Dilip Simeon's blog

GRETA THUNBERG: Time Person of the Year Thunberg is 16 but looks 12. She usually wears her light brown hair pulled into two braids, parted in the middle. She has Asperger’s syndrome, which means she doesn’t operate on the same emotional register as many of the people she meets. She dislikes crowds; ignores small talk; and speaks in direct, uncomplicated sentences. She cannot be flattered or distracted. She is not impressed by other people’s celebrity, nor does she seem to have interest in her own growing fame. But these very qualities have helped make her a global sensation. Where others smile to cut the tension, Thunberg is withering. Where others speak the language of hope, Thunberg repeats the unassailable science: Oceans will rise. Cities will flood. Millions of people will suffer. Greta Thunberg  sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her  across the Atlantic Ocean . Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded globe, a child’s yellow rai...

'The beginning of great change': Greta Thunberg hails school climate strikes The global strike on 15 March is expected to be the biggest yet with mobilisations in 150 cities. “It is not acceptable that grown-ups are destroying the future right now,” said Jakob Blasel, a high-school student. “Our goal to stop coal power in Germany and fossil energy everywhere.” Greta Thunberg is hopeful the student climate strike on Friday can bring about positive change, as young people in more and more countries join the protest movement she started last summer as a lone campaigner outside the Swedish parliament. The 16-year-old welcomed the huge mobilisation planned in the UK, which follows demonstrations by tens of thousands of school and university students in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Japan and more than a dozen other countries.  Seamus Heaney’s Advice to the Young. BY MARIA POPOVA War Resisters International - Tactics for Combating Militarism (2013) // St...

Davos 2020: Greta Thunberg demands urgent action on climate emergency – Day One live Greta Thunberg  cites the IPCC report on climate change from 2018, which explained how few years are left to act if there’s a 67% chance of keeping the global temperature rise to below 1.5%.  With today’s emissions levels, the remaining budget is gone in less than eight years.  These aren’t anyone’s views, this is the science.  Thunberg adds that such forecasts doesn’t include feedback loops and tipping points, and also often assume that “future generations will somehow suck hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere, even though such technology doesn’t exist yet.”  She tells Davos:  I’ve been repeating these numbers at nearly every speech I’ve given for the last 18 months.  I know you don’t want to report about these numbers, but I’ll keep saying them until you do, Thunberg concludes.... https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2020/jan/21/d...

Over the past few days, something extraordinary has happened in our politics. A bunch of grown men have begun bullying a schoolgirl. Perhaps you already know who I mean:  Greta Thunberg , she of the pigtails and school strikes, who came to Westminster last week and  slammed adoring MPs  for posturing rather than taking action on climate breakdown, then hoofed it over to St Pancras for the 36-hour  train ride  back to Stockholm. More posts on Greta Thunberg Which left the eco-denialists back here with a stonking great headache: how to bash this 16-year-old celeb? Not by dismantling her arguments, not when the scientists and  Sir David  of Blue Planet back her up. Nor by sniffing around her record, since by definition a teenager hasn’t much of a past to rake over. The standard methods of political warfare off-limits to them, they are trying something new and unusual. They are sinking their teeth into her. She was  “chilling” , declared Br...

Donald Trump’s presidency has ushered in an era of unprecedented polarisation between Republican and Democrat lawmakers when it comes to voting on measures to tackle the climate crisis, while the fossil fuel industry now almost entirely favours  Republicans  in campaign contributions. The two main US political parties regularly voted along the same lines on clean air and clean water provisions in the 1970s but started to diverge in the 1990s. They now occupy opposite ends of the spectrum, according to data collated by the nonpartisan group the  League of Conservation Voters   Amid Trump’s zeal for environmental deregulation and an unfolding climate crisis that is now  more divisive than abortion  for many Americans, this polarisation is at record levels. Since Trump’s election,  Democrats  across Congress have voted for pro-environment legislation 92% of the time on average, compared with 5% for Republicans, according to an analysis by LCV. I...

