Time for rebellion on climate crisis :: I propose commencing 31 October 2019

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[29/9/19 This was only ever a proposal. There are suggestions that insane PM Boris Johnson may invoke the Civil Contingencies Act to pass a no-deal Brexit. I do not want to assist BJ in this way and so I am withdrawing this proposal.

The Civil Contingencies Act provides the government with powers to create emergency regulations at times of national crisis and threats to safety (including wartime), emergencies that threaten “serious damage to human welfare”, or to the environment or the security of the UK. Damage to human welfare is defined in the act to include disruption to transport networks or to the supply of food, money, energy, or health services.]

I further propose that the strategy should be to prevent travel. If travel is prevented, everything is prevented. (Traffic lights, etc)

[Ed: Perhaps that date may be a mistake?] [Further ed: Just go for it?]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/jul/25/time-to-rebel-greta-thunberg-makes-musical-debut-on-the-1975-track

The full text of Greta Thunberg’s speech.

We are right now in the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis.

And we need to call it what it is. An emergency.

We must acknowledge that we do not have the situation under control and that we don’t have all the solutions yet. Unless those solutions mean that we simply stop doing certain things.

We admit that we are losing this battle.

We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed.

But homo sapiens have not yet failed.

Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands.

But unless we recognise the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.

We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.

And either we do that, or we don’t.

You say that nothing in life is black or white.

But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie.

Either we prevent a 1.5 degree of warming, or we don’t.

Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, or we don’t.

Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.

That is as black or white as it gets.

Because there are no grey areas when it comes to survival.

Now we all have a choice.

We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations.

Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

That is up to you and me.

And yes, we need a system change rather than individual change. But you cannot have one without the other.

If you look through history, all the big changes in society have been started by people at the grassroots level. People like you and me.

So, I ask you to please wake up and make the changes required possible. To do your best is no longer good enough. We must all do the seemingly impossible.

Today, we use about 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground.

So, we can no longer save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed.

Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.

So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.

Continue ReadingTime for rebellion on climate crisis :: I propose commencing 31 October 2019

Climate Crisis :: ‘No doubt left’ about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99

The scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming is likely to have passed 99%, according to the lead author of the most authoritative study on the subject, and could rise further after separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts.

Three studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000 years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades.

It had previously been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time.

“This paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle. This paper shows the truly stark difference between regional and localised changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London.

Continue ReadingClimate Crisis :: ‘No doubt left’ about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts

Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist

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No apology is due for being anti-Capitalist, anti-Fascist and anti-Racist. That’s how it should be.

I hold Capitalism responsible for destroying the planet because Capitalism is concerned only with making profit.

I regard Anti-Fascism as subsuming Anti-Racism.

12.47p.m. I am writing in a personal capacity and should not be regarded as any way proscriptive. I am proud to be anti-Capitalist, anti-Fascist and anti-Racist.

I expect team Corbyn to do well in any elections. Corbyn has demonstrated that there is a need for traditional Socialist representation. Combined with real action on the climate crisis and an opposition tearing itself apart, Corbyn and the Labour party are the winners.

Continue ReadingAnti-Capitalist, Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist

John Reid – then New Labour Home Secretary says they “just don’t get it”

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From 2006, then Home Secretary John Reid.

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/johnreidsecurityandfreedom.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/aug/10/terrorism.humanrights

John Reid yesterday accused the government’s anti-terror critics of putting national security at risk by their failure to recognise the serious nature of the threat facing Britain. “They just don’t get it,” he said.

The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn by warning that traditional civil liberty arguments were not so much wrong as just made for another age.

“Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world,” he said.

Mr Reid said Britain was now facing “probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war” and that the country was facing a new breed of ruthless “unconstrained international terrorists”.

The European human rights convention had been drawn up 50 years ago to protect against fascist states but now the threat came from “fascist individuals” unconstrained by such conventions, agreements or standards. Everyone across the political, media, judicial and public spectrum needed to understand the depth and magnitude of the threat.

The majority of the public understood its seriousness but there were those who “just don’t get it” …

Continue ReadingJohn Reid – then New Labour Home Secretary says they “just don’t get it”