Category: Climate Change

Why did Just Stop Oil do that snooker thing?

~ jlpagano

Before I get on with the subject matter, apols for not posting since July 2022, the simple reason is that I completely revamped the rugby site around that time and once the season kicked off there wasn’t a lot of online time for anything else. I have tons of things I’d like to do with FPP going forward but little or no opportunity to do it but at very least I’m hoping to get to a stage where I can at least produce one piece of content per week. We’ll see how that goes in a Rugby World Cup year….

No, I don’t actually condone the action being taken above, nor do I condone the Van Gogh soup thing, nor anything similar. No matter how strongly I felt about a particular issue, it’s very unlikely I’d ever go to those lengths.

That said, I do think a bit of perspective is required. Is anyone at least ASKING why people were driven to plan incidents like this? I mean nothing is black or white, nor is it pink, blue, brown, green, yellow or even orange despite this guy’s best efforts.

So what I’ve done is have a quick Google, found a press release from the Just Stop Oil site and copy/pasted it here.

Yes, I know that makes it look like their stunt “worked”, but the ere’s the thing…between the jigs and the reels, damage to a baize cloth or a bit of Campbells chucked on a glass pane in front of a painting doesn’t QUITE match up to the damage being done by the fossil fuel industry and those world leaders it has bought.

So great cause, shame about their methods, but still here’s to faster progress towards better public ownership of valuable resources. JLP

“New oil and gas will snooker us!” : Just Stop Oil supporters disrupt the World Snooker Championship

Press / April 17, 2023

Two supporters of Just Stop Oil have disrupted the World Snooker Championship, climbing onto the snooker tables and throwing paint over one. They are demanding that the government stop all new UK fossil fuel projects and are calling on UK sporting institutions to join in civil resistance against the government’s genocidal policies.

At around 7:20pm, two Just Stop Oil supporters stormed onto the snooker tables at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, interrupting play. The pair proceeded to cover one of the tables in orange powder paint, before being removed by security and arrested.

One of those taking action, Margaret Reid, 52, a former museum professional from Kendal, said:

“I did not take this action lightly, but I cannot remain a passive spectator while our government knowingly pushes us down a path to destruction. They are giving handouts of £236 million per week of our money, to the most profitable industry on earth, during a cost of living crisis. I can no longer justify watching from the side lines.”

“I am angry and heartbroken that I have found myself in a position where taking this sort of disruptive action is the only way to get heard.”

Another of those taking action Eddie Whittingham, 25, a student at Exeter university said:

“I don’t want to be disrupting something that people enjoy, but we’re facing an extremely grave situation. Europe is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years. We’re seeing mass crop failure right now. We’re facing mass starvation, billions of refugees and civilisational collapse if this continues.”

“We can’t continue to sit back and act as if everything’s OK. If you want to do something to prevent the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced, go to juststopoil.org and sign up for a slow march from April 24th in London.”

In moments of emergency, we must stand up and be brave, we must stand up for good over evil, life over death, right over wrong. Just Stop Oil is calling on everyone to pick a side. Either you are actively supporting civil resistance, fighting for life, or you are complicit with genocide.

The time is now. Join us and slow march, while you still can. Our indefinite campaign of civil resistance begins on April 24th and will not end until our government ends new oil and gas.

Dr Mike Ryan of WHO talks about the consequences of globalisation putting profit over community

~ jlpagano
“…we’re writing cheques that we cannot cash as a civilisation for the future, and they’re going to bounce. And my fear is that our children are going to pay that price.”

Brid Smith TD addresses Drimnagh residents on the proposed ‘carbon tax’

~ jlpagano

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I could have been at home watching Manchester United v Barcelona.  But I made myself a promise that I would make an effort to get more involved in local politics, and given the amount of signs I have seen around the area for this meeting in St John Bosco Youth Club, a mere ten minute walk from my front door, to not go would be to break that pledge.

The meeting was held by local councillor Hazel De Nortúin.  Now when I say ‘local’, she hails from Ballyfermot, yet she represents me as Drimnagh has been curiously cut in two and my house falls in the ‘Ballyfermot/Drimnagh’ zone.  Still, the very holding of this meeting shows that the councillor is willing to be involved throughout the ward.