Australia is the third biggest fossil fuel exporter, has high emissions and plans to use a loophole to meet its pledges. Don’t let them stay in the background. When it comes to climate change, Australia really struggles. With high emissions, even higher fossil fuel exports, harsh climate impacts (like the current unprecedented bush fires) and weak climate action. Australia’s response is to just keep on digging (literally – which is why it remains the world’s largest coal exporter). To understand this disconnect you have go deeper into the land down under.   From disbelief to dread: the dismal new routine of life in Sydney's smoke haze (This is worth reading: please do so, to get an idea of what environmental catastrophe feels like) Australia is the 14th largest emitter of greenhouse gases out of the 196 parties to the Paris Agreement. But apparently being in the top 10% doesn’t mean much to Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison, who claims Australia is  ...

The World Resources Institute, a global research group, found that 147 million people will be hit by floods from rivers and coasts annually by the end of the decade, compared with 72 million people just 10 years ago. Damages to urban property will soar from $174bn to $712bn per year.  By 2050, “the numbers will be catastrophic,” according to the report. A total of 221 million people will be at risk, with the toll in cities costing $1.7tn yearly. When WRI first developed its flood modeling tool in 2014, the predictions felt “like a fantasy”, said Charlie Iceland, director of water initiatives at WRI. “But now we’re actually seeing this increase in magnitude of the damages in real time,” Iceland said. “We’ve never seen these types of floods before.” Floods are getting worse because of the climate crisis, decisions to populate high-risk areas and land sinkage from the overuse of groundwater. The worst flooding will come in south and south-east Asia, including in Bangladesh, Vie...

NB : It comes as a relief for many Indians, not just that this innocent young woman has been granted bail, but that the judicial conscience is still alive, as evident in the appropriate remarks by this Additional Sessions Judge. What remains of deep concern is why and how our police has been allowed to get to this point. I recall the transfer of Justice Muralidhar almost exactly a year ago soon after he asked the Delhi Police to register cases against BJP leaders who had made hate speeches prior to the Delhi riots of 2020.  What also should cause anguish to all persons with any sense of decency, regardless of political affiliation, is the disgusting communal and misogynist trolling of this young woman; as reported in this comment in Madras Courier . If any proponents of the RSS/BJP read this, I would like them to consult their consciences and reflect on the kind of mentality reflected and being promoted by this abuse and hatred. Is this really your vision and ideal of Indian cult...

NB: 42,480 Indian farmers and daily-wage workers dependent on agriculture committed suicide in 2019 ; 28 Indians dependent on farming commit suicide every day  (some estimates are much higher).  About 300,000 famers had committed suicide by 2014; we can estimate how many more have killed themselves since then. There is also the suspicion the figures are higher than various state governments admit.  The government has stopped publishing data on farmer suicides after 2015. In the face of this calamity, our celebrity twits get galvanised into action only when Rihanna notices the kisan agitation. What a pathetic joke.  DS Rihanna and Greta prompt an MEA outburst — and a hashtag firestorm In a highly unusual move that has raised eyebrows, the government Wednesday slammed “celebrities and others” for their comments in support of farmer protests, calling them “neither accurate nor responsible”. This came after pop icon  Rihanna , teenage climate activist  Greta ...

Evidence in the in the public domain points to Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old environmental activist, being just that - young and an activist. In an online interview, eight months ago, she talks, in sentences that end with a rising intonation, as if her sentences are questions, about causes ranging from climate change to feminism. Evidence in the public domain also suggests Delhi Police - which arrested Ravi in a case filed against unnamed persons for sedition and conspiracy over a “toolkit” tweeted by climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on the farmers’ protest on February 3 - has weaponised what is a typical advocacy document.  Bharat Bhushan: No one critical of the government seems to be innocent any longer / Delhi Police arrests 22-year-old environmental activist, calls her key to foreign hand Naxalites should lay down their arms and challenge the ruling class to abide by the Constitution And that the Centre, to whom Delhi Police answers, is ratcheting up rhetoric of a shadowy inte...

Greta Thunberg  and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry.  The  criticism of striking students  by the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with extreme weather. Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of  Opec , said there was a growing mass mobilisation of world opinion against oil, which was “beginning to … dictate policies and corporate decisions, including investment in the industry”. He said the pressure was also being felt within the families of Opec officials because their own children “are asking us about their future because … they see their peers on the streets campaigning against this industry”.  Although he accused the campaigners of misleading people w...