Climate Camp : The Peoples’ Golfing Association

Oh dear. It appears that the Edinburgh Chapter of the Peoples Golfing Association, formed in 2005 ahead of the G8 Gleneagles Summit, has got the band back together at the Climate Camp, and played a round just a tad too close to the buildings of the Headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11054166

“22 August 2010 : Climate change protesters arrested at RBS office : Two women have been arrested after climate change protesters attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) Edinburgh headquarters on Sunday. More than 100 protesters took part in the action, which also involved an oil-like substance being thrown at the building and windows being smashed. The protest comes in response to RBS’s investment in oil industry developments around the world…Shaun Caulfield, who took part in the attempted raid, said: “RBS is one of the biggest climate criminals in the UK. People are angry that bankers are ploughing the billions that they got in the bail out into incredibly destructive fossil fuel projects around the world.” Golf balls were also apparently thrown at the building, the Press Association reported…”

I wouldn’t call it an “attack”. It was more like a good walk spoiled.

And as for “attempted raid”…well…there are plenty enough doors to sneak through, nobody needs to break anything to get inside. They probably didn’t.

Who chipped the first ball into the panes of expensive coated glass, eh ? Lady golfers or police chappies ?

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/east-central/193315-hundreds-gather-for-rbs-climate-camp-protest/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/aug/23/climate-camp-day-action-edinburgh

Quit Funding Radical Clearthinkers

So, now we know what part of the United Kingdom public spending cuts will consist of : quit funding the Sustainable Development Commission.

The SDC guys and gals have been such vocal, radical thinkers. They have contributed so much to public discourse and the politics of Climate Change. The country needs their services.

Ironically, their take-no-prisoners approach to the facts could have made them a natural target for the chop. Perhaps the political establishment can see no need for a hotbed of academic “dissent” (otherwise known as “truthtelling”).

In a sense, the SDC have been so convincing and effective, they’ve worked themselves out of a job :-

http://www.mrw.co.uk/news/defra-announces-withdrawal-of-funding-for-sustainable-development-commission/8603660.article

Let this not be an end to transparent research and strong demands for de-carbonisation in public life !

Greenpeace Slams Climategate Media

The Guardian asks, “How has ‘Climategate’ affected the battle against climate change?” :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/08/hacked-climate-science-emails-climate-change

I think the appropriate question would be, “How has Climategate poisoned the minds of journalists and their editors ?”

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace gets it spot on :-

“Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public…”The emails didn’t change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate.”

The newspapers and TV programmes are in danger of losing their customers if they continue selling such dodgy wares.

Climategate has been a pseudo-scandal, written in the language of acrimony and suspicion, personal and professional attacks making claims of bad behaviour amongst scientists, arguments with extremely poor foundations.

Yet the Science still stands. Climate Change is still happening and we are still responsible for it. “We” in the inclusive sense, that is. The majority of bad behaviour is to be found in the business plans of energy companies. They show little intention of de-carbonising the resources of energy they sell to the rest of us.

The Media is a circus on Climate Change, but not a very entertaining one.

It’s time for some proper science journalism in the daily press.

Protected: Quaking Grass

Steve McIntyre Spins Newsweek

Newsweek spins a heart-warming yarn about the “granddaddy of the global warming “denial” movement”, Steven McIntyre. You would be forgiven for adopting his point of view, he has such a homestead glow :-

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233887

“…he says, people tend to use hockey-stick graphs when they are trying to pull one over on you. “Reality usually isn’t so tidy.”…”

Er, no. Nobody could rightly assert that Climate scientists have been trying to trick anybody. Why does Newsweek not decline his argument ?

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Poo Power (2)

As they say on Euronews : no comment :-

http://news.sky.com/skynews

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/28/lunen-germany-biogas-power

Copenhagen : The Passion And The Pain

A few reports from the Copenhagen Climate conference, which promises to take both creative communications and straightfaced besuited politicking to a new height in a truly unique global, yet distinctly European melange :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-festivities-and-activities-start-in-copenhagen-1836136.html

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2009/12/08/Copenhagen-kicks-off-Passion-and-banality.aspx

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6947988.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/dec/07/copenhagen-conference-ngos

A must-watch !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8400792.stm

Untidy Minds #11 : Bjorn Lomborg

In the Munk Debates 2009 on Climate Change, Bjorn Lomborg made a claim that I immediately found contestable, a claim that probably seemed to be convincing to the audience and yet was without foundation.

He claimed that there would be more people suffering water stress in the world without Climate Change, than there would be if Climate Change were allowed to continue.

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Climate Change : Munk Debates 2009

The Munk Debates 2009 on Climate Change is, I think, now completely uploaded to YouTube. I only caught part of this when it was streamed live because of the time zone issue. I really recommend you listen and watch :-

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMunkDebates#p/c/F60C6C685021CA27

Ed Miliband Raises His Game

As the last week of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband naysaying the Climate Change deniers does not seem to have had much impact on turning around the great ship of democratically expressed scepticism on Global Warming, Ed Miliband has turned to Public Relations on telly.

