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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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
Oh well, so much for that theory. 
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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There’s a curiously perverse defense of bitcoin mining going on in the US right now:
Even more perverse is the US company that’s reopened an uneconomic coal powered fire station, using the power generated solely to generate bitcoin. Because, that is economic.
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I think that was mentioned in the article.
We might also want to think about how we manage our communications, entertainment and data infrastructure in the future. Datacentres in Ireland consume more electricity as a proportion of total capacity that the rural population, despite Ireland having a larger proportion of it’s population living rurally than the EU average.
You’d think that IT people would have some understanding of climate science, since most will surely have had some level of science-based education - but there is abundant evidence that they have habitually ignored energy waste. And it’s not just data-centres - many organisations used to have - probably still do have - server rooms with the windows open all winter, while they heat the rest of the building with fossil fuel!
I remember a few years ago talking with a group of unusually environment-aware techies developing a data centre plus public swimming pool project - obvious really!
Precisely Geof, people are looking confused as I sweep aroind the building with the thermal imaging camera. Outside air temp is 10-18c and aircon is running in our server room. We could just use fan units and put the heat into another part of the building.
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I am still exploring evaporative cooling, I know there is a dew point to consider but at more than twice as efficient as compressor units simply have to consider them.
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Wonder if you’re interested in this Corona:
https://scientistrebellion.com/how-to-join/
The English-language induction meeting is always on Mondays at 7 pm CEST on Zoom - other languages on other days, but oddly NO FRENCH!
I will look in.
Interesting aspect to UK local election results yesterday - looks like there will again be record gains for the Green Party, after 88 gains last time.
Also interesting that most seem to be from Labour. Predictably, by moving towards a less radical position on climate/ecological breakdown, Labour loses votes on its left flank (it has gained them on its right, of course - but is that only because the Tories are so awful now?).
The Independent: Earth’s CO2 hits highest recorded level in human history.
I regularly monitor CO2 levels and outdoors its usually around 426ppm