Maybe this explains my recurring tears of despair. But we must refuse to accept that human activity inevitably does damage - we can intervene positively and create hopeful circumstances. Otherwise what is the point of anything?
Extinction Rebellion
- Thread starter Jeremiah18.17
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Maybe this explains my recurring tears of despair. But we must refuse to accept that human activity inevitably does damage - we can intervene positively and create hopeful circumstances. Otherwise what is the point of anything?
Flavour
hang the bankers
this is insane nonsense, sorry redcogs. why must we refuse to accept it? human activity inevitably does damage, insofar as I understand the word damage, to the rest of the ecosystem, insofar as there are limited resources and every inch of land we use for our own ends damages the ecosystems which would have otherwise used it. there's no need for these primitivist fantasies of living in harmony with nature, they don't help.
what the fuck does creating hopeful circumstances (for who?) have to do with the wellbeing of an insect? it's waffle.
human society, as it currently exists, inevitably does enormous and largely irreparable damage to the environment. the question is: what's the least harmful way that 7, 8, 9, 10 billion human beings can coexist with the rest of nature? i'm no malthusian but we have to hope that human population does eventually drop due to lower birth rates and so on, rather than being wiped out in awful catastrophes.
what the fuck does creating hopeful circumstances (for who?) have to do with the wellbeing of an insect? it's waffle.
human society, as it currently exists, inevitably does enormous and largely irreparable damage to the environment. the question is: what's the least harmful way that 7, 8, 9, 10 billion human beings can coexist with the rest of nature? i'm no malthusian but we have to hope that human population does eventually drop due to lower birth rates and so on, rather than being wiped out in awful catastrophes.
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Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
Agree Flavour that it's too late. Not yet sure what that "too late" will look like
We are mainly living in denial* and maybe humans must always live in denial to stay alive. Denial about ecological emergency takes different forms. Either people deny its really happening or will happen in their lifetime in UK and carry on consuming and generating loads CO2. Or they acknowledge its happening but that they are too small to make a difference or it's too late so they despair but do nothing. Or they fear disaster is coming but live in denial that it's too late and campaign for change/make changes they can make.
I'm a denier that moves between all of theres perspectives but I'm aiming to spend more time in the third one
*obviously denial is a luxury not allowed for people on the front line of extreme climate change right now
We are mainly living in denial* and maybe humans must always live in denial to stay alive. Denial about ecological emergency takes different forms. Either people deny its really happening or will happen in their lifetime in UK and carry on consuming and generating loads CO2. Or they acknowledge its happening but that they are too small to make a difference or it's too late so they despair but do nothing. Or they fear disaster is coming but live in denial that it's too late and campaign for change/make changes they can make.
I'm a denier that moves between all of theres perspectives but I'm aiming to spend more time in the third one
*obviously denial is a luxury not allowed for people on the front line of extreme climate change right now
The point i wanted to make was that there are clearly some types of human activity that are more harmful to the natural world than others. its difficult to accept that every human action 'damages' the environment. For example near where i stay there are huge areas of open moorland (which many tourists regard as beautiful!) which was previously Caledonian forest sucking up carbon from the atmosphere. Humans cut the trees down, and introduced sheep, and these together with wild deer now ensure that nothing much grows other than heather, enabling the aristo owners make a packet from grouse shooting by an infinitesimal proportion of the population. In my more optimistic moments i imagine turning that process on its head by creating a different society, free from the ravage of private property, which encourages ecologically sympathetic types of human intervention which can restore the Caledonian treeland.
Some types of human activity can contribute to a saner and safer world? If this is incorrect then we truly are fucked.
