I can smell it from here, and for the last 2 days, and a spin off is that I am sitting here waiting for an update of a route of a van bringing dogs from Spain. Should have left 45 minutes ago but when they finally give me an alternative rdv it might well be too late for me to get to it. I only hope the van has clim, and not just in the cab, otherwise we may be looking at dead ones.
Iād say either works.
The reason for the vehicle I have just bought is the additional zone 3 AC in the back for the pets when we travel. Hope you arivals are OK.
You answer your own question Billy. Greta Thunberg is like all of us - she does what she can, in her own life and by trying to influence others - but unlike most of us she has been eminently successful in getting herself heard and inspiring others.
Itās a mistake to think that the measure of political achievement lies in the immediate response of those that hold the levers of power - the lesson of history is precisely the opposite: immediate failure, but eventual success. Sometimes the aims of left political movements are attained within a decade (the Peasants Revolt springs to mind - violent suppression and murder of the leaders - but 10 years later and all their demands were met; in England after its revolutions, or Europe after the French Revolution and Napoleonic campaigns, the old feudal royals were restored - but the old feudal order was definitively ended - everywhere, although it took different times in different places).
Do we have those 10 years?
Why do Tories still admire Thatcher? She was clearly responsible for most of the decline of the UK over the last 40 years. Have they never read any history or economics?
Have they ever read a bookā¦?
Well, thatās always been the case, hasnāt it? Young people have never been greatly engaged by the traditional parties in any country, but like a good protest, especially if their mates are there. Rather than their having conducted a āsophisticated analysisā, itās just how young people are.
No - this is what makes climate/ecological breakdown different from most past political issues.
But it is following the same pattern as in the past. The movement of people to political extremes and results of this such as the current extreme right UK government, is an expression of a split in the dominant ideology. Large numbers of those in top management and professional jobs, that would normally be natural Tories, can see the problem and want a response - but the action required is entirely incompatible with Tory ideology and current power relations. It is so like the split in the Tory Party over the corn laws etc that Iām tempted to quote here some of the things they were saying at the time and challenge folks to say whether they were written in 1830 or 2020!
But the thing about climate/ecological breakdown is that it will shortly destroy all those old ideologies and power relations anyway - itās just a question of whether we can preserve some semblance of civil life, or whether everything gets taken down with them.
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more to the pointā¦ can they read?
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My car, a Partner, transfers the A/C very well to the back, but these transporters use largish vans, fourgons, so Iām hoping they have separate A/C. Still no news yet so we canāt even leave here. 
Iām always suspicious of timeless, a-historical formulations like this. I see no evidence that āhow young people areā remains unchanged throughout history. Indeed - in most developed countries especially - there is one very obvious difference: far more currently young people are more highly educated than older people.
And weāre back to āAnyone who thinks differently to me is a thicko.ā
Well played, SFers, well played.
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Weeeellllll it depends what you mean.
Certainly a lot of them - proportionately many more than 30 years ago - have a degree.
Whether that means they are better educated remains open to question. Did the collective IQ suddenly have a massive jump when someone (Tony Blair?) decided it was a great aim that 50% of the population should go to university, or were the exam criteria quietly diluted?
And maybe I was Ć youngster more recently than you? Thatās definitely the case 
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I think if people get a university degree chances are they are better educated than had they left school at the earliest possible moment. That doesnāt mean however that every member of a cohort is going to be better educated.
One (to my mind) unfortunate knock-on effect of the 1992 transformation of good and useful polys into universities is that those new universities were no longer fish nor flesh nor good red herring and many proposed sparkly new silly degrees.
Or maybe Iām just a snob.
That said I donāt think the exam criteria at my old university have been diluted.
I have not seen any research that covers the full social and economic spectrum. Link?
I am merely going on impressions of my most recent experiences of younger people, not any kind of statistical sample.
We are lucky enough to live in a village that does have quite a good mix. In 300 odd inhabitants, 24 are below 12 and I know then through organising things like the easter egg hunt. The majority are the dullest children I have ever encountered, and conversation centres on when they will be allowed to have a phone or a quad bike (kids as young as 5 or 6 ride mini quad bikes here). 2 of the 24 are bright, engaged and articulate.
Then there are some 15 young people between 13 and say 20. Not a single one of them seems to have any ambition, Our opposite neighbour (approx 18) spends his days sat on a chair outside his house, listening to music playing on his phone and smoking. Half of them are obese.
Iām sure in a well-to-do area of a big city this would be different.
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IQ I think is a meaningless concept - nobody has ever devised a test where the results canāt be improved by preparation - evidence indeed that itās really education, not āintelligenceā, that matters.
I was thinking for example of Young peopleās politics: Political interest and engagement amongst 14- to 24-year-olds by YPS, ISBN 1 902633 64 4 - but Iām sure a lot of info can be found online if you search. Studies often turn on how āpoliticsā is defined. Young people tend to be less likely to vote or join political parties - but if you look at political engagement more broadly - at, say, activists in the Black Lives Matter or Extinction Rebellion movements, it is heavily skewed towards the young.
Your experience in your village is unfortunate, but Iām sure itās unrepresentative. My own direct experience is much wider - as well as life in my own village, Iāve worked for years with young social entrepreneurs, Iām still involved in various ways with a number of universities, in several countries - and of course in the lives of my own children, their many friends and social media contacts. This is of course just as anecdotal an experience as yours - but of a lot more young people.
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Probably more of a reflection on their parents then. You canāt blame under 12s for being dull if their parents are too.
So many people are very very dull and donāt know anything about anything, itās a poor lookout for their children. I have met some perfectly nice adults who are alas a bit dim and have no general knowledge or desire to think and have never been encouraged to discuss anything especially not ideas, and are boring as sin in consequence. Their children might as well be lumps of clay.
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For once I am in total agreement with you Geof.
I too live in a rural village and the young people here couldnāt be more engaging and delightful. I really think it must be luck of the draw and as Vero says down to the parents.
We have so many absolutely lovely people as our neighbours. One couple I sometimes see has three really nice daughters. One was being bullied initially at her new secondary school as she wasnāt into makeup and didnāt have a mobile phone. Luckily she has met some nicer pupils there now. In a roundabout way I am saying there is no point in trying to generalise.
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