[News] Deadly floods in Germany

[LamieRobertson]

On another extreme

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....alley-record-high-temperature/?outputType=amp

Remember this when u feel a tad warm this weekend

 

[Machiavelli]

I never said individual action would be the primary driver, merely that it can make a difference. It’s not rocket science that companies will respond to consumer habits as to not do so wouldn’t be financially viable. I am in full agreement that it will be policy change that does the 'heavy lifting'. I am also not suggesting that a reduction of meat is the only thing that people could, or should, do, merely that several studies (including the largest study ever conducted, looking at what humans eat and it’s environmental impact) suggest that reducing meat is the single biggest thing an individual can do. Especially considering that animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, species extinction, habitat loss, water pollution and ocean dead zones.

I know you want to hold on to this study, but any study that operates on the basis of an abstract individual is suspect. There's a difference between a tribe in the Masai, and someone with a private jet, to take just one example. There are a range of things that need to be done, but the most important thing is to influence policy, which is somewhat difficult given how our political system operates.

 

[Biscuit]

I never said individual action would be the primary driver, merely that it can make a difference. It’s not rocket science that companies will respond to consumer habits as to not do so wouldn’t be financially viable. I am in full agreement that it will be policy change that does the 'heavy lifting'. I am also not suggesting that a reduction of meat is the only thing that people could, or should, do, merely that several studies (including the largest study ever conducted, looking at what humans eat and it’s environmental impact) suggest that reducing meat is the single biggest thing an individual can do. Especially considering that animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, species extinction, habitat loss, water pollution and ocean dead zones.

The idea of a carbon footprint etc is just PR funded by the big oil and gas giants to shift responsibility from them to the common man.

The likes of you and I changing our lifestyle will make no impact whatsoever. Don't believe a word of it.

All we can do is campaign and demand Government and businesses make far bigger moves to address the impending disaster.

 

[Notters]

I would say it absolutely is 'normal'.

“In some areas, we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” German weather service spokesperson Andreas Friedrich told CNN.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-57860153

Therefore by definition they do see such rainfall perhaps on a 1 in 100 year basis... and last time it happened in the same/similar location there wouldn't have been as many people living there.

That said, such events will become, and are becoming, more frequent as a result of climate change.

 

[midnight_rendezvous]

The idea of a carbon footprint etc is just PR funded by the big oil and gas giants to shift responsibility from them to the common man.

The likes of you and I changing our lifestyle will make no impact whatsoever. Don't believe a word of it.

All we can do is campaign and demand Government and businesses make far bigger moves to address the impending disaster.

Whilst I openly admit that the FF industry bears a huge brunt of responsibility, the idea that individuals can't bring about change is very defeatist. For example, as I have already pointed out, animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation and species extinction. A report today has said that, for the first time in history, that the Amazon is giving off more carbon than it sequestering and that is mainly down to the deforestation caused by animal agriculture. Do you believe that if people drastically reduced their meat intake that deforestation would continue at the same rate?

It is estimated that by going plant based for a year a single person can save 401,500 gallons of water, 10,950 SQ.FT of forest, 14,600 LBS of grain, 7,300 LBS of C02. If hundreds of thousands, millions even, of people did that do you not think that would make a difference?

 

[rogersix]

Sometimes weather is just weather, some of the hottest record temperatures go way way back. Hard to except for some.

are you any good at maths?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I know you want to hold on to this study, but any study that operates on the basis of an abstract individual is suspect. There's a difference between a tribe in the Masai, and someone with a private jet, to take just one example. There are a range of things that need to be done, but the most important thing is to influence policy, which is somewhat difficult given how our political system operates.

Quite. I also think that people are confusing weather with climate, and climate with average earth temperature. The latter has been creeping up since industrialization. Climate is the average weather over a long period of time. If we look at temperature, the recent rise is evident.



The cause is uncertain but the common factor and top among the list of possibles is human activity (we have seen the list: deforestation, car emissions, burning of coal, massive loads of sheep farts).

