Extinction Rebellion transport disruption from 17/04/2019

[Darandio]

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.

 

[Esker-pades]

I still wonder how many "wild" ruminants there are globally who can still produce their share of the problem.

Utterly negligable.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusb.v38i3-4.15135

The global production of CH4 from wild ruminants is dificult to estimate due to lack of sufficient data on animal populations and feed intake. Some population assessments exist, however, for certain regions of the world and can be extrapolated to global conditions. McDowell (1976) gives a population figure of 27 million for wild ruminants in the northern temperate regions (except China). These ruminants are comprised mostly of deer and moose. In Table 2, we have listed their mean body size (Nowack and Paradiso, 1983) and feed intake (e.g. Nystrom, 1980; Sadleir, 1982). As wild ruminants live entirely on roughage and herbs near maintenance levels, we assume a CHI yield of 9%. Using these figures, we obtain a total release of 0.4 Tg of methane by wild ruminants in the temperate regions, mostly from deer. Information on populations and mean body weights of wild ruminants in the Serengeti is summarized in Table 3 (Houston, 1979; Western, 1979). The total population of about 2 million mainly consists of gazelle and wildebeest. Data on gross energy intake in Table 3 have been calculated from formula (1) for the basal meta- bolic rate, multiplied by a factor of 2 to give the likely gross energy requirement of free living ungulates (Moen, 1973; Eltringham, 1974). Again, 9% of the gross energy intake is assumed to be released as methane. With this information, the CH, production in the Serengeti from ruminants is estimated to be about 0.02 Tg per year. Assuming the CH, production in the Serengeti to be representative of global conditions, the total CHI production by the wild ruminant population of 100-500 million in the subtropical and tropical regions (McDowell, 1976) may be estimated to be of 1-5 Tg per year. Together with the contribution from ruminants in the northern temperate regions, the annual CH, production from wild ruminants in the world may, therefore, be equal to 24 Tg per year which is small compared to the CH, production by domestic animals. Statistics on methane production by other large, non-ruminating herbivores in the Serengeti are likewise listed in Table 4. The most important contributions come from zebras and elephants. The total methane production is less than 10% of that by the ruminants. Altogether, non- ruminating large herbivores are a negligible source of atmospheric methane.

 

[reddragon]

I'm practicing what I preach. It is up to everyone else to do the same.

Well said.
I first cut my household energy demand in half, cheaply and easily by insulating, buying the best appliances and by abstaining from unnecessary usage. It has saved me money overall and can still I reduce.
I replaced my oil central heating with solar thermal (1/3rd) and biomass (2/3rds) and the costs have paid me back in full, saving me £££££. My heat is CO2 free.
My car is an EV, powered by renewables costing me almost nothing to run, no tax, free energy, minimal maintenance and is cheaper to own than petrol / diesel. Yesterday I did over 200 miles for FREE.
My house is powered by solar PV, as is my car. Solar generated exceeds my need and I use over half of it and buy in renewables on a variable tariff when needed / available.

No, I won't go vegan, but I swapped beef to venison to reduce CO2 and have cut meat & avoid air freighted foods.

Not difficult, not expensive, no real change to my life quality but improved health.

After investing, my heat, electric & fuel bills = £0 - ZERO and my return on my investment is huge.

Just do it!

 

[reddragon]

An ever increasing population is unsustainable so it will be inevitable that the global population will end up levelling off either through large scale war, global plague, mass starvation or all three.

For the eco protestors to slow (they won't avoid) the inevitable they need to adopt three central tenets -
1. Curb population - restricting rather than stopping the birth rate
2. Ban all mechanical means of transport - even cycling as it requires industrial plants for manufacture and maintenance. Basically we walk.
3. Only consume what we require for sustenance - ban production of everything that isn't required as food.

None of those is ever likely to happen so we might as well say to hell with it and enjoy the time we have left.

Didn't know that Donald Trump posted here!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I still wonder how many "wild" ruminants there are globally who can still produce their share of the problem.