Flavour
hang the bankers
Yes we definitely need reforestation. Lots of it. They say in the middle ages a third of England was covered in forest (can't remember where I heard that sorry) and yes I'd say start with all the golf courses (just fuck golf right off as a sport) and land currently used for cattle farming. The east Anglian fens. Snowdonia. The Yorkshire moors. Anywhere with low population density really. There's no shortage of space where rewilding could be rolled out. But I feel it while I type it : the resistance to radical change because of the inconvenience.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
To my mind, the thing that makes Thunberg “inspirational” is that she transposes the entire climate change debate into the language of moral diatribe: thus her sermon before the UN, with everyone hanging their heads and feeling guilty. As in pop-culture Christianity, the point of repenting your sins is that this allows you to keep on doing them — after all, you’ve felt really bad about them, and maybe done some penance like adopting a vegan diet, right? So you’re okay with God or Gaia, and you can go right back to committing the same sins, knowing that there’ll be another sermon next Sunday and you can repent the next round then. The guy from Nazareth used to say “go and sin no more,” but of course that’s one of many things he said that got dropped like a hot rock.
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
Or there's a backlash against it like this that one of my facebook friends shared
[*scuse the big text] 
Baronage-Phase
Well-Known Member
Jeremy Clarkson tells 'spoilt brat' Greta Thunberg to 'be a good girl and shut up'
Another fuckwit gobshite old white guy targets her.
Another fuckwit gobshite old white guy targets her.
Yes a bit rich for this man child to be whinging about someone else having the "screaming ab dabs"
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Or there's a backlash against it like this that one of my facebook friends shared
View attachment 185391
Small children solely responsible for McDonald's corporate policy and their parents' choice of vehicle of course
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
I knowSmall children solely responsible for McDonald's corporate policy and their parents' choice of vehicle of course
it was shared by someone I used to work with. She doesn't have loads of cash and doesn't go on holiday abroad but I know many of her friends do. They might have grown up with caravan holidays but they all fly abroad now and take their kids & grand kids
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
It's the reflex assumption that anything challenging an existing way of life is aimed at shaming them personally for no reason apart from moral superiority that gets me. Not that it's exclusive to climate change, of course - you see it on all sorts of issues, deliberately warping any sort of social criticism in their minds so it's (a) personal and (b) not for any reason apart from to get one up on you.
Clarkson is just a horrible mouthy media cunt mind, I don't even bother including him in this or give a single shit what he says.
Clarkson is just a horrible mouthy media cunt mind, I don't even bother including him in this or give a single shit what he says.
Flavour
hang the bankers
This is extremely prevalent and is also the trap which prevents action, as every approach is justifiably criticized for its shortcomings. The authoritarian greens (i.e. those, like some in XR seem to be, who support anti-democratic top-down radical structural change to stop the climate crisis) believe in the state as an apparatus with the potential to do good, and more often not do not see capitalism as necessarily an enemy: i've lost count of the times i've heard people talking about "improving" capitalism, "green capitalism", and the idea of good v bad capitalism. the idea that capitalism has "exaggerated" and gone too far in the wrong direction, but not that it is in itself an enemy of nature.
Those who don't challenge other people's way of life (often for fear of this sort of defensive reaction you describe) content themselves with their own individual actions which as we know may help that person feel better about themselves, reassure them they're doing *their* bit, but as we know individual efforts to recycle and drive less and eat less meat will have close to zero impact on global emissions.
Absolutely agree with your anti cap analysis. But i'm uncomfortable with the above para' Flavour, but maybe i've not understood? Not that i have any answers on how we can best encourage individuals to change their habits, most of which have developed through a lifetime consumption within a consumer society. Jabbing the finger at someone who might be about to fly to their hard earned summer holiday in the sun, or shreiking at someone eating a bigmac doesnt seem like much of a strategy for social change. XR's encouragement of mass civil disobedience however is much more in keeping with actions that have previously succeeded? i'm not convinced that taking individuals to task like some holier than thou hectoring wearer of a hair shirt can convince that many people to shift the fundamentals of their behaviour.
Flavour
hang the bankers
That's what I'm saying. You don't think it's right to "jab the finger" at the working class for summer holiday or big mac... and of course, compared to the vastly superior carbon emissions of the rich with their private jets and inherently emissions-rich lifestyle (including the companies they own and the electricity they use) ... it's not fair to pull the guilt trip on poor people who struggle through life enough as it is. Who am I, who are you to make them feel guilty about one of the pleasures afforded them?
Yet. The number of flights in the air and the whole meat industry (not to mention fast food corporate supply chains and so on) are part of the global problem. So where do we start? With the consumers, the providers of those services, or the politics that legitimizes them? That's the hard question.