So the solution is to kill all people. No, hang on, there must be something less severe. But it doesn't matter because climate change will inevitably kill us all soon anyway. And of course it is too late - just look at the graph - nothing we do seems to have had any effect on global warming. This is regarded to reflect a sequence of events that has been triggered and is now unstoppable. But is it all really too late? I don't think so. Extrapolating the line upwards into the future, with relentless unstoppable warming is, like all extrapolations, a fallacy. I won't recount my Mark Twain anecdote yet again...

And indeed, people are recycling and going green. What is the point if it is all too late?

I'm sorry to say that there is an amazing load of old bollocks written about this. On one extreme we have the total denialists, and on the other hand we have the death-wish catastrophists.

In addition to a lack of political will (and I don't actually agree there is a lack of political will any more) the main obstacle to addressing global warming is the total lack of wherewithall. In science if you want to test an idea you make predictions, do something, and see what happens. What are we actually 'doing' here? And how are we measuring the effects?

In fairness to successive governments we have seen a shift from inefficient petrol guzzling cars (not to mention lead) towards all electric in a few years. The shift away from the burning of nasty coal has condemned the London Smog to a pre 1950s era. So why has temperature continued to rise?

The easy answer is the new found wealth of China and India (and Brazil) where coal burning and deforestation continue unabated. One would have to argue that all the bad we did in Europe and North America is now being continued by the emerging world while we old worlders become increasingly conscientious (or 'woke' if you prefer).

So, as an experimentalist I ask myself what experiment should we try next to reverse the temperature rise? Or should we just give up and embrace our fate, the conflagration?

Alas, I fear that individuals eating less meat is not a testable solution to anything. I don't agree that everything and anything helps. If you break a leg, morphine, fixing the bone, and perhaps some antibiotics are what's required. A cold flannel and some Germolene really won't help.

Finally, I realise that global warming is now accepted as a thing, but the cause is not proven. Human activity, most likely, but what sort is uncertain. If we expect the Indians and Chinese to back off with the fossil fuels, and expect Brazil to stop the deforestation of the Amazon, we need to be able to persuade them of what to do, why and how. Shouting at them and virtue signalling won't help. Neither will locking ourselves in our bedrooms and crying 'we're doomed'. We should be better than that.

I felt that HMG and even the US were heading in the right direction. I think that Boris may well still be (unless it is just more lies, and he'll throw all efforts under a bus, like he's done to Bre'r Ulsterman over Brexit). One can hope. The US was of course held back by Reagan and Bush senior (Watt the interior minister famously said 'if you've seen one tree you've seen them all') and then totally ****ed and bombed by the orange bungle****. We need the US and the EU properly back on track with a plan for how to persuade China India and Brazil to sort themselves out. G7, G8? Needs an upgrade. America....also will need to breach its brown wall (the wall of shitehousery, constitutional rights to burn petrol and self-entitled imperative to behave like cretins).

Let's not drown in our own tears of frustration or nihilism, though, people.

 

[Swansman]

So the solution is to kill all people.

This is how the 0,00001% richest and most powerful people eventually are going to solve the problem.

 

[Machiavelli]

This is how the 0,00001% richest and most powerful people eventually are going to solve the problem.

They're already setting up base camp on another planet. And, with that, trying to encourage the public to think that we don't need to do anything on this planet, because those benevolent souls will enable us all to decamp elsewhere.
Now, which strategy shall we pursue:
-- theirs
-- or fundamentally re-structure the one on this planet and, ideally, such that we aren't subjected to their bleatings and pseudo-solutions

 

[Kosh]

This is how the 0,00001% richest and most powerful people eventually are going to solve the problem.

I suspect they've already tried, at least had a trial run.

The STARK conspiracy shall inherit the earth.

You need only watch 2012 to see the normal people are entirely and completely expendable, when it comes to the crunch we're buggered.

 

[Kosh]

Quite. I also think that people are confusing weather with climate, and climate with average earth temperature. The latter has been creeping up since industrialization. Climate is the average weather over a long period of time. If we look at temperature, the recent rise is evident.

View attachment 138699

The cause is uncertain but the common factor and top among the list of possibles is human activity (we have seen the list: deforestation, car emissions, burning of coal, massive loads of sheep farts).

