Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[filghy2]

To be sure a lot of forest fires are lit by humans (usually unintentionally), but we’re talking about thousands of fire in Australia and the theory that they’re being purposely lit by a couple of hundred arsonists is unsubstantiated rubbish.

The arson explanation is clearly being exaggerated for political purposes. There are always arsonists, but why would there have been a sharp upsurge in arson activity this year compared to previous years?

In any case, it's beside the point. Every fire has a direct cause - arson, human carelessness, lightning strikes, power lines, etc. But it's the environmental conditions that determine how quickly the fire spreads and how difficult it is to control. If the climate is hotter and drier (and last year was the hottest and driest on record in Australia) then any fire that starts will spread more quickly and be harder to control, especially if there are also windy conditions, which has generally been the case on the hottest days. So I don't think the alternative explanations should be thought of as mutually exclusive possibilities.

On a positive note, the PM has changed his rhetoric in recent days to signal that the government may do more on climate change. It remains to be seen what this amounts to, but his approval rating has taken a big hit in recent polls so he has at least recognised the need to be seen to address people's concerns. So there's more grounds for optimism here than in the US - can you imagine Trump saying anything like this?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-...anted/11861016
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...t-poll-of-2020

[Ben]

Michael Bloomberg Backs Fracking & Invests in Fossil Fuels:

https://news.littlesis.org/2018/09/0...-fossil-fuels/

[Stavros]

I have ambivalent reactions to George Monbiot's articles in The Guardian, but this review of the Michael Moore film on the envirnment is worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ent-falsehoods

I have not yet watched the film but it is here-

[Stavros]

This is a link to a short film that debunks most, but not all of what Jeff Gibbs has to offer, pointing out how much of his data is years out of date, among other things.

[filghy2]

I have ambivalent reactions to George Monbiot's articles in The Guardian, but this review of the Michael Moore film on the envirnment is worth reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ent-falsehoods

It's interesting that people previously associated with the left sometimes do an about face and start appealing to the other side (Alan Dershowitz is another recent example, as is Germaine Greer). Is the motivation an attempt to gain attention once their relevance starts to wane? Is it an attempt to convince themselves that they are more impartial than others? Or is it just people becoming more grouchy and contrary as they age?.

[Stavros]

Were they ever on 'the left'? Or were they critics of power who appeared to be on 'the left' because they were opposed to state-sponsored atrocities like Apartheid and the war in South-East Asia- to take two examples in the 1960s and 1970s? In the South African case the thrust of the argument was that Apartheid was morally wrong, politically stupid, and economically inefficient; the demonstrations against the US in Vietnam were pro-Communist/Revolutionary for a hard core, but for others was a critique of the US for a foreign policy that was at odds with its own Revoutionary heritage, and its Liberal values- the phrase was not common at the time but these days people might say 'we are better than this'.

Greer emerged in the Feminist movement in terms set by them, and was automatically 'the opposition' and did I think at one time attempt to locate women's struggles in a broader context of politics and the economy, and not just sexualized relations, but could she have written as comprehensive and at times, as radical a text as Kate Millet's Sexual Politics? Millet had a bigger infuence on me than The Female Eunuch. I think over time she shifted her interests and has written some fascinating books, but I am not sure she was ever, say, a Marxist, if that is one badge of the 'left'

The most obvious candidates are Michael Ignatieff and Christopher Hitchens. Ignatiieff (once ridiculed by Tariq Ali as 'the White Russian with a Canadian accent)' like Hitchens was a middle class critic of power, who flipped on 9/11 because all of a sudden, the US became the victim rather than the perpetrator of bad politics. Or from another perspective they woke up on 9/11 to a day when they had to confront their pitiless ignorance of the Middle East, and then tied themselves in knots of increasing absurdity as they discovered Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and it is right to get rid of him, when for years they looked the other way when the very same organs of power, criticism of whom made their careers, lavished Saddam with all the arms and support he needed to fight the Iranians. And yes, sometimes 'we' need to, indeed have the right to choose other people's governments -just as long as they don't choose ours.

Hitchens in particular suffered because his eloquent essays are often just that -he wrote quite well on many aspects of Islam, but his speed reading approach meant that one day last year in a charity bookshop I found him quoting the Quran to make a negative point, yet when I consulted the offending passage in a copy of the Quran that was on another shelf, it was clear he was misquoting it. Hitchens was also -or is now - known to have a problem with women, about whom he rarely had anything to say, and when he did, it was disparaging.

If the critique of power is what matters, then a distorted film such as the Moore/Gibbs one in the links above helps convert those people who want to find a way out of the 'both sides have a point' mess that much of the climate change debate has become, if it is even a debate. It enables them to avoid the 'Climate change is a hoax' position, while mounting a disillusioned critique of their own side.
It was always the case that the Al Gore view was that climate change is best managed by capitalists, because they have the money and the expertise, rather than the radicals, who only have a loud voice and the ability to mount demonstrations. It was an attempt to co-opt a radical movement into the mainstream of poitical economy, and it has done so with great effect -though whether or not it will advance or retard the energy transition is hard to say.

The great irony now is that the fossil fuel industry is in trouble because nobody expected the critical mass that has taken place to simultaneously reduce production and demand and prices at the level that it has, with who knows what consequences for the future?
And if it is bad for cash rich petroleum companies, how are 'green energy' companies going to cope when we are living, in the advanced and prosperous 'west'/'north', the most critical challenge to consumption in my lifetime? Small is beautiful when all you have is small enough to fit into a backpack -but do people really want it small?

[Nikka]

where is greta

[Ben]

Pollution linked to one in six deaths:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-41678533

[Ben]

JP Morgan economists warn of 'catastrophic' climate change: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51581098

[Ben]

Humanity on Track to Soon Hit 1.5ºC Paris Accord Limit as Atmospheric CO2 Nears Level Not Seen in 15 Million Years:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...level-not-seen