Yet. The number of flights in the air and the whole meat industry (not to mention fast food corporate supply chains and so on) are part of the global problem. So where do we start? With the consumers, the providers of those services, or the politics that legitimizes them? That's the hard question.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
The pleasures afforded them. Tbh flying off on holiday isn't really affordable, not if you want to shift to a vaguely decent environmental future. The problem is that it's lots of individual actions which do make a difference. Not, as you say, a vast difference. But actions taken in one area will have an effect in another, the whole cap system's connected. If people aren't up for changing their holiday plans fuck knows how some of the more desperate decisions are going to be made down the line.
Flavour
hang the bankers
It's affordable, financially, for a vast swathe of the population to fly (with Ryanair or other budget airlines at lewsy) abroad and every year millions of people do so. It wasn't normal until perhaps the 1980s, but how many people do you know who haven't flown abroad for pleasure at least once in the last 3 years?
I can't find the pdf of the full article rn but this article in nature :
Shift the focus from the super-poor to the super-rich
Makes the case that the super rich (the richest 47 million people on the planet I believe) emit as much as the poorest 3.5 billion.
Admittedly those 3.5 billion probably don't do much flying.
But my point is : while massively increasing the cost of air travel would dissuade people from flying so much, it would punish the poorest fliers.
Is that the right way to convince people to change their holiday plans? It won't make much difference to the rich. Or those with private jets.
I havent seen any models, I don't know if any exist, but imagine the cost of all flights doubled overnight. Would the number of flights halve? I doubt it somehow. I'm not sure how effective a measure it would be on its own.
On the other hand I would be in favor of:
Government bans on farms which host more than 100 animals
Buy back and replace subsidy schemes to take diesel and petrol cars off the road
Nationalized electric cars
Wind, tidal and other renewable energy expansion
Nationalized power rapidly converted to renewable
And so on
But unless it's global again, the UK alone wouldn't make much difference. China, Saudi, Russia and the US: without them fully engaged in the same activities its all a bit pointless denying yourself a Ryanair flight out of climate guilt
I can't find the pdf of the full article rn but this article in nature :
Shift the focus from the super-poor to the super-rich
Makes the case that the super rich (the richest 47 million people on the planet I believe) emit as much as the poorest 3.5 billion.
Admittedly those 3.5 billion probably don't do much flying.
But my point is : while massively increasing the cost of air travel would dissuade people from flying so much, it would punish the poorest fliers.
Is that the right way to convince people to change their holiday plans? It won't make much difference to the rich. Or those with private jets.
I havent seen any models, I don't know if any exist, but imagine the cost of all flights doubled overnight. Would the number of flights halve? I doubt it somehow. I'm not sure how effective a measure it would be on its own.
On the other hand I would be in favor of:
Government bans on farms which host more than 100 animals
Buy back and replace subsidy schemes to take diesel and petrol cars off the road
Nationalized electric cars
Wind, tidal and other renewable energy expansion
Nationalized power rapidly converted to renewable
And so on
But unless it's global again, the UK alone wouldn't make much difference. China, Saudi, Russia and the US: without them fully engaged in the same activities its all a bit pointless denying yourself a Ryanair flight out of climate guilt
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
obviously people can pay the price - the money - for these flights. but it's the consequences of flying which will be unaffordable. part of the reason i think why the arctic is doing so poorly, why it's warming significantly faster than other parts of the planet, is because so many flights go over it (see eg Polar route - Wikipedia). every flight has a measurable consequence, and while it would be good if americans or russians or chinese people changed their habits, it's up to us, i think, to change our habits. your argument is the same one that american politician used the other day to greta thunberg, that american action would make no difference if china did nothing, and while i would expect a specious argument from an american politician i don't expect to hear such a thing from you. whatever happened to the auld slogan 'think globally, act locally'? your slogan seems to be, 'think globally, call on the government to do something locally'.
Flavour
hang the bankers
I do act locally. I agree with the idea. I grow my own vegetables and everything. I absolutely do not think calling on governments is going to change much any time soon - in a theoretical situation where a government could take such action I'd be in favor of it. My point was that guilt tripping people for flying isn't that helpful.