So the solution is to kill all people. No, hang on, there must be something less severe. But it doesn't matter because climate change will inevitably kill us all soon anyway. And of course it is too late - just look at the graph - nothing we do seems to have had any effect on global warming. This is regarded to reflect a sequence of events that has been triggered and is now unstoppable. But is it all really too late? I don't think so. Extrapolating the line upwards into the future, with relentless unstoppable warming is, like all extrapolations, a fallacy. I won't recount my Mark Twain anecdote yet again...

And indeed, people are recycling and going green. What is the point if it is all too late?

I'm sorry to say that there is an amazing load of old bollocks written about this. On one extreme we have the total denialists, and on the other hand we have the death-wish catastrophists.

In addition to a lack of political will (and I don't actually agree there is a lack of political will any more) the main obstacle to addressing global warming is the total lack of wherewithall. In science if you want to test an idea you make predictions, do something, and see what happens. What are we actually 'doing' here? And how are we measuring the effects?

In fairness to successive governments we have seen a shift from inefficient petrol guzzling cars (not to mention lead) towards all electric in a few years. The shift away from the burning of nasty coal has condemned the London Smog to a pre 1950s era. So why has temperature continued to rise?

The easy answer is the new found wealth of China and India (and Brazil) where coal burning and deforestation continue unabated. One would have to argue that all the bad we did in Europe and North America is now being continued by the emerging world while we old worlders become increasingly conscientious (or 'woke' if you prefer).

So, as an experimentalist I ask myself what experiment should we try next to reverse the temperature rise? Or should we just give up and embrace our fate, the conflagration?

Alas, I fear that individuals eating less meat is not a testable solution to anything. I don't agree that everything and anything helps. If you break a leg, morphine, fixing the bone, and perhaps some antibiotics are what's required. A cold flannel and some Germolene really won't help.

Finally, I realise that global warming is now accepted as a thing, but the cause is not proven. Human activity, most likely, but what sort is uncertain. If we expect the Indians and Chinese to back off with the fossil fuels, and expect Brazil to stop the deforestation of the Amazon, we need to be able to persuade them of what to do, why and how. Shouting at them and virtue signalling won't help. Neither will locking ourselves in our bedrooms and crying 'we're doomed'. We should be better than that.

I felt that HMG and even the US were heading in the right direction. I think that Boris may well still be (unless it is just more lies, and he'll throw all efforts under a bus, like he's done to Bre'r Ulsterman over Brexit). One can hope. The US was of course held back by Reagan and Bush senior (Watt the interior minister famously said 'if you've seen one tree you've seen them all') and then totally ****ed and bombed by the orange bungle****. We need the US and the EU properly back on track with a plan for how to persuade China India and Brazil to sort themselves out. G7, G8? Needs an upgrade. America....also will need to breach its brown wall (the wall of shitehousery, constitutional rights to burn petrol and self-entitled imperative to behave like cretins).

Let's not drown in our own tears of frustration or nihilism, though, people.

Boy! I'd only come out of my bedroom to get some fresh tissues, and got waylaid reading the above.... It's all very well and good and superbly written, but this thinking and reasoning needs to become action - can you seriously see a way out in a world so clouded by unethical capitalism on one hand and deluded by lip service on the other...? The cost of saving us all is too great a price for the few to pay. Another couple of mystery viruses and you solve population pressure over night, low cost and highly effective. The wealthy survivors claim the 'safe' spots and travel around in hydrogen cell powered vehicles the likes of we mere proles could only dream of.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

I'm seriously thinking about not having kids because of how ****ed the world is. Most of my mates have had kids this year and I think it's the most selfish thing you can do

Sent from my SM-A715F using Tapatalk

 

[Mr Putdown]

I am also not suggesting that a reduction of meat is the only thing that people could, or should, do, merely that several studies (including the largest study ever conducted, looking at what humans eat and it’s environmental impact) suggest that reducing meat is the single biggest thing an individual can do.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that actually the single biggest thing an individual can do is not have kids.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Boy! I'd only come out of my bedroom to get some fresh tissues, and got waylaid reading the above.... It's all very well and good and superbly written, but this thinking and reasoning needs to become action - can you seriously see a way out in a world so clouded by unethical capitalism on one hand and deluded by lip service on the other...? The cost of saving us all is too great a price for the few to pay. Another couple of mystery viruses and you solve population pressure over night, low cost and highly effective. The wealthy survivors claim the 'safe' spots and travel around in hydrogen cell powered vehicles the likes of we mere proles could only dream of.