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Untidy Minds #4 : David Davis

Congratulations go to David Davis, who appears to have singlehandedly found the way to split the British Conservative Party for good, by coming out as a Climate Change sceptic, and thereby effectively challenging David Cameron for the leadership (which Davis will lose, like he did the last time, I reckon) :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-davis-why-this-ferocious-desire-to-impose-hairshirt-policies-1832213.html

He writes :-

“The row about whether global warming exists gets even more virulent. The case is not helped by the fact that the planet appears to have been cooling, not warming, in the last decade. Last week, the row was fuelled after a hacker revealed emails between the world’s leading climate scientists that seemed to show them conspiring to rig the figures to support their theories. So it is unsurprising that more than half the public no longer believe in global warming.”

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The Right Chemistry

Shock news : Chemistry validates the Science of Global Warming !

And tells us that industrial refrigerants are worse than we thought !

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/purdue_nasa_research_blueprint_molecular_basis_143930.html

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Remembrance Sunday

With so many facts and figures swirling around, it’s sometimes hard to recall the important things, pin them down and make a rational argument out of them.

One thing for Remembrance Sunday, something to remember in future : warfare creates Carbon Emissions :-

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/34522876/Warfare-Ecology

“The scientific evidence that Homo sapiens is causing unprecedented environmental change is now compelling (MEA 2003). Among human activities, war is common, almost constant, and sweeping in its ecological impact. There have been 122 armed conflicts around the world in the past 17 years, and 163 of 192 countries currently maintain regular armed forces (Majeed 2004, Harbom and Wallensteen 2007). War preparations alone utilize up to 15 million square kilometers (km²) of land, account for 6% of all raw material consumption, and produce as much as 10% of global carbon emissions annually (Bidlack 1996, Biswas 2000, Majeed 2004).”

I didn’t get my white poppy this year because of the problems with the postal service. I did however fashion one myself out of a Haig poppy and a paper serviette napkin :-

http://www.whitepoppy.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Poppy

Turn warplanes into wind turbines. Turn the defence industry over to manufacturing concentrated solar power plant.

The Axis of Climate Change

PARENTAL ADVISORY : This post contains video, audio and text information recounting real events of violence which may disturb some people, particularly children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEVPSfJIQ84
“South Park History of America”

At one time it was Russia. And Cuba. Of late, it’s been the whole of the world of Islam, pretty much. This Axis of Evil and War on Terror has kept the dream of a Foreign Enemy alive, keeping average Americans scared enough to cough up tax dollars for any Defense Department wheeze for warfare.

The policy of military intervention in other peoples’ regimes appears to be part of the genetic coding of the United States of America. It would take some serious psychotherapy to erase its impact, apparently. It’s really deeply embedded behaviour :-

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I Do Not Believe We Can Change

I do not believe that people can change. I do not believe in “voluntary behaviour change”.

Despite massive amounts of money ploughed into “communications” with the great British public, people have not shifted.
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G20 Climate Camp : No Eviction without Representation !

So, the feared and predicted eviction of the G20 Climate Camp seems to be starting, with the Police using heavyhanded tactics, including terrorising people with a least one helicopter over the camp.

http://twitter.com/climatecamp

Meanwhile, at the very centre of all this whirlwind of oppressive tactical management, lies the blessed little survivor church St Ethelberga’s, hosting the Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, where today they dropped a banner from their roof, reading “We’re all in this TOGETHER”.

And so we are.

G20 Climate Camp – Calm Restored

The G20 Climate Camp has formed two meetings, one at the north and one at the south of the camp area, where the riot Police have formed inpenetrable lines.

I’m still waiting to hear the consensus decisions of these meetings, but it looks like the earlier tension from Police provocation by incursion has been resolved, and the festival atmosphere has resumed.

The bands play on !

http://twitter.com/climatecamp

G20 Climate Camp : Police Provocation

I’m sorry to report that I’ve had to leave the G20 Climate Camp because I started to feel very nervous about the tactics of the Police.

I lost my cool a bit, and decided that I didn’t want to do anything I might regret, so I decided to quit before the pen that seemed to be forming became permanent, which would have made me very angry.

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G20 Climate Camp – A Gentle Swirl of Calm amidst the Total Banking Storm

I mean, can you call it “non-violent confrontation” and will people understand you if you do ?

The G20 Climate Camp have just phoned me and there’s lots of nice chilled vibes coming down the line.

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/ccaCity/gallery1/index.html

Blogging the G20 Climate Camp

Well, readers, here I am in an undisclosed location in the City of London, holding the pink, Camp-pink, mobile.

“Hello. Climate Camp. How can we englighten you today ?”

Sitting on a good wi-fi hotspot, pretending to do nothing in particular, fretting a bit as the big Police vans with cages roll by in convoys towards the financial district, where unhappy people, enraged by the bloodthirsty London Press, have taken it upon themselves to fulfill tabloid prophecy and storm the banks, calling themselves the G20 Meltdown.

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G20 Climate Camp – tea with the protesters

The G20 Climate Camp would like to reassure Police Officers that it is perfectly safe to drink camp tea, and that a certain uniformed authority person without an identification lapel has only himself to blame for his state of druggedness. We think he “self-medicated” before coming on the beat today…

G20 Climate Camp – Synchronise your watches

Flash update : it appears that some European participants in the G20 Climate Camp didn’t synchronise their watches yesterday evening and have pitched up on the roof of the Bank of England or the Climate Exchange already, a whole hour ahead of the 12.30 “swooping” hour…

…this may be an uncorroborated rumour, however.