net zero

[GeoffL]

The excuse of the need to go to Net Zero is going to increasingly restrict our freedoms in all sorts of ways. ( Especially motorhoming.) It is merely a means of complete social control of the masses.
Our lunatic Scottish government has just passed an act to forbid the use of any means of heating new build homes that causes any emissions. So no wood burners or coal, oil or gas boilers. There is maybe an opt out for emergency use only with lots of caveats. Totally nuts, total control. No-one voted for this.
How long before they decide not only IC engines need to be banned for their miniscule emissions, but EVs too for their build and tyre/brake emissions. Welcome to your 15minute city.....

The original of the following poem (to which I've added a verse or two and chorus and set to music) was written in protest at the (more than 5,000) "Inclosure Acts" passed by Parliament in the 17th and 18th Century. These acts gave landowners exclusive rights over previously common land, robbing grazing from the poorest elements of society, forcing them to move to the cities to seek work and corralling them into city slums. Looking at the apparent intent to steal our freedom, take away our mobility and corral us into "15 minute cities", perhaps its time has come again...​

​

[Verse 1]​

The law locks up the man or woman​

Who steals the goose from off the common​

But leaves the greater villain loose​

Who steals the common from the goose​

​

[Verse 2]​

The law demands that we atone​

When we take things we do not own​

But leaves the lords and ladies fine​

Who take things that are yours and mine​

​

[chorus]​

Who remembers when, who remembers how​

The greater crimes committed then​

Became the laws that bind us now​

​

[Verse 3]​

To save the World we must not roam​

We must all stay within our zone​

While our masters travel farther yet​

And get there in their private jet​

​

[Verse 4]​

They deny the poor man fossil fuel​

And condemn him to a diet of gruel​

While guzzling gas in SUVs​

And feasting on delicacies​

​

[Chorus]​

​

[Verse 5]​

The poor and wretched don't escape​

If they conspire the law to break​

This must be so but they endure​

Those who conspire to make the law​

​

[Verse 6]​

The law locks up the man or woman​

Who steals the goose from off the common​

And geese will still a common lack​

Till they go and steal it back.​

​

[Chorus]​

 

[HurricaneSmith]

I love the way this forum is run, and try very hard to avoid politics) but am yet to be convinced it's not all about cheating.

If we dump our industries (and if course all the staff) and instead buy from (say) China, then people will say "How wonderfully Net Zero the UK is" completely ignoring the bigger picture.

I've stood in a beautiful fort in central China and then turned around 180 degrees and been staggered to see the nearby chimneys belching out smoke from adjacent factories. (May not be Australian coal from Australian Newcastle - I should try and look it up.)

The result is that we lose our manufacturing skills, whilst the cheats create a booming economy for themselves.

Happy to be educated and told I'm wrong, with evidence of course.

 

[TissyD]

If we get zero carbon non of us will live very long at all, neither will the rest of the planet.

 

[davef]

Most people dont know how very little carbon dioxide there actually is in the earth's atmosphere, and upon which all life ultimately relies. They will know that helium is a trace gas forming a tiny amount of the earth's air, yet largely unaware there is even less CO2. Even if it is a warming medium it would be like having a bath of cold water and expecting a teaspoon of hot water to make it warm up. At roughly 400 parts per million, it is only about 0.04% of the atmosphere.

 

[Trotter]

Nice to realise that there are like minded people on here
I understood everything Geoff wrote, with one exception.
Why does the Isle of Wight have such a high omission level?

 

[Owlhouse]

Malwarebytes warning me that it is a dodgy website. Maybe a trick by Google?

The mainstream media (google/utube/facebook etc are all trying to censor it by “fact checking” it as misinformation. Form your own opinion.

 

[GeoffL]

The mainstream media (google/utube/facebook etc are all trying to censor it by “fact checking” it as misinformation. Form your own opinion.

These "fake checkers" get evermore outlandish daily. Recently, someone shared a picture of a CO2 generator in a commercial greenhouse and included the following text:-

This is a picture of a C02 generator used by commercial growers to INCREASE the C02 in the building and so speed up and increase their crop yields. Plants adore C02 as well as warmth! We rely on plants for Oxygen, natures a wonderful thing.​

Please don't share, it makes too much sense​

Notice that the above makes no mention of "climate" -- it merely makes the point that carbon dioxide is essential for plant life and that plants produce the oxygen we need to survive. Everything in that share is factual and undisputed. Even so, "Fakebook" slapped a fact check sticker from AFP on it that says "missing context" and "could mislead people", hiding the post unless you clicked on a link to view it despite the 'warning'. Clicking "see why" on the 'fake check' says that, "CO2 use in greenhouses does not disprove harm on climate". Note that the OP makes no mention of alleged harm to climate -- only the 'fake check' does that. IOW, the 'fake check' is at best a straw man argument, says nothing about the facts actually being presented, and hence is irrelevant...

 

[maingate]

Sometimes the Main Stream Media shoot themselves in the foot. I believe their actions have brought about new News Channels with more relevance to actual daily life and events. Even Youtube with its restrictions on content shows a muuch wider view of what is happening around the World, although there are some sites that are obviously offering fake news and discretion is needed.

