I’m with you all the way on that one and also your comments about Saint Greta of Thunberg.
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I’d presume the lack of coverage in terms of models available on the market, and more importantly, charging infrastructure, would be a big problem…
The UK have already done this. Can’t speak for the US and EU though
Ah, apparently the EU are not as ambitious as the Conservative UK government here…
And the US appears to only be hypothesising a ban from 2035
[quote=“Arminius, post:685, topic:267”] The logic of flying people over an ocean or two to hold signs and chant just escapes me.
[/quote]
The logic of attending the talks to demonstrate (I think you are overstating both the numbers and the impact of activists flying to attend) is to create a visual symbol that there is a sizeable number of people in the world who care about this issue.
I absolutely do not share your optimism that world leaders are aware or care about the gravity of the situation. Everything that has, or rather hasn’t, happened over the last two decades suggests otherwise. For all Boris Johnson tough rhetoric, our domestic policies are still sickeningly hypocritical - allowing new domestic coal production and oil field for example. That’s more hypocritical that taking a flight.
The only way an agreement that puts us on track to actually survive the century, happens is if politicians feel the pressure to make it happen.
It’s a tough one though. The UK still needs steel and if it can produce this domestically that’s better as a carbon footprint than either importing steel or exclusively importing our coal needs from places like Australia.
I don’t mind opening a Cumbrian mine if it reduces the UK’s overall carbon footprint when you include imports, shipping, and international aviation.
Providing it’s used to replace coal we would otherwise be importing, is directed just to the UK’s needs, and employs carbon capture and other clean energy technology.
If it does that, I’m on board. An added bonus that it would also create UK jobs.
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The US and to a lesser extent the EU switching to electric cars would only be of limited use as long as such a large part of their electrical generation is fossil fuels.
Not only that; electric cars still use up vast amounts of resources in their manufacture, shipping, maintenance and disposal.
And let’s not get started on tyre micro plastics…
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People who are more annoying than Greta Thunberg:
Putin
Trump
Xi Jinping
Modi
Bolsonaro
Johnson
Morrison
Macron
Orban
Lukashenko
Duterte
Trudeau
Khamenei
Assad
Erdogan
Netanyahu
Bennett
Kim Jong-un
The Taliban
The Saudi Royal family
US Republican party Congressional caucus
Musk
Bezos
Zuckerberg etc etc
(off the top of my head, in no particular order)
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It’s taking a further 8 odd years for this to come into effect in the UK, a 1st world country, and with no commitment from the US, Canada or more broadly in Europe. Even with the ban in the UK of selling new petrol and diesel cars, cars, trucks and machinery that operate on petrol and diesel will carry on being used in the UK for decades beyond. The arguments that there is not the infrastructure or variety of models in place to not implement it sooner is valid though not an unexpected issue - that the move to electric vehicles was coming has been known(ignored?) for decades that infrastructure would be need, also.
With that in mind can we point fingers to India, China, Indonesia or Brazil, where a similar lack of foresight and commitment is being shown? Arguably shifting away from petrol/diesel cars (particularly in a country that has lost that industry) is easier than the commitment to building and running power stations to support a people in countries that are still mostly living in abject poverty. Big ticket items need decades in the planning and then in the building. I agree that they should move faster but I am struggling to see how they can w/o a hugely negative knock-on impact on development, regional integrity and/or stability. I think that if a country like India or Brazil were to fragment, the environmental and personnel cost would be catastrophic.
I am not overstating them, on the average. I don’t have the breakdown figures for Glasgow, but I have seen them in the past and COP26 issued 30,000 credentials of various types, and it is smaller than most recent ones. Paris was nearly 50,000.
I don’t know about world leaders, but the delegates are not world leaders. They are generally bureaucrats with a policy background in energy/environment issues. Hell, even some of the Saudi delegates get it. As a matter of routine (see Guardian piece), the environment kiddies get themselves turfed midway through the 2nd week, before the actual world leaders swoop in to take credit for all the progress.
The simple fact of the matter is that it is a version of the tragedy of the commons problem. The equilibrium is robust even if we know the disastrous payoff. Activists screaming that the (2,2) box of the 2x2 matrix is really bad doesn’t actually contribute anything. I agree with your point about pressure being required, but by the time the delegations have been sent to COP with their negotiation instructions, it is all far, far too late. Those activists from Kahnawake would be far more useful (and at a fraction of the carbon cost) demonstrating in Ottawa.
I couldn’t find that, but I did find a picture of some gammon
We’ve got to stop burning fossil fuels full stop. It doesn’t matter whether it’s domestically produced or imported. That’s an absolute red line.
All a new mine does now is lock in production for another forty years.
This ‘…but we need to…’ attitude is one of the most annoying parts of the climate problem. It’s incredible how many intelligent people haven’t quite grasped that it’s trying to negotiate with a lump of rock floating in space. The Earth simply does not care what we think we need.
Instead of starting with what we think we need, the proper way to have this conversation is to work what limits we are operating within, and go from there. It’s simple budgeting. You don’t go to the supermarket and buy what you think you need, without first working out how much money you have to spend.
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Coal use in steel production is about 5% of global emissions, but only a tiny fraction of that is the need for carbon content in steel. We simply need to move processes like that away from carbon-intensive versions toward lower-emitting versions - which is entirely possible with steel.
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Let’s kick an autistic climate campaigner because she’s ‘annoying’.
Meanwhile let’s also trust this man to save the world.
Boris! What a legend! Turns up to the last chance to save the planet, gets pissed and falls asleep. Also refuses to wear a mask despite being sat next to a 95 year old national treasure.
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and it is only Day 2…still in the initial euphoria stage
let’s hope next year’s last chance goes better. Just adjust the objectives, say +3 C
It’s possible, I agree - but it’s not yet viable. I think using hydrogen fuelled furnaces is a developing technology already in use in the UK but can only currently provide for a small fraction of the energy needed to service our steel production requirements.
I actually don’t disagree with you about the need for it. I was originally going to include a little anecdote in my post, but decided against it.
I don’t personally own a car, and prefer to rent one for the rare occasion where I need/want it. I recently took a trip through some rather nicely hilly terrain (and missed the destruction of Old Trafford), which got me thinking that an electric car would have been perfect instead of that diesel car that I rented. I ended up having to accelerate uphill and then brake downhill a lot, which was a complete waste of energy that an electric vehicle could have used to recharge the battery.
I do think 2025 is too soon, although I’m fairly confident on 2030 being met, infrastructure at least. I look forward to the day where instead of getting a Volkswagen Golf at the rental agency, I get something like the ID.3 instead.
Am I kicking her by voicing my opinion that I find her annoying? That would be an odd take, don’t you think? Not sure the relevance of referencing her autism. Autistic people can be annoying too, you know - they’d probably be slightly offended for anyone taking offence on their behalf with the suggestion that this was not the case.
Slightly absurd suggestion that when saying that I find an individual annoying I ought to immediately make it clear where they may rank on my full list of people I find annoying just so that people can determine the degree to which I find someone annoying and whether it accords with their own rightful scale of annoyingness.
All rather annoying.
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It would help if you’d say what you find annoying about her, then we can judge whether your annoyance is rooted in a discomfort with her condition or not.
Her central message is perfect sound. Her generation is being failed by the generation with their hands on the levers of power. Her generation will inherit a planet that has been shattered because our generation has ignored this glaring problem.
She is perfectly entitled to be angry about that.
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I don’t find her condition discomforting at all, perhaps you’re projecting?