Just Stop Oil

[lazythursday]

Good to see the new head of the IPCC agrees with me:

"If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyzes people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change"

Don't overstate 1.5 degrees C threat, new IPCC head says – DW – 07/30/2023

Jim Skea, the new head of the UN's IPCC, said it's not helpful to imply that a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius is an existential threat to humanity. He calls for a balanced approach to the climate change debate.

www.dw.com

We simply don't know just how much of a threat 1.5 degrees is - it's probably calamitous for some ecosystems and there's a lot of unknowables around tipping points. But broadly I'd agree that 1.5 degrees is something our civilisation can probably cope with.

Its a pity then that we haven't got a cat in hell's chance of staying under 1.5 degrees and are heading for something closer to 2.7 on the current trajectory.

 

[chilango]

1.5 will happen this year I suspect.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Will Sunak pay any attention to António Guterres? Probably not. The UN is considered, not without due cause, by many to be toothless and in any case he's got himself and all his mates to further enrich.

Sunak’s new oil and gas licences are ‘moral and economic madness’

PM becomes ‘dangerous radical’, in words of UN chief, by backing fossil fuels incompatible with net zero goals

www.theguardian.com

e2a and this may go some way to explaining why:

I’m not sure that even counts as corruption as far as the tories are concerned.

 

[tommers]

Labour have said they would not revoke the licences.

Our political system is really based on both main parties being convinced that the majority of the electorate are pricks.

 

[platinumsage]

Will Sunak pay any attention to António Guterres? Probably not. The UN is considered, not without due cause, by many to be toothless and in any case he's got himself and all his mates to further enrich.

Sunak’s new oil and gas licences are ‘moral and economic madness’

PM becomes ‘dangerous radical’, in words of UN chief, by backing fossil fuels incompatible with net zero goals

www.theguardian.com

e2a and this may go some way to explaining why:

Guterres was speaking in 2022, so contrary to the Guardian headline has not commented on Sunak's new oil and gas licences.

In that 2022 statement Gutterres was primarily talking about coal.

Coal is the big problem at the moment, that's where most attention should be. The parochial focus on the North Sea is pretty much irrelevant. This article set out just how badly the end of coal is going. Any step the UK government could take to influence global coal consumption would be worth far more than swapping North Sea gas for imported LNG, although maybe like JSO you're a fan of gesture politics.

Who is keeping coal alive?

The financiers saving the world’s dirtiest fuel from extinction

www.economist.com

 

[teqniq]

I'm not a fan of gesture politics, no. Neither I suspect is JSO. The use of hydrocarbons in general as an energy source is a a huge problem and so is the money and interests of the extremely wealthy and powerful that are inextricably linked with it.

 

[Flavour]

1.5 will happen this year I suspect.

Yep. I reckon 3 degrees of warming by 2050. Easy.

 

[teqniq]

Sunak's claims that new licences will mean cheaper oil and gas appear to be bollox, who would've guessed?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I suppose adding available resources may bring down prices (just like Russia turning off the taps drove up prices) but I doubt our reserves would have much effect tbh.

 

[LDC]

Sunak's claims that new licences will mean cheaper oil and gas appear to be bollox, who would've guessed?

It's also noticeable that journalism and questioning of politicians is so low quality and so shit that none of this gets put to him in this depth. He's allowed to just spout his line unquestioned. (Not that it would probably make much difference but anyway.)

Issuing new oil and gas licenses is so fucked up it's infuriating and completely depressing. And doesn't it take years (have seen 15 years on average quoted somewhere) for them to come online for production, so how insane is it looking to be extracting new sources of hydrocarbons to burn in 2035-2040 or thereabouts?!

Shows that he pays lipservice to climate change; he must either think it's not real, that's it's not that bad really, or however bad it is profits and capital are more important.

 

[LDC]

Sticking this here as giving it another read as seems timely Desert

Desert

Anonymous Desert 2011

theanarchistlibrary.org

 

[teqniq]

...Shows that he pays lipservice to climate change; he must either think it's not real, that's it's not that bad really, or however bad it is profits and capital are more important.

Won't somebody please think of his portfolio?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

He manages Capitalism in the interests of Capitalists so unsurprisingly the state of the planet comes second to that.

 

[spitfire]

I've just bought that!

I bought it after a recommendation from Pickman's many years ago. Not many books stay with me like that one...

 

[chilango]

Sticking this here as giving it another read as seems timely Desert

Desert

Anonymous Desert 2011

theanarchistlibrary.org

I'm not sure it would be a good idea for me to read that!

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Sunak's claims that new licences will mean cheaper oil and gas appear to be bollox, who would've guessed?

There was a robust Monbiot article too.

 

[lazythursday]

It's also noticeable that journalism and questioning of politicians is so low quality and so shit that none of this gets put to him in this depth. He's allowed to just spout his line unquestioned. (Not that it would probably make much difference but anyway.)

Issuing new oil and gas licenses is so fucked up it's infuriating and completely depressing. And doesn't it take years (have seen 15 years on average quoted somewhere) for them to come online for production, so how insane is it looking to be extracting new sources of hydrocarbons to burn in 2035-2040 or thereabouts?!

Shows that he pays lipservice to climate change; he must either think it's not real, that's it's not that bad really, or however bad it is profits and capital are more important.

The low quality of journalism is a really major factor. Poor questioning of politicians is commonplace across topics but it seems especially egregious when it comes to climate. I think that's because essentially, most political journalists just deal with talking points from the rival parties. That's how they base their whole line of questioning. So if Labour aren't putting the facts out there about new oil development with decent rigor neither will the Westminster hacks because they're simply not aware of anything else to ask.

