Almost the whole UK now under Amber warning for later, don’t think that happens to often

Iran appear to be admitting to firing ballistic missles at Irbil in Iraq and very close to the US consulate in the last hour, seems to move things closer to a bad direction

I do 55 minutes in the ninja

Wasn’t sure where else to post this but for the energy conscious minded, good deal on well reviewed budget thermal camera
https://www.hotukdeals.com/4275911

Russian EW continuing to be problematic
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/27/russia-electronic-warfare-turn-tide-war-ukraine/

Well, wasn’t that about a fifth of ru reported stockpiles? spanked in one day which seems to be in response to some high profile ukr strikes.

Sounds like a lot of damage and deaths but nothing as much as you’d expect from that number of missles.

There was a suggestion on the radio yesterday that the intent was to make Ukraine nervous about resumed strikes on urban areas and bring the air defences back closer to cities and away from the front lines where it has impeded Russian air strikes. While the latest patriot battery is sat near the beachhead, Russia can no longer use the glide bombs it had been having some success with

OK not what i wanted to hear but will get someone to look at it. Been in the garden looking through binoculars and can’t see any movement anywhere when it gusts but quite loud inside from a specific area of the roof. Can’t imagine anyone getting up there before the new year now though.

Recently bought a house with panels on, installed back in 2018. Wind is howling today and i can hear rattling/chattering in strong gusts which i assume is coming from them. Only other time i heard it was in storm babet. Is this normal in strong winds or is something loose? If it isn’t normal am i right in assuming this will be a pain/ expensive to inspect?

RAWtherapee

I have the downpour eco, it was cheap on sportspursuit. I wore it last night in torrential rain for four miles/ hour, the shoulders and cuffs had started to wet through. Water doesn’t bead up on it like it used to so probably needs reproofing. It fits well, i can move well in it, has pit zips at a price point many don’t, hood is good. I wish the storm flap fastened better but its not leaked through the zip yet tbf. it packs small and weighs little, spends most of its life stuffed in a bag where i forget its there.
If you don’t want to clean and reproof it yourself, rab will do it for £15 but they are slow, takes up to a month to get it back.

Currently supporting a adolescent family member who has just had to stop 40mg of citalopram and ariprazole cold turkey due to a liver issue, definitely keeps life interesting, they are clearly going through a wide range of emotions the haven’t dealt with for a long time

The only time merlin has ever shown me a hawfinch was when i was stood watching a hawfinch, have you got the European bird pack installed? People often complain and they are running libraries for other regions

Also, how can he sit there with a straight face and argue he is cutting taxes by reducing inflation

Painful to watch how shallow his beliefs are and just constant talking over interviewers

Option 3 is go on an organised trip, bunch of companies like dragoman that do multi month overland trips

Looks like it’s working

https://nation.cymru/news/new-research-details-astonishing-impact-of-wales-20mph-speed-limit-after-first-week/

6 mile walk today before the rain set in, last nights walk in the dark and wind, having to wear a big coat was a very depressing reminder that summer is over

The fact he has a super injunction in place (at least according to social media) makes his defence its a mainstream media stichup hard to swallow

32k steps in the bag

My local extinction rebellion and JSO branch are continously writing to MP’s, responding to local and national consultations, attended by local councillors and involved in community projects and every few months they hire a coach to attend national demonstrations. It’s almost like you can do both and they aren’t mutually exclusive.

what I have seen since these eco protestors came to the fore around 5 years ago, is a hardening of opinion against what we’re looking to achieve

Which is odd as there has been a significant and permanent positive shift in polling with regards to the publics concern about the environment and climate in the last five years

https://archive.is/rWIvy

This FT article has me questioning what my pension will look like

If all the money wasted on nuclear over the last 50years had been spent on tidal flow instead we would have plentiful clean power

Maybe but we would of most likely created huge damage to the marine environment and destroyed internationally important tidal habitats

We haven’t reached 1.5 degrees of warming, that threshold (which is a political target) is for the long term average increase, not a single month.

On the modelling, it has proven to be very accurate and if anything conservative.

we’re now growing more on less acerage than ever before.

