Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?

[exchemist]

Another milestone passed in the EU: renewables overtook fossil fuel as the largest share of electricity generation , in 1st half of this year, in 13 member states https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-fossil-fuels-to-provide-30-of-eu-electricity

Renewables contributed >30% across the EU.

Seems Putin has helped by providing a new, politically saleable reason, viz. energy independence. But we have also had strong winds this year, which helps bump the figure up.

 

[sculptor]

94 degrees (F) here today and I ain't turned on the air conditioning.
I did, however; take off my shirt.

 

[Mr. G]

"Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?"

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

Your sensitivities seem awfully limited.

Wolf. Wolf. Wolf!

 

[exchemist]

"Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?"

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

Your sensitivities seem awfully limited.

Wolf. Wolf. Wolf!

Go back to sleep, Grandad .

 

[Pinball1970]

"Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?"

Yeah Trump. He has pulled out of the Paris agreement, wants to "drill baby drill," and is slashing federal funding on research including sustainable energy.

I would say that is "doing anything."

 

[TheVat]

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

NASA is planning a launch to fire your fat ass at it, in hopes it will sufficiently deflect it to a safer orbit.

 

[TheVat]

Yeah Trump. He has pulled out of the Paris agreement, wants to "drill baby drill," and is slashing federal funding on research including sustainable energy.

I would say that is "doing anything."

What's amusing to me is that his Chief Minion is Elon Musk, an EV manufacturer whose future wealth is dependent on a continued shifting away from IC vehicles. He is also heavily invested in rooftop solar panels, wind power and large scale battery storage systems. Their pillow talk must be interesting.

 

[billvon]

What's amusing to me is that his Chief Minion is Elon Musk, an EV manufacturer whose future wealth is dependent on a continued shifting away from IC vehicles. He is also heavily invested in rooftop solar panels, wind power and large scale battery storage systems. Their pillow talk must be interesting.

Well, no. His future wealth is now dependent on government funding. And he now controls all government funding.

 

[Pinball1970]

His future wealth is now dependent on government funding. And he now controls all government funding

I mentioned Musk has already had 19-20 Billion dollars since 2008 according to one source.
Whether that was just for space X or all together I'm not sure.

 

[billvon]

I mentioned Musk has already had 19-20 Billion dollars since 2008 according to one source.
Whether that was just for space X or all together I'm not sure.

He just got another $39 billion yesterday from the office his people now control.

 

[Ken Fabian]

"Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?"

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

Your sensitivities seem awfully limited.

Wolf. Wolf. Wolf!

Taking the abundant expert advice on climate seriously doesn't mean we should ignore - or are ignoring - asteroid impact threats. A 2.5% chance of local catastrophe level impact (that is unlikely to hit a city, just by statistical chance) from 2024 YR4 - which may become no near term threat at all as better observation of the trajectory emerges (most on the danger list get crossed off as trajectory is better known) but potentially may test our capabilities for diverting or explosively disrupting asteroids that present a risk... versus global warming that is actually occurring, that every conceivable indicator or possible measure now shows clearly.

With the highest global average temperature since way before the Holocene that was (but no longer is) a period of exceptionally global temperature stability, with emerging evidence of acceleration of warming, it is not the time to ignore the emissions problem.

 

[billvon]

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

Liberals are supporting federal funding for the sciences. Things like high efficiency xenon ion engines, pulsed fusion, MagLIF, VASIMR, DRACO and NERVA. Technologies that would let us get out there and move that asteroid. And more fundamental things like STEM education and support, via the AISL, NSF and SBIR programs. Expensive and woke, but well worth it if you're worried about errant asteroids, and having the workforce in 20 years to go out and meet them.

Conservatives want to cancel all that government waste and instead spend the efforts of the US renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, cancelleing educational funding, outlawing trans people and giving more money to trade schools rather than colleges.

Carl Sagan predicted Trumpism back in the 1990's:

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy . . . . when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness . . . .

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
.
Trump, 2020: "I love the poorly educated."

If Trump has his way, you and yours best pray that China is up to the task.

 

[foghorn]

"Is anybody actually doing anything about climate change?"

There's an approaching asteroid that could dramatically change the climate. What the F are your folks doing about it?

Your sensitivities seem awfully limited.

Wolf. Wolf. Wolf!

Well, what are you going to do about that rock?
After tea, I may go screaming around the streets for awhile.

How about cutting broadband cables to save the planet?

In the UK last month( Jan 2025) activists/protestors cut fibre optic cables to businesses which the activists claim are “driving fossil fuel expansion and destroying life on Earth”

Activists from Shut The System have claimed they cut fibre optic cables to offices of hundreds of insurance companies in London on Monday, including AXA, W.R. Berkely, AIG, Chubb and Lloyds….

