I think that good ole Great Britain has royally **** up Africa in times gone past so we should tke responsibility and look after the folk who now need our help.

Pushing that logic even further, as we’re all technically from Africa anyway in the very distant past maybe they should take reponsibility for sending Lucy et al to Europe in the first place?

Do we need to go so far back though?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE[/video]

According to General Wesley Clark, who had extensive access to the Pentagon

The plan is to take out 7 countries:

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off with Iran

munrobiker – Member

Asylum seekers can’t work.

He meant if their application for asylum is accepted, I think

Great Britain has royally **** up Africa

The Romans royally **** up the known world so they are to blame ….

Do you like the idea of people drowning because they are desperate enough to risk their lives, often escaping wars that are not of their making?

There’s a petition here to help

The Romans royally **** up the known world so they are to blame ….

A fine example of reductio ad absurdum.

The Romans aren’t still **** up the world, the west is still in the process of doing so.

I know this is an obvious point but surely we need to look into the reasons why these people feel the need to leave the Countries of their birth and fix those so they don’t have to make these dangerous and exploitative journeys.

Just sayin’……..

That would partly include cutting back massively on carbon emissions, good luck getting the developed world to agree to that!

Well mikey74 if you were one of those people you would be sat in some crap town/village/tent with no money, little food, no schools or hospitals or prospects. There is huge government corruption, criminal gangs exploiting the population and a war is raging around you and your family.

What would you do?
Answers on a postcard please to mikey74.

You seem to suggest we ought to fix the problem for them which will come at a huge cost and more fighting?

I have no solution BTW I dont think there is one.

That would partly include cutting back massively on carbon emissions, good luck getting the developed world to agree to that!

erm……
http://www.theccc.org.uk/tackling-climate-change/reducing-carbon-emissions/carbon-budgets-and-targets/

Are you aware of the amount of carbon/energy legislation we have now?
ESOS, BREEAM, Code for sustainable homes, Part L, CRC, Green Deal, ETL, F-Gas, it goes on.
On top of various tax penalties for inefficient vehicles, subsidies for renewable energy schemes.
Then we have China, Brasil and India riding roughshod and making a mockery of what lots of nations are trying to achieve. Still making some CFC gases we banned 10 years ago!

Still not enough, most of it is pretty half arsed.

Then we have China, Brasil and India riding roughshod and making a mockery of what lots of nations are trying to achieve.

Most of it to supply western consumption. Ergo their pollution is partly our responsibility as well.

A report by the University College London Environment Institute (commissioned by Channel 4 for Dispatches Great Global Warming Swindle programme)[5] suggested that current government policies would achieve a reduction in greenhouse gases of between 12 and 17% by 2020, compared to an implied target of up to 30%. The report states that the over-riding block to achieving 30% is that nearly all the government’s policies are voluntary.[6]

Such targets have also been criticised for ignoring the emissions embodied in imports, thereby attributing them to other – often developing – countries such as China.[7] One report showed that Britain’s imports are responsible for more overseas emissions than those of any other European country, and should add an extra 4.3 tonnes CO
2 to the average 9.7 per capita.[8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_Kingdom#Criticism_of_targets

Keep trying to worm our way out of responsibility though. It reminds me of this show –

That would partly include cutting back massively on carbon emissions, good luck getting the developed world to agree to that!

That has nothing to do with it.

Well mikey74 if you were one of those people you would sat in some crap town/village/tent with no money, little food, no schools or hospitals or prospects. There is huge government corruption, criminal gangs exploiting the population and a war is raging around you and your family.

What would you do?
Answers on a postcard please to mikey74.

You seem to suggest we ought to fix the problem for them which will come at a huge cost and more fighting?

I think that is exactly what it will come to, however impractical that may be. My main point was that unless you correct the massive imbalance of quality of life (not necessarily related to wealth) throughout the world then these events will continue to take place.

That has nothing to do with it.

How does it have nothing to do with it, it’s going to impact the prosperity of equatorial regions significantly.

ESOS, BREEAM, Code for sustainable homes, Part L, CRC, Green Deal, ETL, F-Gas, it goes on.

And they are, for the most part, completely misguided. The majority of current legislation tends to be geared towards more consumption, just making the technology more efficient. We should be focusing on less consumption of resources.

Do wars have regulations for emissions?

