The debate has gone on my entire life and I am now an old man. In the states, Exxon has known (and concealed) the facts of climate change since the 1950s.
Debates exactly equal Delays.
The legal system hasn't changed ... it was set up to protect property owned by imortal, amoral corporations.
This is a good article and it is true that a great many people are doing a great many things to tackle global warming. But emissions continue to rise. Climate activists oppose the energy corporations, but at the end of the day it isn't the venal appetites of suppliers but the insatiable demands of consumers that is driving the global warming bus. Even if everyone agreed on global warming, the first cold day we turn on the heating, the first warm day we turn on the a/c. Some people are saying the only thing that can solve this is a marked reduction in human population, and in fact that is now happening in many countries, but we won't see results from this for a generation or more.
Spot on - Liberalism and Law from 16th C. England on - nothing but crime and genocide. This dialectic of Law and Violence goes to the heart of slavery and oppression we are told to call 'freedom'
Good reporting! The 'corporate state' knows no limits (except forced by broad social mobilization) to its violence and threats of violence in pursuit of endless capital accumulation by the financial elite it serves. Hence, 'we the people' must organize beyond street protests to exert sufficient public pressure to 'stop the insanity' of the terminal trajectory of the global political economy.
Brilliant. I think the theories of change being employed by Roger Hallam have seriously underestimated the cohesion of the communities that enacted them. Ghandi and MLK were leaders in structurally strong communities, in which people were willing to die, not just get sent to prison.
Our present communities are structurally weak and diffuse (by design), from laws set down by the same corrupt system of violence, many years ago. This eclipsing of protest is just the latest.
Building strong, resilent communities will take some doing, and will involve a land base. Despite the propaganda around online 'communities' and the Arab spring, the structural part of these rebellions, again, is in the cohesion of actual communities not the social media platforms.
My partner and I were both arrested in the XR protests, and there is worth in this action. However, without strong land based community we are deeply compromised by the structural enslavement of wages, rents, supply chain commodities and all the rest.
Very insightful comments! I especially like the way you associate "strong community" with a "land base". I suspect what you're getting at here has much to do with how actual communities, which are more than places of residence and employment, involves much more direct connection with the land in accessing and engaging in livelihood.
Also, we'll done for your patient replies the other readers here. An alarming array of kookiness.
I'm sceptical of the idea that we would fall into hellish chaos without 'the law' and its attendant foot soldiers, and anyone from the wrong community or class would agree. I think our oppressed communities function despite these structures.
Shame Tyson is not around. Thanks for all your hard work.
There's a reason why climate activism takes place mostly in countries like England. Because it's easy and safe. England could go to zero emissions and no one would notice, because the massive consumption happens in the United States and China, and the oil comes from Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the US of course because the US is leader in production and consumption. Try activism in Saudi Arabia or Russia or China, well of course that wouldn't last long, you'd vanish or be dead. That's not a reason to stop activism, because everything helps however useless it seems at the time. But if the AMOC falters and England's climate goes like Norway, then god alone knows what we can expect. Norway's population is under 6million, UK over 66million. Ask Michael Gove about that, or even Sir Keir as it'll soon be his problem.
Would you like to become a barrister Rachel? Beard the establishment in his den with your irrefutable logic? Take over where Polly Higgins sadly left off.
PS: Since the corporate state is a self-declared enemy of Nature, it is up to 'the people' to counter that terminal gambit. There is no other source of human authority to do so.
People in Latin America standing in front of bulldozers (many of whom are killed though some have eg prevented their rivers being from being dammed) is different to people in the Home Counties breaking windows, throwing orange paint around or stopping doctors and nurses from getting to work. It may make these people feel brave and as though they're doing something- but as it's having the opposite effect on whether British people want to talk about the climate crisis-I strongly suggest they rethink.
The public across the world has a desire for green policies, and governments around the world are underestimating that. Arguably, that desire has been engineered by activists raising the alarm. It’s not the only solution, but it’s part of a wider strategy.
Which countries around the world are responsible for creating the most pollution, and which kinds are they creating? Without giving any country a pass for being poor, or any other “exemption,” present the actual data on this. Having empirical facts on this is critical to determining real solutions. Activists blocking traffic and vandalizing priceless artwork only make pests of themselves. Everybody - seriously - despises them.
I think the world is so hetergeneous- specifically the global north causing climate change and the global south suffering from it.
The global south, populations and goverments, unless they're vassals of the US, arer all for green policies. The global north, populations and government not so much.
Within the global north the 1% as you know are responsible for most emissions. The public are not the people who need awareness.
Yes I can understand why you lost subs. Climate activists should not get a free pass for criminal damage. Nor is their behaviour at sports events, with staged photo ops, laudable either; it is counter productive, even environmentalists find them really annoying.
