The real complaint this bird has is that men want to go do something to solve a problem:
When it comes to some of the tech oligarchs, I suspect the sheer modesty of the solutions – that we should consume less, which means we can produce less, and make this energy transition to a renewable-powered world – is not the kind of gee-whiz rocket science they love. (Though solar and wind technologies are pretty amazing, particularly if you know how rapidly their design has improved, their cost has plummeted and their implementation has spread.) It is in many ways a social solution in which lots of us adjust how we live and how we power our devices, not a grand centralized invention that is super profitable for a few.
How very feminine, eh? She’s also remarkably unobservant:
But overall billionaires and the very rich are part of the problem, with their outsized power and the dismal ways most of them use it. And their climate impact is obscene – the richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%.
Significant journo living in California? There’s absolutely no way at all that you’re not part of the global 1%, Honey.
The solution is always the same – revert to a medieval lifestyle – as if that is either feasible in terms of current population or would be acceptable to a majority of people. The ‘cult of climate science’ particularly when we know how dismal some of their predictions have been is also fairly trite. Why anyone should genuflect to such people is never made clear – just ‘they have told us we are all going to die’. A veneer of fairly dodgy science fails to make a Millenarian cult any less dubious.
I’m always amazed by people who think persuading 8 billion people to accept their lot and stop wanting to improve things for themselves, their family and their society, i.e. to completely change human nature, is simple, easy or modest.
’The solution is always the same – revert to a medieval lifestyle…’
Not quite, VP, the solution is for US to revert to that, while they carry on living high on the hog!
I’m having a pointless discussion with someone on LinkedIn who wants to sue oil companies for their supposed role in climate change.
One of her responses included: I am happy to take my share of the responsibility, and I am working g hard to change what I buy and how I behave.
My response was: That is hilarious, what does your share of the responsibility look like?
People living in the developed world have, on average, a carbon footprint 23 times larger than someone living in a least developed country (2019). Even if you watch what you buy and how you behave, your carbon footprint will still be significantly above average so you cannot claim that you are not part of the problem (as you see it, I don’t see a problem and plan to increase my carbon footprint in retirement). If you really want to be able to take potshots at companies and individuals, you need to drastically transform your life, not just tinker around the edges.
For some reason I decided to read the comments on the article. It’s the usual mix of hysteria, despair and anger at the evils of the rich and capitalism. Lots of them seem to think we are doomed regardless and lots of them are hankering for pre-industrial peasantry..
For example: People lived utterly satisfying, even happy, lives going no further than 18 miles from where they were born. Modern travel habits are disgusting.
JuliaM
Sorry – written on the fly but you are of course as always – 100% correct. Do as I dictate, not as I do seems to be the mantra.
The ‘Meghan Markle/ Prince Harry’ approach to philanthropy
It’s spelt insignificant.
“ Lots of them seem to think we are doomed regardless and lots of them are hankering for pre-industrial peasantry..”
I don’t believe they’re hankering after it for themselves, but if they are there’s plenty of 3rd world shitholes where they could give it a go. Maybe someone should brand it as eco tourism?
“Climate change” isn’t a problem for anyone in the real world, but climate change believers are a significant problem.
Remember the superstitious mutant cultists from The Omega Man? That’s them that is.
Steve
A Great Movie! – I think we all need to channel Charlton Heston’s words ‘From my cold dead hands’ in a different context to reply to these people.
Weren’t ‘The Family’ headed up by some kind of journalist/ TV Newsreader as it happens? Maybe that’s what the Guardian has in mind?
The attitude can be summarized as “my well being will be diminished if we let you live like me.”
VP – Weren’t ‘The Family’ headed up by some kind of journalist/ TV Newsreader as it happens?
Yes! Could be a role for Huw Edwards.
“Second Sleep” by Robert Harris gives a flavour of the future they seem to wish for. I won’t spoil the ending except to say it’s not too surprising if you are a student of history.
Can someone please tell women like this one and Mrs Gates to just piss off? No idea how this woman got to be writing about eco, but presumably at one point she had either a rich daddy or was pretty enough that some bloke showered her with gifts despite her idiocy. I get it. I’ve sat talking astrology to pretty girls. Firm, fertile flesh matters more than my principles. But at 60? Women like this should probably go to Carousel. It would be the most environmentally positive thing they could do.
The thing with blokes is, we do the math. We don’t do some vague nonsense.
“and that we should just plunge ahead with AI, which is so huge an energy hog it’s prompted a number of tech companies to abandon their climate goals. Schmidt then threw out the farfetched notion that we should go all in on AI because maybe AI will somehow, maybe, eventually know how to “solve” climate, saying: “I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.””
The truth is, AI isn’t a “huge energy hog”. AI is just some fancy math, and computers do that without burning a lot of energy. A smartphone will use something like 2.7kwh/year. That’s the equivalent of driving 10 miles in an EV. So, let’s say that you have the equivalent of 100,000 phone chips doing a 2 second calculation to optimise an Uber trip to get a driver to pick up another passenger en route. Far greener. Who fucking cares if Amazon or Google Cloud is running that on fossil fuels? The net saving compared to a taxi is still larger.
