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UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

bbc.co.uk

181–190 of 296 posts

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very likely that we're already beyond some of the tipping points, and others are very close[0]. We're basically going into the mitigation phase now by my understanding. [0] https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...

I'm quite skeptical. If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering) and cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight (SO2 injection in the stratosphere), I'm sure these alleged tipping points will be tipped back again, given some time. It's good to be aware that doom sells, and the incentive to publish doom predictions for the money they make is very high. Of course, they can still be true... We'll see how it goes :…

The climate is a chaotic system, not a seesaw.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank. The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money of…

There will always be some crime in any financial centre, but I think there's limited evidence that there's proportionally more financial crime going on in London than e.g. NYC or Frankfurt.

The idea that serious evil is necessarily illegal in the first place is probably hilariously naive to begin with.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very likely that we're already beyond some of the tipping points, and others are very close[0]. We're basically going into the mitigation phase now by my understanding. [0] https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...

I'm quite skeptical. If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering) and cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight (SO2 injection in the stratosphere), I'm sure these alleged tipping points will be tipped back again, given some time. It's good to be aware that doom sells, and the incentive to publish doom predictions for the money they make is very high. Of course, they can still be true... We'll see how it goes :…

I would assume that "given some time" outlasts the median life expectancy of humans. If it ever happeens. Like others said it's a chaotic system in many ways, not as if you can predict more than a few decades.

Given this, after "giving it some time" a lot of people would be dead as a direct consequence of it not been given enough time.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#184
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable. To a 1925 (99 years ago ) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.

I wonder if they would have anticipated its value. I can anticipate a moon base would be valuable in 2123 even though it has little present value.

Considering that 99 years ago both Maldives and India were still colonised (and would remain so for decades), I'm gonna go out on a limb by saying that no, Chagos Islands weren't seen as particularly important back then.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable. To a 1925 (99 years ago ) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.

It would have had some value as a coaling or oiling station thought

Why would the worlds superpower need that when they had India?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, look at this section: > Climate tipping points — the "points of no return" past which key components of Earth's climate will begin to irreversibly break down — could be triggered by much lower temperatures than scientists previously thought, with some tipping points potentially already reached. There are also many more potential tipping points than scientists previously identified, according to a new study. I c…

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Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite skeptical. If we lower the CO2 levels (carbon sequestering) and cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight (SO2 injection in the stratosphere), I'm sure these alleged tipping points will be tipped back again, given some time. It's good to be aware that doom sells, and the incentive to publish doom predictions for the money they make is very high. Of course, they can still be true... We'll see how it goes :…

I don't get the reason for skepticism, when this is coming from scientists who've been studying the field for many years, and have been making predictions that have been coming true. It's like an avalanche. After it starts you can't stop it or get all that snow back on the mountain; it has to get to level ground, melt (if it gets warm enough) and go through an entire cycle that takes time. So yes, things will likely…

> So yes, things will likely tip back. After humanity either has already been wiped out or fully migrated to other planets and the earth gets the chance to reset itself.

Humanity would be better off living at the bottom of the ocean than on any other planet; and to think that climate change could make earth less hospitable than any other planet is just absurd. So this is an incredibly naive statement.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#188
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US still has a base on the island of Cuba Ah, you mean the illegal torture prison against which the Cuban government has been protesting since 1959.

Sure. It's still there though, 65 years later. The US will go where it pleases and do what it wants, just like the great European empires of the 17th through 19th centuries. Sure it's Amazon and Google rather than an East India Company, but it's the same themes.

Luckely Amazon and Google does not have gunboats yet.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with the original text - but it contains NO maybes.

BurningFrog hasn't correctly read it and is arguing against a strawmanned version of it (it may be incorrect for other reasons).

The original: https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...

states (correctly or not):

    Climate tipping points — the "points of no return" past which key components of Earth's climate will begin to irreversibly break down — could be triggered by much lower temperatures than scientists previously thought, with some tipping points potentially already reached. There are also many more potential tipping points than scientists previously identified, according to a new study.
In English as a first language that's an assertion that

* Climate tipping points [...] could be triggered by much lower temperatures than scientists previously thought

implying that they are real and will hapen at some threshold but there is now evidence or a model that suggets the thresholds may be lower than once thought.

The incorrect interpretation by BurningFrog above was that

> that this [ Climate tipping points ] may possibly happen, not that it will!

whereas the text (again, correct or not) was definite that Climate tipping points are real and will happen when thresholds are crossed.

The only "maybe" was a suspicion that these thresholds could be even lower than thought and a Rubicon may have been crossed already - but there was zero uncertainity expressed wrt existence and potential to be crossed.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#190

The US base on Diego Garcia is an exceptionally nasty bit of history: with the British murdering all the local islanders pet dogs - literally grabbing them from the arms of screaming children and telling them they were next - as part of an intimidation campaign to force them off the island so the US could have it’s intelligence outpost.

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