Extinction Rebellion transport disruption from 17/04/2019

Greg Read said:

As for gluing your hands to a DLR train, or a door to a building, one does wonder what they learn at Uni !

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Golf course management?

mmh said:

I was in Aldi earlier and someone in front of me got to the packing shelf and removed the cardboard boxes from a load of frozen pizzas and some boxes of cereal, and the outer wrappers from some multipack packs of crisps. They left a right bloody mess.
.

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Excellent idea, might try that!

Mutant Lemming said:

Заговора нет - это плод скрытого воображения наших врагов

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There is no conspiracy - it is the fruit of the hidden imagination of our enemies
haha

AM9 said:

Yes of course the government shouldn't give credence to everybody who protests by inconveniencing others, but unless the government has an answer to the (virtually) undisputed fact that the current half-baked attention that climate change receives, it will be subject to more demonstrations of this kind. Instead, it continues to pay lip service to the international treaties that it has signed, but so far hasn't really 'walked the walk'.
This demostration is no ordinary bleat about something to grab attention, so it can't be compared to the more noxious campaigns that you mentioned such as Brexit extremists and various right-wing nationalists which compared to climate change are in reality quite trivial.
However, the real point that I was trying to make is that the government can instruct the police use the full "extent of the law" but this is happening in London which has plenty of road hot spots which cannot all be cordoned off with arms-linked police, (unless they want to close them all to all traffic), so pompous statements from politicians are futile. This will get more and more embarrassing for them next week so they have an opportunity to have a constructive dialogue over the long weekend before all hell lets loose on Tuesday.

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Except that these people include the experts who have tried to engage the government by all other normal means without result!

Business & investors are taking notice. Investments are being dropping from fossil fuels as too high a risk of loss / poor return and moved to greener energy business investments

reddragon said:

Business & investors are taking notice. Investments are being dropping from fossil fuels as too high a risk of loss / poor return and moved to greener energy business investments

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Looks like the subsidies are doing what they were supposed to. Now that enough energy is being sourced from renewables, it is becoming much more economically sustainable to use them instead.

reddragon said:

Except that these people include the experts who have tried to engage the government by all other normal means without result!

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What makes you so sure there's been no result? Compared to - say - 20 years ago, there's much more investment in the railways, the Government has become much more publicly committed to the idea of CO2 reduction, environmental regulations across a range of areas have been hugely tightened. That despite the Government changing from Labour to the Conservatives - who've traditionally been much more hostile to environmental action. Clearly, what the Government are doing is not yet enough, but it's a lot better than what the Government was doing just a few decades ago. So clearly something is having an influence... maybe it is (in part) all those experts whom you've just dismissed?

reddragon said:

Business & investors are taking notice. Investments are being dropping from fossil fuels as too high a risk of loss / poor return and moved to greener energy business investments

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That's been happening and growing in momentum for some years now. I don't think you can really credit EXR for that.

Will coal fired locomotives on heritage railways now have met their doom?

Darandio said:

Fairly quiet so far today with the rebellion but a small group of demonstrators are staging a protest at Heathrow Airport following their threats to disrupt flights over Easter. Dame Emma Thompson has also addressed activists in Oxford Circus after flying in from Los Angeles. I find that slightly amusing.

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When Emma Thompson was asked on TV about the police being diverted from other duties she replied by saying it is up to the police how they use their resources.

The aim of the organisation is to get arrested, so they're doing things to attract the police attention and time.

If the police didn't turn up, I suspect they'd try harder and potentially do worse things.

PHILIPE said:

When Emma Thompson was asked on TV about the police being diverted from other duties she replied by saying it is up to the police how they use their resources.

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She was also challenged about flying to the demonstration to which she replied that she 'plants lots of trees'.

Darandio said:

She was also challenged about flying to the demonstration to which she replied that she 'plants lots of trees'.

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What a laughable excuse. A social media video would've been just as good.

Offences that break laws either by tree-huggers or by criminals are still offences in law. Do you want one law for the tree-huggers and another law for the crminals?

It's a classic case of picking and choosing the laws that suit you. Rather like those who have no issue fare evading, or falsely claiming on insurance, because they've decided there's no victim.

Xenophon PCDGS said:

Will coal fired locomotives on heritage railways now have met their doom?

