Waiting to Exhale

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Thanks to Sarath Guttikunda for bringing this to my attention

Travelling man

The UK government - having signed up to the 10:10 campaign - proposes that it's spokesdrones should henceforth travel cattle class en route to their embassies and conferences. Very gratifying.

Where might Ern be going? He could visit Tajikistan, perhaps,

or India.

He could stop off to check out his oil interests in Peru as well.

Elsewhere, Obama OKs a new raft of nuclear plants. Let's hope they build to a higher spec' than Sellafield.
Lest we forget - other power sources are available

British bishops call on the faithful to give up carbon for lent.

Manchester campaigners achieve significant breakthrough through steady and dedicated local campaigning. Nice one.

and finally...
The iPhone has an app to piss off contrarians and to educate the gadget-fixated.

Peaking Early

With oil running out, and biofuels not being the answer, perhaps humans should grow and trade their food closer to home.

Perhaps we suffer from collectively traumatised amygdalas

A brake with tradition?

Technology is fallible

Infernal Combustion

Frank is feeling a little better today. Thanks for asking.

While the UK entrenches itself up to its neck in car culture, the scientific world debates whether it is best to starve us all and destroy our biodiversity in the name of biofuel or bio-electricity - whichever gives most miles per acre. Motorists, as ever, expect to be coddled through without inconvenience.
Those on two wheels had better watch their backs.

So many choices, so little accurate information.

What price action?

China and Italy invest heavily in renewables

Wheels Within Wheels

Gordon Brown and sheep-dog Boris both make extravagant claims about the greening of their budgets and the blissful cornucopia of fairy dust technology that will miraculously trump the ugly realities of a finite planet. Should be worth a few votes.

It's a shameless re-tread of this early Frank strip.



Meanwhile the Lords of Saudi Arabia make a surreal plea for special consideration, and plans are laid at the Doc Fiendish Institute

It seems to be very deep in our genes, this buying and selling lark

We at Throbgoblins International are very pleased that Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia (Environment & Development) magazine in Beirut have translated some strips into arabic for middle-eastern distribution; Reproduced here

Baby, you're a rich man too.

Opportunities abound for those who dare, as China asks he who calls the tune to pay the piper, and we are all cordially invited to Cap the rich

Elsewhere, both Shell and the UK government go into bat for the opposition

Carried Away

Frank doesn't often get infected with enthusiastic optimism, but he's been listening to Frank Turner CDs and Barack Obama speeches so it had to happen sooner or later.

There are figures of every kind being hurled around at the energy summit in Abu Dhabi -amongst them these.

The electric car lobby still need to explain where all this extra capacity will come from - things being as they are. Lifestyle is still not on the table, it seems.

Bird-strike

As was widely predicted the UK government ignored the advice of science and went with the urgings of panicky economists to authorise a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow.

Whoops - a synchronicitous error on my part. When I titled this post I hadn't heard about the US airways jet crash landing into the Hudson River after succumbing to a .....bird strike.

Property-Owning Democracy

Climate change activists buy land to thwart Heathrow developers. Good work. These things can catch on.

The Times reports, with innappropriate zeal, that, as increasing levels of worldwide deforestation are being slightly moderated by a small degree of partial regrowth in some areas, we might stave off the end by an additional twenty minutes. Hoorah.

Job Vacancy

The sea's capacity to absorb CO2 diminishes, promising further escalations, whilst we leap into action by building more airports, preparing for climate-conflict and ever so slightly reducing the size of our TVs.

Elsewhere the IDF breach 900 Palastinian dead and receives applause from a President and an administration that cares not for the future.

Thanks to Marc Hudson

The bigger they are...

The arse falls out of the Chinese recycling industry, causing hardship to millions and stalling one of the few large scale attempts to limit the damage we're doing.
Of course we should repair, re-use and recycle wherever possible - that should go without saying - but this stuff is travelling thousands of miles to seek out cheap labour, and is still inextricably tied in to high levels of consumption - which is, of course, why it's flagging now. This international trade is a short term fix. The real solutions surely lie in reduction of waste through reduction in consumption.

Reports indicate that a reduction in consumption is coming our way anyway, so perhaps we might like to consider doing something about it?

Icarus Ascending

The UK gov't tries to cover up the scandal of the Heathrow expansion with the fig-leaf of a (rhetorical?) tagged on Rail hub, but a hub without spokes does not make a wheel.

The punchline is, perhaps, a self-indulgent echo of my favourite series of Labrats cartoons - A little self contained AGW parable. A small thing, but mine own.

Paradise Lost

The Maldives economy relies on the sort of behaviour - conspicuous consumption by jet-set tourists - that guarantees that the Maldives will dissappear beneath the waves. In the meantime they're stockpiling all the crap they can gather. Perhaps they're jockeying to be the new Easter Island.

