Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 260 posts

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#191

Post by NeedMoreTea »

wtdata wrote: post #180
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> holes in the ozone layer Funny you mention that. No one needed to panic, 1980s politicians appeared to remember what some of their job was. Two rather right leaning free-market monetarist politicians - Thatcher and Reagan - championed international action to phase out freon and other CFCs. Very successfully. The ozone hole closed. At the exact same time Thatcher was making speeches - to the UN and many others about…

The thing is, those Thatcher speeches (and of course all the movement in Europe) worked, we reduced our emissions by almost 30% in 30 years. Which makes it specially bad when a bunch of people from the comfort of their life in here, now decide they can go around with their extremist views of environmentalism causing havoc in no less than in an European country: i.e. the only set of industrialized countries that actua…

Sure Europe took more action than most, but those actions are clearly now seen to be a) insufficient, and b) limited to a small proportion of the world's emissions. China and the US more than cancel out any improvements the EU made. They might have been sufficient if everyone had played, though I doubt it. They didn't, so the goal posts have moved significantly. There's still only one planet.

Apologies for my shorthand purely for brevity, I thought the real progress was quite well known. The ozone hole is not actually closed yet. The trend is very much in the right direction thanks to those international treaties on CFCs. There's also huge hysteresis in the system so change follows very slowly indeed. The trend of improvement has indeed slowed, apparently courtesy of China breaching the treaty they signed - they have form here, not just the recent breach of Hong Kong treaties. Sadly the UN and international community doesn't seem willing to sanction China for breaches of anything much.

At current progress - depending on China - a century or a little over looks to be right on the money. The clock is at about 50 years. Nonetheless it looks like we found the right cause and remedy, and acted in appropriate time.

Less exaggerated catastrophe, more bloody accurate estimate I'd say. As your BBC link confirms. Here's a link with some trend graphs - see for yourself.

Where's the exaggeration? The odd piece reporting badly doesn't make the case - the media is often terrible reporting science. Any science. :)

https://theconversation.com/ozone-hole-closing-for-the-year-...

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#192

Post by [deleted] »

samcday wrote: post #172
orbifold wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why the Green Party is so popular in Germany. Voters get to live out their authoritarian streak in a socially acceptable way. It’s not an accident they are now in power in one of the more conservative parts of Germany (Baden-Würtenberg).

Would it be better if we went back to the good old days where those with an authoritarian streak vote parties into power that like to oppress (and worse) their critics? Put differently, even if you disagree with the rhetoric of the German Green Party, surely you would agree that they're definitely not as bad as other certain parties that have come before in Germany? :)

[deleted]

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#193

Post by NeedMoreTea »

samcday wrote: post #176
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> holes in the ozone layer Funny you mention that. No one needed to panic, 1980s politicians appeared to remember what some of their job was. Two rather right leaning free-market monetarist politicians - Thatcher and Reagan - championed international action to phase out freon and other CFCs. Very successfully. The ozone hole closed. At the exact same time Thatcher was making speeches - to the UN and many others about…

I wish more of the comments here were like this. Most of my comments are rubbish troll-bait, I'm glad people like NeedMoreTea exist. Someone who can calmly and rationally make a series of excellent points grounded in fact and history :)

:)

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#194

Post by leereeves »

vixen99 wrote: post #114
see-ya-99 wrote: post #93

It should be treated as a serious crime.

One serious accident and the activists will be hunted to extinction themselves.

Yes, Britain would surely consider causing a plane crash sufficient reason to declare them terrorists.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#195

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

samcday wrote: post #130
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe some of those extraordinary ways cross the line. But who decides what the line is anyway? Probably the people you inconvenience. A bunch of vegans disrupted traffic in Melbourne, Australia recently. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-08/melbourne-vegan-prote... I don't think they made many friends. It's really hard getting someone to change their mind or their thinking about an issue. But I firmly believe ac…

> I don't think they made many friends. I don't think they're interested in making friends. They're interested in trying to persuade more people to stop eating the flesh of sentient creatures when our diets don't even require it. > It's really hard getting someone to change their mind or their thinking about an issue. I agree. > But I firmly believe actively making enemies is probably not the way to go about things.…

> I think that says more about you than it does about the vegan activists.