Climate protests have appeared to be protected by the establishment til now but the backlash is now sufficient for the new narrative against the JSO etc ‘mob’ (according the Daily Mail) and both Tories and Labour, and George Galloway, arer heading away from even paying lip service to ‘net zero’ scams and are denying that their even is a climate crisis.
I just read your piece, thanks for sharing. However, it’s not evidence, it’s conjecture—unless you have on record that a Getty family member is funding activism in order to subvert it.
Agreed. Though the JSO protests are undeniably pre-arranged with both the media and the organisers of the sports, art galleries, flower shows, Wimbledon events and they provide clicks and publicity for everyone concerned.
There may well be surveys that, depending on who you ask and what you ask, show net positive response, though I'm sure there will be evidence of net negative too, however the purpose of a system is what it does.
These stage managed photo ops have provided industry with massive opportunities for mockery and accusations of hypocrisy.
After Labour lost a bye election over ULEZ both parties have abandoned green policies as vote losers, more evidence that the tactics are working.
Industry of course controls the mainstream media and they simply wouldn't run these JSO pictures if they were working against their interests (large health freedom protests for example were not reported on at all.)
In the UK? That is why a man like Sam Melia gets sent to prison, but Muslim rape gangs and rapists in general are allowed to be free?
Colonialism is the reason? Not that those in charge choose what is actually important and prosecute based on that, on the principles of anarcho-tyranny? Then why is the same thing happening in places like Sweden or Ireland, which had no colonies?
Please explain that, and please refrain from using the CoLoNiALiSm as a catch-all excuse instead of actually engaging in critical thinking and criticism.
Hi Kat, I would encourage you not to cherry pick instances, it’s not how we use data to build an argument. English common law is used in 80 countries around the world due to the legacy of colonialism. Hope this helps.
This whole discussion has me pondering deeply the very nature of "the state" -- and in particular "the modern nation state," insofar as one can generalize in this way. Max Weber famously defined the state as that entity which in a given jurisdiction (or territory) maintains a monopoly on "the legitimate use of violence," which underlies the law, as you point out vis-a-vis Robert Cover. But of course it isn't just violence which the state has claimed a rightful monopoly upon, but also the making of laws, taxation, "public" projects of vast scale, e.g. railroads and highways....
A state can only be held to be legitimate, and thus its laws, if in general it has, and continues to, promote the general welfare -- of all people, all species, ecosystems and the biosphere. If it perpetually disregards these it has lost its legitimacy.
So I think we have our answer, then. The state, like capitalism, no longer pretends to legitimacy, 'cause it's obvious which direction the wind is blowing.
....
Very near the heart and core of my political philosophy is the word "ethos". My key claim is that "every politics has an ethos" and "every ethos has a politics." What is at stake, ultimately, then, is the culture we choose to dwell within. We can dwell within the territory of a state with a mistaken ethos and not be defined by its mistaken ethos. But the modern state, as an expression of modern capitalism, is also the expression of a mistaken ethos, at root. So we must abandon its errors, somehow. And that will mean that either the state will transform or it will die and be replaced by a stateless people and ethos.
In the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some of the most successful, productive, and most desirable places to live in the world? Where people literally fight to get into, and battle tooth and nail to stay in? Okay.
How come nobody ever blames Turkey for its years of colonialism in causing gross failure across Northern Africa and the Middle East, as well as the Balkans and Greece? How about 700 years of the Moors in Spain? Do Spaniards cry about Islamic colonialism all day as a catch-all for their failures? I've never heard it.
This isn't cherry picking. I'm asking why, in the UK, colonialism is being blamed when the country of the UK itself is doing this.
This has nothing to do with colonialism. This is called anarcho-tyranny, and this is why these things happen in countries that had literally zero colonies. Sweden, Denmark, Ireland are good places to start.
Please look into anarcho-tyranny. That is the true thing you are trying to explain, but colonialism isn't going to cut it here. Nobody is buying that as a one-size-fits-all scapegoat for the breakdown of liberalism. This may have worked 20, maybe 15 years ago, but those days are gone.
That's why in Sweden you can go prison for doing racisms, but rapists (especially of Swedish women) roam free and can't be deported. That's why in Ireland, Algerian knifeman can stab children in the street, won't be named or deported, but those caught with memes can be criminally prosecuted.