I agree that the UK should go its own route of becoming more environmentally friendly or sustainable. Despite the fact that the UK wouldn't be able to change much globally. Something is better than nothing. Sure.
The American politician: obviously full of shit. The USA still at least the 2nd most influential country in the world and could make the kind of planet-wide impact we need if it so chose. There is historical precedent of the USA devoting enormous resources (something like 2.5% of gdp) to a state program: the Apollo program. But nowadays I'm not sure there's the political will.
This is another aspect of the quandry: governments have been corrupted by business interests and neoliberalism so deeply that they cannot be trusted to do anything except act in the interests of capital. Yet there are no others power capable of making the kind of swift radical change. If the change is gonna come about from the bottom up, it requires a general climate strike (not just one day but indefinite), occupation of power stations, highway blocks, all sorts of radical shit that XR has sort of experimented with a little bit. But they don't have the numbers or the tactics needed to threaten capital. And those sorts of actions will inevitably create lots of enemies among the working class.
I don't know. It's all a bit overwhelming.
I agree that the UK should go its own route of becoming more environmentally friendly or sustainable. Despite the fact that the UK wouldn't be able to change much globally. Something is better than nothing. Sure.
The American politician: obviously full of shit. The USA still at least the 2nd most influential country in the world and could make the kind of planet-wide impact we need if it so chose. There is historical precedent of the USA devoting enormous resources (something like 2.5% of gdp) to a state program: the Apollo program. But nowadays I'm not sure there's the political will.
This is another aspect of the quandry: governments have been corrupted by business interests and neoliberalism so deeply that they cannot be trusted to do anything except act in the interests of capital. Yet there are no others power capable of making the kind of swift radical change. If the change is gonna come about from the bottom up, it requires a general climate strike (not just one day but indefinite), occupation of power stations, highway blocks, all sorts of radical shit that XR has sort of experimented with a little bit. But they don't have the numbers or the tactics needed to threaten capital. And those sorts of actions will inevitably create lots of enemies among the working class.
I don't know. It's all a bit overwhelming.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that it is
Depressingly, daughter, who is a lot more active than my idle self, has been telling me that police have been in contact with schools, asking for information about children attending climate protests. I think daughter has initiated some FOI requests and is working with Netpol, drawing up advice for parents who are being threatened with safeguarding/social services interventions. Since the threshold for intervention is so ridiculously high, it seems likely that police or school threats to parents will come to little but even so. If the fools in ER imagine the police are their friends, they are more disconnected to reality than I thought.
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Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
I went on an XR bike ride a couple of weeks ago, was a sunny day and the chance to hold up some traffic sounded fun. Whilst waiting for the off one of the local bods started telling me about their weekly meetings in the build up to next week's actions. I said I might mooch along, he then got excited and asked if I would be prepared to go up to London, said I might do. Then without missing a beat he asked if I'd like to get arrested, to which I replied no. He said it really wasn't that bad, to which my riposte was that on the various previous occasions I had been nicked it was invariably a pain the fucking arse. He asked where i had been busted before, I left out the raves and drugs shit and mentioned one Reclaim the Streets and Twyford Down. He'd heard of neither...
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Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
ska invita
back on the other side
On a similiar note this article is interesting:
The US military is a bigger polluter than more than 100 countries combined
Headline of 100+ countries aside it reckons US army pollution equals that of a medium sized country, Portugal, say.
Also how much have XR been infiltrated I wonder...Cant be very hard.
Regarding the upcoming actions I have caught wind of some of the plans...sounds like it will be a good spectacle at the very least! Some good logistics in the pipeline too (if the actions last long enough to see them actualised)
The failure of passing down recently left history and lessons of good (and bad) practice is a gaping hole I think.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Not really their fault is it? There are radical history blogs (good London calendar here: http://past-tense.org.uk/pdf/calendar2015.pdf ) but they are pretty niche and unlikely to even come up in google searches unless you are looking for very specific things. People can only learn about these things in person most of the time. There's definitely space for a well-made website that gives a good history of the last 30-50 years of agitation/protest/riots in the UK but it's a huge project and would probably need funding to be really both comprehensive and easy to use.
