Climate/ecological breakdown

Environmentalism
594

Hello, thanks for the welcome, it’s actually my second time as a member (does that make me a repeat offender?).

My name’s Henri, I wrote a few bits last time and I offered input about using chainsaws, but then life got a bit busy and I inquired about how I could delete my membership (because of too many distracting emails from the forum during my time of difficulty), a few replies came in about how to stop the emails and still remain a member, but before I had a chance to do that BAM the admin just deleted my account with not so much as a ‘by your leave sir’.

But life is back on track, health’s all good again and I though I’d try this forum thingy again.

I do appreciate you taking the time to explain your post, I did think it was about the pommy bashing and just wanted to get clarification from you rather than just assume I was right.

I can feel your emotion very clearly about what you describe as Brit bashing on the forum. I’ll take a look around the forum more closely and take in what I see, but clearly for you it cause’s a burr in your saddle.

I am sure that some people think ‘banter’ is the same on a forum as it might be at a dinner party, or in a pub. But it’s not, because when face to face, across a dinner table or across a room in a pub we can hear emotion in a voice, we can see facial gestures and arms or hands moving as a person talks.

This makes it markedly easier to understand the intention of the words used, where as in written form only - the reader has to try and fill in blanks and at times guess what the meaning is.

I believe that there are also a lot of people that either don’t have the time, or can’t be bothered, or are so focused on tapping out a reply to get their point out there, that they shorten and rush their reply. Which can only compound the problem we might have with interpretation of their comment, banter, attack or even reasoned point of view…

Let me get back to saying thanks for your reply, it made me feel good that someone took the time to explain something for me, and to welcome me to the forum. It’s not a crime to read or write something nice every now and then, in fact it’s really quite nice.

Henri

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595

Hey Henri, repeat offender eh? At least you haven’t been offensive. :wink:

Just watch out for emoticons like the wink etc, often a good indication of whether someone is joking or being intentionally offensive. I have a feeling it’s harder for some to communicate readily this way because the things that provide social lubrication are different, and it’s not acceptable to write just what one thinks.

596

Hey @Ancient_Mariner “At least you haven’t been offensive.”

Yet… :wink:

Enjoy your day and thanks!

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597

Too right, children will be the most affected of us all (cpnsidering myself an oldie here). Friends -vegan, peta members, enviromentalists) think that by not having kids they are ‘saved’. Being a motivational speaker and a musician they do at least a couple of long haul flights a month, drive a range rover and crank up the heat.
It is easy to preach buying organic produce if you have theleans and opportunity

Not so easy for a single mother in a council high rise who needs 'cheap’food to make ends meeting

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598

Very true, lots of virtue signallers around.
Sadly the cheap food is also often convenience food. Is anyone taught to cook at school anymore?

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599

Interesting post on new French house building/renovation energy standards in another thread:

600

This, however, is pretty scary…

601

America is the sickest nation on planet earth so do the exact 180 degree. Corn and soy will make you ill avoid like the plague.
Fortunately there are good Americans who know this and are prepared to show the evidence.
Dont eat crap to make yourself ill and then try to fix yourself with pharmaceuticals because that is the American model. Eat good stuff dont get ill!

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602
603

“Fossil fuel exports are a key enabler of Putin’s regime, and many other rogue states.”

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604

I think that’s about to stop.

605

Why Billy? Some European countries can’t stop energy imports from Russia without serious economic and social disruption - and most of the world (South America, Africa, Asia) have not joined the sanctions anyway.

606

Don’t throw away those masks and passes…

As the planet heats up, many animal species will be forced to move into new areas to find suitable conditions. They will bring their parasites and pathogens with them, causing them to spread between species that haven’t interacted before. This will heighten the risk of what is called ‘zoonotic spillover’, where viruses transfer from animals to people, potentially triggering another pandemic of the magnitude of Covid-19.

“As the world changes, the face of disease will change too,” said Gregory Albery, an expert in disease ecology at Georgetown University and co-author of the paper, published in Nature. “This work provides more incontrovertible evidence that the coming decades will not only be hotter, but sicker.

Covid was not a ‘black swan’ event - just another aspect of climate/ecological breakdown.

607

OK, maybe not stop but Russia has stopped supplying Poland and Germany has vowed to reduce Russian gas imports to zero.

I suspect that the economic impact of Russia finding it has fewer customers for its fossil fuels will hurt.

It will also push nations like Germany to accelerate renewables projects - which can’t be a bad thing.

608

Hmmm… I can’t see a way the sanctions will work myself - the reductions in volume would have to be absolutely massive and pretty immediate to have much impact on Russian income - to date they have actually doubled Russia’s take.

But I agree the answer to this and many other problems is to move as quickly as possible to renewables, generated as locally as possible. The tragedy is - once again - governments have ignored campaigners that have been saying precisely this since the 1960s!

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609

I thought that the sanctions were having an effect - that’s one of the reasons that Russia is demanding payment in Roubles - its banks can’t freely convert currency any more.

610

I think David Quammen’s book Spillover was quite prescient. I saved it in my Amazon list in 2012 and didn’t buy it till 2020. Haven’t yet dared read it in full. Am considering using an Audible trial offer to scare myself when out and about in the car by listening to it instead for free.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B009EQG794/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1651149037&sr=1-3

611

Oh well, so much for that theory. :frowning:

612

I really don’t think they have any choice Billy. Put yourself in their place: you would be facing being laid off your job, nothing to heat or cook with at home, only intermittent electricity, thousands on the streets protesting - and ultimately debt, riots, etc.

Western leaders are simply not facing the reality that Russia is the key energy supplier to the world - and number one supplier of a whole range of other commodities (including, incidentally, fertiliser ingredients).
And - as @John_Scully has recently posted elsewhere - number one ostrich in the world seems to be Liz Truss!

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613

There’s a curiously perverse defense of bitcoin mining going on in the US right now: