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The UK’s Billionaire Media – Just Stop Oil

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Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.

There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil climate protectors are being jailed:

The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that they be jailed. 

There is only ONE REASON why Just Stop Oil’s key single demand #NoNewOil has not been implemented by the UK government: 

The UK’s 4 climate-trashing media billionaires insisted that the UK government reject JSO and instead max out UK North Sea oil and gas reserves. 

For many climate protectors who do not read the billionaire owned tabloids (Mail, Sun,Telegraph) or watch their new far-right TV stations GB News and Talk TV, this may seem exaggerated. Many are unaware of the full-scale billionaire-media war being waged on UK climate action and how despite dwindling circulations, they wield enormous unaccountable political power over UK policy, including climate policy. 

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, outlined to a Parliamentary Select Committee the direct impact the right-wing media had on Johnson’s decision making. The Climate Media Coalition in 2022 carried out an analysis of the process leading up to the UK government’s energy security strategy, drafted after the energy crisis provoked by the invasion of Ukraine. 

We looked at opinion polling on eight energy policy issues covered by the strategy. We then analysed the coverage of these issues in the editorial and comment pages of the billionaire media. And finally, we looked at the government policy positions adopted by the published strategy. The eight policy issues were: onshore wind, offshore wind, solar, nuclear, fusion, insulation, fracking and new North-sea oil drilling.

The public by significant majorities supported onshore wind, offshore wind, solar and insulation. They opposed new North Sea oil and gas, fracking and nuclear. There was no polling on fusion. The billionaire media supported new North Sea oil and gas, fracking, nuclear and fusion. They opposed onshore wind, insulation and solar. 

The government’s final strategy? 

Every single policy position reflected the eight policy positions of the billionaire media! Only one item reflected what the public supported. The only one also supported by the billionaire media. 

We are the only nation on earth to have had a de facto ban on onshore wind for the last decade after the Telegraph and Mail demanded it be banned. This evidence graphically demonstrates the raw climate-trashing political power of the UK’s billionaire press and the threat it poses to humanity and what is left of nature. 

Murdoch (owner of the Sun) and Rothermere (owner of The Mail) abused their power by bullying the police and government into introducing not just one but TWO new  Acts of Parliament, to punitively try to destroy Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion and are actively lobbying for a third, following the peaceful Palestinian protests. 

The Guardian has reported that distinguished international scientists identified Rupert Murdoch, as one of the key media billionaires endangering humanity. 

Prof Lesley Hughes, Australian Climate Change Authority said: 

“Rupert Murdoch bears enormous responsibility for the world’s lack of action on climate. His outlets promote scepticism about climate science that undermines the need to act.”

Prof Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania, said Murdoch is 

“one of the most destructive forces in modern history when it comes to climate action”. He wields his media empire as a cudgel to sow doubt about science and solutions. He is one of the greatest climate villains.”

Dr Friederike Otto, Grantham Institute said: 

“Murdoch leaves a terrible legacy, that people are paying for, with lives and livelihoods. Climate protesters are portrayed as people trying to make life difficult for the average person, whereas of course they try to make it better”

So what strategy should the climate movement now move forward with?

What are the four pillars of the fossil fuelled economy? They are the government that regulates it, the oil industry that operates it, the banks that fund it but most importantly the corporate media that give it the social and political licence to operate. The media pillar is THE foundational pillar on which the other three depend.

And the UK’s media billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclays and Paul Marshall have captured that pillar. Therefore, the climate movement’s TOP-PRIORITY must be one way or another to remove the billionaire climate-trashing media and instead create a free Fourth Estate that backs the urgent climate action and wildlife repair necessary.  

We must replace a bought press with a free press!

The world has recognised how Ukraine has a right to self-defence from the brutal Russian invasion. It is time for the climate movement to recognise that all of humanity has a far, far -greater right to self-defence from the media billionaires’ war to destroy the climate, upon which nature and all future generations’ lives depend. 

But excitingly, in this battle there is a huge coalition out there gagging for leadership. Not least, the 76% of the UK public horrified by the billionaire-media backed Gazan genocide. There are deep chilling parallels between their support for the horrific Gazan genocide and their support for climate genocide and how both usurp British democracy. In the crucial parliamentary vote, 71% of MPs backed the billionaire media’s opposition to the ceasefire and betrayed their own constituents!

There is hardly a section of the population that the billionaire media have not vilified at one time or another. These include NHS staff, gay people, trade-unions, wildlife protectors, freedom of the press campaigners, human rights advocates, refugees, immigrants, EU residents, civil servants, locally elected councils, the disabled, the unemployed, travellers, Muslims, women, cyclists, the Church of England, etc etc. 

When Extinction Rebellion successfully blockaded Murdoch’s printing works for just 12 hours in 2020, a ripple of excitement ran across the nation. Finally, somebody had stood up to the billionaire media dictatorship brutalising Britain. Just imagine what would happen, if we broke the hold they have on our democracy? Imagine if every front page constantly screamed for action on climate and wildlife?! 

The fossil fuelled criminal establishment would be gone within a year. 

The banks would be funding the renewable energy economy, the government would regulate for a net zero economy by 2030 and the oil corporations would become renewable energy corporations. 

If Just Stop Oil and the wider climate movement are to win (and we must!) – then it needs to now focus, focus, focus on the one key positive and uplifting political revolution that can enable our success – peaceful direct action and building a pan-societal coalition to win the media battle for human and wildlife survival. 

It is the media stupid!

Links:

Revealed: Scale of The Telegraph’s Climate Change ‘Propaganda’

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/23/rupert-murdoch-climate-change-denial

Donnachadh McCarthy, is a director of the Climate Media Coalition (climatemediacoalition.org.uk) and was in 2015, one of the first people to be arrested for a peaceful direct action demanding the criminalisation of investments in new fossil fuels. He is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats and the author of The Prostitute State. (theprostitutestate.co.uk), E-book version is free to JSO activists & supporters from contact@3acorns.co.ukPost navigation

Original article by Donnachadh McCarthy republished from Just Stop Oil under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence. Many Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested on Thursday evening / Friday morning: Dozens of campaigners held over alleged airport plans.

Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.

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UK is Europe’s worst private jet polluter, study finds

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/30/uk-is-worst-private-jet-polluter-in-europe-study-finds

UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.

Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.

The analysis by the Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft also found that the number of private jets taking off from the UK increased by 75% between 2021 and 2022 to 90,256 flights, emitting 500,000 tonnes of CO2 – more than in any other European country.

The UK tops all league tables for private jets, boasting the busiest route, the most polluting route and the most flights overall. Flights between London and Paris were the most popular route, accounting for 3,357 flights, and six of the top 10 routes overall also included London.

According to a Transport & Environment study, private jets are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger, and 50 times more polluting than trains. Previous research found that 50% of all aviation emissions were caused by 1% of the world’s population.

…

Environmental campaigners at Greenpeace are calling for a ban on private jet travel, highlighting that the research shows almost one-in-four (39%) private jet flights in Europe were considered “very short-haul” meaning they were less than 310 miles (500km) and could easily have been train trips.

There were also some staggeringly inefficient routes found in the analysis. A flight between Blackbushe and Farnborough in Hampshire – which is just 4.6 miles (7.4km) – topped the charts for the most carbon-intensive route in 2021 and 2022. This is because it takes less than 30 minutes to cycle between the two airports.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/30/uk-is-worst-private-jet-polluter-in-europe-study-finds

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Climate Emergency Causes Extreme Wildfires to Double in Frequency: Study

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A firefighter walks toward flames as the Highland Fire burns in Aguana, California, on October 31, 2023. 
(Photo: David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images)

“Climate change is not something off in the future,” said one scientist. “It’s happening before our very eyes.”

New findings about the rising frequency of extreme wildfires have “the fingerprints of climate change” all over them, according to an Australian scientist who led a study published on Monday.

Calum Cunningham, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tasmania in Australia, told The Washington Post that he was driven to examine current trends in the frequency of wildfires after climate deniers suggested that because the global area being burned in blazes is declining, the idea of a growing wildfire crisis is being overblown by concerned scientists.

While the area destroyed by wildfires is indeed on the decline, analyses that include all fires—the majority of which are small and cause relatively little damage—obscured how the most extreme and destructive wildfires are rapidly growing more frequent.

Cunningham and his team analyzed data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites, collecting four images of wildfires around the world per day over 21 years. They used the images to identify the 0.01% most extreme wildfires—those that release the most smoke and greenhouse gas emissions due to their size and uncontrollable nature.

Out of 30 million fires across the world over two decades, the researchers identified the 2,913 most extreme fire events and found that the frequency and intensity of such wildfires has more than doubled since 2003.

“Climate change is making fire weather more extreme and more frequent in a lot of the world.”

The problem is rapidly getting worse, the team found: The six years with the most extreme wildfires had all occurred since 2017.

Trends were particularly troubling in particular regions, like temperate conifer forests in the western United States and the Mediterranean, where the number of extreme fires rose by more than 10 times in 20 years.

In boreal forests in places like northern Europe and Canada, the frequency of the most intense and hard-to-control blazes increased by seven times.

“It’s absolutely in keeping with what climate change is doing to fire weather around the world,” Cunningham told the Post. “Climate change is making fire weather more extreme and more frequent in a lot of the world.”

The “fire weather” that’s driven the increase includes hotter and drier conditions, with temperatures staying high even overnight when they ordinarily would have have dropped in previous decades, giving firefighters a chance to make headway in putting out blazes.

“Rarely did we have 100,000-acre fires 20 years ago,” veteran firefighter Bobbie Scopa told the Post. “But now, it’s not uncommon.”

The researchers pointed to a “scary” feedback loop created as extreme wildfires create carbon emissions—leading to more planetary heating and even more fires.

“Climate change is not something off in the future,” Cunningham told the Post. “It’s happening before our very eyes. This is the manifestation of the reshaping of the climate we are doing.”

The study was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution days after wildfires scorched more than 14,000 acres in Southern California and more than 24,000 acres in New Mexico, where two people were killed. Last year, climate scientists were stunned by an unprecedented wildfire season in relatively damp Eastern Canada, where wildfires were made twice as likely by the climate emergency according to the World Weather Attribution.

Climate scientist and author Bill McGuire called the findings “terrifying, of course, but just not a surprise,” considering governments in the countries that produce the most fossil fuels are continuing to support and subsidize energy sources that heat the planet.

“This is certifiably insane,” McGuire said.

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingClimate Emergency Causes Extreme Wildfires to Double in Frequency: Study

There is no climate plan other than to let the planet burn

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You know this don’t you? Temperature records continually getting broken, US Secretary General Antonio Guterres continually warning about climate hell, politicians and fossil fuel cnuts continuing to destroy the planet.

The solution is known and has been know since the 1960s and 70s – it is simply to stop burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel companies have known, lied and deceived. Politicians in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry offer and do nothing.

Action was needed decades ago and shite politicians have failed us all. You can’t leave it to the profiteers or the politicians that they own if you want a planet you can live on – they quite clearly don’t give a feck about anything other than money and power.

Continue ReadingThere is no climate plan other than to let the planet burn

Climate Groups Call for Rich to Pay More as International Meetings Begin

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Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Delegates from around the world meet at an annual climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, on June 3, 2024, in preparation for the COP29 conference in November in Azerbaijan. (Photo: Christoph Driessen/Getty Images)

“We have to put the social justice element upfront,” an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement said as the world’s climate delegates gathered in Germany.