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I would say yes, but not as expected. They will retain historic rights to continue operating, however, with coal mining and oil extraction stopping, heritage railways will have increasing problems in obtaining fuel. Already heritage railways have coal problems in the UK.

reddragon said:

I would say yes, but not as expected. They will retain historic rights to continue operating, however, with coal mining and oil extraction stopping, heritage railways will have increasing problems in obtaining fuel. Already heritage railways have coal problems in the UK.

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I had similar issues finding proper petrol when I had my 1954 Austin. Used to had to go to a little back street garage in Watford and pay a premium price but it was worth if for that proper motoring exhaust smell.

Cowley said:

I watched Have I Got News For You this evening and not one mention of the climate protests.
Did I miss some part of the program, or did they genuinely not cover this story?
I haven’t got time to watch it again and I only had three quarters of an eye on it due to me building a model bridge at the time (ironically I actually ended up supergluing myself to it, but don’t worry, I didn’t get myself arrested ).
I’m fairly sure that they didn’t mention it at all during the program which seems astonishing if so.
Did anyone else notice the absence of this story, or did I just miss it?

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Let's be honest, "middle class rent-a-mob protest about something-or-other unimportant" isn't really much of a news story, is it?

CaptainHaddock said:

Let's be honest, "middle class rent-a-mob protest about something-or-other unimportant" isn't really much of a news story, is it?

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Well they covered Wayne Hennessy doing a supposed Nazi salute at a party. I would have thought that it was a somewhat bigger story than that?

Depends whether you can make a joke out of it or not. Also you don't want to alienate your audience - as this thread has shown, accepted wisdom is that this is a cause which cannot be questioned.

The Government, during their Easter recess of course, don't seem particularly interested. No COBRA gathering ?

If these demonstrations were going on at power stations or petrol refineries, the police reaction would have been entirely different, more akin to the French approach to the gilets jaunes. Mere commercial disruption doesn't raise the hackles of the authorities in the same way, regardless of how many people are being inconvenienced or how much trade is being lost. It'll only be when all the police cells are full and there are no further police officers in reserve to deploy that a different approach may be tried. The Met being answerable to the Mayor these days brings an extra 'political' factor into this too, and, knowing this, a lot more can be read between the lines of Cressida Dick's words today on the unprecedented level of arrests.

I noticed today's French state's response to the "Yellow Vest" disruputions.

DynamicSpirit said:

Probably not. Clearly the problem in Kingston and almost anywhere in outer London is too many private cars - which causes exactly the same problem as too many taxis/private hire vehicles, but is a somewhat harder problem to solve (because many of these will be driving from places with a much lower public transport density).

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One solution is a higher public transport density to the other places but I can't see that happening.

PHILIPE said:

When Emma Thompson was asked on TV about the police being diverted from other duties she replied by saying it is up to the police how they use their resources.

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That sounds like the sort of reply a p9ltiicsn would give, when they don't want to be involved in something negative, which might indirectly be of their making.

I have just watched the documentary by Sir David Attenborough on climate change that was recently broadcast by the BBC.

During the programme it was mentioned that nuclear power was a renewable source of energy that does not release greenhouse when it is being produced.

So if the UK and other countries had used more nuclear power then perhaps climate change would not be as bad as it is now.

Now what have all the liberal lefties been protesting against for most of the last fifty years?

You couldn't make it up.

mmh said:

Depends whether you can make a joke out of it or not. Also you don't want to alienate your audience - as this thread has shown, accepted wisdom is that this is a cause which cannot be questioned.

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... apart from about half the thread, where the cause is being questioned.

duncanp said:

I have just watched the documentary by Sir David Attenborough on climate change that was recently broadcast by the BBC.

During the programme it was mentioned that nuclear power was a renewable source of energy that does not release greenhouse when it is being produced.

So if the UK and other countries had used more nuclear power then perhaps climate change would not be as bad as it is now.

Now what have all the liberal lefties been protesting against for most of the last fifty years?

You couldn't make it up.

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As I have said previously, part of the issue is events like Three Mile Island, Windscale fire, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi make nuclear look unsafe when they not only couldn't happen here (now at least), and couldn't happen in most of Europe at least, they are insignificant when you compare it against the sheer volume of nuclear power actually used, France being the largest user and having very few issues.
Anti-nuclear campaigners still play on this supposed danger (probably because it's an easy target and good for publicity ) and try to get nuclear projects stopped and yet seem to be fine with fields and fields of ugly solar panels or wind turbines.
Plus the electricity generated by nuclear plants is quite expensive when compared to using fossil fuels so is another negative.

