Thunberg and Mnuchin

Coincidentally,

[repeat]

Ah, so only big business anti-climate change supporters are supposed to tap into the media publicity channels.
I hadn’t seen that part of the rules.

Coincidentally (x5)

I’m inclined to think “fake news”.

Why?

Because given the sorts of people and organisations involved, if any of that was even remotely provable, they would be all over it.

Don’t you think it would give somebody like Trump immense satisfaction to discredit her entire movement out of existence?

Yet…

Ah, so only big business anti-climate change supporters are supposed to tap into the media publicity channels.

Not withstanding about the status of the points raised by Raik then why should any one be surprised about who really influences and has a vested interest in either position.

Wether you are anti climate change or not there are lots of powerful people who stand to make large sums of money and just because you are viewed as the latest “right on” person or in vogue movement doesn’t mean you are any less likely to be in on it to make money.

I’m one who errs on the side of caution when I’m told something and on climate change then why not be prudent and look after what we have, after all unless your Elon Musk you are not likely to get off this planet to somewhere new any time soon, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shine the light of sceptasim at both sides and challange them equally after all isn’t that what science is all about challanging and validating theories even when they seem to be universally accepted.

but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shine the light of sceptasim at both sides and challange them equally

Exactly. When you have two opposing factions, the truth is somewhere in between. It’s probably not a climate emergency, but on the other hand, things are clearly not alright.

Not withstanding about the status of the points raised by Raik then why should any one be surprised about who really influences and has a vested interest in either position.

It was pretty much the point I was trying to make that both sides have vested interests. It’s just that it’s also rather churlish to expect that one faction will sit quietly in a corner.

BTW. To say that it was a coincidence that Greta sat there on the very day that Rentzhog happened to visit does rather ignore the other 360+ days she had apparently been doing it.
Perhaps after a year the media hacks finally decided it might be worth a punt on a few column inches or TV coverage.

Back in the 1980’s a local gravel extraction firm committed a violation of their landfill license and a local environmental campaigner “just happened” to be there with a camera to get pictures before the toxic material was covered.

Maybe he set it up, why was he carrying the camera anyway?¹ The gravel firm claimed he had no right to be there (on Forestry Commission land overlooking their pit, not on their path at all) and the harassment started² The campaigner won and picks other battles the gravel company have moved elsewhere with no more damage done to an ancient woodland.³

Exactly. When you have two opposing factions, the truth is often somewhere in between

You missed a word out, but I’m nice :) The thing is sometimes what one side is saying is a plain lie, but they have more money or better access to PR that will rubbish the opposition or simply have more practice lying. (e.g. Boris and co).

¹ Simple statement: It was me. The camera was for positional proof of wildflowers that “experts” for the opposition said were not there.
The only co-incidence was that they were stupid enough to use an “inert waste” landfill to dump out of date yoghurt and oil waste from Birmingham airport interceptors on consecutive days and I was wondering whether I could get a shot of the remaining visible yoghurt pots when the tanker pulled in. Three people lost their jobs and two different firms were heavily fined for the oily waste.

Simple statement: It was me.

Bloody brilliant. I owe you a beer.

Sorry for my English. Is not easy for me to tell you my thoughts.

“Fake News”, that’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for ;-)
My lines are mainly based on an article about Greta in an Swedish newspaper. My Swedish friends told me, Greta is not very popular there. Maybe he and his family is more knowing there. ;-)

A detailed answer would certainly be too extensive.
I also have question about most things and especially when “everyone” agrees. The main question is always “Cui bono?”
And yes, sometimes I also provoke, have a lot of sarcasm and no “English language feeling”. A good mix for misunderstandings.;-)

Please don’t get me wrong. I already believe that we have to pay more attention to our planet. But I think CO2 is not our problem, at least not directly. Not the coal plants, not the cars …
Why?
The CO2 content of the atmosphere is <0.04%. Approximately 96% are of natural origin. Right?
From a thermodynamic point of view, the planet is an “open system”. I once learned that (during my studies).
In the greenhouse, the CO2 content is increased up to 0.16% and a greenhouse is a “closed system”.
Have read a very plausible script about a calculation by a former professor (climatology) at the TU Berlin. After that, we would have to get all the fossil fuels on earth burn at once to achieve approx. + 2 degrees heating via CO2.
The average temperature in the “Medieval Warm Period” between the 9th and 12th centuries was about 2 degrees higher in Europe than today, even though there was no “Man-made” CO2 at that time.
In the 15th century, however, the so-called “Little Ice Age” followed, during which the river Thames was frozen over even in winter. The below average Temperatures shortly afterwards are the basis of today’s considerations.
The graphs of solar activity that I saw fit the warming much better than the CO2 increase. So the theory is that the climate of different activity cycles of the sun is more plausible for me.
Oil crisis? Miners’ strike? Big power cut?
You remember? You should ;-)
It was at this time that the theory of possible global warming from CO2 was first introduced.
Margaret Thatcher put them on security of supply through nuclear energy. So this new theory of global warming came through CO2 very convenient. He provided financial support to the Royal Society to prove this theory. The Royal Society took the money according to the old principle that an expert opinion always contains what the client wants to prove and provided the “scientific” evidence for the climate damage of CO2 and Thatcher had one important argument against oil and coal and for nuclear power (Slightly shortened, based on a historical article about the miners’ strike.).
“Whose bread I eat, whose song I sing” … We are already at the IPCC. They won’t get rid of themselves.
Did you read the full version of the last IPCC reports? Can be, maybe, is possible … blah, blah. But no evidence.
The “Summary for Decision Makers” sounds much more definite, but is contradictory and also free of evidence.
As far as I know, there is no result open research about the CO2 effect in the atmosphere at this time. The opinions are clear.
Scientists who disagree are excluded. But science is not about majorities.
I remember the “Climategate” (2009) or Michael E. Mann. “Creator” of the “hockey stick graph”. Always used as evidence. Unfortunately, faked and manipulated, as the Canadian Supreme Court found in 2019.
Take a look at the NASA Fire Map (press the fire map button)
… This is where our problems begin. That would make me more worried, but it’s not an issue. My car has to drive (partly) with “corn and potato alcohol” and people starve elsewhere. I am supposed to buy “organic food” that is packed 3 times in plastic and comes from the other side of the planet. We destroy forests and build parks with wind turbines here …
The world could be so easy if we didn’t spend, for a lot of nonsense, a lot more money.
Sorry…

