Climate Emergency?

Well, it's been a while.  I didn't even know that this blog still existed, although I think nothing ceases to exist out there in webspace.  I thought I'd have a go at expressing a few thoughts on current issues... well, one current issue.

It cannot have escaped your notice that there are currently some delightful characters camping out in Central London.  If you have been watching them, you will notice that they can appear rather entertaining.  They dance in, what we could call, rather unique styles.  They are against plastics and other oil-based products, and yet they perform Yoga exercises on yoga mats made from an oil-based product.  They attempt to hide a diesel generator using wooden pallets, which do not cover the noise and fumes, and some of them buy lunch at McDonald's; an example of the corporate world that they despise.  It would be very easy just to laugh at them, other than the fact that they are wasting police resources (even more so than the police themselves, who claim to lack the resources to deal with knife crime and yet can dance and man floats at Pride parades) and making it difficult for people to get to work and hospital appointments.  You may say that the point of protest, or civil disobedience, is to cause disruption to everyday life.  However, Extinction Rebellion would also like people to become favourably disposed towards them and their cause.  Given the fact that people who need to get to hospital are being told that they should negotiate access, and given that a lot of hardworking people, such as cabbies, are suffering financially, they are not playing the goodwill card to its greatest efficacy.

Another own goal, in my opinion, is the alarmist language being used and Andrew Neil challenged this in the above video.  One thing highlighted was that climate-related deaths have reduced by 95% in the last 100 years despite Extinction Rebellion (XR) claiming that billions were going to die.  The interviewee, the imaginatively titled Zion Lights, admitted that XR were lying by stating that alarmist language was a tactic used to spark debate through shock value.  Rising sea levels was also raised, something else that XR said would be responsible for the death of billions.  Andrew Neil stated, and Ms Lights did not dispute, that the largest estimates were an increase of 0.5 metres by 2100, which may cause problems but not billions of deaths.  It was also proposed that this rise was manageable if the right things were done.  Zion Lights responded, "But the right things aren't being done."  I have to say, she was right in saying that but not in the way that she believed.

One place mentioned as being at risk of difficulty (note, 0.5m is a difficulty, not a complete and irreversible disaster) was Bangladesh.  In his video Extinction Rebellion's Real Agenda Exposed, Mahyar Tousi tells us that the reason that Bangladesh has a problem is in relation to its geographical nature with regard to sea level.  The geography of Bangladesh is such that most elevations in the country are no more that 10 metres above sea level and the southern coastal regions are at sea level.  This makes Bangladesh vulnerable to the effects of storm surges and other weather phenomena.

Tousi compares Bangladesh to the Netherlands.  In terms of geography, one third of the Netherlands is below sea level, the lowest point being 22 metres below sea level.  However, since 1953 there have been no deaths because of flooding.  Although flooding was experienced in 1990, rather than causing disaster and panic this led to innovation in water management technology that the Dutch are seeking to share with the developing world.  We can find a similar example in the history of London.  The last time that Central London experienced significant flooding because of water levels in the River Thames was in 1928, although there have been other less serious incidences in later years.  What has been London's greatest protection from the danger of high river water levels?  The Thames Flood Barrier, a technological innovation born from the recognition of the problem and the need for a solution.  How were these innovations achieved?  Through the very development and industrialisation that XR blame for the problems they say are threatening the planet.  Industrialisation has caused problems, but many of the issues are natural disasters that are unavoidable facts of nature.  We find the answer to these challenges in the very capitalist driven development that XR find so objectionable.  Imagine if they allowed Bangladesh to pursue the ability to produce similar environmental defences to those of Holland, a nation with land below sea-level rather than at sea level.  XR see the increase in industrial manufacturing that would be necessary to make this possible as a threat, ignoring the fact that it produces solutions.

Where and how are electric cars manufactured?  How did windmills for the generation of electricity come about?  Did hydroelectricity just happen with no machinery involved?  No.  As society has grown and as the needs of that larger society increased, means had to be found to support society.  XR appear to hold the belief that we should return to an agrarian economy, but how far back should we go?  Imagine the pollution due to the number of blacksmiths that it would take to manufacture enough sickles and scythes to gather a sufficient harvest to feed the entire population.  An amount that must take into account the overabundance of livestock due to the vegan diet that they feel that we should all adopt.  This causes another problem.  The erstwhile US Congresswoman, Alexandria Orcasio Cortez, highlighted in her Green New Deal the threat of Carbon Dioxide due to cows farting.   How long until a new XR arise to demand an end to the imminent threat to existence caused by cow farts?  How would we deal with the number of excess cows once they are no longer food or dairy producers?  Do we cull them?  I can't see that winning too many prizes with XR.

The thing is, we hear a lot of talk from XR about their concern for the environment, and it is clear that they believe that they believe that their feelings about their cause override the necessity to use facts.  In the interview by Andrew Neil we see Zion Lights flounder in the face of challenges to the alarmist statements made by her organisation.  Mayhar Tousi quotes a number of sources that go against the "evidence" provided by XR.  Prince Harry says that everyone's carbon footprint counts, before flying off on a private jet.  The XR protesters can mull all this over once they travel home on modes of transport produced by industrial development, sitting in their parent's houses and watching television, surfing the net on their mass produced plastic bodied laptops or tablets and eating their take away McDonald's.  It may be an emergency, but their in no hurry to change anything.  Why change your own life when you can disrupt everyone else's?

The countdown to extinction continues, although how long depends on who you talk to. It seems like the clock can be reset.