As for the reason for these accidents (in abridged/simplified form):

Windscale, this was a combination of government pressure to make plutonium, not fully understanding how nuclear reactors (of this type at least) work and using air as the coolant source for the nuclear pile, meaning that nuclear fission particles can easily find their way up the chimney and out. Now there were filters but they were added near the end of the building process (nicknamed Crookcrofts folly's) and so didn't work as well as they could have done (but prevent a much bigger catastrophe). Combine that with a fire in the pile (caused by "overheating" the pile to try to release Wigner energy) and you have quite the problem.
No new reactors would ever be permitted to be of this design so a similar accident happening again is impossible, the later Calder Hall PiPPA (and the later MAGNOX design) reactors being gas cooled.

Three Mile Island, This was a mixture valve failure after a valve stuck open letting water into an air line which shut down the reactor, operator failure (closing off secondary feedwater valves yet still operating the reactor, which is against NPR rules). Combine that with insufficient operator training and bad control room design (an indicator that relied on whether a solenoid was energised or not to detect position, not using a switch to confirm actual position so if the valve got stuck the position could be (and was) incorrectly displayed, delaying fault finding efforts).
All these conspired to create a loss of cooling accident and a partial meltdown, simply adhering to the rules and designing control/monitoring systems that were designed properly would have more than likely stopped the accident from occurring.

Chernobyl, Again this was a mix of operator error (primarily due to not knowing the faults with the design) and running tests at well below the recommended power levels, combine that with the fact that when the control rods are fully inserted (during a SCRAM or emergency shutdown) the power can initially increase not decrease. This caused a uncontrollable reactor conditions, a steam explosion and graphite fire, releasing fission products in to the atmosphere.
This again is something that could not technically happen in Britain as our rectors are much better designed, and don't exhibit the same positive temperature coefficient when inserting control rods during a SCRAM.

Fukushima, this was primarily down to the incorrect placement of backup diesel generators which meant that if there was an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami the generators could become waterlogged and fail to operate. Combine that with a reactor shutdown and subsequent loss of grid power you then have no way of actively cooling the waste (decay) heat apart from flodding the reactor with seawater (which was delayed due to the fact that is would damage the reactors permanently), this caused over heating and subsequent meltdown of some/most of the reactors. This issue was then intensified by water in the reactor reacting with the zircalloy fuel cladding creating hydrogen gas, this gas subsequently exploded causing more damage.
Again proper design would have removed this issue, plus we don't generally have massive earthquakes in Britain, so the tsunami issue is moot.

Oh, and i could be seen as a liberal that is on the left but I am fine with nuclear power, I say get on building.

I accept that nuclear power isn't without its risks, but it is somewhat ironic that the people protesting against climate change have, to a large extent, been the same people protesting against nuclear power in previous decades.

Another form of renewable energy mentioned in the programme was wind power,. Yet what about the fuss created when someone proposes building a new wind farm, and how it will "spoil the landscape"? You can't have it both ways - if you want more renewable sources of energy, you have to accept what comes with it. It is rather like the NIMBYs who complain about mobile phone masts, yet are quite happy to have the latest smartphone glued to their ear.

reddragon said:

I would say yes, but not as expected. They will retain historic rights to continue operating, however, with coal mining and oil extraction stopping, heritage railways will have increasing problems in obtaining fuel. Already heritage railways have coal problems in the UK.

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I think you might have jumped the gun regarding oil extraction stopping.

I like the large scale tidal power plans, but the greens love mud too much (and it still can’t do baseload).
Whilst generally a nuclear power supporter the accidents do make me nervous because even if they are unlikely they are catastrophic.
The list above of causes does read (to a layman) as a lot of unfortunate, unpredicted combinations of events. However saying that they could happen here doesn’t rid me of the nagging feeling that there still could be another unprecedented combination that we haven’t designed out.....

Meerkat said:

I like the large scale tidal power plans, but the greens love mud too much (and it still can’t do baseload).
Whilst generally a nuclear power supporter the accidents do make me nervous because even if they are unlikely they are catastrophic.
The list above of causes does read (to a layman) as a lot of unfortunate, unpredicted combinations of events. However saying that they could happen here doesn’t rid me of the nagging feeling that there still could be another unprecedented combination that we haven’t designed out.....

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Not really unpredicted really though as the are all things that should have been well aware of during the design process, and of course Chernobyl was more a case of shut up and do as your told.