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#51
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - July 14, 2025, 02:13:11 PMIncidentally in the same paper on the same day 
This is where I think the right-wing papers support the right while the left-wing papers criticise is also maybe a bit of a misdiagnosis.
Because I think the Guardian is the most small-c conservative/opposed to change paper in the country - it's always framed as wanting profound, radical, systemic change across society but absolutely opposing anything short of that. While I think a lot of the right-wing press (especially the Mail) are basically pretty radical.
QuoteEd Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost?
Simon Jenkins
Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something
This is where I think the right-wing papers support the right while the left-wing papers criticise is also maybe a bit of a misdiagnosis.
Because I think the Guardian is the most small-c conservative/opposed to change paper in the country - it's always framed as wanting profound, radical, systemic change across society but absolutely opposing anything short of that. While I think a lot of the right-wing press (especially the Mail) are basically pretty radical.
#52
Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...
Last post by Savonarola - July 14, 2025, 02:08:24 PMElmo's X Account Hacked with Antisemitic Posts, Demands Trump Release Epstein Files
At least he didn't blame his posts on Ambien; but really, hacked?
Take some responsibility Elmo.
At least he didn't blame his posts on Ambien; but really, hacked?
Take some responsibility Elmo. #53
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Josquius - July 14, 2025, 01:59:55 PMWould 50 days take us into mud season?
#54
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Tamas - July 14, 2025, 01:44:07 PM #55
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - July 14, 2025, 01:39:37 PMQuote from: Zanza on July 14, 2025, 01:21:33 PMTrump gave Putin an ultimatum of another fifty days (of summer offensive/terror bombing). This time, Putin will see reason for sure!
what a dilweed
#56
Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...
Last post by Sheilbh - July 14, 2025, 01:33:24 PMI was going to update the general AC chat - but this is so typically and specifically British I feel it had to go here. With a fabulously on brand comment piece on AC in the Guardian
I remember articles/podcasts taking a similar approach early in the pandemic condemning the hope for a "technological" solution like vaccines or treatment (as opposed to "social" approaches of dealing with disease). The Guardian has also run literally hundreds of articles on the problems with those weight loss drugs (while also running lots of articles on how obesity is causing huge costs to individuals, society and the NHS). And as I say if you read any of David Kynaston's books on post-war austerity Britain every there are what we would today call "culture wars" over the adoption of new technologies like vacuum cleaners, fridges, microwaves with a consistent drumbeat in the (Manchester) Guardian suggesting there is something morally suspect and American in "ease" or "comfort". I'm not sure but I couldn't help but suspect that many of those writers perhaps had paid help so were less personally exposed to the discomfort involved. So plus ca change
Edit: Also I get the heating argument from AC and urban heat islands - but I really don't get the carbon point. Surely it is just downstream of your ability to decarbonise the grid? So from a UK perspective the more wind and nuclear we build and get connected to the grid the less carbon impact there'll be from AC (and if we were to have HVAC units that heat and cool it would also allow replacing fossil fuel powered boilers etc).
QuoteHow do I feel about air conditioning? On the one hand, I'm extremely hot. On the other, it's destroying the planet
Emma Beddington
Yes, temperatures are rising. But more and more AC means more and more CO2 – and then more and more global heating. Let's have some long-term thinking instead
Sun 13 Jul 2025 14.00 BST
It's way too hot. I'm cowering inside, curtains drawn, pale limbs clammily exposed, the sound of my overheated laptop fan drowning out the sound of an ancient, feeble desk fan. If it gets any hotter, I'll stagger to my air-conditioned car and drive to the air-conditioned supermarket to stand in its chilly aisles, shamelessly fanning myself over the ravaged ice-cream cabinet in the freezer aisle. I've even become nostalgic for the summer when I shared an office with a man who insisted on having the AC set to 17C, meaning I had to wear a cardigan to work in August.
Ah, air conditioning, the dream. Or the nightmare? Welcome to appliance culture wars, 2025 edition. You may recall, in 2023, the US debated whether induction hobs were a communist plot; then last year Republicans tried, in all apparent seriousness, to pass the Liberty in Laundry and Refrigerator Freedom acts. This year has already featured Donald Trump pledging to "make America's showers great again" (low water pressure means it takes 15 minutes to wet his "beautiful hair") and now France is grappling with Marine Le Pen declaring herself its AC champion.