I hope I'm not mis-judging you, but this and your previous posts rather give the impression that you're looking for some excuse to avoid blaming our CO2 emissions for climate change. Rest assured that a huge amount of research has been done by a very large number of scientists far better qualified than I (and I'm guessing, than you as well). And what the scientists are saying is that there is no plausible doubt that climate change is happening at a very dangerous rate and that it is caused largely by human activities - mainly burning fossil fuels, although other things like methane production from farming play a minor role too. Check out the links I posted upthread (post #75) if you are in any doubt. They are all provided by well respected scientific organisations:

Royal Society
NASA
National Geographic

 

[AM9]

Looks like the police have been told to step up the removal of peaceful protesters. They also are preventing others from moving in replacing those arrested and removed. That won't stop the disruption as they aren't dealing with a great uneducated rabble. There are plenty of other hot spots where blocking protests can be rapidly set up. The police cannot cordon off every road junction in London. Eventually,the politicians will have to sit down and have a sensible conversation with the organisers... Aaah, maybe they haven't got anybody who could represent the government. Oh well the protest will just have to go on until next weekend or until HMG sees sense, - after all it is the will of the people!

 

[mmh]

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.

That's a new one on me, I assume they think they're making a statement about packaging.

Theirs must be a fun packed household.

 

[Mag_seven]

Dame Emma Thompson has also addressed activists in Oxford Circus after flying in from Los Angeles. I find that slightly amusing.

Don't do what I do, do what I say.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Looks like the police have been told to step up the removal of peaceful protesters. They also are preventing others from moving in replacing those arrested and removed. That won't stop the disruption as they aren't dealing with a great uneducated rabble. There are plenty of other hot spots where blocking protests can be rapidly set up. The police cannot cordon off every road junction in London. Eventuall,the politicians will have to sit down and have a sensible conversation with the organisers... Aaah, maybe they haven't got anybody who could represent the government. Oh well the protest will just have to go on until next weekend or until HMG sees sense, - after all it is the will of the people!

I have to admit to mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, it's certainly urgent that Governments around the World start doing a lot more to reduce CO2 emissions, as well as dealing with many other issues (plastic waste, other toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, etc.). But on the other hand, I'd hate to set a precedent where the British Government starts talking to people purely because those people have blocked roads and caused other disruption. That could give a green light to all sorts of other groups with much less pleasant motives (think Brexit extremists and various right-wing nationalists) to start protesting in similar ways. For that reason, I hope that the Government won't talk to EXR (but will step up environmental action anyway).

 

[LOL The Irony]

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.

That's a new one on me, I assume they think they're making a statement about packaging.

Trying to go 0 plastic at home shouldn't include being a d*ck to the staff at a shop.

Theirs must be a fun packed household.

Ba-dum-tsch.

Don't do what I do, do what I say.

IKR. Would've been better to post a video to twitter or something.

 

[Mag_seven]

Looks like the police have been told to step up the removal of peaceful protesters. They also are preventing others from moving in replacing those arrested and removed.

Rebellion Extinction?

 

[Kite159]

Don't do what I do, do what I say.

Bit like that spokesperson which was on Sky News saying that flying should be limited to emergency use only...

...apart from when he wants to go to the Apes or the Med on holiday (as someone mentioned with pictures on Facebook)

Do what I say and not as I do ya know.

(brings back a memory I have of a popstar who normally preaches about saving the world, only for him to charter a jet to bring his hat which he left at home)

 

[infobleep]

Yes, buses in central London are being cut. Realistically, all the taxis and Uber vehicles have slowed down traffic in central London so badly in recent years that using buses has become a lot less attractive. Taxis (and private cars) do use up a hugely disproportionate amount of road space for the relatively small number of people they carry in central London, and reducing their numbers would speed up buses considerably. Not only would that attract more people to use the buses, but it would make it a lot cheaper for TfL to run the buses - since faster round-trip times would mean you need fewer buses to maintain the same level of service. That ought to counteract the impact of the cuts in services.

I find buses to be slow outside of Central London Are there too many taxis and private higher vehicles in Kingston upon Thames for example?

Running less buses wouldn't help in peak rush hours that's for sure.

 

[AM9]

I have to admit to mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, it's certainly urgent that Governments around the World start doing a lot more to reduce CO2 emissions, as well as dealing with many other issues (plastic waste, other toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, etc.). But on the other hand, I'd hate to set a precedent where the British Government starts talking to people purely because those people have blocked roads and caused other disruption. That could give a green light to all sorts of other groups with much less pleasant motives (think Brexit extremists and various right-wing nationalists) to start protesting in similar ways. For that reason, I hope that the Government won't talk to EXR (but will step up environmental action anyway).

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.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I find buses to be slow outside of Central London Are there too many taxis and private higher vehicles in Kingston upon Thames for example?

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).

 

[Busaholic]

Emma Thompson's intervention has removed any ambivalence I had about these protests. Truly the Al Gore of our day!