So, the court of appeal has disallowed, in advance, future uses in jury trials of the ‘consent’ argument that relies on evidence about the effects of climate change. This is a serious blow that is bound to result in more convictions. It reminds me, a bit remotely, of the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court in 1857 that found slavery legal and that black slaves were not and could never be citizens. Utter disaster, yet within 3 years the North was at war with the southern States, within 5 years came the Emancipation Proclamation, and within 6 years came the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery forever. Therefore, take heart, and in particular don’t use this occasion to attack the entire basis of the rule of law. Good grief, the rule of law is all we have; it is the foundation of all our freedoms. If you are going to attack the rule of law on the basis of one bad decision, let us know what you have in mind as an alternative. Can we not trace a line from Magna Carta 1215, to the Petition of Right 1628, to the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, to the Glorious Revolution 1688 and on to the to the Declaration of Independence 1776? All flawed, all wanting, and yet these are the great documents on which we entrust “our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins.” And these are the jurists of the rule of law - Hobbes, Locke, Grotius, Erasmus, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Smith, Hume, and was it not Lord Mansfield then Chief Justice of King’s Bench in 1772 who reportedly said, in the habeas corpus case of James Somersett an escaped slave: “….slavery is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it…”? So now we have a woman called Sue Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales, with a decision we do not like because it denies a defense to climate activists, but it is something that we can say “a woman, the most senior judge” without blinking an eye, even though for sure she is not (yet) a member of the Garrick Club. Evolutionary change is slow and incremental which can be maddening, but revolutionary change is all too often lethal.
So, Rachel says the rule of law is based on violence. Well, yes, there are penalties for breaking the law, if that is what you mean, but the architecture of our laws, from legislation to create them, courts to administer them, police forces that enforce them, including all the laws intended to protect our freedoms and our security within and outside our homes, constitute the surety for our survival. It is misleading to denounce all this as based on violence, and therefore to be disregarded or overthrown. You might just as well say, if I tell my child to behave or she’ll be on the naughty list, that I’m using violence. Your arguments are too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, but if you must persist, then let us know what comes next if 300 years of thinking is to be torn down. The activists are breaking the law, in a good cause they believe in; the courts have struck down one defense, so the activists and their lawyers must think of new arguments, new ways of enlightening society. The comment of Elizabeth Higgins is correct: the data is always up for debate, even if 98% of scientists agree, although as far as I can tell they are also highly apt to disagree. It’s quite possible we have already passed enough tipping points that warming is not now stoppable; certainly James Hansen and Paul Beckwith, and others, seem to suggest this. The ice caps at both poles are melting and this seems unstoppable. The AMOC is apparently in dire straits. The idea of unavoidable wet bulb temperatures lethal to humans is gaining traction. All this is cause for great concern, for action and activism, but the worst thing is if we all go mad and turn on each other. My parents had World War II, theirs had WW I, somehow we missed nuclear war (so far), and now we have global warming which seems worse than anything before. According to the great David Deutsch (Beginning of Infinity) this is how it will always be for us humans: gigantic then more gigantic problems, which we have to solve and which, as he says, are solvable if we have the right knowledge. So far, anyway.
Hi, I’m building my argument on the analysis of violence written by Hannah Arendt, Slavoj Zizek, Walter Benjamin and Robert Cover. Let me know if you’d like me to reference the books if you’re interested in reading them and learning more.
Well, this is quite condescending as well as entirely non-responsive, but I admit my post was rather critical so I should be more careful. Even so, I'd be interested in reading any theory of violence based on an amalgam of these four disparate intellectuals.
Hi Charles, I appreciate this follow-up comment. If you read my text, I'm not disparaging the rule of law because of one bad decision but critiquing its fundamental principles. I found Cover's essay 'Violence and the Word' extremely helpful when seeking to pull at these threads. I would also recommend reading the IPCC report, or a summary, to explore this notion about what is and what isn't up for debate, as the IPCC is considered a fairly moderate warning about the impacts of climate change.
Dear Rachel: I read your text carefully enough to write over 700 words in response. I think you're doing feisty and valuable work, though I'm not sure if you are more devoted to activism or truth-telling, (please don't say they're the same). The IPCC is a different topic; I would say it has been scrupulous with facts but cautious to the point of misrepresentation about the gravity of our situation. Now tomorrow we face another gigantic whammy, namely the publication of Annie Jacobsen's NUCLEAR WAR; she's already been interviewed over 3 hours by Lex Fridman, it's terrifying; along with the melting poles etc. I'm having a bad morning. Thank you for being actively part of the solution(s).
“Andrew Bridgen, a member of the science-denying Net Zero Scrutiny Group, stood up in the Houses of Parliament and gassed: “Independent scientists have stated that higher carbon dioxide levels would be beneficial for life on the planet through increased plant growth… So can we have a debate on government time about the cost benefits of Net Zero before trillions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are wasted?””
What’s wrong with having a debate? If the position of Net Zero can be defended with proven facts, then do so. Lay out the facts, the evidence, and proposed solutions. Certainly before trillions of pounds are spent on what might not even solve the problems.
Maybe it’s easier to rely on emotional histrionics, blocking roads, damaging property, gluing hands to roads, and vandalizing priceless artwork than to present a case with logic, math, real world solutions, and facts.
