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Seeing all the private jets and gas guzzling cars arriving in Glasgow, why should anyone take this ludicrous theatre seriously?
I have absolutely no interest in it, what a load of rubbish. The first 25 clearly achieved bugger all so my money is on number 26 going the same way.
I don’t wish to be lectured on climate change by a government who, for example, has recently announced a cut in duty on domestic flights or a Royal Family who have clocked up God knows how many millions of air miles. Yet suddenly we are suddenly supposed to believe that Johnson and the Queen give a stuff about the environment. Other hypocritical world leaders and heads of state are no doubt available.
Does make me laugh when they criticise China too. The West has been outsourcing emissions to them for decades to feed its appetite for endless cheap crap and more recently a new smartphone every year. You can’t then turn around and tell them to clean up their act, although they’ll no doubt quite rightly laugh in your face anyway.
Yes, this is an important issue but lead by example or you’re going to struggle to get people to listen.
I’ve got some sympathy with you on domestic flights Richard. Having never taken a flight in my life it wouldn’t affect me. However, the aviation industry has had it bad through the pandemic and apparently needs at least a small package to preserve jobs. So in that case better domestic flights which contribute just a small fraction towards climate change… Whilst also putting up the taxes of long haul flights which really do contribute a lot to climate change. So can see why they’ve done it; overall could be argued the aviation changes are good for climate change. However, domestic flight costs are already low compared to rail and road, so whether it should be reduced is imo questionable.
The Royal Family clocking up air miles is – on the whole – for our benefit… And unfortunately in the modern world (terrorism etc) for Royals and leaders of governments sharing flights with Joe Public would arguably put both them and us in greater danger. That said, when many leaders were in Italy for G20 you’d have thought they could share flights to Scotland between them.
China is by far the main contributor, if they do not act then it does not matter much what we do. UK / any country does’t want to become uncompetitive. However, would it be possible for the less polluting countries to get together in a Worldwide industrial group. With either less tax between those countries or taxing those not of that group more?…
That said, I can see both sides to the argument – on the one side no country wants to become less competitive if they do act – on the other why should other countries not use their infinite coal supplies to get rich just like we have done in the past?
My own personal belief is that Climate Change is true, but whether it is mainly man made is not a fact, only a probability. However, we should certainly try to act on that probability.
There is a possibility climate change will reverse, as it has over centuries / millennia and aeons. Just don’t tell the BBC.
Value Is Everything
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Jim Davidson – Legend
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My own personal belief is that Climate Change is true, but whether it is mainly man made is not a fact, only a probability. However, we should certainly try to act on that probability.
How are you pricing that one up Gingertipster , Man made 1/200 ?
My carbon footprint is that low that when I step indoors
I go immediately to the bathroom mirror to check
I’ve arrived.How are you pricing that one up Gingertipster , Man made 1/200 ?
Where is the winning post, Salut?
If world temperatures cool scientists and world leaders will claim it was because of what they did at COP26.
They might be right.
However, at the same time…
People who do not believe climate change to be mainly man made will also claim a cooling of temperatures to be a natural phenomenon similar (though not the same) as what’s happened throughout the last 13.8 million years.
They might be right.If world temperatures continue to go in an upwards direction scientists will claim world leaders haven’t done enough at COP26.
They might be right.
However, at the same time…
People who do not believe climate change to be mainly man made will also claim it’s just a natural phenomenon and temperatures will start to cool at some time in the future.
They might be right.So who gets the winnings and when?
A winner can never be proclaimed and therefore odds can not be given.
Value Is Everythingtbh I think COP26 has (it seems so far) achieved all it can achieve in the circumstances and may be better once negotiators finish. However they’ll also need to fulfil the promises, something other COPs have not done. Hopefully the talk is not blah, blah, blah.
Then again, Chief of Blah blah blah Greta is outside the conference shouting “BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH BLAH, BLAH BLAH BLAH”!
Value Is EverythingSome of those viewpoints are very much in the minority Gingertipster so can be rubbed off the board. You rather discounted UK efforts if China puts its nose up – not exactly as any effort may be futile to saving the planet, but what it may well do is buy a little bit of extra time. I knew someone who spent 1.2 million on private medical intervention in U.S.to
buy himself an extra 10 months of life, which he considered well worth it.