Cheers, mate.

Yes, there will be a way out. Humans are clever and adaptable and our survival instinct is now interdependent on our ability to co-operate and act collectively. This is particularly evident among the Old Word nations. Yes there is a contingent of rich oddballs like Musk and Brandson, and a load of Russian oligarch none of us have heard of, but unless they want to destroy the world like super villians in a Batman comic they are still part of the masses with the same basic needs. Narrow, local-tribal, 'against everone not exactly like me' mentality is more common among people without influence power, wealth or influence. The Das Reich types . So I don't see a conspiracy of the super rich scuppering planet earth and leaving the rest of us to make do. Also, interplanetary travel will never be possible for individuals, so there is no escape We shall prevail!

 

[Gwylan]

In addition to a lack of political will (and I don't actually agree there is a lack of political will any more)

I do. Governments talk about it but what are they doing - banning diesel vehicles many years from now, just won't cut it.

the main obstacle to addressing global warming is the total lack of wherewithall. In science if you want to test an idea you make predictions, do something, and see what happens. What are we actually 'doing' here? And how are we measuring the effects?

In fairness to successive governments we have seen a shift from inefficient petrol guzzling cars (not to mention lead) towards all electric in a few years. The shift away from the burning of nasty coal has condemned the London Smog to a pre 1950s era.

But they didn't know what was going to happen when they stopped burning coal but did it anyway. I'm not sure why that's different (from scientific view) from saying that we should cut back on fossil fuels or stop eating meat. The difference is the lack of political will.

So why has temperature continued to rise?

The easy answer is the new found wealth of China and India (and Brazil) where coal burning and deforestation continue unabated.

Alas, I fear that individuals eating less meat is not a testable solution to anything.

Finally, I realise that global warming is now accepted as a thing, but the cause is not proven. Human activity, most likely, but what sort is uncertain. If we expect the Indians and Chinese to back off with the fossil fuels, and expect Brazil to stop the deforestation of the Amazon, we need to be able to persuade them of what to do, why and how.

But the deforestation of the Amazon is directly correlated to meat consumption - the trees are being cleared for more animal farming. If we ate less meat, then there'd be no need to clear the forest.

Of course, eating less meat is only a small part of it (although anything to help stop deforestation is a good thing) and cutting down on car use is also a small part - but if several hundred million people did it, then it's going to have a bigger effect. Cutting down on air travel would also have an effect.

I'm not a pessimist who thinks we're all doomed but I do think we should be doing more than we are and not be so complacent

 

[The aloof gatekeeper]

I'm seriously thinking about not having kids because of how ****ed the world is. Most of my mates have had kids this year and I think it's the most selfish thing you can do

Sent from my SM-A715F using Tapatalk

...is the correct answer:

https://www.independent.co.uk/clima...nge-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I'm seriously thinking about not having kids because of how ****ed the world is. Most of my mates have had kids this year and I think it's the most selfish thing you can do

Sent from my SM-A715F using Tapatalk

Mmmmm.....tell that to the Victorians. My granny was from a family of ten kids, five of whom were killed in WW1. The poorer you are the more you breed. It is instinctive to place our genetic future in offspring. The richer and more secure we become the more we focus on having fewer and giving them more support. Collectively this appears in society - over my life time Brits have gone from a 'children will be seen and not heard' but smacked and ignored society, into the sort of child loving society I found myself in, to my bafflement, when I moved to Vancouver in 82. It is here now. The last time I saw a parent smack a kid in public in the UK must have been more than 30 years ago, whereas it was a daily occurrence when I was a kid in the 60s.