What effect do wars (and the weapons used) have on the environment?

An example:

The US Department of Defence is the country’s largest consumer of fossil fuels. Research from 2007 showed the military used 20.9bn litres of fuel each year. This results in similar CO2 emissions to a mid-sized European country such as Denmark.

And that’s before they go to war. The carbon footprint of a deployed modern army is typically enormous. One report suggested the US military, with its tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, used 190.8m litres of oil every month during the invasion of Iraq. An estimated two thirds of this fuel is used delivering more fuel to the vehicles at the battlefront.

More here

How many trees would you have to plant to offset dropping a bomb?

How does it have nothing to do with it, it’s going to impact the prosperity of equatorial regions significantly.

I has nothing to do with it because these people aren’t running away from power cuts, they are running away from civil wars, genocide, persecution etc.

I agree it will become an increasingly important factor in the future, but it’s not the primary cause at the moment.

Still not enough, most of it is pretty half arsed.

Trust me, it isn’t! 10 years ago we had few if any regs barring the energy act which was roundly ignored by all (did you know that it’s still illegal to heat a commercial property to above 19degC according to that act which has never been repealed?). Now, we have LOADS.

Keep trying to worm our way out of responsibility though.

We (the UK) do more than our fair share (and I’m not saying it’s too much or enough), compared with almost anywhere. The americans don’t do anywhere near enough, and although it has been repeatedly asked of BRICs, they point blank refuse to reduce their footprint. The Brazilians are still chopping down rainforest FFS!

Whilst we’re on the resources thing:

Historically, when new forms of energy are developed, we don’t abandon the old forms, we just raise our level of consumption: It’s that kind of trend that we need to reverse.

New forms of energy mikey?
I think I get you actually, and I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t look to generate more capacity, we should reduce what we use, and to be fair that is the intention of a lot of the schemes and regs (CRC, EPCs, ESOS etc etc).
It’s a crying shame that the tories hijacked the CRC scheme, it could have had a positive impact rather than just another tax.

Regardless of regulation, during war, it all goes out of the window, or are the emissions of missiles and bombs closely monitored?

Exactly, wrecker.

The trouble with the legislation is that none of them cover usage, they just relate to the efficiency of technology.

Take a large building, for example: The embodied energy in the construction of that building is actually very small compared to the energy consumed in the use of the building. As far as I am aware, there is no legislation that deals with the use of energy once the building has been constructed,

Never mind missiles, fireworks are terrible!

Fireworks are less likely to cause people to leave their countries and make dangerous journeys in substandard boats though.

And people buy them voluntarily, rather than paying for them with taxes…

The trouble with the legislation is that none of them cover usage, they just relate to the efficiency of technology.

Hmmm, efficiency and consumption are closely related anyway but some legislation does relate to consumption; ESOS, CRC and DECCs certainly do.
And bang on cue, I get this email come through https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/changing-energy-environment/

As far as I am aware, there is no legislation that deals with the use of energy once the building has been constructed,

That’s why they employ people like me!

Fireworks are less likely to cause people to leave their countries and make dangerous journeys in substandard boats though.

I though you were referring to them in a carbon sense?

You’re right though, probably enough thread derailment for now.

Asylum seekers can’t work.

I suspect 99.99% don’t know that prior to getting here. Listening to interviews with African migrants in the Sangette camp nr Calais, they have great aspirations once they get into the UK, working, training to be a doctor, running a shop. All dreams which keep them going.

We (the UK) do more than our fair share (and I’m not saying it’s too much or enough), compared with almost anywhere. The americans don’t do anywhere near enough, and although it has been repeatedly asked of BRICs, they point blank refuse to reduce their footprint. The Brazilians are still chopping down rainforest FFS!

I agree, but the Americans will get their comeuppance when the whole of Mexico swarms the border and the deep South becomes utterly desolate.

Yanks will be fleeing to Canada, which will be hilarious. I hope medicine advances enough so that I one day get to witness this on my death bed, I’ll die an amused man.

It still doesn’t exempt us from the moral responsibility as a Northern hemisphere nation (a fact that has already put us in a better economic condition even without global warming) in our duty to help people that our policies have roundly ****. Mikey says that it’s not an issue now, it is, because we need to slowly migrate people further North so we don’t end up with even more sudden asylum influxes in the future. It’s simply either a coincidence/related fact that a lot of these countries also currently have massive issues with instability. We need to start identifying land with low population counts (Northern most parts of Canada, Scandanavia, Russia etc…..Scotland 😆 ) and start a resettlement program – camps…big **** off camps whereby we can start integrating them with western society.

