[hawkinspeter]

From https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/extreme-frustration-after-bristol-activists-8913213

[quote=Reclaim Our Community]

“We are a group of young people angered and fearful of the world we are inheriting. The UN estimate 1 billion climate refugees by 2050, how did Europe cope with a mere 1 million Syrian refugees in 2015?

“Irreversible feedback loops may have already been triggered, or will soon be set off: through the destruction and retreat of the Amazon rainforest, the melting of permafrost in the Artic circle and the bleaching of coral reefs. This could lead to spiralling ecological collapse.

“By now, everyone agrees that the climate crisis is immediate, grave and caused by human activity. Although our means of tackling this issue are not unified.

“After pursuing many democratic avenues in an attempt to affect change: writing to MPs, attending dozens of peaceful protests, working with the Green Party. No real change has occurred.

“In fact we see the opposite: we see the government support 100 new licenses for oil and gas, which led the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee to say that “the Government has no coordinated plan towards achieving the net zero emissions by 2050 target”. We are left with no other option. If the institutions of power will not affect the necessary change, we must do so ourselves.”[/quote]

Topic

[Tom_77]

hawkinspeter wrote:

Nah, you’re getting confused with the mini Viennetta Viennese on a stick

Those look pretty cool.

[HoldingOn]

chrisonatrike wrote:

Wait – how do you know what he typed?  I mean, I know what road.cc is showing me, but… are you … Rendel Harris too?

he probably did what i just did and tried highlighting the dots with the mouse. The dots highlighting one at a time, whereas the ellipsis highlighted all at once.

[chrisonabike]

hawkinspeter wrote:

quiff wrote:

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but your ellipsis makes me think you’ve put an intentional error in there somewhere (or, worse, I made an unintentional one!)  

His error was to type three dots (…) rather than using the unicode character for ellipsis (…)

Wait – how do you know what he typed?  I mean, I know what road.cc is showing me, but… are you … Rendel Harris too?

[brooksby]

hawkinspeter wrote:

quiff wrote:

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but your ellipsis makes me think you’ve put an intentional error in there somewhere (or, worse, I made an unintentional one!)  

His error was to type three dots (…) rather than using the unicode character for ellipsis (…)

Dammit! 😀

[chrisonabike]

I’m sympathetic but

I’m sympathetic but asceticism doesn’t tend to take over (for larger, more diverse groups).  Almost on the level of a law of thermodynamics, or Parkinson’s / Pournelle’s laws of bureacracy – people’s consumption and normally their numbers* will quickly expand to use up any advances we make in efficiency or new resources exploitable by technology.

Exceptions are known (e.g. see how societies adapted to colonising islands with scarce resources in the Polynesian expansion) – but rather rare.  And often it doesn’t end well, as conspiracies to use less are subject to being overrun (and in some cases eaten) by those who didn’t sign up.

A technological example: though powerplants have become more efficient and components have got lighter, over the decades cars have stayed the same weight or got heavier** and require even more resources to make.

Why should humans be different from other animals?  Certainly humans have advanced abilities in forming conspiracies (cooperating) with other humans and to develop tools, but other animals can do the former and we don’t always do so very well!  So though we may have pushed through one Malthusian barrier we have and will run up against other limits.

* More recently our lifespans have increased.  Presumably the reproductive rate may fall a bit as people last longer and fail to get out of the way of new people.

** Ignoring here electric cars as they’re still evolving and also ones that have deliberately gone the opposite direction and ballooned in size on the outside e.g. SUV types.

[David9694]

hoping the horses didn’t

hoping the horses didn’t colic at 3 am 

[hawkinspeter]

peted76 wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I wonder what the Artic circle is?  Is it where they build or store HGVs?

I’m pretty sure Aldi has these on offer at the moment for £2.75.

Nah, you’re getting confused with the mini Viennetta Viennese on a stick

[hawkinspeter]

levestane wrote:

It’s fair to say that there is very little serious action to reduce resource consumption. In the UK I think only the Green Party are suggesting economic reduction, all the others promote growth that can only be achieved by increasing ecological footprint. Globally there is not a single metric that indicates any reduction to the rate of increase of environmental degradation.

I suspect direct action will become more frequent and in a 100 years time will be seen in a similar light to the suffragette movement of 100 years ago.

Sadly, other countries are now using our new Cumbrian coal mine as an excuse to not bother with reducing CO2 emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/16/allowing-cumbria-coalmine-was-disaster-for-climate-diplomacy-says-lord-turner

[peted76]

brooksby wrote:

I wonder what the Artic circle is?  Is it where they build or store HGVs?

I’m pretty sure Aldi has these on offer at the moment for £2.75.

[hawkinspeter]

quiff wrote:

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but your ellipsis makes me think you’ve put an intentional error in there somewhere (or, worse, I made an unintentional one!)  

His error was to type three dots (…) rather than using the unicode character for ellipsis (…)

[levestane]

It’s fair to say that there

It’s fair to say that there is very little serious action to reduce resource consumption. In the UK I think only the Green Party are suggesting economic reduction, all the others promote growth that can only be achieved by increasing ecological footprint. Globally there is not a single metric that indicates any reduction to the rate of increase of environmental degradation.

I suspect direct action will become more frequent and in a 100 years time will be seen in a similar light to the suffragette movement of 100 years ago.

[quiff]

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but your ellipsis makes me think you’ve put an intentional error in there somewhere (or, worse, I made an unintentional one!)  

[mark1a]

brooksby wrote:

I wonder what the Artic circle is?  Is it where they build or store HGVs?

Not sure… is it called the semi circle in the USA?

[brooksby]

When, oh, when, will

When, oh, when, will grassroots protest groups learn to use the ‘spelling and grammar’ settings in their word processors…?

[hawkinspeter]

brooksby wrote:

I wonder what the Artic circle is?  Is it where they build or store HGVs?

Probably somewhere ice-olated

Just had a quick search around and seen the same quote published, but with “Arctic” spelled correctly, so I think it’s a BristolPost error. However, discovered that there is a charity called “Reclaim Our Community” that is unrelated to this activist group – maybe they should join forces with Tyre Extinguishers instead.

[Author]

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