RobinBHM
Established Member
Tony if you don’t set a target, you won’t achieve it
Cop 29
- Thread starter Chris152
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Is every target intended to improve (or, in this case, just maintain) things for humanity 'virtue signalling'?
I was working in Glasgow just a couple of days before that COP. The proud brag of the local authority was that all the Police used for the event cars were EVs. What they failed to mention was that there was a huge bank of diesel generators to charge them.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
It's a pity that these threads always turn into finger pointing labour vs tory arguments. COP X, (formerly known as COP Twitter) is surely a good thing, as anything that reduces harmful emissions, encourages use of renewable energy and generates a global culture of being at least fairly responsible, must be a good thing. If humanity wants to survive as a species, then we need to get our act together.
You think what you like. I'm not going to argue with people who always think they're right.That sounds like a 'COP' out to me
If you refute those claims then provide proof showing them to be wrong. Flouncing off with a goodbye kind of states that you were wrong, or you have no factual proof to back up your own argument
If you want factual proof, feel free to use your time finding it.
Proof either way is easy to find out there, depending on your preferences and prejudices.
It is not a case of giving up but being realistic, don't waste time and effort on something that delivers little return but something that might have a bigger impact. This really means that we need to stop being warmongers and work with everyone even if we do not approve of there values and make closer ties with people like China, they are being realistic in there green department but not by harsh measures that have negative impacts on the people.
Which is what Tony has said. If we in the UK stop fossil fuels tommorow the global change will be non measurable, but everything comes to a halt including windturbines which use oil for there gearboxes. We basically create our own extinction event, there will be nothing because transport stops, energy stops, communications stop and we have no heating, lighting or cooking facilities.
ey_tony
Established Member
My sentiment exactly. I've always sets targets in my life and they have worked well but then they were also realistic otherwise setting targets too high without the means to fire the shot accurately in the first place means you will miss quite badly every time and it inevitably leads to disappointment.
That doesn't mean we don't try, on the contrary we should but unless targets are realistic and achievable then they are pointless. You may think differently but logic tells me that some of the targets which are set today are simply delusional rather than achievable .
selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
I wouldn't call the advances in renewable energy and carbon reduction made in this country 'little return'. It will save us money ultimately and it is a good example of what can be achieved - despite the moaning minnies.
RobinBHM
Established Member
It shouldnt be a Labour versus Tory argument -it should be debate on the merits of renewable energy
actually Conservatives had quite ambitious targets and carbon emissions came down a lot whilst they were in power
both Conservatives and Labour want to get to carbon neutral, its the right wing of the Conservative party (the ERG) and the REform party that does not
RobinBHM
Established Member
if it easy to find, then why havent you found it and provided it?
you claimed that left and right are just as involved in taking fossil fuel donations..........but you have as yet provided zero evidence to support that
I have and I provided you with the proof
but you didnt like it, so you resorted to deflection and ad hominem attacks
Basically you posted a well worn trope that "all politicians are the same" and you didnt like it when that was proven otherwise.
I believe in facts not political tribalism, the left do lots if things I disagree with, but they dont take loads of fossil fuel money -thats the preserve of the right
You can't just do nothing and expect China and the US to do it all. Because even if they totally sorted themselves out, there's still an awful lot of emissions not including them. What level of relative scale do you want to put it at? If you go with emissions per capita, the UK is relatively heavy in proportion to half of the world, but mid-table compared to the whole world. If you go with UK as a national unit total emissions relative to the rest of the entire planet for total emissions, it's pretty insignificant. If you compare UK to Australia by capita, we're saints. If you compare Europe as a whole either per capita or by total emissions, including the UK or not, it's fairly horrendous.
But the EU (and in that I'll include the UK) has its lowest emissions in 58 years, says google. Reduced by 7.6% in 2023 it says. Now I bet some EU countries didn't reduce their emissions at all, but some did. Did they waste their time? How much better would it have been if all of the ones who didn't reduce had managed to do it as well?
It's a crappy argument. And if you say "but the UK isn't in the EU, so what's the point?" then you are just attempting mental gymnastics to swerve the point.
Of course, if we're all drinking from the same lake and one person pours a large amount of anthrax in it then we're all going to die (ehhehehehahaheheh), but that doesn't mean we can all just chuck in anthrax as well. What you need to do is not throw in anthrax and stop the bastids who are from doing it.
I did a full time Environmental Science degree in the late noughties, when hockey stick graphs were all the rage, at a uni that specialises in climate science. I didn't focus on climate myself but I had modules and it invariably came into everything I did there, of course. I didn't do any of it for a career and it was a long time ago and I forget, so none of this makes me an expert on it. But the reason I am telling you this is that I have argued this stuff for many years and the amount of astonishing b*llsh*t that people come out with on this is myriad. I have heard it all.
The "we won't change anything if nobody else does" is incredibly common, is even demonstrably true, but is never, ever followed up by any intelligent thoughts after. It's just an excuse to continue to be selfish and lazy and makes no logical sense. All nations are islands, but form one world. If I have to pursue that train of thought any more to make my point, you're just being obtuse.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
And there's no earthly point in setting a target that's impossible to hit.
ey_tony
Established Member
We can make a huge difference just by reducing consumerism. Other than food production to feed and the energy needed to keep the world's population from starving and warm, consumerism is the primary driving force behind the issues the planet faces.