The alternative is to either let them die, or move them here in an unplanned fashion that increases instability in the west and support for fascist parties.

At times like this it’s always worth asking what Nige would do…
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/24/tony-abbott-hes-too-tough-on-immigration-for-me-says-nigel-farage
Not that keen on some of the turn back policies and the camps that go with them…

Yanks will be fleeing to Canada, which will be hilarious. I hope medicine advances enough so that I one day get to witness this on my death bed, I’ll die an amused man.

It still doesn’t exempt us from the moral responsibility as a Northern hemisphere nation (a fact that has already put us in a better economic condition even without global warming) in our duty to help people that our policies have roundly ****. Mikey says that it’s not an issue now, it is, because we need to slowly migrate people further North so we don’t end up with even more sudden asylum influxes in the future. It’s simply either a coincidence/related fact that a lot of these countries also currently have massive issues with instability. We need to start identifying land with low population counts (Northern most parts of Canada, Scandanavia, Russia etc…..Scotland ) and start a resettlement program – camps…big **** off camps whereby we can start integrating them with western society.

The alternative is to either let them die, or move them here in an unplanned fashion that increases instability in the west and support for fascist parties.

I’m sorry but moving large portions of the Earth’s population into a Northern hemisphere with an ever decreasing land-mass is not a viable option. The only real option is for developed nations to invest heavily in developing nations so they not only contribute less to the global ecological disaster, but also so they are better prepared to deal with the changes that are coming.

I’m sorry but moving large portions of the Earth’s population into a Northern hemisphere with an ever decreasing land-mass is not a viable option. The only real option is for developed nations to invest heavily in developing nations so they not only contribute less to the global ecological disaster, but also so they are better prepared to deal with the changes that are coming.

The one flaw in your argument is that the developed nations are up to their ears in debt and its getting worse….not better. So that rules out the only real option….

Arctic Cities.

The one flaw in your argument is that the developed nations are up to their ears in debt and its getting worse….not better. So that rules out the only real option….

It may be our only option. Anyway, I’m no expert on economics but I don’t see the debt of developed countries curtailing their foreign investment that much. In fact, I would have thought that further investment could help with debt, especially if it reduces the demands on the economy at home (i.e. less immigration):

In the early 1950s, UK national debt was over 200% of GDP (in 2012, it is 63% of GDP). But, this level of debt didn’t burden the UK. It was a legacy of the Second World War and spending on the Welfare State and nationalising industries. It laid a foundation for three decades of economic prosperity.

The other factor, of course, is that birth rates tend to be inversely proportional to the prosperity of the country, so investing time and money in less developed countries should help curtail the population explosion in certain parts of the world, having beneficial effects all around.

footflaps – Member

Asylum seekers can’t work.

I suspect 99.99% don’t know that prior to getting here. Listening to interviews with African migrants in the Sangette camp nr Calais, they have great aspirations once they get into the UK, working, training to be a doctor, running a shop. All dreams which keep them going. [/quote]

… until they realise that the system is so bureaucratic there is no way they can be entrepreneurial to earn a living unless they bend the rules to cause massive backlash or simply keep on getting state help.

Aspiration is useless if the system is ruled by ZMs so when they realise the road is not paved with gold that is when the problem starts to smoulder beneath …

So In conclusion. Europe is full of selfish patronising ill informed, heartless racist bastards and part time economists that wouldn’t know poverty or a refugee if it slapped them the face. In the past we were the refugees. maybe time we returned the world we meddled with a favour.

We don’t know how lucky we are.

Makes me feel sick.

Only 101 Years Ago

I’m obviously talking about economic migrants not the terrified families forced from their homelands. You tend to see a certain type of person trying to hitch a ride to the UK from Calais.

I’m extremely impressed you can identify who’s a scumbag economic migrant and who’s a deserving refugee just by looking at them. It’s a real gift you have. Perhaps you should make yourself known to the Home Office – with you on the case, they’d be able to bang through the workload no bother.

I mean, for example – the geezer with the scarf – is he an economic migrant or a refugee?