Maybe because the case lacks logic, math, real world solutions, and facts.
What makes you think the data is not up for debate? It absolutely should be debated. What are the proposed solutions, exactly? What will be the results of implementing those “solutions?” Those proposed solutions are going to cost a huge amount of money - who is being paid, what are they doing with the money, and how is it improving the environment - all questions that need to be answered and debated.
How do you know that CO2 is such a disaster for the environment? You believe what some scientists said, right? Are you aware that other scientists disagree? And that they say all the plants and trees in the world require CO2 to grow and thrive? Maybe mass efforts to grow more trees around the world would help. How much would it help? How much would it cost? Maybe it should be part of the debate.
The world needs power to function. We need to figure out ways to get power while polluting less, agreed. Removing or restricting the source of power, without coming up with a replacement for that power, would be a disaster. What are the solutions for replacement? Is the cure worse that the condition?
I'm one of those scientists who are included in the 98% that suggested climate change is a problem to get funding. But this does not entail that I think that all climate change outcomes are all bad. I'm not even sure anymore whether CO2 is humanities biggest problem.
Opinions change as evidence develop; unless you like the ideology more than the evidence.
Decades of well established climate science consensus. Do we debate the location of the sun in the solar system any more? What wasted energy that would be...
The biggest impact on actual wealth so coveted worldwide (let alone actual human happiness) will be climate change, if it isn’t already.
Many people repeating a thing doesn’t make that thing true, so I am not impressed with a “consensus.” Many times a “consensus” is compelled, and not a true agreement. There are scientists that have arrived at different conclusions, and those need to be examined. How else will we find real solutions that don’t impoverish everyone.
A scientific consensus is not the same as a political, or societal consensus. This is not the logic of crowds or manufactured theories by tv pundits. These are peer reviewed scientists reaching similar and converging conclusions from decades of study. Also, it’s not a 30% or 50% agreement rate, it’s 98%. You will never have perfect consensus, which is good, and it’s up to those communities to make good use of the debate to spur themselves towards greater clarity and detail.
If even despite all that you are concerned a consensus is ‘compelled’ - who or what is compelling this consensus? The petrostates? The wealthy industrial nations subsidising oil? Why would they want to? By what means would that even be plausible? I cannot think who genuinely benefits from generating fake climate ‘panic’. Unless it’s the damn commies- oh no wait they’re all up to their neck in fossil fuels too, with no clear way out.
The conspiracy theories around climate denial rely on incredible refusal to believe an overwhelming majority of well meaning people making ever more uncomfortable discoveries - adding data points to a huge pile that says “this is real
Bad. Like, soon to be REAL REAL BAD. We did this. Even though we knew it would likely happen. Uh oh.”
I wish you luck on your own journey of discovery. It’s a hard reality to swallow from a place of comfort, unfortunately it will get easier as the climate gets more imbalanced. I fear you won’t have long to wait. 🤞🏼🌏
It's such a shame about Andrew Bridgen. He was entirely justified in asking for a presentation of the evidence of the effectiveness of the new untried concept of mass house arrests and for shutting schools (ie there was no evidence) for a disease which appeared to kill 3 people (who were just about to die anyway) in a 1000 (though there is much blurring of whether people died with or of the new collection of common symptoms as well as the effects of forced ventilation, midazolam and remdesivir).
Bridgen then lost the plot and completely misunderstood the concept of 'excess death' after the intro of the jabs, especially when comparing to the lowest ever death year of 2019.
He's also fallen for the co2 as plant food (which is correct and some areas have become more lush though some areas have become deserts or been flooded) propaganda that has been purposefully fed to 'medical freedom' by the fossil fuel and animal ag industry.
What dismays me a lot is that climate scientists seem to be completely deaf to medical freedom's well reasoned evidence, or lack of, about health and vaccination.
Seems neither side is prepared to listen to the other.
The debate has gone on my entire life and I am now an old man. In the states, Exxon has known (and concealed) the facts of climate change since the 1950s.
Debates exactly equal Delays.
The legal system hasn't changed ... it was set up to protect property owned by imortal, amoral corporations.
A reply to my own comment. I apologize but I'm attempting to link to a NYT article on this...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/climate-change-report-us.html?unlocked_article_code=1.e00.9pcC.9LUuzsjRxyxC&smid=url-share
Hopefully this time the link works without the paywall.
This is a good article and it is true that a great many people are doing a great many things to tackle global warming. But emissions continue to rise. Climate activists oppose the energy corporations, but at the end of the day it isn't the venal appetites of suppliers but the insatiable demands of consumers that is driving the global warming bus. Even if everyone agreed on global warming, the first cold day we turn on the heating, the first warm day we turn on the a/c. Some people are saying the only thing that can solve this is a marked reduction in human population, and in fact that is now happening in many countries, but we won't see results from this for a generation or more.
