AS COP 27 OPENS

Posted byiainlawson27Posted inUncategorizedTags:, ,

A guest post from Fiona Sinclair

The COP 27 climate conference begins today in Sharm-El Sheikh in Egypt. Those countries deemed most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, because they are some of the poorest, are seeking `loss and damage` compensation from the rich countries of the world, who have been responsible for creating much of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to date.

When Gabon’s Environment Minister says that real action will only happen on climate change, once more people in the west start to die, it is clear that the hoped for sense of solidarity is disappearing fast . The `Third World`, or developing countries, are pushing harder for `loss and damage` payments from the developed countries. The promised funds from `the west` to enable a switch from fossil fuelled economic development to renewable energies powering economic growth have not materialised, so attitudes are hardening. What funds have been promised are very often based on loans, not grants – in spite of the already huge burden of debt that developing countries are struggling to pay.

It would be safe to say that attribution of blame and the consequent division of costs between countries is going to be fraught with difficulty. Whilst historical responsibility for the creation of greenhouse gases might reasonably be borne by countries such as the UK, the reason for the deceleration of Europe’s emissions since 1990 may very well be due in part to the outsourcing of its emissions to China, as this covers the period of China’s emergence as the workshop of the world – a title previously held by the United Kingdom. The USA is certainly responsible for a large proportion of both historical and ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases. Its postmodern aversion to taxing its corporations has resulted in handing them the power over democracy itself – and not just within the US. That power has been used by Big Oil to fund the denial of the very existence of climate change and thus to delay recognition of the central role that its own products play in its creation. 

China has expressed its displeasure at western countries who have, only on paper, committed to climate change targets. Targets, so beloved of neoliberal managerial culture, are useless when the plans that supposedly support these are inadequate or simply wrong-headed.

UNEP’s Emissions Gap report of this year reveals that policies currently in place will lead to a 2.8 degrees centigrade rise by the end of the century. If more recent pledges are taken into account, this only drops to an increase of 2.4 to 2.6 degrees. The report finds that only transformational change will create the systemic change needed to cut emissions by the 45% needed by 2030 to keep global heating to the 1.5 degree internationally agreed limit. The `heat dome` over Europe this summer has certainly shocked even climate scientists, who did not expect England to reach 40 degrees within their own lifetimes. Europe is heating up twice as fast as all other regions on the planet, except the polar regions, so the perception that its countries will escape the worst impacts of climate change are false. Major rivers have dried up, making them unusable for transportation. France was forced to break its own extraction rules for river water, because this was needed to keep nuclear power stations going. Hydro power has come under threat, with low rainfall and shrinking glaciers. Crops have dried up and died in the extreme heat, even in Scotland. All of this has happened at less than 1.5 degrees of warming. The `tipping points` that will exponentially increase climate change’s effects are now looking much nearer at hand. These were previously believed to come into play at around 4 degrees of warming – but some have already begun. 

Politicians tend to listen to the loudest voices, which are often the best funded, whether that be in science, or the social sciences. They share a liking for easy, pat `solutions` – or, at least ones that they can drive through governments consisting of deeply conformist people.

The big polluters have already laid the ground for the continuance of their business model. They are not even shy about broadcasting their plans to use carbon capture technology to enable them to continue to burn fossil fuels on a permanentbasis. Creative accounting, such as the use of carbon offsets, will be used to support these and other schemes.

You have to have departed from a belief in physical reality, or you are simply a charlatan, if you maintain that exploitation of hydrocarbons for energy is nothing to do with climate change. You can’t put pressure on other states or political parties, if you yourself have committed to such a policy, because in doing so, you have eradicated any political credibility you might have possessed.

As an environmental campaigner, it always pays to read the business pages of newspapers and the financial press. One of the most telling quotes I have ever read came from an interview with a chief executive of a large waste disposal company who, when questioned about the reputational risk from taking over a controversial company, also in the waste industry, replied “There hasn’t been a situation where liability has been established.” That tells you everything you need to know about the sociopathic, even psychopathic, character of many business leaders. 

