CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Climate Crisis
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Posted 3 years ago #
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Climate change is biggest challenge ahead.
Johnson should have made some statement surely as we hear that England is keen to de-carbonise and with COP26 being in their country and that (!)
But looking thought Guardian this all he said. Of course he did ride a bike into hall other day so maybe thinks he's done enough.
From Simon Jenkins: To seek meaning in a Johnson speech is to miss the point
Johnson does not do policy. He does pledges. His every paragraph is undersigned by glory – the wonderful NHS, world-beating universities, getting “social care done” (again). He wants the country “levelled up”, but who knows how? He wants the climate-change protesters “insulated in prison”.
Posted 3 years ago # -
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With the clock ticking on the climate crisis, the defining issue of our lifetime, many would say causing a nuisance is not only necessary, but a rational response to the inaction it is met with by our leaders.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/08/noisy-protest-avoid-climate-catastrophe
Posted 3 years ago # -
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The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) called on ministers to outlaw internal UK flights if an equivalent train journey took less than five hours and to resist calls for any cut in air passenger duty.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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Biggest ever analysis shows public backs carbon tax on industry, flight levies and grants for heat pumps
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Posted 3 years ago # -
This article gives us hope. Finally!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Presumably the public is in favour up to the point where they have to pay higher prices for something? Then not so much...
Posted 3 years ago # -
Yes
And/or changes to their lifestyle.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone on this forum.
Most fuel-hungry SUVs in the UK are bought by people in cities
The report linked from the article is well worth a read. It looks into the role played by advertising in creating the demand for these vehicles.
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Mindgames on wheels looks at the history of how advertising persuaded urban families that they needed the equivalent of two-ton trucks to go shopping, and why that is a problem. In addition to this created demand, we reveal new data on SUV ownership that shows how the reality is far removed from the uses that these large vehicles were originally designed for.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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The Duke of Cambridge has criticised the space race and space tourism, saying the world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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UK petrol price passes £1.40 a litre, highest in almost a decade
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/15/uk-petrol-price-highest-in-almost-a-decade
Bet bus and train tickets haven’t kept the same level for 10 years!
Posted 3 years ago # -
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The government is poised to publish its long-awaited net zero strategy on Monday, setting out how the UK will meet its targets to cut CO2 emissions by 78% by 2035 and reach net zero by 2050. This will also include the heat and buildings strategy for insulating draughty homes and phasing out gas boilers, along with a massive expansion of offshore wind, and building electric vehicle charging networks.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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Whitehall sources said there was a belief that Sunak was keen to position himself as something of a climate-change sceptic in order to boost his popularity with Tory party members, and draw comparisons with Johnson’s green enthusiasms. “Rishi clearly sees an interest in showing he is not really down with this green stuff. He wants Boris to own the whole agenda.”
A source at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy confirmed that the Treasury was “kicking back” against many of the green plans being advanced by No 10 and Kwarteng. “They are not climate change deniers but they are emphasising the short-term risks, rather than long-term needs, which is what we are emphasising.”
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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Drax has been booted from an investment index of clean energy companies as doubts over the sustainability of its wood-burning power plant begin to mount within the financial sector.
The FTSE 100 energy giant, which has received billions in renewable energy subsidies for its biomass electricity, was axed from the index of the world’s greenest energy companies after S&P Global Dow Jones changed its methodology.
The exit from the S&P Global Clean Energy Index is a blow to Drax, which has vowed to become the world’s first “carbon-negative” energy company by the end of the decade.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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The UK government has announced plans to launch a £400m package of investment alongside the US billionaire Bill Gates to boost the development of new green technologies.
Boris Johnson said the deal would help power a “green industrial revolution” and develop emerging technologies that were currently too expensive to be commercially successful but were essential to hitting the government’s climate goals.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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Roadmap to end UK’s contribution to climate crisis is comprehensive but seriously underfunded
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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Fatalism creeps across our movements like rust. In conversations with scientists and activists, I hear the same words, over and again: “We’re screwed.” Government plans are too little, too late. They are unlikely to prevent the Earth’s systems from flipping into new states hostile to humans and many other species.
What we need, to stand a high chance of stabilising our life support systems, is not slow and incremental change but sudden and drastic action. And this is widely considered impossible. There’s no money; governments are powerless; people won’t tolerate anything more ambitious than the tepid measures they have proposed. Or so we are told. It’s a stark illustration of a general rule: political failure is, at heart, a failure of imagination.
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So what stops the world from responding with the same decisive force to the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced? It’s not a lack of money or capacity or technology. If anything, digitisation would make such a transformation quicker and easier. It’s a problem that Roosevelt faced until Pearl Harbor: a lack of political will. Now, just as then, public hostility and indifference, encouraged by legacy industries (today, above all, fossil fuel, transport, infrastructure, meat and media), outweighs the demand for intervention.
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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She is “very much afraid” that the pandemic hasn’t been the wake-up call we needed, alarmed at how quickly we seem to be going back to normal. On the other hand, she thinks more politicians are starting to take notice of the climate emergency. “Thank goodness some rich countries are beginning to suffer – unfortunately that’s all that will make them take action. There’s more awareness, but unfortunately, most of it is words, words, words.” If promises are acted on we may be fine, she says, “but will they be?”
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Posted 3 years ago # -
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MPs urge pension schemes to cushion economic effects of UK’s net zero plan
Cross-party group says regions could be devastated by a rapid switch to low-carbon technologies
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Posted 3 years ago #
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