Lights Out for Climate Change

5 minutes of "electrical rest" is one of the dumbest things I've ever read, which includes every single post of mine on ILX.

I am not a scientist*, so could you please catalogue these other periods on this thread, like now?

*) A lie. I am, though not a meteorologist.

Not a climatologist, but here's my understanding of it:

One of the main factors behind long term climate variation seems to be variation in axial tilt. Basically, this is the angle that the Earth leans towards the Sun at. When the angle has been least i.e when the axis of rotation has been upright, then the poles receive a lower amount of solar energy over the course of a year and are consequently a lot colder. More ice forms at the poles and this sets up positive feedback because more solar energy gets reflected back into space, further lowering the mean global temperature. As the Earth tilts towards the Sun, the poles receive more heat, ice-caps decrease and temperatures rise. This sort of pattern happens on a scale of millions of years.

Other factors causing changes in mean global temperatures are things like the movements of continents, changes in how much energy the Sun radiates, and finally, the composition of the atmosphere (the last ice age may have been caused by a lot of dust in the atmosphere, reflecting solar energy back into space). Out of all these factors, only really that last one has varied significantly over the last couple of hundred years, and the main atmospheric change has been the concentration of greenhouse gases.

so should i go and watch the madness unfold y/n (it is just down the road, pretty much)

Blackheath yes?

yes, I expect to see Matt DC and Michael Jones if I go, they practically live there

Handcuff yourself to a protestor, just for a laugh.

Oh, there's all sorts of fabulous japes to be exercised. Probably not the worst way to guiltlessly hookup either. Might go along with a cricket set.

I might go and say hello this evening actually, on the way back from swimming.

Fancy A Protest

There's a pub just up the road from where they've pitched up.

Probably laughing all the way to the bank right now.

what a disaster for the recession

yes, I expect to see Matt DC and Michael Jones if I go

jones is much further west - you're probably thinking of pinefox

Pinefox is local? I wonder what he makes of this uprising.

so should i go and watch the madness unfold y/n (it is just down the road, pretty much)

― They are known for contracting the ugliest players, like Kuyt (country matters), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 08:42 (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

say hi to anyone I know.

do you know Monbiot?

No but this is a nice time to be looking through the news media because I see photos of plenty of people I know.

Also now is the time for ignorant comedy vitriol in the comment boxes, as if it ever isn't.

They cause more damage to the climate with all the toxic gas and crap coming out of their mouths...trouble is we have to pay for their benefit handouts

- Derek, Oliva (Valencia) Spain

Both anthropogenic climate change and the idea that we live in a representative democracy are hoaxes. Most people fall for these hoaxes because they want to believe in benign government and are too jaded to look at the facts which speak otherwise.

- Neil, London, London UK

Derek in Spain has to pay for benefits for people in the UK? Seems a bit harsh, no wonder he's upset.

i think he's just on holiday and at a loose end

He'll be an ex-pat. Here's a recent pic.
http://content6.flixster.com/skin/profile/10/84/29/10842944_profile_mbox_background.jpg

Red with anger, lying there fuming about lazy layabouts laying about.

4.40pm: Three local Liberal Democrat councillors have issued a statement about the Climate Camp.

We are appalled at the disturbance caused to local residence and amenities.

We hope that both the Protesters and Police alike act with respect for the local community.

Appalled! As far as I can make out, they are currently occupying a small patch of grass in the middle of a v. large field Y/N

Am about to verify

I would imagine that's exactly what they are doing. The bit they're likely to be camped in isn't exactly full of housing either.

Oh actually pictures suggest they might be camping over more of the heath than I'd previously though.

I wonder if there'll be a CLASH with Zippo's Circus, which is also occupying the heath right now.

Oh wow, no-one has mentioned the possibility of a police vs. protestors vs. clowns three-way bundle yet.

Greenwich Council has issued a statement that the protest is happening 100m outside it's boundary in the borough of Lewisham. Top quality buck passing there.

haha you go along as an amused spectator, you meet a uni friend within 30 seconds, pretty soon you're helping set up a marquis XD

hey - free festival! wonder what tomorrow will bring.

god i am illiterate

marquEE

anyway yeah let's save some goddamn climate

L-Jagz in holding a fellow student's tentpole shocker.

