When the media narrative goes awry...

[Noggin]

I live somewhere that used to have a summer ski season - only up on the glacier! Ok, 30 years ago. But that's no longer possible (hasn't been since years before I got here in 2010) and the glacier has shrunk a massively.

The glacier in Tignes has shrunk a LOT too.

They are finding bodies and wreckage on various glaciers in the region because they are melting


So - yes, the glaciers are melting. Has the world got warmer, I think the general scientific concensus is yes.


Would this have happened without the human increase in 'fumes' (I don't know the proper word!!) and toxins? Quite possibly. Equally, possibly/probably slower.

After all there have been ice ages before, wouldn't there have been a 'hot' age on the flip side? Aren't we coming out of an ice age? (Ok, millions of years ago!!)


I'm not sure how much we can change it now. I don't think it's a bad thing to try and change it. But I do think most rhetoric is trying to make people feel bad rather than actually achieve any change.

For instance, people still want to buy veg and other food stuffs from the other side of the world instead of buying within the land mass they live on.

People vilify beef farmers due to fumes from cow farts, but want their foodstuffs flown thousands of miles - pretty sure planes cause far more damage to the environment than multiple herds of cows!!

We are being forced into electric vehicles but if you look at the number of flights over cities, I'm pretty sure the air pollution is comparable or worse from all those planes than from normal ICE cars


I have no solutions, I'm not political; these are just things I've seen and some of them frustrate me, a lot of them make me just want to bash my head on a wall and/of hide away from the world!! (Like up on a mountain!!)

[DefTrap]

Ok, if we're being sensible again.

Some recent anecdotal evidence from me -
- my eldest flew over from the UK recently. The cheapest, most convenient flight came via Madrid, doubling the distance had he flown direct.
- I ordered an aircon unit from amazon. It came (not told in advance) from Spain ffs. It was shit, it went back to Spain. Round trip of at least 1000 unnecessary lorry miles.

I don't think this sort of thing is particularly unusual. Our demand for cheap stuff from convenient resellers cons us into making decisions that have a big impact on the environment. Yeah I could have sourced an aircon unit locally - but I know for a fact upfront that a poor service is the standard (having lugged a pre-broken microwave back to the showroom last month, to be met by "wtf do you want?" faces. They were all happy and smiling taking my money 2 hours earlier.)

[Mr. Dazzle]

If you wanna be anecdotal about it, I do think young people (sorta <30) are significantly more motivated about this sort of thing. Whether that's just generic youth enthusiasm or the fact they have to live with any consequences longer or something else, I dunno.

It's very popular IME for old farts of Facebook to post about "How all kids want the latest iPhone when all we got was a bucket of gruel every 17 months", but based on what I see in my limited observational bubble that just ain't true. Loads of the young people I know are wearing second hand clothes and eating textured vegetable protein. My 60 something parents on the other hand (who are the worst kind of Facebook offender in this regard BTW ) are jetting off on foreign holidays every year etc.

YMMV.

[DefTrap]

It's not about what you say necessarily, but the application of it, so IMO it's abuse when the other person is going to struggle to cope with it mentally, and you know that, but you do it anyway.

This is a bad example of left bias because ZRX was talking pants, but a narrative certainly exists.

After you then.
I shan't report it but I think you owe ZRX an apology and maybe help him out with his rehab costs.

I think we all know who you're talking about but he hasn't been about much recently so the bullying claims on that score seem increasingly hollow.

[Count Steer]

My 60 something parents on the other hand (who are the worst kind of Facebook offender in this regard BTW ) are jetting off on foreign holidays every year etc.

Flying? Hah! Reading something recently (I haven't validated it). They were claiming that pet cats and dogs in the USA generate as much CO2 as the 5th largest emitter. (Through the meat they consume etc).

I'll see if I can find the article.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I'm sure I heard that kerosene lamps in (what used to be called) the third world burn as much "jet fuel" as the airline industry! I know there are massive drives to give everyone free solar powered LED lamps+batteries.

Dog and cats though, yeah, worse than Hummers!

I know several people who are veggies for environmental reasons. I'm not veggie, but I'm 95% of the way there However it's massively grey, 'cause eating a locally reared grass fed cow emits less CO2 than living off rice and coconuts I bet

[Horse]

I blame the snowflakes.