Sorry…

No need to apologise, it’s perfectly reasonable.

You also touch on why some people think I’m a climate change denier, even though I’m not. What I deny is the implied degree of human involvement.
Or, to put it another way, if we all somehow suddenly stopped using CO2 generating things, would it make any reasonable impact on the climatic changes?

It’s a very important question as it is pretty foolish to think that car sharing, banning single use plastics, and buying carbon credits from minority polluters is going to make a difference. As far as it looks to me, it’s like the worst form of virtue signalling.
That doesn’t mean we should forget these things. Far from it, but these efforts need to be coupled with sensible plans for what to do regarding the effects of the changing environment. Some places will get hotter. Some colder. Some windier. Some underwater. Some will see three months of rain in as many hours. What do we do about that?

As for CO2, well the sun has been warming up the oceans (despite heading into a solar weak period), and warm oceans mean lots more water vapour. Which at a climatic scale behaves a lot like CO2, and is somewhat more abundant…

I’ve always had this underlying thought that whatever we try to do as a species to wreck the planet, the planet tries to fight back to subdue us. Plagues, viruses, meteors, earthquakes and volcanoes are doing their level best to reduce our numbers, but we are now getting too clever at fighting back against those things that are meant to kill us off. In the long run, nature will have its own way and defeat us – but how much damage will we have caused to nature by then?

how much damage will we have caused to nature by then?

None.

In the long term view, the planet (and the “nature” upon it) has so far survived five extinction level events, the last one being a bloody great lump of rock that changed an entire global ecosystem in a matter of hours.
These are forces that we can barely imagine, never mind wield.

So while we may mourn the loss of various species due to our rapacious nature, in the grand scale of things we are barely a blip. A mass of plastic bottles that some future intelligent species will dig out of the ground a few million years from now and try to imagine what we were like. What sort of bizarre mind would make a receptacle out of this bizarre bendy stuff? What do you suppose they put in it? How many limbs did they have? What the hell does “Coca-Cola” mean?

In the long term view, the planet (and the “nature” upon it) has so far survived five extinction level events, the last one being a bloody great lump of rock that changed an entire global ecosystem in a matter of hours. These are forces that we can barely imagine, never mind wield.

Well, timed correctly and from far enough I think we could manage to nugde such a little passing rock (the size of the Everest IIRC) in the right direction. ;-)

Reminds me of the end of season 4 of “The expanse” where as a prelude for season 5, Belters extremists put “sealthed” iron asteroids (Tunguska like) on collision course with the Earth.

Now regarding climate changes, an important long term factor is the Milankovic cycle. This cycle is derived from the changes in the position of Earth relative to the Sun: changes in the Earth’s excentricity (affected mainly by Jupiter and Saturn), precession (for now the southern hemisphere is inclined toward the sun when it is closes to the Sun but after a long time the reverse becomes true) and orbital tilt (the tilt is not constant but wobbles somewhat). These elements affect how much light we receive, which zones receives them (land, see and ice have different albedo, i.e. reflection indices with ice being the most reflective) and thus how much warm we absorb or reflect back to space. In the 80s this led to the conclusion that we were heading to a new ice age but precision of the models improved and we are in fact in a part of the cycle that show minimal variations.