Nationally and globally, has that not been driven by increased inputs such as larger fossil fuel derived fertiliser use rather than additional CO2, there isn’t the same increase in biomass production in non agricultural land, so CO2 can’t be the main driver of higher yield although does contribute

I agree that the collapse in insects is primarily land use driven, rather than climate and ecological collapse is probably the bigger existential threat than climate over the long term but to claim a slight increase in bug splatter this year compared to other recent years is very much shifting baseline syndrome in practice. You might have a few more insects than last year but it will still be significantly less than decades ago. It is also likely a localised issue, to argue otherwise goes against a large body of scientific work based on multi decade observations in the field. A good example is there have been a nationally reported decline in number of house and sand martins, swallows and swifts this year and more sightings further north, that is driven by the decrease in insects for them to eat.

Anecdotally for me, who suffers badly from insect bites but spend a lot of time in reedbeds and woods, i have had far fewer bites this year

Enjoyed this conversation with Kevin Anderson

Inequality is a far bigger issue than population, reducing the per capita emissions of the richest 10 percent to the EU average would cut annual emissions by over a quarter.

Also moving where you bank, keep your pension and how you vote

I find the arguments odd that we shouldn’t bankrupt ourselves to deliver net zero because of China. The OBR have come out this month saying it will now cost more to carry on with the existing energy system to 2050 than it will cost to transition to low carbon alternatives. Why would you want to maintain a more expensive energy system and be less well off as a result and less competitive in the global market place?

currently wearing some anker liberty Pro 3 and like them but did only pay £54 from thier refurb outlet on ebay

. If you have an agenda to measure the skylark population you don’t get to extrapolate their moving their nesting from location 1 to “skylarks have decreased in the UK”.

Who is doing that?

The drink driving law analogy fails because we still import “dirty” produce from elsewhere.

So restrictive policies that only harm our own industries are counterproductive. Especially as shipping ain’t exactly green is it 🤣

Which is why the EU is pushing to implement the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) which will place a tax on products from high carbon intensity production to level the playing field with production from areas that have moved to low carbon industry

Over a third of all shipping emissions is just moving fossil fuels around

It smacks of something not very well thought through. In very rough terms coal is nearly 100% carbon and gas 20%ish carbon

But then you include the gas leaks and venting in its extraction and production and the higher warming potential of methane, along with coals sulphur emissions which are cooling and it turns out to be almost as bad as coal for emissions

Sums it up

And alcohol prohibition was so successful wasn’t it, and the war on drugs

We banned leaded petrol and CFC’s, hasn’t lead to shady characters offering me them behind closed doors

We already completely transformed our heating systems several times last century from coal to town gas to natural gas, each time households were forced to retrofit and managed it

Education as to the options available and the effectiveness/impact of each, showing people from a young age what they can do and allowing them to decide what options fit their life the best. And teaching personal responsibility.

Pretty sure we were all taught the importance of not littering and more recently recycling but still I see bins full of mixed waste despite people being provided with the tools to make it simple, verges covered in litter and fly tipping all over the place. Education and personal responsibility don’t go very far when pitted against self interest.

 let’s carry on using them until they run out anyway.

Grant shapps coming out today confirming that’s his plan

https://www.ft.com/content/407b834e-a503-4de9-acab-fcf88d76dbb3

Natural gas likely almost as bad as coal from a broader emissions perspective

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/climate/natural-gas-leaks-coal-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=FaNfV7fZ_Ios3Fr34C_oHKSUyl1GT8PZ-IVhVd5EwwWptUCWSJDBJCBTui0z2N8ID065PvWeWc0xp-6q66CkQQS7KilibTaxQGFCaz7PHMkTgURYdyPkAy6szASSOoJRTSGums0I__1mRtsn45wy89gca9ExXHu4ipX0OtYum6nk_o2CnIrwPoULcfcdTx11Zn5S-afsO-c7D11Ybx1Vv7VKWJqhx6V64vOaY0a4zqeUqCZvf0TZ3fzyQxU2eNngRByvIU_SzLPgL7ingEKsZJryeRAFOhE4ElY-As785Ego6x1E0Znmu0zcjhrZw5jyeoVVOQXTuNishCi5VLzb3z_69KrU0IfXOURUp53NUw&smid=tw-share

Woke FT reporting that

A study by the International Labour Organization, the UN agency for workers, projected that by 2030, the equivalent of more than 2 per cent of total working hours worldwide would be lost every year, either because it is too hot to work or because workers have to work at a slower pace.

https://archive.ph/kHQAy