[meldrewreborn]

@GSimpson

The Rapa Nui should hang their heads in shame then, given their deforestation of their island (Commonly known as Easter Island)!!

[retrotecchie]

@meldrewreborn

To be fair, we pretty much deforested Malden and Kiritimati (Christmas Island).

[meldrewreborn]

@retrotecchie

yes but they did it hundreds of years ago!

[retrotecchie]

@meldrewreborn

But I bet it took them a while with axes and machetes. Our method was significantly quicker, although I doubt there was much usable wood left...

[meldrewreborn]

@retrotecchie

they only had stone tools - so even more effort.

[retrotecchie]

Anyway, the end has been reached, two and a bit days later than anticipated.

Good news. A fund has been set up in order to do something towards damages caused by Climate Change.

Bad news. Paris has been watered down and Glasgow has been watered down.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, unless the reduction or abolition of coal had been emphasized and more progress in accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels had been put in place, things are only going to get worse and the cost of damages will only keep increasing.

We're damaging the climate? No worries folks, lets raise everyone's taxes to pay for the damage and carry on as we were...

We can't buy our way out of trouble after the fact. We need to do a lot more to avoid trouble sooner rather than later. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

COP26...one step forward. COP27 is two steps back. My optimism that we can actually fix the problem rather than just put our fingers in our ears and go 'la...la...la...not listening' is beginning to ebb away somewhat.

But that's just the View From My Chair as I see it.

[meldrewreborn]

Originally Posted by Hedwig

@retrotecchie the US and China produce the most greenhouse gases. Our efforts in the UK make little difference. Global warming happens in the absence of human presence. Look what happened to the poor woolly mammoths. We are just being charged extortionate fees to keep the rich man rich. They want us to pay back all the money we saved during the Covid lockdowns. They don't want the common man accumulating any type of wealth. Many of us will die of cold this winter because we cannot afford these high bills. If I was dying to save the planet, I could cope with that, but I will die due to corporate greed. This is not right.

the earth has been through repeated cycles of heating and cooling but on much longer timescales than the present warming phase. It is the increase in certain gases in the atmosphere which causes the warming and the sharp increase in those gases is due to human activity - nothing else.
energy suppliers are not making huge profits, indeed the Government bailout of just one supplier Bulb has cost £6.5bn in the last year. So while energy prices are high, it’s the generators and oil and gas giants that are making money. The government has taken as much action as possible to help customers with their bills through a number of actions, indeed the truss EPG cost so much that the markets took fright. At the end of the day it’s our fingers on the thermostat or off/on switch, and our decisions that drive our bills.

there was a story on the BBC about somebody who only had 30p on their prepayment meter. I think people on prepayment meters get a raw deal generally, but then I saw that this person owed their energy company £11,000. So the person hadn’t been paying their bills for some time previously. It’s everybody else who picks up the tab in those cases and some think more should be done to prevent such bills piling up.

[Beki]

there was a story on the BBC about somebody who only had 30p on their prepayment meter. I think people on prepayment meters get a raw deal generally, but then I saw that this person owed their energy company £11,000. So the person hadn’t been paying their bills for some time previously. It’s everybody else who picks up the tab in those cases and some think more should be done to prevent such bills piling up.

It's really interesting that you bring this up because a lot of the time, the news will report on these things and only tell half the story. This customer could have also asked for discretionary credit multiple times, never paid a penny to their meter and also not sought the financial help they needed and that we offered. These are some of the toughest decisions and conversations that we have to make with customers at times.

One of the answers to the climate crisis will be to reduce energy consumption. Be conscious of the energy that you use and keep your costs low.

But what about reducing other things too? We are a commercial society, social media dependent and glutinous in so many ways.
Supporting the artisans of the UK, buying local, 100% British food and produce. This is where I go on a tangent about commercial Christmases 🤐

[retrotecchie]

@Beki_EONNext

Given a choice, I would far prefer it if Christmas was the same as the Olympics or the World Cup. Every four years, and held somewhere differently each time.

Watch it on TV if you must...

Humbug, me, see? 😉

[Beki]

@retrotecchie I'm not sure that I could go 4 years personally. I love the feeling of Christmas time, rather than Christmas itself.
Tbh, it's the only time of the year that I get to see some of my family.

Last year, we raided the 2nd hand bookshops and bought every member of our family, from the newborns to the elders a book. Something that was personal to them and we wrapped them in reused paper & homemade paper tags/bows. A sprig of spruce or rosemary, because well, why not? And it felt like the BEST and most authentic 'thank yous' from the family.