It is quite routine for businesses that do not want to meet their responsibilities to go bust. That’s what happened to the asbestos companies. Coal companies who had signed up to restoration bonds with East Ayrshire Council went bust – and the bonds were not worth the paper they were written on. The residents of East Ayrshire and the people of Scotland picked up the tab for that one – and not a single council executive was disciplined or sacked. US companies have devised another way to avoid their liabilities, by splitting their companies, and leaving their liabilities with the part that goes bust. It’s even got a name – its called the Texas Two-Step. So, if a company is given the highest fine in US corporate history because of the toxicity of one of its products, it can now use this useful measure to dump its responsibilities down a black hole of business regulation.

It would not just be a triumph of hope over experience to expect the big polluters – who are responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions – to meet financial and environmental standards and safeguards in carbon capture and storage. It would be utterly insane. The versions of this technology have been used for 50 years, mainly to extract more oil from the ground. Their success in storing carbon is quite pathetic, but very expensive. So expensive, in fact, that the ever-generous taxpayer will be forced to subsidise this technology while it is being developed – as well as pay `loss and damage` to developing countries, pay for climate mitigation measures and the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies around the world …. Apart from extracting carbon at source from large, static sources of carbon dioxide, such as refineries, power stations and incinerators, the only other technologies are limited to extracting from the air itself, which is even more costly in terms of finance and energy. It is also woefully inefficient.

Those most responsible for the environmental apocalypse of climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity can continue with business as usual, whether they are corporate bodies or a member of the 1% whose contribution to climate change is many orders of magnitude larger than the poor, even at a UK level.

Big Oil is in Big Debt and will have major stranded assets, unless it can persuade our political masters to give it a lifeline – like carbon capture and storage.

Redirecting the 570 billion dollars of annual planned new oil and gas investments could fully finance wind and solar expansion in line with the 1.5 degree target – according to a recent report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Their report also found that the development of new oil and gas projects is incompatible with the 1.5 degree limit. The UN’s anti-greenwash taskforce will publish its recommendations for credible net zero standards on November 8th. This should go some way to mapping out a coherent financial and environmental regulatory landscape.

The financial liabilities are hardly the full extent of the burden that we are forced to take on. Pollution costs us our health. Polluters never pay – the lobbyists and the lobbied always see to that. There are a myriad of consequential benefits to our environment and ourselves, if we make the transformative change away from dependence on fossil fuels. The current profiteering by the oil giants should have confirmed that such dependence is not healthy for our economy, either. 

Governments must not capitulate to right-wing ‘realism’. Corruption and greed have always had too high a price – but the planet that is our life support system cannot be sacrificed on the altar of some pathetic notion of compromise.

FURTHER READING:-

Explainer: How can climate finance be increased from ‘billions to trillions’?
In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop27

https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022

77 thoughts on “AS COP 27 OPENS”

  1. There is no answer to the climate change problem, other than to accept the fact that this planet is not big enough to cope with the population it now has, and to figure out a way of controlling the numbers.
    Anything else is tinkering.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. They might have already started tackling overpopulation. First we had Covid, and now in Britain at least we have the prospect of people dying this winter from starvation and cold. The further north people live, the colder it’s likely to be obviously.

      The government seems not to care very much, if at all.

      Liked by 8 people

      1. You have got me thinking about Covid. A sinister thought that the New World Order introduced it. Perhaps they have decided that another world war wouldn’t be amiss. These wern’t the solutions I had in mind!

        Liked by 2 people

    2. I disagree with not being able to cope with population. It’s the fact that the abuse by certain people have been allowed to continue. The general population are not waging wars, polluting everything and have no consequences. Let’s look back at the hunting of precious animals and using chemicals. Deforestation and culling off indigenous people so that they could not have a voice or less of one.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. There was an article in The Scotsman in regards to hemp about carbon and environmental benefits. It’s easy to go online and conduct studies that often don’t make it into the mainstream. You can make bottles from hemp and all sorts of things until it wasn’t allowed anymair until now.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I agree that the world population is probably manageable if they would stop waging war, and began working on reducing pollution. If the world’s leaders would at least show some trust in each other then many things could be done to help the planet and us.

        But look at how things are in the world today. I don’t see them working together any time soon. It’s much easier to concentrate on reducing the population. As Boris Johnson said “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands “.

        I’m afraid that I’m very cynical when it comes to politicians.