..The underground climate activist group also targeted insurer offices in Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds. It said it was a “new form of non-violent direct action” and called on insurance companies to immediately end all underwriting for fossil fuel expansion and to demand robust transition plans from fossil fuel clients…

…A Shut The System activist said in a statement: “If these powerful companies don’t make public statements that they will stop driving fossil fuel expansion and destroying life on Earth, then we have no choice but to stop them ourselves. We will not give up until insurance companies take responsible action.”

https://www.commercialriskonline.com/climate-activists-cut-uk-insurers-fibre-optic-cables/

 

[exchemist]

Well, what are you going to do about that rock?
After tea, I may go screaming around the streets for awhile.

How about cutting broadband cables to save the planet?

In the UK last month( Jan 2025) activists/protestors cut fibre optic cables to businesses which the activists claim are “driving fossil fuel expansion and destroying life on Earth”



https://www.commercialriskonline.com/climate-activists-cut-uk-insurers-fibre-optic-cables/

What idiots. It is insurance companies that are one of the best indicators of the reality of climate change. Premiums in risky locations are soaring. They should be using the insurance company risk assessments to make the case to people that climate change is already costing real $$$ .

But a lot less fun than childishly vandalising a few fibre optic cabinets of course.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Protesters are not the leaders in addressing the problem, nor in any way are representative of the widespread community concerns about climate change. We get protesters doing stupid things because those holding the highest Offices, where the long term good and addressing the big issues is - or should be - their duty of care ducked and dodged and denied and won't step up. Protesters are a symptom. Instead of mainstream political leadership responding to the expert advice (that they called for in order to, supposedly, make informed decisions) "leadership" on climate has been largely delegated to popular opinion - a milieu where lies and misinformation are as just good as science based truth - better, with greater reach because it simplifies down to what presses people's buttons (which switches the ability to take in contrary information off).

Expecting protesters to be exemplars of good behavior seems naive and judging climate activism generally by the worst examples, is... convenient. And highlighting the worst of them presses people's buttons.

Painting climate activism and concerned people generally with that same brush, is a distraction and diversion. Instead of informed people in suits and ties being "the face" of climate concerns, lots of media prefer the much more provocative image of protesters, preferably in full street theatre regalia.

What we have is profound failure of mainstream politics and leadership, not a failure of political activism or even of protesters.

Expecting our leaders to see the bigger picture, face up to it and do their jobs shouldn't be seen as naive - yet that is where populist politics and corruption have taken us.

 

[foghorn]

Expecting protesters to be exemplars of good behavior seems naive and judging climate activism generally by the worst examples, is... convenient. And highlighting the worst of them presses people's buttons.

Painting climate activism and concerned people generally with that same brush, is a distraction and diversion. Instead of informed people in suits and ties being "the face" of climate concerns, lots of media prefer the much more provocative image of protesters, preferably in full street theatre regalia.

What we have is profound failure of mainstream politics and leadership, not a failure of political activism or even of protesters.

Expecting our leaders to see the bigger picture, face up to it and do their jobs shouldn't be seen as naive - yet that is where populist politics and corruption have taken us.

It's not just a case of the reporting of and cutting out the bad wood in politics, it’s also a case of the reporting of and cutting out the bad wood of protestors / activists. Should they be exempt of reporting when they affect peoples lives?

 

[Ken Fabian]

It's not just a case of the reporting of and cutting out the bad wood in politics, it’s also a case of the reporting of and cutting out the bad wood of protestors / activists. Should they be exempt of reporting when they affect peoples lives?

Compared to the harms done by institutional obstruction and opposition to addressing the climate problem by those much more political influence and who sit in the highest Offices of public trust - with the greater duties of care - the harms from protesters are almost insignificant.

Instead of it being about governmental and corporate duties of care, legal accountability and foresighted governance and addressing the problem it has been made into a matter of public opinion - where what presses people's buttons counts for more than the top level science based expert advice. Stopping the activists and stopping protesters and heightening alarmist fears about political extremism has been made the focus.

I do think a media focus on protesters and activists and pressing people's buttons about the costs and inconveniences they cause - the focus on people who are not able to call on the leading science agencies directly or on the policy analysis and planning capabilities that those in positions of power do - has successfully drawn attention away from the profound failures of those that do hold those positions, who can call on vast resources of expertise, and who, in my view have the duty to do so.

The very idea that addressing the problem head on is economically damaging, whilst not addressing it is not is very dangerous.

 

[Mr. G]

TheVat: "NASA is planning a launch to fire your fat ass at it,..."

At my age, probably the best thing I can do for you losers.

HaHaHa.

Ha.

 

[Mr. G]

"Climate Change"

It's always been happening. Forever.

We're still here.

We adapt. Well, those that survived.

Most of them were hysterics.

 

[billvon]

"Climate Change"

It's always been happening. Forever.

Oh look, another political hack pushing his anti-science agenda. Are you an anti-vaxxer, too? A flat Earther? An Apollo hoaxer? A Truther? A contrailer? Just to get a sense of the scope of your anti-science positions.