8ball
1,200 lights
Fat Elvis Capitalism has a nice ring to it.
Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
- Start date
Fat Elvis Capitalism has a nice ring to it.
newbie
undisambiguated
I dunno if this is the right thread. I joined the protests just as I've joined many environmental protests. But I did so in the knowledge that if there was a sensible practical, realworld solution to this it would have been apparent and implemented already. In some aspects the science hasn't been ready, in most the political consequences rule out any party or individual making any substantial practical proposals: that is perhaps something where these protests may have some impact.
Full transitioning means stopping the use of gas (we use about 900,000 GWh pa in UK: electricity generating capacity is about 90GW) as well as oil and coal. Domestic consumption of gas outweighs its role in both electricity production and industrial usage so you'll need to also swap out every gas water heater and cooker in the country. That replacement, alongside electric vehicles, means a huge increase in National Grid carrying capacity.
Oil is used for feedstock for plastics and coal is used for making steel, without both of which (plus energy intensive concrete) none of the proposed changes can happen. Whether or not there are enough Chinese controlled rare earths for PVs, turbines and batteries to replace all fossil fuels just for this country remains to be seen, but overall capacity for worldwide replacement of fossils seems unlikely.
Zero carbon economy before 2025 looks impossible.
Your proposals are for limited impact on lifestyle (unlike, eg banning all air travel or private vehicles or wartime-like rationing energy usage). There will probably be more jobs, not fewer as when coal consumption was so brutally reduced. That bolsters potential political acceptability but pumping that much taxpayer money and more into the economy will inevitably mean arguments made about the lack of national competitiveness compared with countries that don't decarbonise quite so quickly. meanwhile there will also be arguments about countries or regions that have yet to fully realise the development potential of a carbon economy being expected to invest huge sums to bypass that for the benefit of all. So this won't be any easier in future than in the past. That scale of investment will also, as an unintended consequence, cause economic growth which in turn implies increased consumerism, resource depletion and environmental destruction.
Cynical me thinks there are no practical, short term solutions. Even if government knew how to do much, much smaller projects like ooh, NHS patient records or Crossrail or Brexit, they simply have neither the expertise nor mandate to make anything on this scale happen.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Elton John Farewell Tour Capitalism perhaps.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the only things which will survive climate change are cockroaches and cliff richard
Idaho
blah blah blah
Perhaps with the police it's a perfect storm of:
- existing police discontent with chronic understaffing (a single officer covering a medium sized town);
- social media and video coverage,
- a common ground in the protest (I have heard xr people say that many police have been supportive of the aims), and
- Xr deliberately avoiding a them and us dynamic with the police.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
What kind of fuckwit do you have to be to think the police support your aims at the same time as they're carting off your mates by the hundred and chucking them into cells?
8ball
1,200 lights
He'll be fine - he'll be playing Circle Of Life on the captain's deck of the Space Ark as it blasts off from Dubai.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
For XR that is their aim!
teuchter
je suis teuchter
People will type out endless posts like this on forums like this, and fuss about the politics of movements like XR, and we will slide slowly into climate catastrophe in the meantime. However, the inaction of bookish politico types won't be what prevents anything real being done about climate change, it'll be the lack of suitable international structures to deal with it, and the ambivalence of most of the population of the Western world and their unwillingness to accept change to their lifestyles. Hopefully this post can be quoted back to me in ten years proving me wrong.
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
To be strong everyone has to be in it together imho, otherwise there is a built-in weakness which can easily be exploited and targeted first.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
If we've only got a decade or so left to live I don't want to spend it rotting in a cell because some copper-loving 'comrade' threw me under the bus.
Idaho
blah blah blah
The kind of fuckwit who sees things as being more complicated and contradictory than you obviously do.
8ball
1,200 lights
8ball
1,200 lights
The police could counter by only arresting the non-arrestables.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
We've got plenty more than a decade left to live; it'll not be us who feel the worst of the effects. It'll be following generations and people in other parts of the world.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i met a sergeant out of the tsg who was very much against the poll tax, but i have no doubt that if ordered to crack a skull on a poll tax demo he'd have done it. it matters not a jot whether the cops support the objectives of a campaign, they're not going to jump ship and turn against the state. nor are they going to be to fussed about social media and video coverage - there's been social media and video coverage of all manner of brutality and still you don't see cops convicted of murder and only very rarely of other crimes. they didn't give a fuck about all the filming and tweeting from the climate camp in 2009, and i'm sure other people can think of examples of the same. neither does your number 1 come into play. your chronic understaffing isn't matched by what it says on every met police vehicle - they are recruiting 3,000 officers. what's happening is more likely to be a play by senior police officers and police & crime commissioners (mopac in london) for more money.
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
Yep, or concentrate on the arrestables. Meaning they don't have to worry about the other 90% kicking off.
8ball
1,200 lights
I don't know the proportions tbf.
8ball
1,200 lights
Speak for yourself.
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
Even if it's 50/50. That's a lot of the crowd they can be confident will provide little resistance to their plans, if any.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Deliberately avoiding a them and us dynamic. There's already a them and us dynamic, monopoly on the use of force will do that. They're carrying weapons and you're not. You're accountable for your actions, they are not. The only thing being avoided here is rational thought.
8ball
1,200 lights
I thought "arrestable" related to the willingness to be arrested as opposed to likely degree of resistance or reaction.
Idaho
blah blah blah
I'm going to have to mark advertising on police buses as inadmissible/hearsay with regard to police staffing. The government have answered the charge of chronic NHS under staffing by quoting recruitment targets It's bollocks.
Your first point is a more reasonable challenge. But the poll tax protests did deteriorate into a them and us with the police (granted that was largely initiated by the police).
I think the deliberate offering up of arrestable people is a very interesting tactic and plays right into the weaknesses of the police force right now - lack of custody space and a lack of custody staff.
Idaho
blah blah blah
This is precisely why very public peacefulness and compliance is such a good tactic. No point trying force as you will get crushed. Anyhow... This is p&p and I've said all I have on the matter. Beyond this there only lies repetition and bun fighting.
mwgdrwg
Be a Pisces. Jam.
Do you think a crowd of people not willing to get arrested for their cause are:
a) More likely to resist/react than those willing to be arrested
b) Less likely to resist/react than those willing to be arrested
c) Equally likely to resist/react than those willing to be arrested
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh i'm not talking about recruitment targets, you can put that strawman down. i'm talking about your actual recruitment within the local police force, the metropolitan police. perhaps you could support your claim about single cops policing medium-sized towns with an example from the metropolitan police district. but you can't, because you're not big on evidence.
the simple point which has so very easily evaded you is it doesn't matter if the police agree with your political campaign, they will twat you nonetheless if that's what they're ordered to do.
8ball
1,200 lights
Have you been observing any of this?
The arrestables have been carried off like tame little lambs for the most part.