        Liked by 7 people

    3. This is a canard you find on social media, as if the writer was offering some piece of wisdom. Population growth has nothing to do with the refusal and foot dragging of governments, particularly in the West to take remedial action against climate change and transition to a carbon-free economy. We have known we need to do this since the 1980’s, and it is, or was, perfectly possible. It would also have a massive booster effect on economic growth and employment.
      Diverting the argument to population merely reinforces the passive, pessimistic view that we can’t do anything, when clearly we can, and is a poor substitute for thinking, masquerading as some kind of moral high ground.

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      1. The fact that nothing has been done for 40 years reinforces my view that governments are unable or unwilling to tackle the issue in the way you think it should be done. So many people, in large cities, don’t live. They exist, in cruel conditions, just like battery hens, to do what is required of them to make money for their controllers. No quality of life.

        The change in living conditions for humans has changed dramatically in the last 300 years. The population is heading inexorably towards a position which will mean the destruction of the planet. If you care about the future for those to come, and who should have a decent quality of life, it’s time to face reality.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. If the entire world stopped breeding tomorrow and the population declined, it would not make an iota of difference to warming that is taking place or our methods of energy production. Rail about population as much as you like, but diverting from the topic of climate change to satisfy your craving for one man upmanship is not relevant to the issue that faces us.

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      3. Population and climate are inextricably linked. To say otherwise is a denial of reality.

        If the growth in population and the way it has impacted on climate is not the cause of the problems which now exist, (and are getting progressively worse), how do you say this situation has arisen?

        Liked by 2 people

  2. A timely reminder.

    The West, as usual, will give every assistance short of actual help.
    Can you imagine the Daily Mail outrage if millions never mind Billions were promised to the Countries who badly need help.
    Sea level rise, extreme weather events, draught, etc are beyond the remaking months to the next GE.

    The sympathy will flow but the cheque book will remain in the drawer.

    I would love to be proved wrong but we have a £200 Billion Trident replacement to fund and a couple of Trillion in debt to pay interest on before the polling recovers enough to get a bounce for the GE.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. Nukes as we know are illegal under international law and except for the countries that have signed up everyone else just seems to ignore it. So am not buying into the too many people on the planet. The structures and systems that have caused so much damage are the real reason. Plus how can you stop the rain from falling down, you can’t you just need to embrace it and do things that you know are not going to break your heart in the first place as the lyrics of the song goes by Al Green about mending his broken heart. If we liken the world to mother earth as a representation of women, well across the world no so many have been treated good perhaps this reflects into the environment as well.

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  3. Thank you Fiona for that very good article, I read somewhere that the world leaders don’t actually take this COP (COP27) seriously, that it’s every fifth COP that’s important, COP26 in Glasgow being that last important one.

    To many of us they are all important, however world leaders and captains of industry who are meant to guide the rest of us on what we should and shouldn’t be doing, have for years now put, not the planets interests at heart, but the making of a profit at heart, and look where that has gotten us.

    It’s almost certain now that we won’t stay under the 1.5-degree rise or even a 2-degree temperature rise in the next fifty to one-hundred years because of human greed and self-interest, and with the ongoing conflict in the East and the cost-of-living crisis now in full flow, many people will just find struggling with price rises enough to fill their plates, without worrying about global warming as well.

    As you rightly say, it’s those poorer countries that are already at their limits on the temperature scale, that will be tipped over the edge, and lead to human catastrophes, not to mention bringing about the extinction of those animals that cannot avoid or move away from the affect zones, and then there’s the widespread sea rises and with that comes the inevitable flooding that will affect the Northern hemisphere, and many islands already near the tipping point.

    I’m afraid we’ as a species haven’t done enough to stem the coming tide, our inactions, will see the extinction of many more species that we share this planet with, and the deaths of millions of people who have the misfortune to live in countries that will be the worst affected.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. Thank you for your comment, RoS.
      With so many people wanting an independent Scotland, it is rather strange that there is such defeatism or resignation to the fate of our world as a whole. I intend to write another piece shortly, which will look at some of the solutions to the 3 interlinked global threats of climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

      In the meantime, I’d ask people to re-read my article! We do need a transformation of how our world is run – but this is possible. Take a look at these videos, for a bit of inspiration.
      Loess Plateau – China
      This is by the World Bank – who funded the restoration of the plateau.