Spot on - Liberalism and Law from 16th C. England on - nothing but crime and genocide. This dialectic of Law and Violence goes to the heart of slavery and oppression we are told to call 'freedom'
Good reporting! The 'corporate state' knows no limits (except forced by broad social mobilization) to its violence and threats of violence in pursuit of endless capital accumulation by the financial elite it serves. Hence, 'we the people' must organize beyond street protests to exert sufficient public pressure to 'stop the insanity' of the terminal trajectory of the global political economy.
Brilliant. I think the theories of change being employed by Roger Hallam have seriously underestimated the cohesion of the communities that enacted them. Ghandi and MLK were leaders in structurally strong communities, in which people were willing to die, not just get sent to prison.
Our present communities are structurally weak and diffuse (by design), from laws set down by the same corrupt system of violence, many years ago. This eclipsing of protest is just the latest.
Building strong, resilent communities will take some doing, and will involve a land base. Despite the propaganda around online 'communities' and the Arab spring, the structural part of these rebellions, again, is in the cohesion of actual communities not the social media platforms.
My partner and I were both arrested in the XR protests, and there is worth in this action. However, without strong land based community we are deeply compromised by the structural enslavement of wages, rents, supply chain commodities and all the rest.
Very insightful comments! I especially like the way you associate "strong community" with a "land base". I suspect what you're getting at here has much to do with how actual communities, which are more than places of residence and employment, involves much more direct connection with the land in accessing and engaging in livelihood.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-18/livelihood-a-new-and-old-idea/
Also, we'll done for your patient replies the other readers here. An alarming array of kookiness.
I'm sceptical of the idea that we would fall into hellish chaos without 'the law' and its attendant foot soldiers, and anyone from the wrong community or class would agree. I think our oppressed communities function despite these structures.
Shame Tyson is not around. Thanks for all your hard work.
There's a reason why climate activism takes place mostly in countries like England. Because it's easy and safe. England could go to zero emissions and no one would notice, because the massive consumption happens in the United States and China, and the oil comes from Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the US of course because the US is leader in production and consumption. Try activism in Saudi Arabia or Russia or China, well of course that wouldn't last long, you'd vanish or be dead. That's not a reason to stop activism, because everything helps however useless it seems at the time. But if the AMOC falters and England's climate goes like Norway, then god alone knows what we can expect. Norway's population is under 6million, UK over 66million. Ask Michael Gove about that, or even Sir Keir as it'll soon be his problem.
Would you like to become a barrister Rachel? Beard the establishment in his den with your irrefutable logic? Take over where Polly Higgins sadly left off.
Time to interview some elders still in touch with the living earth? Tyson Yankaporta in Australia is a good contact to start the process.
He’s not available unfortunately
PS: Since the corporate state is a self-declared enemy of Nature, it is up to 'the people' to counter that terminal gambit. There is no other source of human authority to do so.
People in Latin America standing in front of bulldozers (many of whom are killed though some have eg prevented their rivers being from being dammed) is different to people in the Home Counties breaking windows, throwing orange paint around or stopping doctors and nurses from getting to work. It may make these people feel brave and as though they're doing something- but as it's having the opposite effect on whether British people want to talk about the climate crisis-I strongly suggest they rethink.
Fortunately, this is incorrect. Data shows that these highly public stunts increase awareness of climate issues and have a net positive impact. I interviewed Aaron Thierry about this: https://www.planetcritical.com/p/why-scientists-must-rebel-aaron-thierry
What is termed positive? 'Aware' yes. Changing of behaviour?
We're still emitting more co2 than ever so not that positive.
The public across the world has a desire for green policies, and governments around the world are underestimating that. Arguably, that desire has been engineered by activists raising the alarm. It’s not the only solution, but it’s part of a wider strategy.
Which countries around the world are responsible for creating the most pollution, and which kinds are they creating? Without giving any country a pass for being poor, or any other “exemption,” present the actual data on this. Having empirical facts on this is critical to determining real solutions. Activists blocking traffic and vandalizing priceless artwork only make pests of themselves. Everybody - seriously - despises them.
I think the world is so hetergeneous- specifically the global north causing climate change and the global south suffering from it.
The global south, populations and goverments, unless they're vassals of the US, arer all for green policies. The global north, populations and government not so much.
Within the global north the 1% as you know are responsible for most emissions. The public are not the people who need awareness.
Yes I can understand why you lost subs. Climate activists should not get a free pass for criminal damage. Nor is their behaviour at sports events, with staged photo ops, laudable either; it is counter productive, even environmentalists find them really annoying.
