Sir David Attenborough has issued his strongest statement yet on the threat posed to the world by climate change. In the BBC programme Climate Change – The Facts, the veteran broadcaster outlined the scale of the crisis facing the planet. Sir David said we face “irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies”. But there is still hope, he said, if dramatic action to limit the effects is taken over the next decade. Sir David’s new programme laid out the science behind climate change, the impact it is having right now and the steps that can be taken to fight it. “In the 20 years since I first started talking about the impact of climate change on our world, conditions have changed far faster than I ever imagined,” Sir David stated in the film. “It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.” Dr Peter Stott from the Met Office said “… what we have seen is the steady and unremitting temperature trend. Twenty of the warmest years on record have all occurred in the last 22 years.” The programme showed dramatic scenes of people escaping from wildfires in the US, as a father and son narrowly escape with their lives when they drive into an inferno. “In the last year we’ve had a global assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland and they tell us that things are worse than we’d expected,” said Prof Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds. “The Greenland ice sheet is melting, it’s lost four trillion tonnes of ice and it’s losing five times as much ice today as it was 25 years ago.” These losses are driving up sea levels around the world. The programme highlights the threat posed by rising waters to people living on the Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, forcing them from their homes. Sir David argues that if dramatic action is taken over the next decade then the world can keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5C this century. This would limit the scale of the damage. “This is the brave political decision that needs to be taken,” said Chris Stark from the UK’s Committee on Climate Change. “Do we incur a small but not insignificant cost now, or do we wait and see the need to adapt. The economics are really clear on this, the costs of action are dwarfed by the costs of inaction.”
BBC 18th April 2019 read more »
Police are being diverted from “core local duties” that keep London safe by the Extinction Rebellion protesters, Scotland Yard has said. More than 500 people have been arrested since Monday, including three charged with gluing themselves to a train.
BBC 18th April 2019 read more »
Sajid Javid demanded that police crack down on climate change activists yesterday as Scotland Yard was criticised for failing to stop the protests that have left parts of London paralysed. The home secretary urged the police to use the “full force of the law” after footage emerged of two officers dancing to music at an illegal roadblock at Oxford Circus and of another using a skateboard on Waterloo Bridge.
Times 19th April 2019 read more »
Telegraph 18th April 2019 read more »
Guardian 18th April 2019 read more »
Police overwhelmed by Extinction Rebellion protesters plotting to clog up justice system.
Times 19th April 2019 read more »
Four days into the protests by Extinction Rebellion, the climate change group, both police and politicians appear unsure over how to end the increasing disruption to London’s transport network and thoroughfares.
FT 18th April 2019 read more »
Three people have been put on remand for a month over an Extinction Rebellion protest in which activists climbed on top of a train at Canary Wharf station in east London.
Guardian 18th April 2019 read more »
Holidaymakers have been warned to expect chaos at Heathrow today as climate change campaigners vowed to shut down the airport. Extinction Rebellion activists may try to block access roads, including the tunnels to the airport. In a leaked Whatsapp message the group said: “Many of you have expressed a desire to disrupt Heathrow – and so we wanted to share this action with you. For the bank holiday we are halting swarming disruption and turning our focus on to the aviation industry. We want you to join us.” Good Friday is one of the busiest travel days of the year and more than 100,000 people are due to fly from Heathrow. The airport said it was “working with the authorities” to assess the likelihood of disruption.
Times 19th April 2019 read more »
The i News 18th April 2019 read more »
Alongside the grizzled campaigners, the Extinction Rebellion has attracted large numbers of protesters who have never done anything like this before in their lives. Protesters are extremely impressed by the organisation of the events. They argue that direct action is the only way to change government and company behaviour
The i News 18th April 2019 read more »
A YouGov poll suggests public opinion has now shifted against the protests.
Telegraph 18th April 2019 read more »
Manchester will be growing its own bananas before long if we fail to tackle climate change. In October a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body that Thatcher did so much to promote, showed the devastating tides that would follow if the world heats by another degree, to 2C above pre-industrial levels. There is no question that we need to act and Thatcher had the right answers 30 years ago. There is, of course, scope for what she called “a vast international, co-operative effort” but the stress in her speech was on getting the economics right. “We must resist the simplistic tendency to blame modern multinational industry for the damage,” she said, because “it is industry which will develop safe alternative chemicals for refrigerators and air conditioning”. Extinction Rebellion, however, sound as if they want to turn back the clock on technology and ask people to stop living modern lives of such abundance. Theirs is a hopeless case and it will not work. A far better answer has been supplied by William Nordhaus, the doyen of climate change economists, who won a Nobel prize last year. Nordhaus ran a famous experiment to measure the energy required to light a room throughout the course of human history. He cut wood and burnt it, lit an antique oil lamp, measured one of Edison’s lightbulbs and then tried the modern version. Back at the start of human history a day’s labour could light a room for ten minutes. By the end of the 20th century, a day’s labour could light a room for ten years. The Mission Possible report by the Energy Transitions Commission showed recently that it was possible to achieve a net zero carbon economy without detriment to prosperity. The missing link will not be government intervention or increased awareness. President Trump pulled the US out of the 2016 Paris agreement on climate change but greenhouse gas emissions in America fell 2.7 per cent in 2016-17, more than anywhere else in the world. The vital component will be human ingenuity fostered within markets regulated cleverly by the state. Not many of the people stopping the traffic will tell you that.
Times 19th April 2019 read more »
Extinction Rebels are right to raise the climate alarm in apocalyptic terms. The window is closing with terrifying speed. They are wrong to target the British political class as particular villains. The UK’s carbon emissions have fallen to levels last seen in 1888. The UK carbon price floor – studied across the globe – has driven coal out of the market. Britain is the world leader in offshore wind. It is an emerging aeolian superpower with plans for 30 gigawatts by 2030. Renewables will be the backbone of our energy system. It would be powerful symbolism for the pioneer of the industrial revolution to become the first large zero-carbon nation. Such a goal is feasible. I strongly applaud it. But Britain is not the problem.
Telegraph 18th April 2019 read more »
We are all doomed, it is said. Carbon dioxide is amassing in the atmosphere at levels not seen for millions of years when there were trees at the South Pole and Florida was under water. We have barely a decade to make amends. Protesters are on the streets. But huge numbers of people have not given up. Not yet. Call them the carbon cutters. They are companies and cities, niche groups and nations. They are commuters and communes, off-gridders and off-setters, investors and institutions – and countless individuals, cutting their meat intake, installing solar panels, eschewing gas guzzlers and long-haul flights. The Guardian’s Upside team heard from more than 200 carbon cutters in a callout to readers. We followed up their tips and showcase eight examples here, with many more in the comment thread. Their example in cutting carbon is a challenge to us all.
Guardian 18th April 2019 read more »