      – first couple of minutes for the before and after of the Loess Plateau – first 5 minutes is even better
      This is another short video:-

      Liked by 1 person

  4. A thoughtful article Fiona that covers some of the issues giving rise to planetary warming.

    Sadly, recognising reality there is no way that planet earth’s people are going to rein in emissions and reverse planetary warming, at least in the medium term and until something truly massive happens.

    Firstly. there are too many people consuming too many resources. And that is not going to change any time soon. The world’s population continues to increase whilst more and more countries start to develop from low resource level consumption to resource consumption concomitant with developed countries.

    Secondly the earth’s economic framework, its commercial system, its planetary governance if governance be the word, has planetary warming baked in. The world can have as many COP junkets as it wants but nothing major truly happens. Say one thing and do another. Corporates have bottom line returns to deliver, countries have resource objectives to procure, economic objectives to achieve. Does anyone really think the world’s governments are capable of actually agreeing and doing something to arrest the climate change issues. I certainly don’t.

    The physical and economic war that the West is fighting in Ukraine is an example of that. And so is the West’s war threatening and sanctioning in the East against China. Ukraine and Taiwan, two tools and an exemplar of how the World cannot agree on anything.

    Humankind is truly parasitic and like the parasite it kills its host before it moves on. But parasites die when they cannot move on. Maybe the World, or should I say humankind, will have to die, or die back very substantially before any recovery can be achieved, which recovery of course may not be possible. After all the dinosaurs died out, and so we could do.

    Depressing scenario. Well maybe, well maybe not because humans now have the technology to eradicate a huge swathe of the World population ahead of the world population eradicating itself. That’s an interesting view.

    Ah well, such is life. What say do the microbes have.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Willie. I hope they don’t bring in sanctions against China just yet. I’m waiting for a table lamp to be delivered from there. 😊

      Liked by 3 people

      3. China and Iran I think that they have been trying to for a long time now. Syria has lasted longer than expected due to resistance if you have read Wikileaks you know the script. Meanwhile we have people going missing due to the mass migration due to wars. GMOs and stuff being funded as an answer to hunger problems yet why are we being persuaded to go against nature to try save the world?

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Apparently there’s ice libraries that tell a different story that conflicts with the mainstream.

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  5. one way to prevent global payers from avoiding their liabilities to clear up is for national parliaments to backdate the liability to pay to a date before the conglomerates split up their companies ( which can even be a date before the agreement date.

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    1. Plenty of things that could be done Graeme, but don’t get done.

      In terms of regulation we, or at least governments know the score. But national governments and international cooperation between governments is elusive. Think Brexit as a mind set and you see a localised problem in our particular corner of the globe.

      National parliaments backdating liabilities is certainly an interesting concept, but could it work even if there was a political will.

      The interminable maze of the dissipation of assets, phoenix recovery, asset evaluation, et al is an absolute art form. Factor in multi jurisdiction ownership, secretive offshore ownership, pyramid company structures, transfer pricing – and well, what was that we were going to do.

      Having said all of that I’m not at all sure that anything will change. We can’t even sort out land ownership here in Scotland, what chance on a global basis. But yes, making corporates liable is a good idea Graeme.

      Difficulty however should be no impediment to progress – but how?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Well how do you know that is what it is? Perhaps just because you don’t believe or understand doesn’t mean that it’s hocus pocus. It’s not about this at all it’s about sorting ourselves out and our relationship with each other and therefore the world and the understanding that we are all connected. Women are and have been treated very badly and the same could be said about the planet.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. You must be joking. This is from the junk science site realclimatechange.

      “Overall, we rate Real Climate Science a Quackery level pseudoscience website as well as a moderate conspiracy website based on promoting that the solutions for climate change lead to communism. We also rate them Low for factual reporting due to failed fact checks and a complete rejection of the consensus of science regarding human-influenced climate change.”

      mediabiasFactcheckcom

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      1. All science should be open for questioning and we should also be looking at who is funding them. Past should teach everyone this due to some pretty evil acts that were conducted by so called experts.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Science is open to question. That is how it works. We should be looking at who funds the climate change deniers, which is predominantly the fossil fuel industry and rightwing blowhards.

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      3. Maceasy everyone has their preferences some guys prefer a wee bit of Bush others prefer to go within and some just close themselves off to opening their minds. Facts are women are being attacked by allowing men to just identity however they please. Weans are being allowed medication to alter them and told that it’s okay their parents don’t need to know. The earth and animals and seas and land are under attack as well. You might be indeNile with the COP27 crew and call it hocus pocus but the real hocus pocus is the fact that people don’t realise who they are and what they can achieve and I think that there’s folk out there who are mair capable and caring and responsible than the current politicians because how come it’s come to this?