Greenwich Council has issued a statement that the protest is happening 100m outside it's boundary in the borough of Lewisham. Top quality buck passing there.

They should've held it in Crystal Palace - five boroughs border each other down here and none of them take responsibility for anything.

hurrah for Zippo's Eco-Circus

disappointed that they weren't setting up a marquis

I went up there last night (probably actually saw LJ and friends erecting a marquee without realising). Seemed pretty quiet at the time - they're pitched up on the noisiest bit of the heath though, right between two very big main roads.

Also between the Hare & Billet pub and the Blackheath Tea Hut, the latter will probably have its best week ever.

Why don't those scrounging clowns get proper jobs anyway?

a lot of clowns coming out of college now can't get jobs

Well I don't think it's right that the public should have to subsidize their floppy shoes. This is almost like Nazi Germany.

Though to be fair the clowns have done pioneering pro-environment work in carpooling.

The Mayor of Lewsiham asks 'Hooligans and Climate Campers - what's the difference?'

I somehow doubt the climate campers are going to leave the heath swathed in rubbish when they leave.

Annoying thing is, as a vote-courting mayor he's perfectly entitled to go "you don't have permission to be camping here, fuck off" but the hooliganism thing is just a really really lame cheap shot.

Am I right in thinking that this is the same site that the London Marathon starts from each year? Wonder how the levels of disturbance compare.

if you saw a guy all dressed in red, that was me. i took some pictures, but none of myself. see facebook for more details.

In other words, what the Paris agreement hoped to prevent altogether happened more than two decades earlier than expected pic.twitter.com/XR0NanHuFy

— Benjamin Kunkel (@kunktation) January 10, 2025

All bets are off!

that's a screenshot of ... what?

Of this headline.

https://www.ft.com/content/fd914266-71bf-4317-9fdc-44b55acb52f6

I’m curious

My internal unexpressed brain has just, for years, assumed that there is a bulk of The Right (the rich ones, with power) have actively been advocating climate denialism because they have made investments, and hold interest, in concerns that would benefit from an accelerated melting and waters rising, etc.

Like, they say “it’s not a thing!” because they’re banking on it being a thing.

I had an argument today with somebody who thought I sounded like a conspiracy theorist, but am I totally insane?

That a dude who invested in Halliburton might be saying “Iraq is bad”? That a bank who knows it’ll make money on a foreclosed mortgage might encourage unwise home investment? I mean… I think this is an entirely sane theory?

I think you have the right general idea, but you're probably a bit off on the mechanisms by which the profits accrue.

Tell me more!

I'm sure that's happening but equally a lot of capitalists are investing in green versions of capitalism too.

A lot of these guys are dumb and their brains are just as scrambled by right wing media as the uncle you won’t invite to Thanksgiving, and the ones who do accept the fact that climate change is happening feel it’s exaggerated.

Yes, I think mostly they're dumb enough to believe it, or self-deluding enough to believe tech will save us. Not a big difference in practical terms.

i think it's less "i hope this happens, because i will make a huge profit" and more "no matter what happens, i will make a huge profit"

^otm, though I agree with fgti that there are absolutely people betting on climate change. one example that springs to mind is anticipated shipping lanes opening in the Arctic.

Or "rare earth minerals" in a melted Greenland.

This was an idea that struck me back in 2016 during Trump's first campaign, that the tendency-on-the-right to "accumulate enormous wealth by any means necessary" was an unethical (but likely effective) method of shoring up against the impending climate disaster(s); protecting oneself and one's cadre whilst not-giving-a-shit what happens to the rest of the population. A friend posited on Facebook a few days ago a similar sentiment.

The individual with whom I argued told me that the vast majority of climate denialists, like, "actually believe what they say", and to suppose that it's an act of double-speak is presuming too much. I responded that this did not contradict my idea, and I agreed with it, but that I theorised that the genesis of climate denialism, which so many have come to inexplicably accept as "the truth", may have come from bad actor sources and think tanks who knew the truth but chose profitable-accelerationism over prevention.

yes climate change is a classic case in agnotology, the study of the deliberate fostering of ignorance. its most classic case is the tobacco industry's funding of "scientists"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/climate-change-will-make-rice-toxic-say-researchers/

The environment doesn't recover when humans depopulate.

