Climate cowardice

[Jamiet99uk]

Rishi Sunak, the UK's Prime Minister, has announced a major watering-down of the Government's environmental policies.

I think this is a horrific decision showing weakness on one of the most pressing threats to humanity. The world is literally on fire and he doesn't care.

What do others think?

[Octavious]

Sunak is in a difficult position. Wildfires do indeed seem to a growing problem across the globe, but the local UK situation this year has been pretty average. A hot June, a miserable July and August, and another hot week in September. The news for much of the summer was an exaggerated story about how hot it was elsewhere whilst people shivered in the lounge watching the rain. This sort of situation is a gift for climate change skeptics, especially when you have idiot comments from the UN about "global boiling" which sound about as scientific as an evangelical faith healing convention.

Ultimately we live in a democracy and you need the consent of the people to make the big calls stick. We have had a taste of the political cost of not doing so played out in London with the ULEZ expansion. We have had a bigger taste watching the major protests in the Low Countries against farming changes, and the protests across France. We have watched in some horror at Irish plans to cull 100,000s of cattle and the harm that will do for the sake of moving emissions from Ireland to overseas.

Sunak's policy change will ultimately make no difference whatsoever from an environmental perspective . The Tories are almost certain to lose the next election and the previous policies will be restored. But what it does do is offer a mainstream political home to people who are not convinced that such severe action is necessary or desirable, and there are currently a lot of them. The UK is largely free from the influence of extremist parties, and this will help it stay that way.

In terms of the decision itself, I don't think it is particularly weak. There has indeed been weakness in the failure to make the environmental arguments over the last year or two (something Boris was actually quite good at before being forced out), and that weakness is shared amongst all our parties. I suspect they were hoping the weather would make the argument for them, and the cold, wet, miserable summer caught them off guard

[flash2015]

We have made great strides in the last few years in energy efficiency, alternative energies, electric cars, energy storage tech etc. And there are lots of good reasons other than climate change to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels from improving air quality in cities to not being dragged into wars to protect energy supplies (e.g. Iraq). It is also very important for Europe to reduce fossil fuel dependency as Europe has few fossil fuel supplies of its own. If would be great if Europe could get rid of its dependence on despotic regimes like Russia, Saudi Arabia etc.

However I believe we are being unrealistic with a lot of these hard cutoff dates. The tech and infrastructure just isn't there yet. The people that thought up these 2030 cutoff dates for gas boilers/new cars etc are smoking crack. I admire the stretch goal but this just won't happen.

And as for drilling in the north sea, I would far prefer Western democracies do the investment here than effectively subsidize fossil fuel investment in despotic countries with high fuel prices. These countries care far less about the environment than we do.

We can try and escalate and continue to ratchet up the hyperbole...but realistically we can't make the transition much faster without truly massive economic pain. Most people in the developed and developing world aren't willing to make those sorts of sacrifices.

[flash2015]

Perhaps I am getting a big jaded with all this. Last year Indian Point nuclear plant closed down and a company is in the process of cleaning up the site for it to be sold off.

One thing they need to do is get rid of the nuclear waste water and Democrat pollies in the area were up in arms about it. There was article after article about how if this water was released the Hudson river would be a toxic mess. There were activists claiming how it would be now "unsafe" to swim in the Hudson (forget about all the other crap which is thrown in there everyday).

I did some research about what the activists were complaining about. It was water with tritium at about 1 part per trillion. Given how slow it would be released (I believe it was over two years) it would very quickly have been diluted out to the background tritium concentration (which I believe is 1 atom in 1x10^18). Of course the Democrat governor caved to the activists and NIMBYs (this is a wealthy Democrat area too) and banned the release of the water. So much for "following the science".

If there really is a "climate emergency" and we have to get off fossil fuels ASAP, then nuclear will have to be part of the solution...but with these sort of standards nuclear pretty much becomes impossible.

[Octavious]

It's also worth pointing out the most of the "horrific decision making" effectively aligns the UK more closely with the EU. It's not every day a new policy to mirror Europe receives so much support from the more Brexit minded members of the public

[Octavious]

Some interesting polling on the subject. The Great British public, by an hefty majority, want the government to do more to achieve net zero. Also the Great British public, by a hefty majority, support Sunak's policy changes.

So one can safely conclude that what the people demand is a robust set of hard hitting and effective policies to combat climate change whilst at the same time not in any way adversely impacting their way of life.

This is why being a politician is a shit job

[Jamiet99uk]

We have made great strides in the last few years in energy efficiency, alternative energies, electric cars, energy storage tech etc. And there are lots of good reasons other than climate change to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels from improving air quality in cities to not being dragged into wars to protect energy supplies (e.g. Iraq). It is also very important for Europe to reduce fossil fuel dependency as Europe has few fossil fuel supplies of its own. If would be great if Europe could get rid of its dependence on despotic regimes like Russia, Saudi Arabia etc.

However I believe we are being unrealistic with a lot of these hard cutoff dates. The tech and infrastructure just isn't there yet. The people that thought up these 2030 cutoff dates for gas boilers/new cars etc are smoking crack. I admire the stretch goal but this just won't happen.

And as for drilling in the north sea, I would far prefer Western democracies do the investment here than effectively subsidize fossil fuel investment in despotic countries with high fuel prices. These countries care far less about the environment than we do.

We can try and escalate and continue to ratchet up the hyperbole...but realistically we can't make the transition much faster without truly massive economic pain. Most people in the developed and developing world aren't willing to make those sorts of sacrifices.

Then millions of people are going to die, and many millions more will suffer.

That's good isn't it.

[Octavious]

What's also not good are the millions of deaths and many millions more suffering that will result from massive economic pain.