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      4. It might be from a junk science site but that doesn’t mean it’s not the way it happened. Play the ball, not the man. And who gets to decide if your truth is better than his truth?
        Good to see I’m not the only person on here that doesn’t swallow the cagw bollocks.
        Even for those that do, no one has ever explained how building a whole new generating infrastructure that forces us to keep the old one as it only works sometimes, is supposed to save the planet and be cheaper. We’re being lied to.
        Good to see the COP has resumed its normal nice places routine, must have had a few complaints last year.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Linking to Toby Young’s site is not a convincing response. He has purloined a viral meme which has been widely debunked – the Clintel org of climate deniers, founded by a Dutch millionaire by way of oil company funding.

        “According to Dutch broadcaster KRO-NCRV Pointer, the 800 “scientists, scholars, and professionals” that support CLINTEL have “conducted little to no climate research.” DeSmog analysis has found that the list of signatories includes a commercial fisherman, a retired chemist, a cardiologist, and an air-conditioning engineer, alongside a number of retired geologists.
        The organisation has close ties to Forum voor Democratie, the main Dutch nationalist party, and its leader Thierry Baudet, who has quoted statements by CLINTEL in the country’s House of Representatives.
        Various members of CLINTEL’s list of ambassadors, and its extended list of signatories, have connections to libertarian free-market groups with a history of climate science denial, including the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. All three organisations are members of the Koch-funded Atlas Network.”

        Follow the money.

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  10. An interesting thing I was hearing about gas, or should I say LNG which is now being supplied to Europe in huge tankers, many of which come from America is that a barrel unitization of LNG gas, as opposed to the Russian piped gas emits ten times more CO2 than the piped stuff.

    The figures quoted were 7Kg versus 70Kg attributable in large part to the need to compress and liquify the gas down to -156c and then rephase it after transfer. Currently there are large numbers of super tankers lying offshore Europe awaiting the to sell at the optimal price. But that’s another issue.

    Anyway, the interesting thing was that the gas expert talking about LNG said that his academic think tank had calculated that an extra 15,000,000 tonnes of CO2 had been released in Europe already due to increased LNG useage. Might be good money for the gas American and other gas producers but doesn’t sound to me at least too good for the planet.

    Then again on the upside doesn’t look like the Ukranians will be burning too much power this winter. And moreover, citizens here, and across Europe for the most part will be on a heating and lighting diet. So, an extra 15m tonnes, make it a 100 by the end of the winter, but set back a bit by cold and dark houses.

    Ah world co-operation it knows no bound. Anyway, a good old chinwag and nosh up at COP 27 will no doubt sort it. Eh?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. We have been burning peat and such but all of a sudden we have gotten this moment in time and all of a sudden we are facing doom. 😁

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  11. GLOBAL OVER-POPULATION

    Of course, the population numbers in the world is the prime driver behind increased CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere (and much else).

    During my lifetime, the global population has almost quadrupled, resulting all sorts of ncreased CO2 emissions and de-forestations. Everyone wants a better life and this requires energy and food.

    In the 1960s there were dire warnings demanding population controls, culminating in Paul Ehrlich’s 1970 book “The Population Bomb” in 1970, but these were largely ignored as a white, western plot to reduced the burgeoning populations of the “global south” in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Of course, as people become more knowledgeable and affluent they tend to have less children, resulting in “native” populations such as Italy, parts of Scandinavia and even Scotland actually reducing.

    Modern politicians largely ignore increasing populations and the wishes of people to have an improved quality of life as the DRIVING FORCE behind the world’s CO2 emissions, as it’s seen as “racist” and indicative of all sorts of phobias. Even standing still in net emissions per capital is not good enough if the world’s population inexorably increases every year.

    Does COP27 in Egypt have a session on population control, politically unpleasant as this may seem?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Well of course Editor the matter of the ever-increasing world population is not a subject for discussion. That would be a chin wag too many. The elephant in the room.

      But many of the world’s population consume very little in the way of planetary resources. However, if they industrialise and develop then they are a ticking time bomb. So, what populations do we need to reduce?