As the country suffered through an early summer heatwave, with temperatures reaching the 40s, schools closing and, according to modelling, an estimated 235 deaths, Le Pen pledged, if elected, to launch a "grand plan" to cool France. Her ally, Éric Ciotti, called for AC to be obligatory in schools, hospitals and care homes to "protect the most vulnerable".
With even higher temperatures predicted, this might prove a popular promise. It would certainly please the many Americans holidaying in Europe, expressing their sweaty astonishment at how we manage here without the chilly kiss of refrigerant-gas-cooled air. But the French AC debate rapidly heated up: Le Pen faced scathing criticism from the Greens and ecological transition minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who noted Le Pen's party voted against plans to develop more sustainable "cooling networks". The environment agency president called AC "an alibi for inaction". Accused of hypocrisy by right-wing commentators after reporting on environmental concerns around AC, Libération even published a follow-up confirming its offices were not air conditioned (though conceding a few "air coolers" had taken the temperature down to 32C – ugh – in the hottest spots).
Because climate control is a climate problem. In the US, where AC is ubiquitous and its necessity not up for debate, the Department of Energy says it accounts for about 12% of energy consumption in homes and "contributes significantly to carbon dioxide emissions, releasing over 100m metric tons annually". In 2019, the International Energy Authority predicted that, as the rest of the world catches up, AC will produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 annually. Relying on it to cope with an ever-hotter planet contributes to global heating, making us need it more. That's not a solution; in Pannier-Runacher's words, it's a "maladaptive" coping mechanism.
AC is quantifiably bad, but I think it's also philosophically problematic. Cooling offers comfort, making the unbearable bearable, at least for now. That happens at a community level (no one is really disputing we should keep the very old, the very young and the vulnerable cool), but also individually. When you can buy a personal bubble of coolness and not truly feel the heat, the screaming urgency to tackle the collective issue of a world on fire can recede slightly.
And this is where I have to fess up. I actually have AC – a little freestanding unit we use only in the evenings, maybe 10 times a year. We also have solar panels and a battery, which helps me sleep at night, but the cool helps more. If the government came for my AC, I wouldn't demand they "pry it out of my cold, dead hands", as one Republican said of his gas stove, but at times like these, I'm deeply, guiltily glad of it.
Air conditioning isn't the answer. We need more ambitious plans but, without them, many more people – not just rampant individualists, climate deniers, laundry liberators and fridge freedom fighters, but hot furtive hypocrites like me and anyone desperate to get some sleep – will be tempted by the easy, cool, breezy solution.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
I remember articles/podcasts taking a similar approach early in the pandemic condemning the hope for a "technological" solution like vaccines or treatment (as opposed to "social" approaches of dealing with disease). The Guardian has also run literally hundreds of articles on the problems with those weight loss drugs (while also running lots of articles on how obesity is causing huge costs to individuals, society and the NHS). And as I say if you read any of David Kynaston's books on post-war austerity Britain every there are what we would today call "culture wars" over the adoption of new technologies like vacuum cleaners, fridges, microwaves with a consistent drumbeat in the (Manchester) Guardian suggesting there is something morally suspect and American in "ease" or "comfort". I'm not sure but I couldn't help but suspect that many of those writers perhaps had paid help so were less personally exposed to the discomfort involved. So plus ca change
Edit: Also I get the heating argument from AC and urban heat islands - but I really don't get the carbon point. Surely it is just downstream of your ability to decarbonise the grid? So from a UK perspective the more wind and nuclear we build and get connected to the grid the less carbon impact there'll be from AC (and if we were to have HVAC units that heat and cool it would also allow replacing fossil fuel powered boilers etc).
#57
Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...
Last post by Zanza - July 14, 2025, 01:21:33 PMTrump gave Putin an ultimatum of another fifty days (of summer offensive/terror bombing). This time, Putin will see reason for sure!
#58
Off the Record / Re: What are you listening to?
Last post by Savonarola - July 14, 2025, 12:45:10 PMDavid Bowie - Young Americans (1975)
Play that funky music, white boy.
David Bowie both grew bored with the elaborate stage show of the Diamond Dogs tour and became obsessed with Philadelphia soul during his tour of the United States. The initial result, as I previously mentioned, was David Live. This album is a continuation of that.