In Brasil, it appears that - not only are they hacking back rainforest for the benefit of millions of wobble-bottomed, burger munching ninnies, - but they're doing it with slaves.

And of course the Shoa in Gaza goes on

Wrong Track

Of course the real news is the ongoing brutalising of the people of Gaza by the Israeli army, but I shall stick to my brief.



UK train operators push rail travel out of the range of many by magically manipulating......TIME ITSELF!!!... and shutting loads of offices

Elsewhere, The future is put on hold, Ukraine has its gas cut off and engineers come up with a cement that is carbon negative.

Manchester United

I've said it before (hence the repost) and I'll say it again...



All very predictable. BRRRRRRM BRRRRRRRM BRRRRRRRRRM.
I apologise to the more far flung readers (far flung from my vantage point, anyway) for indulging in some local anti-democratic whinging. The voters of every single city borough rejected a public transport initiative that guaranteed them 3 Billion pounds and wouldn't cost them a penny for 4 more years, because they couldn't be arsed to organise their lives more efficiently. Fuck 'em.

The most boggling reaction I heard today was from a public transport user who was glad the Tif bid failed because it meant less money for corrupt stagecoach and Metrolink directors to cream off (allegedly). So the reasoning is that we will refuse any investment in a sustainable transport infrastructure until all the big bidders are in the hands of the angels or the whole shebang is back under public ownership. (in which case we can unpack a whole different set of prejudices to excuse us from action)
All large organisations are infected with widespread and often mind boggling levels of corruption and incompetence, as I know only too well from my many years in the NHS. This is because they are run by humans, and until we can successfully train what few alternative species we have left at our disposal, humans will have to do.
We are surrounded by fuckwits

BRRRM fucking BRRRRM

Two wheels on my wagon

This month's NEW INTERNATIONALIST highlights the Afghan view of the Afghan war, and also reports on the fabulous concept of a bamboo bicycle, which has been about for a while but I've only just caught up with. I want one.

Issue 10 of Manchester Climate Fortnightly (McFly) is now up and ready

Life as we know it

The Carbon Trust are developing technology that is perfectly poised to take advantage of a rapidly developing ecological niche -ie -the whole planet is turning into a stagnant swamp of fetid pond-scum. So Mad Max can still be a road warrior. Hoorah!



An illustration of an established point

Congestion explained

On my way to work this morning I was obliged to abandon the bus in gridlocked traffic and walk the last mile or so. As I passed junction 17 of the M60 I saw a poor deluded soul parading throught this belching impromptu car park wearing a sandwich board declaring his opposition to the Manchester congestion charge, and handing out leaflets to the thousands of stranded drivers. I crossed the motorway bridge and looked down on the stalled traffic, breathing in the poison and the frustration, and observed that at least 90% of the vehicles were occupied by single individuals all ruthlessly enjoying the freedom that personal transport brings. I must admit that I was temporarily overwhelmed by a combination of pity, despair and contempt that boiled briefly over into loud swearing and gesticulation before collapsing back into the general bewilderment that characterises my working day.

The sad fact is that most people get a car because "it's what you do, innit?"
We'll get the future we deserve.

(Thanks to Marc Hudson for the monkey/bottle idea)

The public gets what the public wants

I was looking through a survey the other day that sought people's opinions on difficult subjects requiring specialist knowledge and a broad command of a range of complex issues. It wasn't child's play, and it's purpose was serious. But it's tone reminded me of the tone of appraisal documents the world over - Are you satisfied, very satisfied, unsatisfied, very unsatisfied, not bothered, suicidal etc. As if how the respondent felt about the situation was the important thing.
I might be reading rather too much into this, but - We find ourselves strapped into a car that's hurtling up the sharp incline of half a dozen exponential hockey-stick graphs towards almost certain calamity on a roller coaster without breaks - and we are being asked if we're comfy. Something is amiss. Maybe it's just me, but I think it might be time to put our feelings on the back burner and concentrate on issues for a while. Maybe we should be saying to ourselves, "Never mind how you feel - read a few books and have a bit of a think. Leave the comfort zone. You don't have to like it, and you probably won't. Grow up and put your fairy tales away"
Maybe we could all specifically ponder...
How does one run a democracy when no one is paying attention? When most of the people think that more and more people can have more and more forever?; when most of the people think that the looks and style of a politician are the most important considerations?; when most of the people are watching X-factor?: when most of the people want a Beamer, a boob-job and a McMansion?: when most of the people spend more time cultivating their appearance than their understanding? when most of the people are under the impression that they are only here to have a good time and that some supernatural superbeing tucks them in at night? Can serious and necessary work be undertaken under those conditions? And if not, how do we change those conditions? Or do we wait for circumstances to change them for us?

Fucked if I know.

Anyway - I colourised these old strips for a Brasilian biofuel-awareness campaign, which gives me an excuse to re-up them, and an opportunity to cheer the demise of the Hummer that was so recently considered acceptable in some quarters