save the planet are doomed due to capitalism. We must become much poorer, there must be far fewer of us, we must cease using planes to go on holiday, universal car ownership must end etc etc.

spot on.

 

[Joe P]

We are consigning future generations to a bleak world in which much biodiversity is lost and the Earth’s climate is far less habitable for billions of people mostly for our convenience and quite a bit of conspicuous consumption today.

Some individuals of these future generations are your loved ones. Are you OK with that?

Joe

 

[Seeker_UK]

Arkless, Vuk. Lead by example - you first.

 

[vuk]

Arkless, Vuk. Lead by example - you first.

well, aside from a couple of luxury shaving brushes and some expensive hi-fi, mainly purchased second-hand many years ago, i live a fairly frugal life. i use a bicycle for 95% of transportation and have never owned a car (i used to rent them occasionally). i use less than half the heat + electricity my neighbour (in exactly same house) does and have set up a basement office for summer use to eliminate the need for air-conditioning. i have also chosen not to have children (though mainly out of fear for their future) and am firmly opposed to religions that promote procreation.

 

[Seeker_UK]

I fear that is too luxurious an existence in the mind of Arkless...

 

[vuk]

I fear that is too luxurious an existence in the mind of Arkless...

hey, that's my existence right now, but i'm all for a social pact in which we agree to collectively take it way further.