Climate protests have appeared to be protected by the establishment til now but the backlash is now sufficient for the new narrative against the JSO etc ‘mob’ (according the Daily Mail) and both Tories and Labour, and George Galloway, arer heading away from even paying lip service to ‘net zero’ scams and are denying that their even is a climate crisis.
I’m curious, do you think corporations polluting our rivers and skies are causing damage?
Yes of course they are! They are also funding counter productive JSO stunts. https://jowaller.substack.com/p/i-knew-it-hugely-annoying-insulate
I just read your piece, thanks for sharing. However, it’s not evidence, it’s conjecture—unless you have on record that a Getty family member is funding activism in order to subvert it.
Agreed. Though the JSO protests are undeniably pre-arranged with both the media and the organisers of the sports, art galleries, flower shows, Wimbledon events and they provide clicks and publicity for everyone concerned.
There may well be surveys that, depending on who you ask and what you ask, show net positive response, though I'm sure there will be evidence of net negative too, however the purpose of a system is what it does.
These stage managed photo ops have provided industry with massive opportunities for mockery and accusations of hypocrisy.
After Labour lost a bye election over ULEZ both parties have abandoned green policies as vote losers, more evidence that the tactics are working.
Industry of course controls the mainstream media and they simply wouldn't run these JSO pictures if they were working against their interests (large health freedom protests for example were not reported on at all.)
Nice talking to you Rachel.
🙏🏽
A living legacy of British colonialism?
In the UK? That is why a man like Sam Melia gets sent to prison, but Muslim rape gangs and rapists in general are allowed to be free?
Colonialism is the reason? Not that those in charge choose what is actually important and prosecute based on that, on the principles of anarcho-tyranny? Then why is the same thing happening in places like Sweden or Ireland, which had no colonies?
Please explain that, and please refrain from using the CoLoNiALiSm as a catch-all excuse instead of actually engaging in critical thinking and criticism.
Hi Kat, I would encourage you not to cherry pick instances, it’s not how we use data to build an argument. English common law is used in 80 countries around the world due to the legacy of colonialism. Hope this helps.
This whole discussion has me pondering deeply the very nature of "the state" -- and in particular "the modern nation state," insofar as one can generalize in this way. Max Weber famously defined the state as that entity which in a given jurisdiction (or territory) maintains a monopoly on "the legitimate use of violence," which underlies the law, as you point out vis-a-vis Robert Cover. But of course it isn't just violence which the state has claimed a rightful monopoly upon, but also the making of laws, taxation, "public" projects of vast scale, e.g. railroads and highways....
A state can only be held to be legitimate, and thus its laws, if in general it has, and continues to, promote the general welfare -- of all people, all species, ecosystems and the biosphere. If it perpetually disregards these it has lost its legitimacy.
So I think we have our answer, then. The state, like capitalism, no longer pretends to legitimacy, 'cause it's obvious which direction the wind is blowing.
....
Very near the heart and core of my political philosophy is the word "ethos". My key claim is that "every politics has an ethos" and "every ethos has a politics." What is at stake, ultimately, then, is the culture we choose to dwell within. We can dwell within the territory of a state with a mistaken ethos and not be defined by its mistaken ethos. But the modern state, as an expression of modern capitalism, is also the expression of a mistaken ethos, at root. So we must abandon its errors, somehow. And that will mean that either the state will transform or it will die and be replaced by a stateless people and ethos.
In the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some of the most successful, productive, and most desirable places to live in the world? Where people literally fight to get into, and battle tooth and nail to stay in? Okay.
How come nobody ever blames Turkey for its years of colonialism in causing gross failure across Northern Africa and the Middle East, as well as the Balkans and Greece? How about 700 years of the Moors in Spain? Do Spaniards cry about Islamic colonialism all day as a catch-all for their failures? I've never heard it.
This isn't cherry picking. I'm asking why, in the UK, colonialism is being blamed when the country of the UK itself is doing this.
This has nothing to do with colonialism. This is called anarcho-tyranny, and this is why these things happen in countries that had literally zero colonies. Sweden, Denmark, Ireland are good places to start.
Please look into anarcho-tyranny. That is the true thing you are trying to explain, but colonialism isn't going to cut it here. Nobody is buying that as a one-size-fits-all scapegoat for the breakdown of liberalism. This may have worked 20, maybe 15 years ago, but those days are gone.
That's why in Sweden you can go prison for doing racisms, but rapists (especially of Swedish women) roam free and can't be deported. That's why in Ireland, Algerian knifeman can stab children in the street, won't be named or deported, but those caught with memes can be criminally prosecuted.
Please read.
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/anarcho-tyranny-u-s-a/
These are empty words without argumentation.