David Milliband just said that a 100 billion is peanuts – quite right but on the other hand it does buy an awful lot of them. They talk of 100 trillion raised importantly with the additional help of private finance. That is some sum.
When David Milliband was a boy he wanted to be a bus conductor and they earn peanuts compared to Brains behind the controls of International Rescue – so he knows !You say “some of those viewpoints”, which ones gamble?
I’d have thought the vast majority of people’s – even your good self – have some views which are “very much in the minority”… And just because someone is in the minority does not make him/her wrong. So why should my views be “rubbed off the board”?
You say I “rather discounted UK efforts if China puts its nose up – not exactly as any effort may be futile to saving the planet, but what it may well do is buy a little bit of extra time.”
China is responsible for around 28% of CO2 emissions, the UK is responsible for 1%.
What I said was “China is by far the main contributor, if they do not act then it does not matter much what we do”. Does not matter much does not mean it does not matter at all. So I think we agree. Yes, if we get rid of our (the UK’s) 1% it may “buy a little bit of extra time” but no more than that… Unless we can persuade the vast majority of the other 71% to come with us. My general point was not to belittle the UK’s efforts, more that without China things are going to be a whole lot harder; especially as it’ll probably put all countries signing up at a competitive disadvantage.
Value Is EverythingWhy should we listen to any of these hypocrites? They would not be there if they believed in any of this stuff.
David Attenborough has spent most of his life flying around the world and must have one of the largest carbon footprints of any human being. And he is telling us to change our behaviour when he is just a few years from the grave.
Prince Charles has flown 16,000 miles in the last two weeks with the carbon emissions of 18 average people.
Biden driving around in an 85 car motorcade and in a car with 10 times the carbon emissions of a normal car. And Air Force 1 is a lot less green than a civilian airliner. I have seen it flying overhead and it makes a racket.
All this lot would be well advised to heed the wise words of William Blake: “He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars: general good is the plea of the scoundrel and hypocrite.”
And that is what this lot are. Why can’t Johnson travel back to London by train. If you are going to lecture people, you have to practice what you preach.
China is responsible for around 28% of CO2 emissions, the UK is responsible for 1%.
China is responsible for about 18% of the world’s population, the UK about 0.85%.
Secondly if I buy a TV that’s made in China, who is responsible for the emissions? China, where it was made, or the UK, where it was purchased? If I didn’t buy it, they would never have made it (yes it’s not quite that simple but on a grand scale that’s basically how it works). As I said before, the West can’t blame everything on China when it is essentially responsible for a lot of the pollution China pumps out by demanding an endless conveyer belt of cheap stuff.
I’m sure there are things China could do to help but the gulf isn’t as large as it appears.
Do agree with your point before about it being hard for a single country to ‘go first’ due the disadvantages that would cause them. You’d need some kind of global consensus as you say and as politicians everywhere care only about getting re-elected rather than long term things like climate so that won’t happen. Causing short term pain for long term gain is not a vote winner. They can pledge to do stuff by 2050 or 2070 or whenever with no plan or idea how because they’ll be dead by then.
Edit: Absolutely agree with everything Cork just posted. Apparently Johnson had to fly back due to constraints on his time. Fair enough, that may be true but guess what? I, and millions of others, take the carbon-heavy option due to constraints on our time too.
Do be careful criticising Saint David Attenborough though, you’ll be arrested for treason! I agree btw, almost as bad as the politicians lecturing us from this and the equally ridiculous Davos events every year. He’s had his fun, now it’s time to pull up the drawbridge and stop others.
Good grief, now I see that Jeff ‘Rocketman’ Bezos has turned up there. Surely people aren’t taking this circus seriously.
“Do be careful criticising Saint David Attenborough though, you’ll be arrested for treason!”
Yes, he has been turned into some kind of secular saint. I do not enjoy criticising him. I still think “Life On Earth” is one of the greatest television programmes ever made and recognise the huge contribution he made as Controller of BBC2, commissioning programmes like “Civilisation” and “The Ascent Of Man.”
However, in recent years he has outed himself as a Malthusian and a hypocrite. And there are far too many people telling him he is wonderful, which I believe has gone to his head a bit.
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