However...since we are animals and quite primitive really, it is simple instincts that fuel much of our headline behaviours. The step from having one kid and lavishing it with care, love and material things to having none is based on the fact you are now so focused on what a serious business childrearing is that you fear failing. Also you're a bloke and there is never a good time to plan a family if you're a bloke.

Compare that with our poor frightened overworked and underfed ancesors. They were at it, 24-7, like alley cats, producing sprogs like there was no tomorrow - which is probably what it felt like, half the time.

I was listening earlier to episodes 1-3 of Blue Jam, and the download includes the sketch about the 6 year old who doesn't come home from school, and the parents shrug it off. Quite shocking. Everything changes when you have kids, or at least it does for us modern Brits, because we have the time and money to care. If we don't have the time or money we nevertheless have the perception, learned from others all around us, that one must care and so one must wait to start a family if we lack sufficient time and money. Perhaps that's the boat you're in.

 

[Happy Exile]

Cheers, mate.

Yes, there will be a way out. Humans are clever and adaptable and our survival instinct is now interdependent on our ability to co-operate and act collectively. This is particularly evident among the Old Word nations. Yes there is a contingent of rich oddballs like Musk and Brandson, and a load of Russian oligarch none of us have heard of, but unless they want to destroy the world like super villians in a Batman comic they are still part of the masses with the same basic needs. Narrow, local-tribal, 'against everone not exactly like me' mentality is more common among people without influence power, wealth or influence. The Das Reich types . So I don't see a conspiracy of the super rich scuppering planet earth and leaving the rest of us to make do. Also, interplanetary travel will never be possible for individuals, so there is no escape We shall prevail!

I think too that ironically the fact that rich oddballs are in the same boat as the rest of us might be what helps at some point. Though it's too late to stop what's happening and will take time to try and stabilise let alone reverse I heard that one of the reasons Bezos is so keen on space is he wants to move the means of production of as much as possible on earth into an environment where resources, especially energy, are effectively infinite and free and the impact of pollution effectively zero. It's not about saving himself, it's about finding a solution that makes life on earth sustainable. I'm not so naïve as to not realise there'll be commercial benefits too, but it's a step in the right direction perhaps, and if it takes billionaire megalomaniacs to implement it rather than governments then at least someone is doing it.

 

[vagabond]

I'm seriously thinking about not having kids because of how ****ed the world is. Most of my mates have had kids this year and I think it's the most selfish thing you can do

Sent from my SM-A715F using Tapatalk

Respect to you for even thinking it through. Many don’t.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Of course, eating less meat is only a small part of it (although anything to help stop deforestation is a good thing) and cutting down on car use is also a small part - but if several hundred million people did it, then it's going to have a bigger effect. Cutting down on air travel would also have an effect.

I'm not a pessimist who thinks we're all doomed but I do think we should be doing more than we are and not be so complacent

I can't argue with your last point, and the pressure groups and organizations who keep the issue on the boil are tremendously valuable in this regard. Even if I don't agree with the certainty of their extrapolated predictions, or their retrospectroscopic explanations for what has happened to get us where we are.

There is a difference between eating meat and mass factory farming, though. I buy only local free range meat. Luckily I can afford it. But I don't feel entitled to force the poor to do likewise. That said, if you have a 36 inch TV and a Sky subscription I don't buy the argument that anything other than factory farmed is 'too expensive'. This is a difficult area and I don't like to conflate vegetarianism with climate change, certainly not with the former promoted as a cure for the latter. However, it should be possible to legislate factory farming away in the next few years. Why not?

We have two fish outlets here, one at Oare and one in Canterbury where the fishermen sell their own local catch. An acquaintance (paradoxically he works as a meat butcher where I buy all my free range stuff) refuses to eat any fish because he believes all fishing is unsustainable. That's a step to far in my (partial, I admit) book. I'm inclined to feel that to gain manistream traction, solutions need to be mainstream. But where I'm with you is that more political will is needed. Unlike you perhaps, I am a tad more optimistic that change is happening and it will accelerate. Indeed, climate change denial is now limited to obvious nutters and malcontents (regardless of all the caveats I wrote about earlier) and are increasingly seen as part of the same brain-wrong phenotype as anti-vaxxers and the like.

Incidentally, I hope all's well with you