 

[GeoffL]

Sometimes the Main Stream Media shoot themselves in the foot. I believe their actions have brought about new News Channels with more relevance to actual daily life and events. Even Youtube with its restrictions on content shows a muuch wider view of what is happening around the World, although there are some sites that are obviously offering fake news and discretion is needed.

Dive 'under the hood' and it becomes apparent how few conglomerates are involved. In the printed media, just three entities (Daily Mail Group, Rupert Murdoch's "News UK", and Reach [was Mirror Group]) have over 90% of the share. Online, it's Meta, Google and X that control almost everything. TV has more channels but, like printed media, it's in the hands of surprisingly few and deeper delving shows some well-known globalists to be major shareholders of publicly owned outlets like ITV. Channel 4, which was created to be owned by the state but funded by advertising, is to be privatised (if it hasn't already -- my info comes from a couple of years ago) despite objections from within that such a move would likely 'guide' the channel into the same order of bias as other channels in accordance with the wishes of major shareholders.
In a nutshell, very few media news conduits are free of bias/agenda and it almost doesn't matter where you get your info from as you really have to don 'near tinfoil scepticism' and check everything -- even (or should that be, especially) the so-called 'fact checks'!

 

[marchie]

Dive 'under the hood' and it becomes apparent how few conglomerates are involved. In the printed media, just three entities (Daily Mail Group, Rupert Murdoch's "News UK", and Reach [was Mirror Group]) have over 90% of the share. Online, it's Meta, Google and X that control almost everything. TV has more channels but, like printed media, it's in the hands of surprisingly few and deeper delving shows some well-known globalists to be major shareholders of publicly owned outlets like ITV. Channel 4, which was created to be owned by the state but funded by advertising, is to be privatised (if it hasn't already -- my info comes from a couple of years ago) despite objections from within that such a move would likely 'guide' the channel into the same order of bias as other channels in accordance with the wishes of major shareholders.
In a nutshell, very few media news conduits are free of bias/agenda and it almost doesn't matter where you get your info from as you really have to don 'near tinfoil scepticism' and check everything -- even (or should that be, especially) the so-called 'fact checks'!

If it's a print medium article (online edition), there should be a referenced/linked article or report/research that can be checked to see what 'spin' or (mis)interpretation the newspaper had put on it. No reference or link to the source article/report etc, then treat it with the contempt such articles deserve

Steve

 

[GeoffL]

If it's a print medium article (online edition), there should be a referenced/linked article or report/research that can be checked to see what 'spin' or (mis)interpretation the newspaper had put on it. No reference or link to the source article/report etc, then treat it with the contempt such articles deserve

Steve

Even that needs some care as so often these are circular references (and sometimes from august organs of the same stable!) Hence I almost invariably check for independent corroboration and also that all the evidence doesn't have the exact same wording or exact same figures as that almost always indicates a single source...

 

[maingate]

The funniest thing I have come across lately is to do with the new 'BBC Verify'. As its name suggests it is to fact check any information found and verify that it is true.

It is headed by a woman who faked her CV to get the job.

 

[marchie]

Even that needs some care as so often these are circular references (and sometimes from august organs of the same stable!) Hence I almost invariably check for independent corroboration and also that all the evidence doesn't have the exact same wording or exact same figures as that almost always indicates a single source...

I wasn't referring to other media reports, rather the original sources such as University Research Papers; hence my comment about checking the original reports for evidence of any spin or bias (the Guardian is a regular offender for misquoting the Barnett Formula implications for the UK Devolved Governments). And I never accept anything that UK Newspapers say about the EU without checking the EU original documents

Steve

 

[GeoffL]

The funniest thing I have come across lately is to do with the new 'BBC Verify'. As its name suggests it is to fact check any information found and verify that it is true.

It is headed by a woman who faked her CV to get the job.

Perhaps another reason to fact check everything? That just had to be the irony of the century if true, so I delved deeper. Balance of probability suggests that she 'embellished' her CV to get another job:- one in Russia for US news site "Coda Story" but I couldn't find anything suggesting the CV she presented to the BBC contained the same embellishment. Perhaps this was because the reporter with who she claimed she worked actually worked for the BBC?

BBC’s disinformation reporter accused of lying on CV to get job in Russia

The BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent Marianna Spring has been accused of lying on her CV.

www.thenational.scot

 

[GeoffL]

I wasn't referring to other media reports, rather the original sources such as University Research Papers; hence my comment about checking the original reports for evidence of any spin or bias (the Guardian is a regular offender for misquoting the Barnett Formula implications for the UK Devolved Governments). And I never accept anything that UK Newspapers say about the EU without checking the EU original documents

Steve

Understood. However, you have to be very wary of University Research Papers because academia is so broken. For example, the peer review process is riddled with bias and papers (e.g. Kauppinen and Malmi 2019) have been rejected on the grounds that they contradict the general consensus

Also, consider the extent of publication and funding biases. FWIW, I almost invariably look for empirical evidence and look for potential false cause. Science has a massive reproducibility crisis with next to zero funding to take steps to correct this. I could go on, but the bottom line is that nothing can be taken at face value...