Bowie refers to this period as "Plastic soul", "Plastic" being a synonym for "Fake" at that time (which I though was funny in a world of paper straws and bamboo disposable cutlery - plastic has now become the genuine article.) Still it was genuine enough soul that Bowie appeared on Soul Train.
The album does have its problems. The two collaborations with John Lennon ("Across the Universe" and "Fame") don't fit in well with the rest of the album. "Fame" is a good song (James Brown would copy the lick on "Hot, (I Need to be Loved, Loved, Loved)), but I don't care for his version of "Across the Universe." Bowie doesn't have the right sort of voice for the music (I still giggle sometimes when I hear him say "Sho' Nuff" on "Fascination.")
There is a lot to recommend the album though, the band is one of the best Bowie put together (including a then unknown Luther Vandross singing backup.) Bowie makes creative use of the backup singers, not only using the call and response typical to Philadelphia soul (and a number of other genre's of US black music), but also arranging them into different parts like a choir, especially on "Right Way."
This era was when Bowie had his infamous interview on the Dick Cavett Show:
Where Bowie is obviously coked up out of his mind (one of the best comments I saw on Youtube was "Somebody get this man a fidget spinner.") Cavett, the consummate professional, doesn't let that get in the way, but I think he's playing around with Bowie at points. At one point he asks David what they would find on his coffee table, and the audience chuckles at that, which he then clarifies he meant what book is Bowie reading (that was a different time, I don't think anyone would ask a rock star about his or her reading habits today.) At another point he asks Bowie "What's the kick," and Bowie's jaw drops, until Cavett clarifies he means what is the kick in performing.
Play that funky music, white boy.
David Bowie both grew bored with the elaborate stage show of the Diamond Dogs tour and became obsessed with Philadelphia soul during his tour of the United States. The initial result, as I previously mentioned, was David Live. This album is a continuation of that.
Bowie refers to this period as "Plastic soul", "Plastic" being a synonym for "Fake" at that time (which I though was funny in a world of paper straws and bamboo disposable cutlery - plastic has now become the genuine article.) Still it was genuine enough soul that Bowie appeared on Soul Train.
The album does have its problems. The two collaborations with John Lennon ("Across the Universe" and "Fame") don't fit in well with the rest of the album. "Fame" is a good song (James Brown would copy the lick on "Hot, (I Need to be Loved, Loved, Loved)), but I don't care for his version of "Across the Universe." Bowie doesn't have the right sort of voice for the music (I still giggle sometimes when I hear him say "Sho' Nuff" on "Fascination.")
There is a lot to recommend the album though, the band is one of the best Bowie put together (including a then unknown Luther Vandross singing backup.) Bowie makes creative use of the backup singers, not only using the call and response typical to Philadelphia soul (and a number of other genre's of US black music), but also arranging them into different parts like a choir, especially on "Right Way."
This era was when Bowie had his infamous interview on the Dick Cavett Show:
Where Bowie is obviously coked up out of his mind (one of the best comments I saw on Youtube was "Somebody get this man a fidget spinner.") Cavett, the consummate professional, doesn't let that get in the way, but I think he's playing around with Bowie at points. At one point he asks David what they would find on his coffee table, and the audience chuckles at that, which he then clarifies he meant what book is Bowie reading (that was a different time, I don't think anyone would ask a rock star about his or her reading habits today.) At another point he asks Bowie "What's the kick," and Bowie's jaw drops, until Cavett clarifies he means what is the kick in performing.
#59
Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...
Last post by Valmy - July 14, 2025, 12:38:39 PMWell needless to say no danger of drying out here this summer 
It has been very weirdly wet and "cool" for a central Texas summer. It sort of reminds me of how Summers used to be here in the 1980s, hot but not crazy hot and crazy humid, just with biblically torrential downpours.
It has been very weirdly wet and "cool" for a central Texas summer. It sort of reminds me of how Summers used to be here in the 1980s, hot but not crazy hot and crazy humid, just with biblically torrential downpours.
#60
Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...
Last post by Duque de Bragança - July 14, 2025, 11:59:03 AMQuote from: mongers on July 14, 2025, 10:50:06 AMFor the 2nd afternoon in a row we've had a grass fire in the meadows here, firemen doing a sterling job, but even so, welcome to the new tinder dry future.
The UK, the new Portugal?