The whole thing of all this “gee-whiz rocket science” that this stupid cow talks about is that it’s actually what’s already saving us a ton of energy. Do a Teams call, save a drive. Get your shopping delivered, far better to have one van doing it all than 10 people driving to shops. Stream on Netflix, much greener than driving to Blockbuster. There used to be big factories around the UK producing bills on paper. It’s a lot of energy for all that paper, those massive Xerox printers, someone to pop them through your door.
BiND,
“I don’t believe they’re hankering after it for themselves, but if they are there’s plenty of 3rd world shitholes where they could give it a go. Maybe someone should brand it as eco tourism?”
Most of these people just want token green. Like buying the most recyclable laptop. Or going to some farmer’s market where it’s all organic. Or having hessian bags. Almost every woman I know that bangs on about being into eco is driving a large car, living in a detached house and will fly long-haul. They all talk like they want this stuff, but if you actually forced them back into habits of even the 1970s, of riding the bus to work and church outings by coach, let alone the 1920s thing of beating carpets and washing clothes by hand.
The most environmentally friendly people are actually people at the poorer end of things, who don’t even identity, let alone yap on about, being green. They live in flats, terraced or semi-detached homes, which are great for reducing heating costs. They take the bus or walk. They ride national express. If they go on holiday it’s to Benidorm, which is close and already ruined by development. They shop at the local branch of Asda which is more efficient than some dinky farmer’s market.
“The most environmentally friendly people are actually people at the poorer end of things, who don’t even identity, let alone yap on about, being green. They live in flats, terraced or semi-detached homes, which are great for reducing heating costs. They take the bus or walk. They ride national express. If they go on holiday it’s to Benidorm, which is close and already ruined by development. They shop at the local branch of Asda which is more efficient than some dinky farmer’s market.”
True, but a lot of those same people have ambitions of one day owning their own house, having a car, and taking a trip that involves a flight. There’s a whole population out there actively trying to nip those ambitions in the bud.
@ Western Bloke
It matters not a jot that hyperscale data centres are less “carbon intensive” than the activities they have optimised. The point is that we can’t have progress of any sort, and need to live some greenist fantasy where we all become peasant farmers growing turnips in our own shite.
@ Western Bloke
I have valid reasons for living in a semi-detached house, I walk to local baker/butcher/supermarket and to the weekly markets in the next two towns on Wednesday and Friday. My largest single use of my wife’s car is to go to my weekly training sessions (my local club does not have an expert trainer in my specialty). I use public transport whenever it is possible and it’s too far to walk [I did try to use public transport to a training session last year – despite starting very early to meet TfL forecasts, I arrived half-an-hour late and everyone had given up waiting for me).
The Grauniad does NOT represent everyone who cares enough about “Global Warming” to make personal sacrificies.
‘There’s a whole population out there actively trying to nip those ambitions in the bud.’
Fuck ’em!!!
@Docbud
A battle fought on ground of your enemies choosing is a battle lost.
To even acknowledge this whole “carbon footprint” voodoo is, I’m afraid, doing precisely that.
Next time “carbon footprint” is mentioned (when is it not?!!) just ask the naive fool (to assume they are just that is the only concessions to make) why they believe it.
“Because the science is settled” (some variation of) followed by lurid, hysterical , damn near orgasmic descriptions of the collapse into zombie apocalypse (inevitably somewhere else).
Then ask them why deeply flawed, demonstrably wrong (you don’t even have to mention the cynical and deliberately fraudulent manipulation of data usually) computer models have to be believed?
Now they are on ground of your choosing .
I’ve done this more than once and it’s highly entertaining.
They will then usually expose their own selfish hypocrisy and nasty, arrogant pseudo-virtue.
Then you can have some real fun.
@ Mark
Surely the response to asking about why they trust computer models is back to the science is settled?
@Mark
I’ve given up arguing about “carbon footprints” and their cause, because in return you either get superstitious hysteria or a black hole of clever-cunt sciencey bollocks.
Instead I base my argument on the likelihood of the proposed remedies actually working. This becomes easy because whichever official remedy you look at, the numbers not only don’t add up, it rapidly becomes clear that the “remedy” is going to be horrifically worse than the disease.
You can then move on to: “Well, these “solutions” aren’t going to work, so what would you suggest instead?”
@Joe Smith
That would be a very likely answer, but it would reveal profound ignorance and could easily increase your fun.
The science is the atmospheric physics, thermodynamics, heat transfer etc.
A computer model is a tool, and in the context of “climate science” a profoundly cynical and or ignorant misuse.
A bit like operating on piles with an angle grinder.
Well the medical science is settled, so pucker up!
@Norman
That is also a very good approach and more likely to expose the hypocrisy .
It also puts them on your ground very firmly as the sanctimonious bollocks can be swiftly and easily demolished