Her party is People Before Profit.  I confess to knowing little about them, save for assorted Facebook posts, but I do know that their name itself is closely aligned to my politics so it was a safe bet that I would feel at home in this company.

The principal speaker was Brid Smith TD and the theme was ‘Why Carbon Tax Won’t Stop Climate Change’.  She began by highlighting the protest by schoolchildren all over the country, but particularly outside the Dáil. where over 15,000 were reported.

Deputy Smith also pointed to a poll which found that 39% of Irish people saw climate change as one of the most important issues of today, adding that while some might think that was a low percentage, she was actually encouraged by it.

She has recently been sitting on a Special Oirechteas Action Committee which followed on from a Citizens Assembly.  She referred to it as more of an ‘Inaction’ committee because it appeared that the decision to level the carbon tax on ordinary citizens was already made.

She claimed that the supposed thinking behind the tax was that if people’s habits could be changed, ie if we can move away from carbon-intensive forms of energy, then supposedly this would influence (‘by osmosis’ as she ironically called it) the large corporations.

An interesting plan if true…especially given that when it comes to distributing wealth, corporations tend to favour things going in the opposite direction.  When it comes to the carbon tax, should we call their plan “Trickle up?”

She also pointed out that even if carbon taxes did have some positive effect, they would never be enough to tackle climate change on their own, yet once implemented the government could well consider them to be a ‘catch all’ of sorts.  ‘The one tool becomes the only tool’.

Next the TD covered the whole area of ‘Just Transition’ – when she explained it I knew what she meant though I had never heard it called that before.  Basically when a society moves from one form of energy to another, care must be taken that the existing workers in the old service are offered the opportunity to move into the new field.  Seemingly People Before Profit have been working with Bord Na Mona workers in this area.

Apparently three of the main political parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour, along with the Green Party, are in favour of pushing ahead with this tax, which probably means it is likely to go through.

In the interest of fairness I took some time to go over the websites of various parties to see how they presented their policy (if any) on carbon tax and/or climate change in general…

FINE GAEL – banner on homepage #TogetherOnClimate Climate Action – when you click it you see 16 links under heading of ‘progress’ none of which refer to carbon tax.

‘carbon tax’ search produced links on Special Oireachtas Committee

FIANNA FAIL – No search facility. No mention of carbon tax under section ‘tackling climate change’

LABOUR – ‘Labour’s clear preference is for ring-fencing funds from carbon taxes to pay for home retrofitting, including in local authority housing, and other ways of reducing energy poverty’

SINN FEIN – ‘Imelda Munster has criticised the agreement…to increase carbon tax four fold’

GREEN – Cuffe : ‘The aim of the carbon dividend, or carbon cheque, is to change behaviour. By placing carbon taxes and giving back what is taken to households it provides direct incentives for people to move to low carbon heating.’

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS – can’t find policy on carbon tax but policy section shows they are keen to reduce emissions
RIGHT2CHANGE 10-Point policy programme – ‘A Progressive Government will make protection of the rights of Mother Earth a Constitutional Imperative’

‘The IFA is up in arms over suggestions that people should eat less meat and drink less milk. No doubt carbon taxes will be pushed also as a key part of this debate.’

‘Women make up 70% of farmers world-wide yet only own 2% of land…they are responsible for 90% of the caloric intake of the average family’

SOLIDARITY – nothing on climate change on ‘what we stand for’ page

…just to be clear, my research for the above information was not exactly extensive.  There are so many parties in the jurisdiction that it isn’t easy to keep up with them all.

As you can see my attention was drawn most to the Right2Change platform – the quotes above were taken from the Facebook page of Joan Collins TD.  I like the way they constantly use phrases like “Under a Progressive Government Ireland can…” because while that may be extremely aspirational right now, if we don’t discuss and use such terminology regularly, it could remain so.

But that’s not to say I was completely turned off the PBP folks just yet.  They passed around a page for names and addresses – I offered my information though I fell short of ticking the ‘Join’ box for now.

When the meeting was over a chatted for a few minutes and then left.  I was first to head for the door and Deputy Smith thanked me for attending.

I’m glad I did, and I look forward to following the progress of the PBP’s resistance to the introduction of the tax.