      But away from that the comment, looking at the current war in Ukraine, and the ever-growing hostilities with China, where we are going becomes quite unclear.

      In 2007-2008 a financial crisis arose in the US and spread across the pond. The reliability of the US Govt system as a partner in global financial affairs was challenged, possibly even destroyed.

      In 2009 Russia hosted the first BRICS summit to establish a better international financial system with China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and later, with future BRICS plus other joiners, a new world order emerged that could challenge the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency status.

      And that, it appear. is very much what ignited the new Cold War with Russia and China. Additionally, with US National Debt soaring to maybe £100 trillion, and with unfunded liabilities on top of that again, the US is now wholly unable to pay down its debt. And the UK to is in no better shape with its debts. Ditto many of the EU countries and others who aligned with the US model.

      And that is why the US’s status as the world’s default currency is so important to it. Without money printing, the US is bankrupt. The money printing needs to continue.

      And that maybe explains precisely why there is now a proxy war in the Ukraine and potentially a proxy war with China over Taiwan. War with Russia and China could be the tool to stop global realignment and the growth of BRICS as the new economic world backstop and the tool to stop the collapse of the US model economic Ponzi scheme.

      And we think we’re going to get agreement on climate change at COP 27. Might get something else though.

      Liked by 3 people

  12. I will leave this here for anyone who is interested in listening to a different perspective if science is open to question because it was not during the lockdown we had selected one’s and other voices were closed.

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    1. China is beginning to use what is spoken about in this presentation. A quick search will confirm it.

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    1. Part of the skill in ascertaining the truth in any given area of knowledge is knowing a charlatan when you see one.

      Global heating is not a con. If you understand that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that burning fossil fuels that have been created over millions of years (and are therefore highly concentrated forms of carbon) will inevitably lead to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you should be able to think through the implications of burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels.
      https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/blog/who-discovered-greenhouse-effect

      Liked by 1 person

  14. For the person who prefers a wee bit of Bush. Same kind of thing I posted just your preference so everyone can be happy in the realm of Scotland.

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  15. A number of scientists have accused the IPCC of consistently underestimating the rapid change we are experiencing. It is likely that a number of self-reinforcing feedbacks have already been triggered.
    Like everything else, the IPCC is vulnerable to politics and the virus that is neoliberal economics. Nobel prize winning economist, Willian Nordhaus who’s ‘research’ fed into the IPCC models claimsthat a 6 deg average global temperature rise will lead to a 8% reduction in global GDP. When confronted with scientists who insisted that this would actually lead to mass extinction, he simply discounted their input and published his prize winning paper. This is what we are up against.

    If our government are actually aware of what’s coming down the line, they’re not showing it. Perhaps the advice they are receiving is being watered down. As time marches on, the shift will have to be more about adaption in addition to mitigation. We need to be putting a massive emphasis on year-round domestic food production. I’m afraid a few extra bike paths won’t cut it.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. An economic system based on consumerisn and corporate profits is inevitably doomed. Its passing, however, will be very difficult.

    A constantly increasing global population, all of whom not unnaturally want to live as well as they can, ideally to the standards that we in the West do, is the major cause of climate change. No-one is going to stop it, even if they could.

    But I hate it when people claim that the planet will be “destroyed”. That won’t happen for another 5 billion years or so, when our sun will probably explode. However, it is likely that our planet may suffer some changes, although probably no greater than it has several times in the past, and our existence on it may be dramatically altered, but that will be as nothing in the Great Scheme of Things and the planet will go on quite happily without us.

    Sometimes I’m glad I’m old.

    DT

    Liked by 3 people

    1. It is 1% of us that have the giant carbon footprint. The costs of saving the developing world will be borne by 99% of us – the 1% that govern us will see to that and tell us how they had such hard decisions to make.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. Rishi Sunak ( from what I’ve read) has installed a new swimming pool that will cost £13,000 annually to heat. It doesn’t seem to me that he intends to make any sacrifice to help the planet.

        Apart from that, how can such an incredibly wealthy man possibly understand what poor people have to do to survive?

        Liked by 6 people

      2. It must be very difficult for the wealthy to understand the desperation of poverty. The trouble is that the developed world is run by wealthy people and that’s the way they like it.