China for instance produces 37.36 times Co2 than the UK but their population is only 20.64 times more than the UK. This where the current thinking just isn't working.
Unless everyone across the planet actually does their bit to reduce consumerism, we are never going to catch up.
Drastically cutting back to achieve net zero where the UK is concerned will have far reaching consequences for the British economy and the British people. Unless the rest of the world follows suit then it's pointless being overly ambitious with targets as it will only serve to hurt the UK.
I'm all in favour of cutting back on the pollution arguably attributed to global warming across the world but doing it disproportionately and unilaterally, will only serve to harm the people of the UK.
It needs a revised plan which actually takes into account what is actually currently available as well as what is projected to be available in X-number of years.
So far all I'm seeing pie in the sky ideals which are very much delusional.
China for instance produces 37.36 times Co2 than the UK but their population is only 20.64 times more than the UK. This where the current thinking just isn't working.
Unless everyone across the planet actually does their bit to reduce consumerism, we are never going to catch up.
Drastically cutting back to achieve net zero where the UK is concerned will have far reaching consequences for the British economy and the British people. Unless the rest of the world follows suit then it's pointless being overly ambitious with targets as it will only serve to hurt the UK.
I'm all in favour of cutting back on the pollution arguably attributed to global warming across the world but doing it disproportionately and unilaterally, will only serve to harm the people of the UK.
It needs a revised plan which actually takes into account what is actually currently available as well as what is projected to be available in X-number of years.
So far all I'm seeing pie in the sky ideals which are very much delusional.
One issue is defining a target. It's literally impossible to make one based on what's going to happen, because nobody really knows beyond some very broad stroke stuff. Which fuels the argument for doing nothing.
I'm a planner for a living. I get laughed at at work (good naturedly apart from the idiots, because the point I make is unarguable) because I like to quote Eisenhower from D-Day stuff: "Planning is everything, but the plan is nothing" (there's old Croolis with his Eisenhower again
) .No plan, no action (this is so true at my place of work
) . Expect the reality to not meet the plan. The plan is an ideal fantasy, reality will intrude. Be ready to adjust. By planning.But I agree there's no point setting a target that's impossible to hit. The rub comes when you try and say what's possible or not.
Hypnotic Chimera
Directional Consultant Extraordinaire
This goes out to resident tony as well.
The ONLY way we can persuade those top 10 nations listed - the ONLY way - is to also agree for the UK to do something alongside them.
It's a global game, and we don't just stand idly by and say - "meh - we can't help you, but YOU need to do something to save the planet for MY children".
Is this not clear enough to everyone?
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
And there's no earthly point in believing that if Britain does something successfully others will follow. They'll all do what suits them. Every last one of them.
The onus isn't on me to discover proof or to disprove.
But the truth of the matter is in the right wing aspect of politics, there is a higher level of corruption, or to be slightly more generous, more interest in 'Self interest' without looking to keep the country in mind over personal wealth.
I think we all know what the reform party is about, and the conservatives and their own vested interests.
Sometimes when we look at these subjects, and those involved and look for proof there are prime examples, sometimes straight from the horses mouth, or donkeys mouth, if you follow the group 'Led by donkeys'
Im reminded of instances of the tobacco industry producing reports that state that tobacco isnt actually harmful.
Well, it's certainly true that China is doing much more than pretty much any other country to change its energy production. It's also true that they still have a long way to go to get as "good" as us if you measure by capita. But again, if you measure by capita, they are far superior to the US and Russia. Their trajectory, I'm not so sure about, but I suspect it will improve as they take the masses of coal-fired that they have offline. People quite rightly point at the awesome amount of coal-fired that they have, but it should always be followed by some thoughts about how quickly they will shed a good percentage of it.
So - if in some future (who knows, this isn't a prediction), per capita, C02 emissions for the UK and China, both align (as an averaged figure but also as a more real world example where urban and rural Chinese people are comparable emitters like the UK), then the conclusion would be that the UK and China have done equally as well.
I suspect that you won't get the same performance from the US and Russia, which could, in that far flung future, indeed leave them out in the cold.
Assuming the fabric of society hasn't ripped itself apart by the slow, slow creep towards the certain resource scarcity and environmental catastrophe. It won't really matter much then.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Of course - they're developinging the stuff to sell to the rest of the world. Nothing especially altruistic about it.
People keep saying nothing is happening, near the top of this thread China generating 35% from renewables. Our figures above show a similar steady improvement. Even India is starting to worry about air quality (rich people have to breath as well). These things don't happen overnight except in the crazy world of just stop oil. Is it too late? Will the worlds eco systems collapse? I doubt it, we are in for a rough ride and greed / stupidity will as always make things worse than they might be. We are in the middle of a mass extinction and when history books are looking back on this time I doubt the generations included in the last 200 years will be seen in a good light but I still think those books will be written.
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