Certainly there's some irony that as we have less snow there's more snowflakes

[Count Steer]

My 60 something parents on the other hand (who are the worst kind of Facebook offender in this regard BTW ) are jetting off on foreign holidays every year etc.

Flying? Hah! Reading something recently (I haven't validated it). They were claiming that pet cats and dogs in the USA generate as much CO2 as the 5th largest emitter. (Through the meat they consume etc).

I'll see if I can find the article.

Found it. I misremembered. Here are some of the claims regarding carbon pawprint:

i) the average private jet customer is responsible for the same emissions as someone who owns 3 medium-sized or 1 big dog
ii) US meat consumption by pets generates 64 million tons of CO2 pa. Equivalent to 13.6 million cars
iii) that meat consumption is equivalent to the 5th highest consumption of any nation
iv) owning a large dog generates twice as much CO2 as the average car
v) the flatulent dogs of Sheffield parp out 1500 tons of CO2 pa

etc. The author is a travel writer so choose your own sized pinch of salt.

[DefTrap]

Interesting!
Sounds like bollocks from Viz Comic, interested to see how much truth there is in all of that. And whether the author has something against pets.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I heard it on QI as well!

Stephen Fry QI too, so you know it's legit.

[ZRX61]

No idea what the ABC man meant and he may have got muddled who knows.

However, was the Libya flood caused by climate change. Pretty much a certainty. Anyone who's looked at the weather in the last few years can see that things are fucked up. Greece was on fire in the summer, it's now underwater. Pretty much everywhere has seen weather conditions that aren't normal at some point in the last few years, Europe was cooking this summer. When I was 12 at high school this was something 'in the future' but likely to happen if we didn't do 'something'. Everyone is aware of this. Well we didn't really do 'something' and now stuff is happening.

But if an anchor man messes up his explanation then yeah, must all be a false narrative obviously.

We've had the CC wallah's saying "unusual weather is not climate change" for years... Now they've changed their tactics & are claiming that any weather phenom IS climate change. EG: the *hurricane* (actually a tropical storm) that made things a bit wet here was blamed on climate change... but the CC wallahs are unable to explain the last one we had.... 80 years ago.

as for "Greece is on fire".. so was the UK during the Summer of '76... no one mentioned climate change then.

[Cousin Jack]

I know several people who are veggies for environmental reasons. I'm not veggie, but I'm 95% of the way there However it's massively grey, 'cause eating a locally reared grass fed cow emits less CO2 than living off rice and coconuts I bet

And don't forget almond milk, no self-respecting veggie would have anything else in their latte. So that's a few more air miles.

[MyLittleStudPony]

You can forget all that climate change sea level bollocks. I'm going to get three of them Bully XLs and use them to further defend statues.

[Supermofo]

I'm not sure how much we can change it now. I don't think it's a bad thing to try and change it. But I do think most rhetoric is trying to make people feel bad rather than actually achieve any change.

Yes a lot of it is wrapped up in stealth taxes and things that don't make a huge amount of sense, which all drives the cynicism.

People just need to stop buying so much shite. And as for food the whole thing is bonkers. About the only place it's easy to get UK fish is in UK seaside restaurants. In most UK supermarkets it's all from Vietnam and Thailand etc whilst the UK fish mostly gets exported. It's chuggin mental.

Must admit I do feel bad now as before the kids started school we'd get milk from the dairy farm at the top of the village, meat from the farm at the bottom of the village and as much veg from the farm market down the road. But with work, school run, clubs etc we've fallen back to Aldi as it's easier. I do order my cider from a family run orchard in Somerset though, so at least my booze money don't go to the supermarkets.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I know several people who are veggies for environmental reasons. I'm not veggie, but I'm 95% of the way there However it's massively grey, 'cause eating a locally reared grass fed cow emits less CO2 than living off rice and coconuts I bet

And don't forget almond milk, no self-respecting veggie would have anything else in their latte. So that's a few more air miles.

You joke, but I know people who do think about this If it's obvious to you how obvious do you think it is to someone who is actually trying to make a change

Oat milk FTW! Mostly 'cause we actually grow oats in this country.

[Count Steer]

Interesting!
Sounds like bollocks from Viz Comic, interested to see how much truth there is in all of that. And whether the author has something against pets.