Next on this site I’d like to start covering the various candidates standing for election to the council in May.

#IANWAE

 

Shortage of water but no shortage of blame in Irish discourse

~ jlpagano

THE ISSUE

As the Irish heat wave continues, arguably the most contentious ‘establishment v majority’ issues in recent memory is anything but water under the bridge.

THE MEDIA

Article by Sarah Burns, Vivienne Clarke in Irish Times on July 3, 2018

‘Irish Water warns ‘nightmare scenario’ if no big rainfall in autumn‘

“We need sustained rain. Unless there is torrential rain we’re looking at a very dry autumn,” Irish Water managing director Jerry Grant said on Tuesday.

Article by The Green Party in GreenParty.ie on June 30, 2018

‘Greens: Heat-wave exposes the short-sightedness of Water Charge abolition‘

“Government capitulated to populism and now communities are paying the price…The reality is that as our climate changes, these water shocks will continue and we don’t have a plan to conserve, harvest or levy for the use of our most precious resource.”

Article by The Workers Party in WorkersParty.ie on July 2, 2018

‘Dublin water restrictions show up failure of Irish Water to tackle infrastructure‘

“The government wanted to use water charges to squeeze yet more money out of the same group of people – low- and middle-income workers. Once it became clear that was not going to be possible, the issue of upgrading our water infrastructure was conveniently dropped from the table.”

THE COMMENT

We normally base these posts on one piece of content but this time we have three to compare and contrast, and it’s on that old chestnut of Water Charges which was bound to rear its head with the spell of hot weather we’ve been having.

Given the Irish establishment was committed to toeing the EU line of introducing water charges for regular citizens, you’d imagine a water shortage followed by a heatwave would be the perfect opportunity for them to point the finger at the #Right2Water campaign.

But why should the government and/or mainstream media do this when they’ve the Green Party to do it for them?

As you can see by the above quote in the IT, they chose to simply report on a statement from Irish Water.  No comment, no pushback, no challenging questions, just your basic stenography article.

Now in fairness, you can see why the Greens would be in favour of charges, though I’d suspect that if they were the ones setting up Irish Water it would look much different and would tend to levy more responsibility on business than private users.  That said, I can’t say I’m happy with their ‘giving in to populism’ angle.

The #Right2Water campaign, as far as I’m concerned anyway, was about way more than water.  It was a bridge (pun half-intended) too far in a continuing government policy of austerity, and in the end public pressure won the day.  For now.

If Irish Water wasn’t set up to benefit the people instead of simply being another corporation for the government to cash in on down the line, there would still have been opposition to it but I reckon it would have been much more difficult to get such widespread support.

Unfortunately it’s all too easy to spin the ‘well we tried to do something, and the lefty public said no’ narrative, but while I’m hardly a fervent follower of the Workers Party, their quote seems to be the most accurate depiction of the situation.

Yes we need better water infrastructure, yes it has to be paid for, but until it’s done in such a way that the majority of citizens pay the bare minimum while the tab is taken up by citizens and companies that waste this valuable resource, I’m afraid the stalemate will remain.  JLP

#IANWAE

Native American protest vs Fossil fuel industry…who do you think wins with both government and media?

~ jlpagano

Here at FPP we don’t believe that the business community isn’t entitled to exist.  We’re don’t believe it’s not entitled to have an opinion.

What we DO believe is that both the government and media are there to act as a go between when there is a dispute.  In the USA, when it’s the media forgetting the “im” in the word “impartial”, there are few better sources to learn about it than Fair.org and their podcast Counterspin.

In North Dakota, a native American community has been engaging in a peaceful protest against a proposed oil-carrying pipeline.  I’ll let Fair.org continue the reporting as it should be done…

The Standing Rock Sioux say the Army Corps of Engineers approved the pipeline without their consent. For many people, what’s happening right now in North Dakota is a crucial story of a frontline fight of indigenous people against extractive industry—and on behalf of humanity, really, and the planet.

So far, though, for corporate media, it’s not much of a story at all. As we record, none of the big 3 tv networks have so much as mentioned it.

We wish the Standing Rock Sioux all the best in their struggle.

Meanwhile, back here in Ireland, we would love to see the mainstream media put under similar consistent scrutiny to that done by Fair.org.