THE PRESS ARE THICK, DISCUSS

I’m worried. Genuinely worried.

I had always thought that it was only an arrogance of mine to think people were stupid. Now I’ve realised it’s a racial characteristic. By racial I mean the genus Homo. All of us. The entire species.

What set me off again?

Climategate of course.

A blind man with no hearing can sense a change in the weather. We’re getting droughts, storms, heavy snow, heat, animals vegetables and fish moving habitats. Plants flowering early. Birds migrating late.

No no no. It’s all about the wording in a few emails between scientists. There is a Welsh comedian who did a great skit about the gift shop on the Titanic. This strikes me as so similar. For those who are into films, the dinner sequence in Carry on up the Khyber. Only one wee problem. The Foot and Mouth lifting their kilts won’t solve this one.

Global warming and climate change are real, measurable, observable effects. Just because a scientist mentions politics doesn’t change that FACT. Of course there are politics. Science and academia is full of it. So is every work place. It doesn’t matter WHAT you know, its WHO you know. If your entire career is based on producing verifiable checkable, peer reviewed data you’ll spend 3 days carefully noting H2O concentrations within the atmosphere before you’ll admit it’s raining!

Inertia and ignorance in the general population I can understand and accept. After all there is a huge industry playing psychological games to get us to accept stuff as necessary. It’s called advertising. I do bang on about X factor being bread and circuses but the fact I even use that analogy shows it’s at least 2000 years old.

Refutation I don’t understand. The people who do this are labelled sceptics. No they aren’t. A sceptic can say “ show me” and be convinced. They wouldn’t believe you no matter what you did. There are a couple of professors of psychology who are trotted out as sceptics to provide “ balance” on a lot of programs  Everything is apparently in the mind, no matter what the physical evidence. The best example I know is crop circles. There is scientific evidence in some of the plants, in some of the circles of changes in the plant biology which is currently inexplicable. That is usually ignored. Some nutter pops up and yatters on about spirits and feelings. One of these professors does an unrelated experiment on camera and says there you go. Some other twat with a plank says its all him and ergo crop circles are solved.

Similar with climate change. Ignore the evidence, no matter how convincing. Someone says in a private email “watch the politics” so climate change is either a hoax or the prevailing paradigm.

No-one can understand that politics is rife. It’s been rife since we started living in groups, probably 3 million years ago. It’s still rife in our closest cousins. Chimps Gorillas and Bonobos all work on a political system. A wolf pack works on a political system.The bloody press who cause most of the problem work on a political system.

If they said “ watch the science” then I’d be worried. So, can we PLEASE move past this and look at the important stuff. There is a difference between climate and weather. Weather we get every day. Climate is harder to grasp. It’s getting wetter in a lot of places and drier in others. There is more snow in some places and more heat in others. Hurricanes and tropical storms are changing patterns and ferocity.

So what you say and therein lies the rub. We won’t get politicians and business leaders to do anything which may affect profits until its kicking our door in. By that time its too late!

We MUST waken up now and start making changes.

We are not divorced from Nature. Nature is neither external from us nor a kindly mother figure changing our nappy. Nature is where we come from, where we live and what we depend on for EVERYTHING.

Milk in a crate is NOT A COWS NEST. Bread does NOT GROW ON TREES.

Meat IS NOT MADE IN A FACTORY.

If you won’t do anything else, at least realise the consequences of your actions. If your great grandchildren are ever born they could be living in a yurt in northern Siberia as the only habitable area on Earth.

WAKE UP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

ok so i'm slightly calmer now

Where was I? Oh yes the IPCC report.

The IPCC are saying that we could get more extreme weather events due to global warming. BFD say most people. Unfortunately it IS a big deal. For the IPCC to say that lots of governments with no interest in climate change have had to agree to it being said. Given that, in diplomatic terms, an agreement on the weather outside the building they are meeting in can be problematic that is quite a big deal. Unfortunately it is written in diplomatese though so can be interpreted any way anyone wants.
So here is my go.

We have successfully reached the point where we are in imminent danger of producing an unlivable planet and thus wiping out our own species.

Clear enough?

Some background reading for you.

There is a book by Fred Pearce called "The Last Generation" or if you are in North America "With Speed and Violence". Read it. Think about it. Then tell me we can carry on with business as usual.
Another for you. " the end of the Long Summer" by Diane Dumanovski.

I'll give you a precis. The climate in the past has changed significantly in 1-3 years. It can go from ice age to what we have now in 20-30 years or possibly quicker.
A guy called Arrenhuis PROVED, none of this denier pseudoscience crap here, PROVED if you increase greenhouse gases the world will warm.
Greenhouse gases are up to 395 ppm now. That's 60% higher than before the industrial revolution. That MUST scientifically have an effect. The only problem ( and only actual argument in climate science) is we don't know how bad it will be.
It is CERTAIN that some of the low lying island states will disappear. No if, no but, no maybe. They are GONE.
It is CERTAIN that our climate, where we live, wherever that may be, WILL change.
It is CERTAIN that the climate is ALREADY CHANGING. If you doubt this just ask someone in Texas.
It is CERTAIN that if we carry on the way we have been we DO NOT KNOW what legacy we leave our children and grandchildren.
It is CERTAIN that politics as usual does not even grasp that there is a problem. This CANNOT be solved by a couple of longlife light bulbs and a reusable plastic bag.
Unfortunately when we need real leaders with real ideas we end up with technocrats who apply in triplicate for permission to blow their own nose. We also, unfortunately, have a tightly controlled press who report to owners who LOVE the jetset lifestyle and who's motto should genuinely be " Apre-moi la deluge"

Let me give you a couple of links. If you got this far you may use them!

http://irregularclimate.planet3.org/

http://www.ecoshock.info/

I think that's about enough for my rant for the day.
I'll talk food shortages next time.

