Unthreaded
"Asthma carbon footprint 'as big as eating meat'"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50215011
"New study into climate impact on North Sea wildlife"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50220341
"Scientists have sought to shed new light on how climate change risks disrupting the North Sea's food chain.
Marine Scotland Science researchers looked at what effect warming sea temperatures might have on sandeels.
Sandeel larvae hatch close to the start of a "bloom" in their prey, the eggs of tiny crustaceans called copepods.
But the researchers warn warmer temperatures would create a situation where the larvae hatch days after their first meal was abundantly available.
In a "worst case scenario", the scientists said the eel larvae might fail to get enough energy from their first feed and then suffer "high mortality rates".
Sandeels are a key prey species for seabirds such as puffins."
[Lots of "woulds" and "mights". It ignores the reality in the here and now of Danish over-fishing of sand eels.]
Mark Hodgson
There are some astute commenters from the UK on this website.
Can someone explain why the UK Parliament suddenly caved and voted for a quick election ? I had thought the only requirement was an election by May 2020, so what caused the sudden rush to the cliff ?
From my distance in Aus, it is quite inexplicable.
ianl
Mark
They can't manage a dozen for a photo-op. - the name Marianne Birkby turns up a lot. (Green Party , anti-nuker)
Contributor to The Ecologist - so eco royalty connected.
38degrees predictably in there (do they rent out their petitions to Avaaz?)
Looks like an ofshoot of local anti-nukers....
Crowd Justice reckons a pot of £1500 from 75 pledges (£20 each so "grassroots")
I reckon Leigh Day wouldn't break wind for less than £20k - there's a sugar daddy.
tomo
From the Guardian report on the police targeting disabled people.
Nicki Myers, an organiser of the XR Disabled Rebels group, said: “After about an hour, I needed a carer to come and adjust my supplemental oxygen and get some medication that was in the bag on the back of my wheelchair.Well, isn't that treating disabled people in the same was as everybody else?
“[Another wheelchair user] came down to do that for me and as soon as they arrived, we became an illegal assembly under section 14 and were arrested.”
They don't say that the police prevented the adjustment of the supplemental oxygen. If they had then that would have been reported.
It sounds like equality to me.
An equality hard won by protesters who didn't whine like thos mob.
M Courtney
"Trudeau victory prompts ‘Wexit’ talk in Canada’s West
Canada’s western provinces are angry at eastern liberals."
https://www.politico.eu/article/justin-trudeau-victory-prompts-wexit-talk-in-canada-west/
"Confused by Brexit? Get ready for “Wexit.”
Political leaders representing a large chunk of Canada are talking about breaking off from the rest of the country in the wake of Justin Trudeau’s reelection victory — and this time they’re not primarily in French-speaking Quebec, long known for its independent streak.
Instead, it’s the country’s western, oil-dependent provinces fueling the breathless talk of secession, amid a perception that Trudeau and eastern urban liberals are calling the shots at their expense. And it's emerging as one of Trudeau’s most complicated headaches as the prime minister moves toward the start of his second term next month.
“Is it real? Yeah. People are mad,” Randy Hoback, a Conservative Party member of Parliament in central Saskatchewan told POLITICO. “I’ve never seen it like this.”
Citizens in the Western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan agitated for political change in Ottawa over the last year as attempts to build a coastal pipeline expansion continued to falter and as farmers got trounced by trade tiffs with China."
[Can't see Canada breaking up, but there undoubtedly seem to be tensions between east and west, and climate alarmism, and the response to it, seem to be a large part of it].
Mark Hodgson
tomo, I'd like to follow the money. Unfortunately, however, Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole seems to be remarkably coy about who is behind it, who funds it etc. Website here, with nothing that I can see about "who we are", "who funds us" etc:
https://keepcumbriancoalinthehole.wordpress.com/
Mark Hodgson
"Met police accused of 'degrading' treatment of disabled XR activists
Force’s disability advisers lodge complaint about treatment of Extinction Rebellion protesters"
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/29/met-treatment-of-disabled-xr-activists-branded-degrading-and-humiliating
"Rising sea levels pose threat to homes of 300m people – study
Figure based on new analysis of coastlines is more than three times previous estimate"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/rising-sea-levels-pose-threat-to-homes-of-300m-people-study
"'Everybody has something to lose': the exciting, depressing life of a climate writer
The Guardian’s global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, explains how he aims to make the climate emergency resonate with readers on an emotional level"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/28/everybody-has-something-to-lose-the-exciting-depressing-life-of-a-climate-writer
Mark Hodgson
@BBCNews
How to be disabled and eco-friendly https://bbc.in/2NpJWpU
stewgreen
Last week BBC local news was about a grand £1.5bn scheme to build a grand 6 mile long barrier in front of Hull across the Humber sandbanks.
One thing was The Look North reporter was all smiley as if he was drunk on the scheme.
Or maybe the PR team had primed him
One good question was that narrowing the Humber would put flood pressure onto the South bank and its ports
Where is the cost benefit analysis ?
£1.5bn to protect say 15,000 properties from flooding
that is £100K per property.
So maybe it would be cheaper to build a canal around the east of the city to take pressure off the River Hull
stewgreen
ianl, I don't presume to be an "astute commentator", and I don't know why Parliament suddenly rushed to have an election. By the way, I don't believe we had to have another one until 2022, not 2020.
There seems to have been a falling-out among the "People's Vote" anti-Brexit mob, which might have triggered it. The SNP seem to have calculated that they might do nicely out of an election, so they broke ranks. I haven't rationalised the Lib Dem decision, but since they've positioned themselves as the UK anti-Brexit party, I suspect they might have made a similar electoral calculation, and decided they will do nicely out of an election.
They key (possibly) to Parliament voting for an election may have been Labour's volte-face. Corbyn's claim that he did so only because "no deal" has been taken off the table, is risible. Nothing changed between Monday (when he ordered his MPs to abstain) and Tuesday (when he ordered them to vote for an election). And "no deal" could in theory be back on the table if the election returns a Brexit Parliament. I suspect he calculated that a single-line Act by-passing the Fixed Term Parliaments Act might pass with a simple majority (if Tories, SNP and LIb Dems voted for it) even if Labour opposed, so he thought he might as well be seen to support it rather than allow all the other parties to paint him as an undemocratic "election denier".
By the way, it shows what a nonsense the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is when it can (as it always could) be by-passed by a single-line Act passed by a simple majority. That is what Parliamentary sovereignty is supposed to mean - Parliament cannot bind its successors. Whatever Parliament is thrown up by the election, I hope it has the sense to repeal that stupid piece of legislation.
And unlike many remainers who refused to accept the referendum result, I here and now commit to accept the election result, whatever it throws up, and whether I like it or not. Will Lib Dems etc accept it if it produces a Brexit majority? How long until they say it wasn't fair because 16 & 17 years can't vote in it, or look for some other excuse to claim it as invalid?