Of course the reality is far more chaotic. From a documentary about mass extinctions I remember a few notable events:
- when photosynthesis appeared it caused carbon to be massively replaced by oxygen in the air broking gaz house effect and causing a massive glaciation which became irreversible once it got down to the 30th parallel and turned Earth in a block of ice. Then over millions of years important volcanic activity reintroduced some gaz house effect and allowed the climate to recover.
- tectonic activity modify the Milankovic cycle on very long periods of time as continents drift and change the albedo of the various parts of the Earth. They also modify the circulation of air and water around the world (like when the two american continents joined together), …
- in another period change a large basaltic permanent volcanic activity over a few 1000 kilometers square and for thousand of years somewhere in Siberia caused first a drop in temperature by obscuring the sky then due to the reduction of photosynthesis and ejection of carbon, gas house effect increased raising temperature by 5C. At some point oceans where warm enough to melt the methane ice depots located at the bottom of deep parts of the oceans. And since methane is 20x times as effective as CO2 for gaz house effect, the temperature raised by another 5C desertifying Earth.

Regarding the current climate change: global temperature raised as much in a few decades as in the hundreds/thousands of years it usually takes for other natural causes and that without any unusual events to account for it. I think it is thus normal to blame the release of gaz house affects by humans as a probable cause even if possibly it doesn’t account for all of it.

Were I agree with the scientists is that we must find ways to limit the temperature changes or we risk triggering some snowballing effects like in the last historic example. Our means of action for now are to keep oxygen levels as high as possible (stopping deforestation), reducing production of gaz house effects (i.e. changing from energy sources, reducing consumption).

For the later I completely desagree with the green lunatics and the closing of nuclear power plants (Germany, Belgium, …). In Belgium last year when we were for a few months down to a single power plant we had to massively import energy, plans were even made for which grids could be safely shutdown if required (i.e. locations without hospitals, major economic activities, …). There are new safer generation of power plans (not fusion, that’s 50 years that we will fusion plants within the next 20 years) and even Thorium as an alternative to Uranium for less radioactive waste!

I am supposed to buy “organic food” that is packed 3 times in plastic and comes from the other side of the planet.

A work colleague was talking about working at KFC some years ago, a relative of his saying it’s still the same, and how all the chicken is sourced in the Philippines.
No shortage of food miles on that!
Strangely I can’t recall any news items about a shortage of chicken in the UK or Europe.

For the later I completely desagree with the green lunatics

I just disagree with lunatics and everyone else in my head feels the same way.

I just disagree with lunatics and everyone else in my head feels the same way.

Snap! However, despite everyone else in my head feeling the same way, four of them are of the opinion that two of the others are lunatics, while those two are of the opinion that one of the first four is. Such is life.

You’ve been reading my story, “Voices,” haven’t you! ( http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Fiction/Voices.html )

Thorium as an alternative to Uranium for less radioactive waste!

Less actinides – which is of interest to our distant descendants, a couple of thousand years hence, when all the fission products have decayed to insignificance – but the fission products from thorium are just as bad as those from uranium, and dominate the radioactivity of the waste for at least several hundred years (see http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Energy/Thorium.html )

For the record, I also disagree with shutting down existing nuclear power stations without first building the renewable replacements – but it’s cheaper and quicker to build more renewables and storage to cover windless, sunless periods than to build new nuclear, and eventually we will be able to shut down the remaining nuclear plant. Worth remembering that nuclear only provides about 5% of the energy humankind uses (about 17% of the electrical energy).

You’ve been reading my story, “Voices,” haven’t you!

Actually. no.
Let’s just say I’ve always been “happy in my own company”

Let’s just say I’ve always been “happy in my own company”

How strange. I’m the same, and there’s nobody in my head.

I’ve always been “happy in my own company”

Lucky man! I quite often have blazing rows amongst myselves… 8~)

there’s nobody in my head

Whereas I have a menagerie of nobodies in mine.

I quite often have blazing rows amongst myselves…

I only argue with people who are wrong.
I’m from Yorkshire therefore no argument is likely :)

I’m from Yorkshire therefore no argument is likely

I usually think of myself as being from Yorkshire, but I was actually born in Paddington, and didn’t move to Yorkshire until I was two years old. Also moved to Hertfordshire when I was 11, back to Yorkshire at 21 until 33. Other times, all over the place – from Central India to Stornoway and many places between. I think some of myselves come from places I’ve lived – I was only in Carrickfergus (NI) for a few months, but he’s loud.

Hmm, born in Scotland. Moved to south of England. Then to America (east coast). Then to the south of England. A short stay in the south of Spain, then northwest France for the longest time (nearly 18 years now!).

I can say that I identify as “mostly British” (strange not-quite-Hampshire with hints of MidAt accent, sarcastic self deprecating humour, predilection for tea) but in truth I don’t feel as if I came from anywhere nor that I ever really belonged anywhere.

nor that I ever really belonged anywhere

Snap. For a few years I felt I belonged in a remote Indian village, but my parents-in-law whose farm it was are both dead these last seven years, and the rural India I knew is no more, changed beyond recognition in other ways. We were in Ely, Cambridgeshire for 26 years – still have a house there for the moment – but have never really felt at home there.

(We should probably move this to Aldershot. Oh. This IS Aldershot…)

I don’t feel as if I came from anywhere nor that I ever really belonged anywhere.

The first is a fact and you’ve stated that one.
The second is a feeling. If you visit a few places of yesteryear and current you’ll know where you want to stop.

Oh. This IS Aldershot

Yup, some kind of record. Perhaps we should move things elsewhere for a while :)