 

[yorksrob]

I must admit, I do have some sympathy with the human overpopulation argument. As Bald Rick states, population levels are expected to level off naturally at 11 billion, but the environment is struggling at 7 billion. And it's no use saying that the growth is in developing regions with a lower environmental impact per person - people in those regions rightly aspire to better living conditions.

If only some more of us would use protection (all the time, or after the second perhaps).

 

[swj99]

I see a lot of references to anarchy. But sometimes the context in which the word is used results in me wondering how many people are aware of the practical definition of anarchy.

Anarchy

refers to a society, entity, group of people, or a single person that rejects hierarchy.[1] The word originally meant leaderlessness, but Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopted the term in his 1840 treatise What Is Property? to refer to anarchism, a new political philosophy which advocates stateless societies based on voluntary associations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy


Anyway, never mind about the environment. I'm going to put a bid on a 6 litre, V12 Jag on ebay in a bit. 16 miles to the gallon.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Ah yes. It's great to see the forum doing what it does so well. Objective , respectful debate.

Well they are melts. If you want to protest climate change, disrupting one of the cleanest forms of transport isn't going to get the message across, is it? Protesting at an airport and/or port would get the message across but not on the electric powered London Underground or DLR.

 

[Bald Rick]

2. Ban all mechanical means of transport - even cycling as it requires industrial plants for manufacture and maintenance. Basically we walk.

Ah, but do we? The apps I use for exercise tracking suggest that I use approx 100kcalories to walk a mile, but only 25kcals to cycle a mile. Clearly this means that on an energy consumption per mile basis, cycling is 4 times more efficient than walking.

Therefore, allowing for the up front investment in energy involved in building a bike, there will be a total distance above which cycling is more efficient overall than walking. Someone with better Mech Eng knowledge than me can work it out, but I guess it will be a relatively low mileage.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Ah, but do we? The apps I use for exercise tracking suggest that I use approx 100kcalories to walk a mile, but only 25kcals to cycle a mile. Clearly this means that on an energy consumption per mile basis, cycling is 4 times more efficient than walking.

Therefore, allowing for the up front investment in energy involved in building a bike, there will be a total distance above which cycling is more efficient overall than walking. Someone with better Mech Eng knowledge than me can work it out, but I guess it will be a relatively low mileage.

I inadvertently caught the end of the Jeremy Kyle show and I now see extinction in a much kinder light.

 

[Drogba11CFC]

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.

The folk singer came from America to sing at the Albert Hall
He sang his songs of protest and fairer shares for all
He sang that the poor were much too poor, the rich too rich by far
Then he drove back to his penthouse suite in his brand new Rolls-Royce car
(With apologies to Benny Hill)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The 20th century had a number of wars which most certainly reduced population levels as it was virtually all male combatants who died in conflict, but I do hope that no-one in their right mind on this website would agree with the Nazi way of extinction planned for a certain race.

Nature seems to have its own way of species reduction since time immemorial.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

The 20th century had a number of wars which most certainly reduced population levels as it was virtually all male combatants who died in conflict, but I do hope that no-one in their right mind on this website would agree with the Nazi way of extinction planned for a certain race.

Nature seems to have its own way of species reduction since time immemorial.

It may be countered that the wars may have ultimately led to an increase in population as nations strove to replace their workforces encouraging larger families which then became the norm beyond the level of the original shortfall.

 

[Cowley]

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?

 

[Esker-pades]

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?

It may well not have made the cut of the main show. I wait until Monday and watch the extended version. If it isn't in that, they've messed up.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It may be countered that the wars may have ultimately led to an increase in population as nations strove to replace their workforces encouraging larger families which then became the norm beyond the level of the original shortfall.

A couple of Nature's very own afflications in the last millennium:-

The Black Death (1346-1353) ......Death toll from 75 to 200 million

Influenza Pandemic (1918).........Death toll from 20 to 50 million

 

[Andrew S]

If you want to protest climate change, disrupting one of the cleanest forms of transport isn't going to get the message across, is it? Protesting at an airport and/or port would get the message across but not on the electric powered London Underground or DLR.

Lucky they didn't disrupt the underground or DLR then.

 

[jon0844]

Don't do what I do, do what I say.

That reminds me, how are all the asylum seekers doing that Lily Allen took in to her home some years back?

 

[zuriblue]

That reminds me, how are all the asylum seekers doing that Lily Allen took in to her home some years back?

Don’t know. How are the homeless squaddies that the right wingers have taken in?