        Liked by 4 people

    1. He speaks about geometric shapes in other videos and architecture and depending upon how you think sometimes dots connect. A child who was diagnosed with autism used to draw beautiful pictures for her nanna and in each one she would draw geometric shapes in the sky. I asked her what they were and she would giggle and say you are silly miss, it’s the sky.

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  18. When it comes to environmentalism, I like to keep it simple. I’ve never seen humanity do anything, truly anything, which nature couldn’t do better.

    Humanity cracks one problem at a time, then spends a couple of decades trying to fix or undo the unforeseen consequences. Sometimes it even succeeds.

    Nature copes with everything, on all levels, at all times, and even in times of local catastrophe such as a volcanic eruption or a tsunami, powerful forces that dwarf anything mankind can do, nature copes with barely a ripple in the equilibrium.

    We look outwards, scanning a Universe we will never, ever, set foot upon, looking for signs of life on other planets, while we “unsee” and abuse a planet beneath our feet that’s teeming with life in every nook and crevice.

    We have organisms which have learned to fly, to swim, to fluoresce, conquering physics, chemistry, genetics and biology far better than humanity, and they did it without tuition, and only ever extracting the resources from the planet which they needed to live. Not only that, nature can conquer the problem on multiple levels, through the physique of a tiny midge or a mighty pterosaur, and feed a 150 ton colossus of the sea on nothing but plankton. I’m tellin’ ya, Nature plays the game on God-mode.

    Humanity is…. What? Is it an evolutionary cul-de-sac? A dead end that will only ever be considered a squandering of planetary resource? We humans are certainly turning plenty other species into evolutionary dead ends. Will we ever be forgiven for it?

    I genuinely don’t know. Perhaps nature hasn’t decided what to do with us either. What humanity does have, and have in spades, is potential, and imagination. But there is such a painful and heavy cost to our learning curve. But in fairness, how could it be otherwise?

    We scare ourselves with extraterrestrials coming to destroy us and steal our planets resources, but what extraterrestrial might discover this planets diversity and not be utterly, utterly spellbound by our wee blue marble? They won’t exactly need Moon Rovers to dig around the dirt to find traces of us.

    Have you heard about the Fortingale Yew? It’s a tree in Scotland estimated to be between 3,000 and 9,000 years old. It was already a thousand years old when the Romans went marching past. Our culture, all of it, the whole of humanity from our Egyptian pyramids to the earliest cave paintings, it is all just the tiniest blip in our planets chronology.

    I think we are asking the wrong question when we ask how many humans can our planet support.

    We should be asking how many humans does it take to damage the planets natural equilibrium, and in that figure, we are grossly into the Red already, and it’s very hard to see it not getting worse, maybe much worse.

    I don’t mean a cull, draconian birth control or shaming / blaming people for daring to exist, but the sprawl has to stop. We need to confine our expansion and stop colonising nature. Our towns and cities should grow within their city limits, and brown field sites are the only sites considered for development. We live from the farmland we have. That’s it. No more virgin forest goes under the plough. Wilderness everywhere should be sacrosanct, and the natural habitat should be the overwhelming norm, not the exception.

    Progress shouldn’t be feeding more people. Let’s focus on feeding the same people using much less of the planet to do it, and be content with the number.

    What we are currently doing, humanity’s trajectory, just isn’t sustainable, but we have absolutely no idea what sustainability actually means in pounds, shillings and pence. What does it physically require to stop habitat destruction? To reduce fishing? To arrest pollution? To wean ourselves off fossil fuels? Having “fewer” of us maybe isn’t the answer, but it would buy us more time. Buy tigers more time… Buy elephants more time.. Orangutans, Gorillas, turtles, whales…. You get the drift.

    And here, in Scotland, with the gaping opportunity to resurrect Scotland’s Great Caledonian pine forest re establish lynx, bear, wolf, and bison colonies, and replenish our seas, we can’t only buy ourselves more time, but maybe reverse a wee bit of the damage, and hopefully start a trend.