So, the court of appeal has disallowed, in advance, future uses in jury trials of the ‘consent’ argument that relies on evidence about the effects of climate change. This is a serious blow that is bound to result in more convictions. It reminds me, a bit remotely, of the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court in 1857 that found slavery legal and that black slaves were not and could never be citizens. Utter disaster, yet within 3 years the North was at war with the southern States, within 5 years came the Emancipation Proclamation, and within 6 years came the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery forever. Therefore, take heart, and in particular don’t use this occasion to attack the entire basis of the rule of law. Good grief, the rule of law is all we have; it is the foundation of all our freedoms. If you are going to attack the rule of law on the basis of one bad decision, let us know what you have in mind as an alternative. Can we not trace a line from Magna Carta 1215, to the Petition of Right 1628, to the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, to the Glorious Revolution 1688 and on to the to the Declaration of Independence 1776? All flawed, all wanting, and yet these are the great documents on which we entrust “our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children and our sins.” And these are the jurists of the rule of law - Hobbes, Locke, Grotius, Erasmus, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Smith, Hume, and was it not Lord Mansfield then Chief Justice of King’s Bench in 1772 who reportedly said, in the habeas corpus case of James Somersett an escaped slave: “….slavery is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it…”? So now we have a woman called Sue Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales, with a decision we do not like because it denies a defense to climate activists, but it is something that we can say “a woman, the most senior judge” without blinking an eye, even though for sure she is not (yet) a member of the Garrick Club. Evolutionary change is slow and incremental which can be maddening, but revolutionary change is all too often lethal.
So, Rachel says the rule of law is based on violence. Well, yes, there are penalties for breaking the law, if that is what you mean, but the architecture of our laws, from legislation to create them, courts to administer them, police forces that enforce them, including all the laws intended to protect our freedoms and our security within and outside our homes, constitute the surety for our survival. It is misleading to denounce all this as based on violence, and therefore to be disregarded or overthrown. You might just as well say, if I tell my child to behave or she’ll be on the naughty list, that I’m using violence. Your arguments are too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, but if you must persist, then let us know what comes next if 300 years of thinking is to be torn down. The activists are breaking the law, in a good cause they believe in; the courts have struck down one defense, so the activists and their lawyers must think of new arguments, new ways of enlightening society. The comment of Elizabeth Higgins is correct: the data is always up for debate, even if 98% of scientists agree, although as far as I can tell they are also highly apt to disagree. It’s quite possible we have already passed enough tipping points that warming is not now stoppable; certainly James Hansen and Paul Beckwith, and others, seem to suggest this. The ice caps at both poles are melting and this seems unstoppable. The AMOC is apparently in dire straits. The idea of unavoidable wet bulb temperatures lethal to humans is gaining traction. All this is cause for great concern, for action and activism, but the worst thing is if we all go mad and turn on each other. My parents had World War II, theirs had WW I, somehow we missed nuclear war (so far), and now we have global warming which seems worse than anything before. According to the great David Deutsch (Beginning of Infinity) this is how it will always be for us humans: gigantic then more gigantic problems, which we have to solve and which, as he says, are solvable if we have the right knowledge. So far, anyway.
Hi, I’m building my argument on the analysis of violence written by Hannah Arendt, Slavoj Zizek, Walter Benjamin and Robert Cover. Let me know if you’d like me to reference the books if you’re interested in reading them and learning more.
Well, this is quite condescending as well as entirely non-responsive, but I admit my post was rather critical so I should be more careful. Even so, I'd be interested in reading any theory of violence based on an amalgam of these four disparate intellectuals.
Hi Charles, I appreciate this follow-up comment. If you read my text, I'm not disparaging the rule of law because of one bad decision but critiquing its fundamental principles. I found Cover's essay 'Violence and the Word' extremely helpful when seeking to pull at these threads. I would also recommend reading the IPCC report, or a summary, to explore this notion about what is and what isn't up for debate, as the IPCC is considered a fairly moderate warning about the impacts of climate change.
Thanks.
Dear Rachel: I read your text carefully enough to write over 700 words in response. I think you're doing feisty and valuable work, though I'm not sure if you are more devoted to activism or truth-telling, (please don't say they're the same). The IPCC is a different topic; I would say it has been scrupulous with facts but cautious to the point of misrepresentation about the gravity of our situation. Now tomorrow we face another gigantic whammy, namely the publication of Annie Jacobsen's NUCLEAR WAR; she's already been interviewed over 3 hours by Lex Fridman, it's terrifying; along with the melting poles etc. I'm having a bad morning. Thank you for being actively part of the solution(s).
You wrote:
“Andrew Bridgen, a member of the science-denying Net Zero Scrutiny Group, stood up in the Houses of Parliament and gassed: “Independent scientists have stated that higher carbon dioxide levels would be beneficial for life on the planet through increased plant growth… So can we have a debate on government time about the cost benefits of Net Zero before trillions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are wasted?””
