Two related, but contrasting, items on Brexit.
The climate change connection to Brexit is unclear and mostly negative. It is simply true that we benefit from international unity when addressing a global problem, and the EU is a powerful forward looking entity that could address climate change more effectively than the collection of individual nations in the EU otherwise might. With the UK out of the EU, AGW may be somewhat harder to address.
Or, maybe not so much. The EU is still only one entity among several dozen, so having this small shift may not be that big of a deal.
But the Brexit-Climate Change link with respect to intergenerational politics is important and interesting. Dana Nuccitelli nails this down writing in The Guardian. See the graph above.
Dana talks about the similarity of difference across generations in attitudes about Brexit as well as climate change, and shows how these patterns, similar in both cases, are tied to the phenomenon of “intergenerational theft.” The ascending generation prefers expansion, ballooning of economic systems, putting off dealing with long and even medium term consequences. The younger generation takes it in the neck.
The problem is of course that younger generations will have to live with the consequences of the decisions we make today for much longer than older generations. Older generations in developed countries prospered as a result of the burning of fossil fuels for seemingly cheap energy.
That’s all true and important.
But I was also interested to hear President “No Drama” Obama’s remarks on Brexit. He sees this a more of the pressing of a pause button on a process that is not going to be stopped, and less of a cataclysm.
Is he right? Or is he just trying to put off panic?
Here are his remarks:
What do you think?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg
An analogy I read.
A traveling salesman type has suggested there’s this super duper sciency, engineeringish, idea, along the lines of the 6 million dollar man ( what a classic show!) for prosthetic legs. They can make ya run at 100 km. an hour and jump up 5 stories. Yada yada.
So do you wanna get em the salesman says? They havnt ACTUALLY quite been invented yet, but it’s all looking really good. Just chop off your legs now and give us heaps of dosh and the super bionic legs should be delivered to you quickly.
More than half ( a tiny bit more ) the people who bothered to vote fell for this and thus it will pass that everyone’s legs will get cut off cuz, well, that’s democracy or something.
My god. They will be talking about this in a thousand years.
It’s nearly a Greek epic tragedy thingie.
The other interesting thing I read was that the reality of the referendum was do you choose Remain or a mystery prize!! Hahahahaha.
And the other thing I came across was the much discussed idea of what Leavers thought they were voting for and someone suggested it depended on the Cambridge Anylitics feed to each individual. Which is more than a little scary imo, but quite possibly not to far from reality.
Hahaha Yep I’m a very well fed highly educated unbelievably wealthy UK person. I’m gonna vote for the mystery prize. Hahahahahahaha
Surprise!
Then there’s ” oh er um well you kept calling us dumb and stupid so we wanted to sort of revolt against the urban intellectual latte set by … grabbing stupidity with both hands and fully embracing it.”
Hahahahahahaha.
Could get a bit tight on the nuclear medicine supply front for em.
I don’t think anyone of em will starve.
But hey, since start of year to present, 9 months, 25100000 people have starved to death and it hasn’t made the paper once. Not once. How bout your paper Greg? That’s what, roughly same death rate as caused by WW2 maybe? So if a few English humans die of starvation, it’s not likely to be noticed by anyone. No one gives a shit. Oh look the football’s on…
Yeah, ballpark.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
It’s a shit way to die, starvation.
I wonder about the Fourth Estate sometimes. Oh look, someone’s sent a suspicious package to Robert De Niro.
From a Guardian commenter who’s name I didn’t note. The commenter begins by quoting some news….
“Raab is currently polling somewhere between third and fifth to become next Tory leader, according to ESRC and ConHome surveys. He may struggle to get ahead of Boris Johnson, but judging by the content of his speech, his real goal could be to become chancellor.
Jebus Fucking Crist I feel like I’m living on bastard Pluto…..”
And halfway across the planet I’m laughing out loud at this beautiful display of agitated
language. No one does this genre better than UK mob I reckon. It’s funny, now I think of it, a whole lot of top drawer UK and Irish comedy is based on agitation. Alf Garnett damn near shoves agitation in a needle and sticks it his arm and becomes one with it. And that’s why he’s so funny! It’s a damn strange thing to find funny, but it most assuredly is. I will look for the Dinner masterpiece to illustrate. Nicholls kicks arse in it. Here we go…
https://youtu.be/5bC9IvGpXSo
Something else I read in some comments somewhere today, after the shambles. Someone suggested perhaps a fix the UK government was to switch it off and then on again. And someone replied to them that they just shutdown the USA government and can’t seem to be able to turn it on again!
Bwahahahahahaha.
I really really hope someone compiles a volume of Brexit hilarity at some stage.
Laughter in the fucking dark, mate.
Obama, “…you have a monetary union, although England wasn’t a part of that…”
England is only one part of the Union that joined the EU. That even a president fails on that is disappointing. Although if the worst scenario for a Brexit pans out then I can see that the British union will splinter, the Union flag and the White Ensign will be consigned to museums. That is patriotism for you, or rather false patriotism which equates to nationalism.
WRT climate change these nationalistic tendencies are the last thing humanity needs in order to deal with this problem as well as that other horseman of the apocalypse — pollution in all its varied forms. Varied from despoliation of land and water during extraction and lack of sensible disposal once used for whatever.
Hoy Lionel A, or anybody that knows.
I briefly wondered something and maybe has know. What country sorta owns Gilbraltrar and Falklands. Is it England, Wales, Scotland? Guessing not NI. I’m only curious cuz if the union does break up, where do these places end up. Cheers. And a strictly and obviously hypothetical afterthought on the same lines. Let’s assume a union breakup happened in 1980. Which of Scotland, England, or Wales ( sorry NI again) gets the Hong Kong lease thingie? And I’ve got some vague idea of some Caribbean places that might be owned by UK too, but don’t really know for sure. Oh and what’s that base in the middle of some ocean that UK owns has but they fucked off all the locals and rented it to the yanks. Garcia or something it’s called.