It means that I had a bad day because some one made me late for work and I vented my frustration out on a meal.

I watched the Netflix flat earther documentary and even the physicists interviewed preferred not to ridicule the flat earthers because they wanted to make sure they kept an open dialogue. I think there's a similar threshold for annoying people. Once you cross it, a lot of people are just going to stop listening to you.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#196

Post by wtdata »

samcday wrote: post #190
wtdata wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No there is nothing contradictory, the points are simple: 1: These catastrophic scenarios have historically been great exaggerations of reality. 2: The major culprit at the moment, by a long margin, is China, while the EU has actually a very good track in reducing CO2 emissions.

Okay, thanks for restating. 1. Yep, I somewhat agree. So can you please clarify your stance as to whether the current climate change situation is another example? 2. Yep, and I sincerely hope China also pulls their heads out of their collective asses. However, the UK is also not out of the woods yet [1]. Just because China has a long way to go doesn't mean any other country should be easing off the gas pedal (terribl…

My stance on the current global warming is that it is real and that it is serious, but not nearly as catastrophic as the media and these more extremist environmentalists, present it.

i.e. If all other countries would go on a steady course of diminishing their emissions for about 1%/year like the EU has been doing for the past 3 decades, the problem will be addressed.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#197

Post by wtdata »

samcday wrote: post #189
wtdata wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When counteracting what I said, you conveniently left aside: 1: The part where we, at the time, were told that the hole would take hundreds of years to close: It didn't. (Pear Reviewed article from 1996: https://www.nap.edu/read/9042/chapter/1#6 ) 2: China is still producing those CFCs: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952

So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? Your data says nothing to counter whether the ozone hole was actually a major problem (spoiler: it was). The fact that China is flaunting the rules the international community agreed on means what, exactly? The undeniable fact is the ozone hole did NOT continue to grow, because the majorit…

> So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce?

It proves the all thing was an exaggeration.

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

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#198

Post by switch007 »

dfawcus wrote: post #121
samcday wrote: post #109

The level of negativity and hostility in the comments here is really disappointing to me. I agree that XR are definitely pushing the envelope on what we consider to be reasonable activism and protest. However, I also think that the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" applies here. Yes, there are plenty of actions being taken to combat the damage we're inflicting to this little wet rock we all call…

Such actions are covered by the UK definition of terrorism: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1

Yes, the greatest issue with that piece of legislation.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#199

Post by dorchadas »

samcday wrote: post #109

The level of negativity and hostility in the comments here is really disappointing to me. I agree that XR are definitely pushing the envelope on what we consider to be reasonable activism and protest. However, I also think that the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" applies here. Yes, there are plenty of actions being taken to combat the damage we're inflicting to this little wet rock we all call…

To be honest, I'm about 100% certain that ecoterrorism (terrorism to protect the environment) will be the next main type of terrorism. And I think it's going to start happening much sooner than anyone things.

And, truthfully, I can't say I blame the people.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#200

Post by tomhoward »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #134
navigatesol wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without breaking laws and causing public nuisance India would still be part of the British Empire and African Americans would still be second class citizens. Every protest isn't the equivalent of India fighting for independence. > Climate change is a vastly more serious problem than either of those two. Fortunately, you don't get to decide which issues are "most important" to other people.

So, you're saying global extinction isn't important? It's a tough line to swallow from the GP, but I wasn't expecting anyone to disagree that human effected climate change was important. Surely it's the most important issue humans have faced, ever?

Problems can be profoundly serious and important in their own right, without needing to be ranked against one another.

Doing that just leads to emotion-charged-but-pointless arguments.

Post reply on HN