If you don't like what I say, tell me. Always game to convert!

its the end of the world as we know it

 or maybe not or it might be or we think it could be one of a range of alternatives or at least we are considering possibly discussing it maybe for future inclusion at some future time ( possibly).

I know I'm a moaning faced old git but frustration strikes hard sometimes. IPCC says it might get worse. The wanking bankers say they're struggling. Food prices are soaring. Unemployment in the UK is now at 2.5 million. Don't worry though, the Big Society will fix all.

In the interim lets deal with the important stuff.

Who'se going to win X factor?
Which female newsreader won the Children in Need Strictly Dance Off?
Is Sepp Blatter out of touch?
Has everyone switched their fucking brains off and swallowed this horseshit?

Lets start with IPCC. All their documents are approved by every country siging them so you already know that their worst case scenario is that everything will be fine if we keep doing wha we are doing. Any half respectable climate scientist will amit privately that it looks more and more like we have actually succeeded in putting in place the tools for our own racial destruction. Damn we're good. The Anthropicine, if there is anyone to remember it,will undoubtedly be remembered for the greatest display of hubris ever. If you really do want to find out what could happen to the climate, Google Alex Smith or Dan Moutal.
I DARE YOU!!!

I was going to more with this post but instead I'll go and lie down in a dark room for a while.

To Carbon capture or not?

So Hunterston power station with carbon capture plans has been rejected by the local council.

I’m not actually sure how I feel about that. One less coal fired power station can only be good but at least they were proposing doing something about emissions. For those of you not in Scotland, my sympathies of course, you probably aren’t aware there is a plan to retrofit carbon capture at Peterhead power station as well. Unfortunately the greenest government ever ( pre-election promise of the current cowboys) stopped a plan at Longannet on cost grounds and I fear Peterhead will go the same way.

In the meantime efforts to encourage small scale home production of electricity have been dampened by withdrawal of a subsidy to give extra payment for excess sent to the National Grid and Scotland is growing wind turbines faster than midges can breed.

The cost of power and fuel continues to soar, its still a case of taking your life in your hands by cycling, and hydro-electricity is not classed as renewable energy.

I live on the Northeast coast, supposedly in the driest place in Scotland, and can confirm from personal experience the one thing we are certain to renew is water!

It is getting wetter and whether you subscribe to Type I slowly warmer and wetter or Type II sudden and abrupt, or even the European mini ice-age theory, every single model says where I live will be wet.

There are hundreds and hundreds of small streams, all cheerfully following the hydrological cycle, burbling quietly out the bogs and off the hills, nearly all of whom could support a multitude of tiny generators humming quietly and producing a couple of kilowatts per 200 metres, shipped out by discreet underground cables, but policy dictates mega schemes owned by the big 6 power companies and the import of LPG by tanker from the Middle East. In addition we are driving massive power cables through the middle of some of the best scenery in the world. Apparently its all for the greater good, but you can’t help wondering if the greater good is actually profits for the energy sector.

I’m a great one for quoting Orwell as I firmly believe 1984 is being used as a blueprint, but maybe we should be looking more to Asimov and his Foundation series. There the premise is that the Galactic Empire has become so large and so fixated on massive projects it is crumbling from within. The heroes of the piece think small and make do with limited resources. Could there be a lesson for us all?

some Australian good news?

The Australian government have passed a carbon tax law.

On the face of it that should be good news but there has to be somebody making money somewhere and my natural pessimism kicks in. 
I hope it will reduce emissions but can't help but feel it will just mean someboy somewhere getting richer.

On a local note, a program from the BBC on Sunday night entitled Will It Snow? carried an interview with someone from the Met Office who suggested a milder wet winter. A guy from a major supermarket chain said they were told snow in late November. Who to believe? Scientists who got it wrong 2 years on the trot or a guy who'se profits depend on accurate weather.
Looking out my thermals!

Ah gie up!!!!

It's official. I'm now medically confused.

What put me over the edge and back to blogging was the news that last year greenhouse gas emissions ROSE by 6%.

We are beyond doubt the stupidest ape on the planet. What is more concerning is that not only have we the capacity to wipe ourselves out, we are cheerfully romping down that route without a care.

In the interim, we have obsessed about a group of children ( sorry World Leaders) playing fantasy monopoly money games in a resort in the South of France, castigated a Prime Minister because God forbid, in the home of democracy he thought to exercise some, and totally missed another spoilt child called Netanyahu asking his parliament for permission to play with his soldier set against Iran.

It isn't even apres-moi la deluge, it's fuck it lets have a deluge and buy our way out.

A large group of people round the world have come onto the streets and said " ENOUGH".

Their erstwhile leaders said " Police, CHARGE".

Democracy in action indeed. Were I a deity, I'd either wander off into the cosmos whistling or shake this fucking planet until its teeth rattle.

We have ONE planet.

No deus ex machina will clean it up.

We are literally risking our very existence.

Why isn't everyone on the street protesting?

Sorry, interrupts Strictly and X factor.