What would be even worse are the populist authoritarian governments that would be elected in response to traditional parties imposing unpopular hardships on populations without first winning the argument. Or the traditional parties finding ways to subvert democracy for the greater good because they no longer believe the people can be trusted.

[Jamiet99uk]

Then what do you think should be done, O wise one?

How can we win the argument and why are none of the major parties trying to?

[Octavious]

The trouble with the Tories is that they fear upsetting too many of their core voters. Boris, to his credit, had no such fear (one of his few good features) but the Tories are now firmly back in the hands of establishment suits terrified of losing the election so badly they'll never recover.

The trouble with Labour is that they are confident they can win without actually doing anything, and have an unhealthy paranoia that if they do the wrong thing they have a chance of shooting themselves in the foot (again). So Kier is playing it safe. Very very safe. It will work in the sense that he'll be elected, of course, but it does neglect his duties as a leader.

The trouble with the Green Party is that they are scientific illiterates and the fight against climate change is more of a religion for them. This makes them rather bad at convincing moderates to change their minds about anything.

The trouble with the Lib Dems is that no one listens to them anymore, and their membership is still obsessed with Brexit over everything else. Ed, to his credit, is trying to change that... but as with most things the Lib Dems try it's not working all that effectively.

So essentially our political classes are failing to do their jobs properly, and that failure will continue for at least another year. And there's sod all we can do about it

[Jamiet99uk]

You are right about most of that, I think.

So here we are, in the meantime, and the greatest threat currently facing humanity is not being properly addressed.

It makes me very sad and very frightened.

[flash2015]

Then millions of people are going to die, and many millions more will suffer.

That's good isn't it.

You do realize that this is a cost-benefit discussion, don't you? That the costs to humanity can be even worse if we arbitrarily try and ban fossil fuels before the tech is available to replace them?

[Jamiet99uk]

Then millions of people are going to die, and many millions more will suffer.

That's good isn't it.

You do realize that this is a cost-benefit discussion, don't you? That the costs to humanity can be even worse if we arbitrarily try and ban fossil fuels before the tech is available to replace them?

Even worse how? This is an emergency.

[flash2015]

Then millions of people are going to die, and many millions more will suffer.

That's good isn't it.

You do realize that this is a cost-benefit discussion, don't you? That the costs to humanity can be even worse if we arbitrarily try and ban fossil fuels before the tech is available to replace them?

Even worse how? This is an emergency.

You don't think extreme poverty and starvation (especially in developing nations) caused by the removal of fossil fuels would be a big deal?

You don't solve an emergency by creating a different one.

[flash2015]

If I am reading this correctly the world is not even remotely going to hit the fanciful 45% drop in emissions that is claimed is required to limit to 1.5C. If anything CO2 emissions worldwide in 2030 may be still higher than 2010 levels.

"The latest update shows that for all available NDCs of all 193 Parties taken together, a sizable increase, of about 13.7%, in global GHG emissions in 2030 compared to 2010 is anticipated.

The IPCC has estimated that limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5C requires a reduction of CO2 emissions of 45% in 2030 or a 25% reduction by 2030 to limit warming to 2C. If emissions are not reduced by 2030, they will need to be substantially reduced thereafter to compensate for the slow start on the path to net zero emissions, but likely at a higher cost."

https://unfccc.int/news/cop26-update-to ... sis-report

[orathaic]

If this worst case is correct, we need to look at geo-engineering asap:
https://youtu.be/72uza9JpT-I?si=veiOL8j3adJb-O4Q

It suggests (but does not prove by any means, just outlines a possible scenario) a 3-4 degree increase in global average temperstures in 2-3 decades, regardless of what we do with CO2 emissions.

The lack of policital concnesus is rather unimpressive, but the problem of the green party (in the UK, though this would apply to the US to a greater degree) is that they are unelectable. However amazing their policies might be.

The alternative solution, which needs immediate research, is geo-engineering, and we are in the fortunate position of having a natural experiment which just demonstrated that we have already been doing it (but accidentally), https://youtu.be/dk8pwE3IByg?si=v2EhrU20pnYSj9w1

We should develop alternatives and break up fossil fuel monopolies. But we need to be in a position to tackle climate change much faster than that will happen.

[Jamiet99uk]

You do realize that this is a cost-benefit discussion, don't you? That the costs to humanity can be even worse if we arbitrarily try and ban fossil fuels before the tech is available to replace them?

Even worse how? This is an emergency.

You don't think extreme poverty and starvation (especially in developing nations) caused by the removal of fossil fuels would be a big deal?

You don't solve an emergency by creating a different one.

Failing to tackle the climate crisis will render large parts of the world uninhabitable and will cause extreme poverty, starvation, and death for more people than you seem willing to realise.

[orathaic]

Even worse how? This is an emergency.

You don't think extreme poverty and starvation (especially in developing nations) caused by the removal of fossil fuels would be a big deal?

You don't solve an emergency by creating a different one.

Failing to tackle the climate crisis will render large parts of the world uninhabitable and will cause extreme poverty, starvation, and death for more people than you seem willing to realise.

Worst case we will have an end to the current ice age (no more frozen water at the poles and permanent glaciers at high altitudes).

But northern Russia and Canada will become much more hospitable. Most cities are built near/on rivers, and this means are likely to be prone to sea level rise
So a massive migration of population - initially from poorer countries, and island nations which will dissappear - but eventually from all the current tropical climate zones.

Mass migrations are already begining, and if the current responce from western nations is anything to go by, i am not enthusiastic about our future.

[Jamiet99uk]

We are not currently in an "ice age".

[Octavious]

We are not currently in an "ice age".

Depends on how you define it. Ora's definition is not wrong, although it's not the definition favoured by the general public