    What is the alternative? When do we stop the madness? Maybe Gabon’s Environment Minister is actually on the money…

    Liked by 7 people

  19. Well according to Gregg we are in three red areas out of the ten. Why must people consistently make others fearful? He stated that biodiversity is the one that’s well over the charts. The Scottish government have just awarded money for the Celtic rainforest which is great. In an independent Scotland there’s no reason that the money can’t come from our treasury because after all it’s for the future of our country and planet. I would rather not have things that are sold as green but harm other people in other parts of the world and especially children and apparently the toxic waste from the green items are put into landfills which damages soil and water and therefore life. Did any of you watch Tesla on world battery day tell people about this? I actually thought that I was hearing things as they confessed. He did say that it’s a case of lack of forward thinking. How many people got houses a long time ago but now their cars don’t fit into the garage? Schools built with minimal bathrooms based upon roll at the time of building yet later on it becomes fuller.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Vandana Shiva and other indigenous people from all over planned for now in starting a seed saving movement. Natural seeds not GMOs for this very time and of course we have seed banks that preserve as much as possible. Glasgow has a seed bank.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The rewilding guys brought back ancient oysters into the waters and involved the community and especially the children who need to be taught how to be future guardians. It’s just we don’t get much good news unless you search for it.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Its nae wunner thon daeless SNP MPs and MSPs have made so little progress when they don’t even understand that independence IS decolonization.

      Liked by 6 people

  21. :”As a nation, [the Scots] have an undoubted right to national self-determination; thus far, they have exercised that right by joining and remaining in the Union. Should they determine on independence, no English party or politician would stand in their way.”
    Margaret Thatcher

    https://archive.ph/YTduZ

    Liked by 4 people

  22. I can only hope UN rep Sturgeon gets the job offer she wants from the UN while signalling her virtue in Egypt – but of course she needs the UK PMs approval for all UN activities and she is not quite done ruining YES. Maybe next year eh Sturgeon?

    Liked by 3 people

  23. I see that Stephen Kinnock, shadow immigration minister, has said this morning that I.D. cards might be a good idea. In certain circumstances they might be, but the idea of Nicola Sturgeon having even more power, which I think is how she would see it, makes my blood run cold.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. My own research has found the Scottish Government has been ordering much more expensive and higher CO2 emission ferries than is necessary for the past 20 years and more, and they are still doing so. The catamaran ferries serving Orkney designed for high sea states have less than half the required power and hence half the CO2 emissions of comparable capacity CalMac ‘designs’; these far superior proven ferry designs have been repeatedly offered to Ministers and are also wanted by island communities, but Ministers still order the same over-expensive and higher emission boats CalMac specify and CMAL then order. Scottish Ministers and officials talk a good game on CO2 but their actions reveal a different story.

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692313001610?via%3Dihub

      Liked by 4 people

  25. The UK ISN’T a democracy, we AREN’T in a union of equals, we ARE being held against our will.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Paisley’s motion in Westminster has all the hallmarks of nothing being learened.

      If democracy breaks down again in Northern Ireland, if voting is gerrymandered to require super majority, then could NI be headed to a re-run of the troubles.

      Northern Ireland has a history of gerrymandering, sectarianism and denial of democracy and the world knows it. It and Ireland has a history of insurrection against British rule. Folks want peace, but unless there is democracy and fairness there will be no peace.

      A recipe for human misery. Tis the belligerent Tory way.

      Liked by 3 people

  26. Anyone see the video of an aide having a word in Sunak’s ear at COP 27 and then Sunak getting up and rushing, and a one point running out of the conference.

    All very reminiscent of the George W Bush word in the ear moment when he was told of 9/11.

    So what of such importance got Sunak to exit in a rush?

    Liked by 3 people

  27. Even a passing knowledge of human history will inform that changes in climatic conditions influence, often significantly, human civilization. It general is a trigger for socio-political unrest and cultural upsets, from Northern Africa and the creation of the Sahara, through the rise and fall of cultures in the Middle East, the Indian sub continent through to China. The rise and fall of «powers» in European history, including the cooling of Scotland’s climate during the so-called little ice age are also notable.
    Therefore, thousands of years before major industrialization climate flux has been normative. Human ingenuity has dealt with such change in the past and will do so in the future. Enough of the complaining and self satisfied breast beating.
    Btw the biggest «polluters» are in Asia eg. India, China, Gulf States…..FIFA World Cup Qatar for example:
    https://aqicn.org/country/qatar/
    And something else to turn up the heat.
    https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12040/12742403/qatar-official-says-homosexuality-is-damage-in-the-mind-before-world-cup-kicks-off

    Liked by 1 person

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