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-japan-rural-population-linked-ongoing.amp

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2025/7/5/end-is-near-will-kabul-become-first-big-city-without-water-by-2030

Xp this is more for an ecology thread than climate change but there are some good recent (and not so recent) studies that support the “Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis” as applied to land management by humans, and indigenous populations in particular. “interesting” and biologically diverse “forest gardens” might exist for hundreds or even thousands of years where humans once managed them and where tall tree canopies would otherwise dominate.

One reason this is at issue rn - China, tragically taking cues from America/Yellowstone, has been relocating indigenous Tibetans from Jiuzhaigo Natl. Park because it has been wrongly presumed that their presence is disruptive to the landscape.

The “Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis” in landscape ecology may help us connect these two facts. If people modify a landscape severely and frequently – for instance, turning a forest into a town or a monoculture farm – native diversity tends to decrease. On the other extreme, in a landscape with little or no disturbance, diverse patches will become uniform, and dominant species will tend to crowd out others. Moderate levels of disturbance, such as the inhabitants of Jiuzhaigou carried out through farming, herding, woodcutting and judicious use of fire, may enhance diversity. 

https://dialogue.earth/en/nature/11984-deep-history-in-western-china-reveals-how-humans-can-enhance-biodiversity/

That's interesting Deflator, will look.

---

https://www.wired.com/story/the-first-planned-migration-of-an-entire-country-is-underway/

10000 ppl

a technical categorisation of it as a "country" seems a forced angle for the headlines tbh

Its an island in size but a country because of borders imo. Its people needed a deal and goodwill to migrate and have permission to attain citizenship elsewhere.

Minimising this -- which will be the first of many islands to be destroyed by climate change, and won't stop there in any case -- isn't it.

Much happens too, between writing and editing of crosswords. The clue “Greener energy source” wasn’t Lempel’s, and those politics aren’t hers, either. When Lempel submitted the puzzle, the original clue for CLEAN COAL read “Dubious term for a greener energy source.” Lempel had a back-and-forth with the editors, sending an e-mail explaining, “If you Google ‘clean coal,’ there seem to be alot of questions as to whether it’s actually clean. That’s why I used the qualifier and I wonder if it should stay in there.” The Times replied that Shortz “still finds the clue better as it is without any hedging.” After the puzzle ran, the response was so forceful that it led to that rarest of things, a crossword correction:

The clue for 47 Across in the Monday puzzle implied incorrectly that coal is a viable source of clean energy. While it is possible to capture and sequester some of the greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants from coal- fired power plants, the technology has never been used on a large scale because of its high cost.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/the-hidden-politics-of-the-crossword-puzzle/

A small slice of good news.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/11/economic-growth-no-longer-linked-to-carbon-emissions-in-most-of-the-world-study-finds

This is a p thoughtful piece.

"The reality is this: 1) We absolutely do have a choice because demand is politically, economically, and socially constructed, and 2) The choice between renewables and fossil fuels is a false binary, like telling a healthy person they must chose between losing an arm or a leg."

https://thelastfarm.substack.com/p/we-dont-need-any-more-renewables

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/11/point-of-no-return-hothouse-earth-global-heating-climate-tipping-points

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ecuador-tropical-rainforest-biodiversity-rebounds

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ecuador-tropical-rainforest-biodiversity-rebounds.html#google_vignette

Rare bit of good news

https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-declining-cloudiness-is-accelerating-global-warming/

OTOH..

Thousand a day are dying now.

A new peer-reviewed article estimates that a single day of extreme heat causes 3,400 excess deaths across India. Extreme heat events are especially bad for UP, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, since these states have underlying socioeconomic vulnerabilities. https://t.co/cBHeHe6Rsd pic.twitter.com/ITeFvKiRxY

— Malini Ranganathan (@maliniranga) May 28, 2026