Page 13 of 16

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:30 am
by simmo_Archive
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was trying to say in my post.

"Global warming" is a popular buzz word these days, and a great way for pop stars to raise their profile.

But right here, right now - we're looking at its results. Maybe you can't definitively say that global warming is wholly responsible for these floods, but given the findings of recent meterological research, and the increasing frequency of floods in the UK - well, when that one pundit does finally say "perhaps we are seeing the results of global warming", am I the only one saying "no shit, Sherlock?"

I haven't got a TV at the moment, and to be fair I have only been reading The Metro and the BBC website, so maybe I'm missing something... but so far I've seen no mention of global warming in direct relation to these current weather phenomena we're experiencing. Websites and newspapers are carrying articles about global warming, but not relating them to this event, now. It's like global warming still exists only in the abstract. This is clearly not the case. It is well and truly underway.

Am I the only person terrified by this thought?:

Image

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:38 am
by Tommy Alpha_Archive
Earwicker wrote:
simmo wrote:Whatever you do - don't mention global warming!


It has struck me that through hours and hours of footage of old people and dogs in boats I have heard hardly a mention of why this might be happening with more and more frequency.

Now I know there is much talk of Global Warming in the press - I'm sure there was some pop concert harping on about it a few weeks ago - but you'd think amongst the hours they have to kill wittering on again and again about the absence of anything happening - beyond the initial storm - they could fill it with some debate about who is primarily responsible for this sort of thing.

That is - large scale industry and - drum roll - ourselves. It'd be instructive to go round all these flood victims and asking how many of them do anything - at all - to try and minimise their carbon footprint. And if not will they now?
And if any of them protest about renewable energy farms (this goes on a lot, I believe, in the South East) and will they continue to do so now?

This would make for interesting telly. Much more interesting than asking someone where they're taking the cute little puppies they're carrying.

Who gives a flying fuck about that?


Yeah, but that's just the kind of emotional pornography that is a staple of TV news. Thousands of children die each day, but its only news if they have white skin and you can leer over a grieving mother.

Although you are right about individual carbon usage, it all pales against that of the industry of nations. The fact is that unless governments and businesses make real changes, the majority of the public wont as very few people view it as an individual responsibility (rightly or wrongly). An event like this will always highlight hypocrisy and ignorance but its the hypocrisy of industry and big business that is the most shocking and profound. I don't believe there'll be anything more than vaguely concessional changes while we live in a system of global capitalism, and if that is the case then people's own carbon usage (or lack of) and new sustainable energy sources will make nothing but a small dent...

That's just my opinion though...

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:48 am
by daniel robert chapman_Archive
These floods in southern England have been all over the news, almost constantly, since Friday. It's only two weeks since floods of similar scale in Hull and South Yorkshire, where people died, were bumped off the news after a day so that coverage could be given to the threat of rain at the Wimbledon Tennis Championship.

I'm not imagining this, am I?

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:50 am
by simmo_Archive
Well, they were only northerners....

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:54 am
by Tommy Alpha_Archive
daniel robert chapman wrote:These floods in southern England have been all over the news, almost constantly, since Friday. It's only two weeks since floods of similar scale in Hull and South Yorkshire, where people died, were bumped off the news after a day so that coverage could be given to the threat of rain at the Wimbledon Tennis Championship.

I'm not imagining this, am I?


I'd like to say this was surprising... The news is a cynical old cunt indeed.

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:58 am
by daniel robert chapman_Archive
On the radio right now:

A woman, presumably carrying a hockey stick wrote:"Liana and I were trying to get into Oxford, we had to abandon our Volkswagen we just couldn't drive any further; but we got picked up, we were going to stay in this huge barn in Shrewsbury, but we ended up in the humongous, random, mansion somewhere! It was legendary, and such an experience!"


I'm not sure how many more reports I can stand from this 'disaster zone' from people who are "fine, actually!"

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:01 am
by Tommy Alpha_Archive
daniel robert chapman wrote:On the radio right now:

A woman, presumably carrying a hockey stick wrote:"Liana and I were trying to get into Oxford, we had to abandon our Volkswagen we just couldn't drive any further; but we got picked up, we were going to stay in this huge barn in Shrewsbury, but we ended up in the humongous, random, mansion somewhere! It was legendary, and such an experience!"


I'm not sure how many more reports I can stand from this 'disaster zone' from people who are "fine, actually!"


OH GOD!
I HATE PEOPLE WHO SAY RANDOM LIKE THAT!!!
I HATE PEOPLE LIKE THAT!!!

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:01 am
by Earwicker_Archive
Tommy Alpha wrote:Although you are right about individual carbon usage, it all pales against that of the industry of nations. The fact is that unless governments and businesses make real changes, the majority of the public wont as very few people view it as an individual responsibility (rightly or wrongly). An event like this will always highlight hypocrisy and ignorance but its the hypocrisy of industry and big business that is the most shocking and profound. I don't believe there'll be anything more than vaguely concessional changes while we live in a system of global capitalism, and if that is the case then people's own carbon usage (or lack of) and new sustainable energy sources will make nothing but a small dent...


I agree with all of this and it is exactly this kind of debate that should be going on in the mainstream press.

I might say that in terms of individual responsibility these kind of events might be used to demonstrate the individuals responsibility we should have for our governments behaviour.
We all have helped, as a nation, to generate a system where suggestion of moving away from a deregulated industrial system is pretty much impossible because we vote for the deregulators.

More fool us.

I am, however, of the opinion that even if this were highlighted and discussed in the press it would make little difference because the majority of people with votes never got passed the emotional age of an 11 year old.

I wait with longing to be proven humiliatingly wrong.

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:03 am
by John C3_Archive
Nice day, today.

UK PRFers! Is the world ending today?

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:06 am
by simmo_Archive
yeah alright cheers Dad