Next best thing, The Spectator*. As I mentioned, the author is keen to justify the travel industry, being a travel writer. I suspect there's some truth in it though.

(*Where the resident vaccine sceptic and Brexiteer columnist Melissa Kite has Covid (quite badly) for the 4th time...she rationalises this by telling us of a vaccinated person who still caught it. Said person only found out when someone insisted he was tested - they didn't feel ill. Illness won't interrupt her house move from Surrey to Eire though. )

[ZRX61]

Clouds are water that's evaporated from seas. Global warming could increase that, leading to heavier rainfall.

We all learned that in school, or were at least there when it was taught to those paying attention. However, in this case ABC are basically saying that if the Derwent Dam in Derbyshire failed, it would be caused by rising sea levels owing to climate change.
He could have linked the failed dams to increased rain owing to climate change, but he didn't.

& for whoever asked: Yank reporter sent to Libya, not a local.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Ask a vaguely technical question and the only response you can believe is "it depends"

https://www.ed.ac.uk/impact/research/on ... alculation.

I think it's fair to say a carnivorous pet is significant from a CO2 point of view. Get yourself a good mouser though and you won't have to feed it. Or listen to bird song any more.

[Supermofo]

No idea what the ABC man meant and he may have got muddled who knows.

However, was the Libya flood caused by climate change. Pretty much a certainty. Anyone who's looked at the weather in the last few years can see that things are fucked up. Greece was on fire in the summer, it's now underwater. Pretty much everywhere has seen weather conditions that aren't normal at some point in the last few years, Europe was cooking this summer. When I was 12 at high school this was something 'in the future' but likely to happen if we didn't do 'something'. Everyone is aware of this. Well we didn't really do 'something' and now stuff is happening.

But if an anchor man messes up his explanation then yeah, must all be a false narrative obviously.

as for "Greece is on fire".. so was the UK during the Summer of '76... no one mentioned climate change then.

Yes it was hot in the summer of 1976. But since 1884 the top 10 hottest years have all been in the last 20 years. 1976 was a famous anomaly, it's likely to become much more normal now. 1976 also a max temp of 36C, 2022 saw over 40C.

[Hoonercat]

My 60 something parents on the other hand (who are the worst kind of Facebook offender in this regard BTW ) are jetting off on foreign holidays every year etc.

Flying? Hah! Reading something recently (I haven't validated it). They were claiming that pet cats and dogs in the USA generate as much CO2 as the 5th largest emitter. (Through the meat they consume etc).

I'll see if I can find the article.

Found it. I misremembered. Here are some of the claims regarding carbon pawprint:

i) the average private jet customer is responsible for the same emissions as someone who owns 3 medium-sized or 1 big dog

etc. The author is a travel writer so choose your own sized pinch of salt.

The travel writer was quoting...wait for it... Patrick Hansen, the boss of a private jet comapny. And he in turn was quoting from a book written by Mike Berners-Lee, who responded by saying that the figures given for an 'average' private jet customer were ""suspiciously low" and that he was ""surprised and disappointed to hear data from my book being used to defend the bogus eco claims made by Luxaviation."

ii) US meat consumption by pets generates 64 million tons of CO2 pa. Equivalent to 13.6 million cars

I think you can definately take that with a large pinch of salt. This was based on commercial foods, and most dog owners are lazy as fuck when it comes to feeding their dog. Cheap is the way, and cheap = 4% meat which is made up of the waste (meat meal) that humans can't eat, so from a production POV it's not being produced for animals, it's produced for humans and the animals get what's left. Then there's this:

A 2014 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that producing a kilogram of chicken results in about 3.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide, while a kilogram of pork comes with 24 kilograms of carbon dioxide. The same amount of beef, however, can be responsible for up to 1,000 kilograms of CO2

Given that there are hundreds of different brands of dog and cat foods, and they're ingredient labels are notoriously vague, I'm not overly inclined to believe that's an accurate figure. And 13.6million cars? According to Google, there were 290.8 million cars in the US this time last year.

I should imagine the 'average' private jet user has a nice big pack of dogs protecting his/her home while they're up in the air, and they won't be getting fed any of that 4% shite

But wait, you're a leftie. Sorry, I'll just nod and go back to whatever I was doing