What’s wrong with having a debate? If the position of Net Zero can be defended with proven facts, then do so. Lay out the facts, the evidence, and proposed solutions. Certainly before trillions of pounds are spent on what might not even solve the problems.
Maybe it’s easier to rely on emotional histrionics, blocking roads, damaging property, gluing hands to roads, and vandalizing priceless artwork than to present a case with logic, math, real world solutions, and facts.
Maybe because the case lacks logic, math, real world solutions, and facts.
Because the data is not up for debate—increased CO2 levels are having a catastrophic impact on the climate and, as a knock on, earth systems.
What makes you think the data is not up for debate? It absolutely should be debated. What are the proposed solutions, exactly? What will be the results of implementing those “solutions?” Those proposed solutions are going to cost a huge amount of money - who is being paid, what are they doing with the money, and how is it improving the environment - all questions that need to be answered and debated.
How do you know that CO2 is such a disaster for the environment? You believe what some scientists said, right? Are you aware that other scientists disagree? And that they say all the plants and trees in the world require CO2 to grow and thrive? Maybe mass efforts to grow more trees around the world would help. How much would it help? How much would it cost? Maybe it should be part of the debate.
The world needs power to function. We need to figure out ways to get power while polluting less, agreed. Removing or restricting the source of power, without coming up with a replacement for that power, would be a disaster. What are the solutions for replacement? Is the cure worse that the condition?
How can you say this should not be debated?
Because 98% of scientists agree. If you need resources to learn more, please let me know.
I'm one of those scientists who are included in the 98% that suggested climate change is a problem to get funding. But this does not entail that I think that all climate change outcomes are all bad. I'm not even sure anymore whether CO2 is humanities biggest problem.
Opinions change as evidence develop; unless you like the ideology more than the evidence.
Decades of well established climate science consensus. Do we debate the location of the sun in the solar system any more? What wasted energy that would be...
The biggest impact on actual wealth so coveted worldwide (let alone actual human happiness) will be climate change, if it isn’t already.
Many people repeating a thing doesn’t make that thing true, so I am not impressed with a “consensus.” Many times a “consensus” is compelled, and not a true agreement. There are scientists that have arrived at different conclusions, and those need to be examined. How else will we find real solutions that don’t impoverish everyone.
A scientific consensus is not the same as a political, or societal consensus. This is not the logic of crowds or manufactured theories by tv pundits. These are peer reviewed scientists reaching similar and converging conclusions from decades of study. Also, it’s not a 30% or 50% agreement rate, it’s 98%. You will never have perfect consensus, which is good, and it’s up to those communities to make good use of the debate to spur themselves towards greater clarity and detail.
If even despite all that you are concerned a consensus is ‘compelled’ - who or what is compelling this consensus? The petrostates? The wealthy industrial nations subsidising oil? Why would they want to? By what means would that even be plausible? I cannot think who genuinely benefits from generating fake climate ‘panic’. Unless it’s the damn commies- oh no wait they’re all up to their neck in fossil fuels too, with no clear way out.
The conspiracy theories around climate denial rely on incredible refusal to believe an overwhelming majority of well meaning people making ever more uncomfortable discoveries - adding data points to a huge pile that says “this is real
Bad. Like, soon to be REAL REAL BAD. We did this. Even though we knew it would likely happen. Uh oh.”
I wish you luck on your own journey of discovery. It’s a hard reality to swallow from a place of comfort, unfortunately it will get easier as the climate gets more imbalanced. I fear you won’t have long to wait. 🤞🏼🌏
It's such a shame about Andrew Bridgen. He was entirely justified in asking for a presentation of the evidence of the effectiveness of the new untried concept of mass house arrests and for shutting schools (ie there was no evidence) for a disease which appeared to kill 3 people (who were just about to die anyway) in a 1000 (though there is much blurring of whether people died with or of the new collection of common symptoms as well as the effects of forced ventilation, midazolam and remdesivir).
Bridgen then lost the plot and completely misunderstood the concept of 'excess death' after the intro of the jabs, especially when comparing to the lowest ever death year of 2019.
He's also fallen for the co2 as plant food (which is correct and some areas have become more lush though some areas have become deserts or been flooded) propaganda that has been purposefully fed to 'medical freedom' by the fossil fuel and animal ag industry.
What dismays me a lot is that climate scientists seem to be completely deaf to medical freedom's well reasoned evidence, or lack of, about health and vaccination.
Seems neither side is prepared to listen to the other.
So he is correct when he agrees with you and incorrect when he doesn't. Interesting epistemology.
Rubbish. He is correct when the evidence supports what's he's saying and incorrect when it clearly doesn't or he is stating a false premise.