Advocates on Tuesday issued strong calls to action on climate finance for developing countries and an international agency released a report on the need to ramp up renewable energy production as the Bonn Climate Change Conference continued in Germany and G7 nations prepared to meet in Italy next week.

At the conference in Bonn, Friends of the Earth International pushed for more rich-country financing to pay for the rising costs of climate impacts in the Global South, while Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement, called for the global rich to pay their share through taxes and consumption levies.

Meanwhile, two organizations warned that countries aren’t on track to meet targets they set just last year. Oil Change International (OCI) published a briefing showing that G7 nations are expanding oil and gas commitments that undermine goals set at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) meeting in Dubai, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a report showing that the world’s nations are not on track to meet their Dubai pledge to triple renewable energy production by 2030.

“The world is on fire because of decades of inaction by rich countries on reducing emissions, and their failure to pay the climate finance they owe to developing countries to transition to renewable energy systems for all, and to pay for rising costs for loss and damage and adaptation,” Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International program coordinator, said in a statement. “What is on the table to date is scales of magnitude away from what it needed. This year must be a year of breakthrough on climate finance.”

Climate representatives are meeting in Bonn this week and next to prepare for COP29 in November in Azerbaijan, where a key agenda item is expected to be financing for a green transition in the Global South. COP negotiations are conducted under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At COP21 in 2015, nations signed the Paris agreement, a treaty that sought to limit global warming to less than 2°C above preindustrial levels.

Tubiana, an architect of that deal, said Tuesday that tackling climate change requires centering global justice in order to avoid conflict and gain public acceptance of climate measures.

“We have to put the social justice element upfront,” Tubiana, a French economist and diplomat, told The Guardian.

Tubiana said that raising the funds required for low-income nations will require holding both rich nations and people to account, via taxes and consumption levies, given that inequities exist not just between nations but also within them.

“This inequality is true not only between developed countries and developing ones, but within each country—the 1% of rich Chinese, or the 1% of very rich Indians, or the U.S. citizen—they have a lifestyle which is very, very similar, in terms of overconsumption,” she said.

The world’s richest and most powerful nations are not taking responsibility for climate action as they should, the new OCI briefing argues.

“Some G7 countries are massively expanding fossil fuel production at home, while others are investing in more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad,” the briefing states. “Both are catastrophic failures of leadership.”

OCI cites the United States, Italy, and Japan as particularly bad climate actors. The U.S. is the largest oil and gas producer in the world and has plans for massive expansions of the industry, despite President Joe Biden’s climate promises, the briefing notes. Italy has announced plans to double natural gas production. And both the U.S. and Japan have financed billions of dollars worth of oil and gas production in other countries just since the end of 2022, the document states, citing earlier OCI findings.

The IEA also spelled out unfulfilled commitments, while detailing progress that has been made on the energy transition. The agency looked at the domestic policies and targets of 150 countries to see how far along they were toward reaching the international target of tripling renewable power generation by 2030. It found that once added together, the nations’ domestic plans would get them about 70% of the way toward the 11,000 gigawatts of additional capacity required to meet the goal.

“There is a gap, but the gap is bridgeable,” Heymi Bahar, a senior energy analyst at the IEA and co-author of the report, toldThe Guardian.

Governments have not in most cases written these domestic plans into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris agreement. The IEA report says that countries need to “bring their NDCs in line with their current domestic ambitions” and scale those ambitions up further still, to get from 70% to 100%. Moreover, they must follow through with their promises and achieve the targets they’ve set.

“This report makes clear that the tripling target is ambitious but achievable—though only if governments quickly turn promises into plans of action,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement.

The world added about 560 gigawatts of renewable capacity in 2023, a record increase, more than half of which came from China, according to the IEA. About half of planned capacity increases are in solar, with a quarter from wind power, the IEA report states.

Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingClimate Groups Call for Rich to Pay More as International Meetings Begin