So as far as I can see no journalist has raised the fact that the IEA said that all new fossil fuel developments had to cease to meet 1.5, like over two years ago, or the wealth of scientific evidence that backs this up, the sheer impossibility of new oil fitting within carbon budgets without enormous stranded assets / capital somewhere. But the journalists are basically not even aware of the concept of a remaining carbon budget.

 

[teqniq]

There was a robust Monbiot article too.

You mean this one I presume:

Here’s the truth about Sunak’s plans for the North Sea: he will sell out the planet to the dirtiest bidders | George Monbiot

Despite grave new warnings about the depth of the climate crisis, plutocrats are fighting to keep their profits – and our PM is with them, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

t.co

 

[teqniq]

Policy Exchange, lamp-post and rope anyone?

Leading Think Tank Met With Minister Over North Sea Energy While Funded by Fossil Fuel Interests

Policy Exchange, one of Westminster’s most prominent think tanks, engaged in a high-level influencing campaign over the UK’s North Sea oil and gas policies while being funded by fossil fuel interests, DeSmog can reveal. The North Sea Transition Deal announced by the government in March 2021 set...

www.desmog.com

This pretty much stinks of vested interests and I notice the asset management firm Macquarie Asset Management who were largely responsible for saddling Thames Water with astronomical debt before selling their interest are heavily invested in National Grid Gas:

 

[Pickman's model]

Policy Exchange, lamp-post and rope anyone?

Leading Think Tank Met With Minister Over North Sea Energy While Funded by Fossil Fuel Interests

Policy Exchange, one of Westminster’s most prominent think tanks, engaged in a high-level influencing campaign over the UK’s North Sea oil and gas policies while being funded by fossil fuel interests, DeSmog can reveal. The North Sea Transition Deal announced by the government in March 2021 set...

www.desmog.com

This pretty much stinks of vested interests and I notice the asset management firm Macquarie Asset Management who were largely responsible for saddling Thames Water with astronomical debt before selling their interest are heavily invested in National Grid Gas:

View attachment 385924

I think you'll need a bigger gallows

 

[LDC]

There's some interesting opinions on JSO and problems with the actions they do covered on here from about 1hr 28mins onwards:

 

[tommers]

 

[platinumsage]

Festi-goers vs road-blockers US-style, arguing about what democracy means before the cops arrive.

 

[edcraw]

Looking forward to the outrage about these climate activists stopping the hardworking burning man attendees get to their weird desert rave.

Burning Man attendees roadblocked by climate activists: ‘They have a privileged mindset’ | Burning Man festival | The Guardian

Protesters arrested after blocking route to festival, leading to fiery exchanges and threats

amp.theguardian.com

 

[LDC]

What a fucking stupid thing to do.

 

[chilango]

What a fucking stupid thing to do.

I disagree.

I think it was an excellent target.

 

[LDC]

I disagree.

I think it was an excellent target.

On what grounds though? Genuinely open to being convinced.

My arguments are that it doesn't stop or reduce any carbon emissions. It doesn't target the class or capital that makes profits from hydrocarbon extraction or carbon emissions. It pits people in the same class against one another. I'd argue it also makes climate activism look moralistic and po-faced and probably much easier to paint any climate activism as being against ordinary people.

It also falls into painting the whole thing as being about personal choices and carbon emissions and footprints which we really need to get away from, it's a massively problematic way of viewing climate, and one large parts of climate activism completely replicate in their activity.

The only argument I can see is that it keeps it in the news, which I think could be done with all sorts of other actions. Maybe makes some case about people flying to Burning Man, but in terms of worthwhile plusses balanced against all the negatives I mentioned I struggle to see how that's a good argument.

 

[chilango]

On what grounds though? Genuinely open to being convinced.

My arguments are that it doesn't stop or reduce any carbon emissions. It doesn't target the class or capital that makes profits from hydrocarbon extraction or carbon emissions. It pits people in the same class against one another. I'd argue it also makes climate activism look moralistic and po-faced. It also makes it easy to paint climate activism as against ordinary people.

The only argument I can see is that it keeps it in the news, which I think could be done with all sorts of other actions. Maybe makes some case about people flying to Burning Man, but in terms of worthwhile plusses balanced against all the negatives I mentioned I struggle to see how that's a god argument.

I guess my reaction is coloured by wandering around Clifton (Bristol) the other day but I think we all need to feel a lot more "uncomfortable". Especially those of us who think that lifestyle changes offset our (structural) roles in exacerbating climate change.

I'd be equally happy if they targeted fucking Glastonbury.

Yes, it's moralistic, but if we can't get moralistic about this then we are embracing a value-free nihilism that leads to the abyss!

I do agree that I'd prefer actions that directly took out carbon emitters though.

 

[pesh]

My arguments are that it doesn't stop or reduce any carbon emissions. It doesn't target the class or capital that makes profits from hydrocarbon extraction or carbon emissions. It pits people in the same class against one another. I'd argue it also makes climate activism look moralistic and po-faced and probably much easier to paint any climate activism as being against ordinary people.

It also falls into painting the whole thing as being about personal choices and carbon emissions and footprints which we really need to get away from, it's a massively problematic way of viewing climate, and one large parts of climate activism completely replicate in their activity.

The only argument I can see is that it keeps it in the news, which I think could be done with all sorts of other actions. Maybe makes some case about people flying to Burning Man, but in terms of worthwhile plusses balanced against all the negatives I mentioned I struggle to see how that's a good argument.

It’s literally a bunch of obscenely wealthy techbros burning shit in the desert FFS

 

[LDC]

I worry that anything that gives the State/capital an open goal to paint climate change measures as being against 'normal people' just means they'll be a backlash that in the long run will make our job much harder.