Gregor Fisher's Steak Pie

 

Even after all these years

Even after all these years, the language used at COP31 speeches still surprises me. How does an adult with a modicum of self respect stand at a lectern before global media and an audience of other adults yet emit the kind of twaddle we get every year? 

Where is the self-respect in this fairly typical Guardian piece? I've extracted some of the twaddle, but it's all twaddle and it's demeaning for anyone, any institution, any government taking it seriously. Yes it's grotesquely dishonest and many COP31 attendees won't take it seriously, but that's demeaning too. We are all lessened by it. 

‘The world we know is over’ without urgent climate action, leaders tell COP31

Failure to provide an overwhelming response to the climate crisis
the president of the embattled Marshall Islands has warned,
an impassioned speech at Cop31
overshooting the 1.5C Paris temperature target
waves eating away their shores
floods that destroy towns, schools and hospitals.
“It’s time to wake up,” said Heine
governments who had “not tried hard enough”
The UN tells us
we are heading for 2.6 degrees
Let me be plain: overshoot is not a new target

Finally we have this desperate nonsense from António Guterres -

“We need an extraordinary acceleration,” Guterres said. “Our planet is heating up. The clock is winding down. It’s make or bake time.

“Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” he added. “And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby – fossil fuels do.”

Burnham commits to something he can't alter and doesn't understand

Burnham commits to 2050 net zero target and working with others to reach theirs

Andy Burnham has said “Britain is back and ready to play its full part” in tackling climate change in a “new era” of leadership over the next decade as he addressed the UN Cop31 summit in Turkey.

Amid accusations that his Government is deprioritising the green agenda, the Prime Minister recommitted to hitting its 2050 net zero target and to working with other countries to reach theirs.

Attending the annual climate gathering for the first time as Prime Minister on Thursday, he warned that the “climate crisis is upon all of us now” after a “not normal” summer of extreme heat, wildfires and drought.

“The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it is upon us all now, devastating lives and livelihoods everywhere,” he said.

As far as Team Burnham is concerned, this isn't about the global climate and an imaginary catastrophe. By 2050, Burnham will be 80 years old and 2050 may as well be the next century or the realm of the Magic Faraway Tree. 

It's an opportunity to be seen up there on a global bandwagon which still rumbles along even though it only has three wheels. Nobody knows where it is going anyway, apart from more expense, futility and global racketeering.

 

Some things are predictable, some thing aren't

2026
King warns COP31 delegates of need to turn ambition into action

The King has urged delegates at the Cop31 climate summit to turn ambition into action, warning the need has never been “more urgent”.

World leaders are meeting in Antalya, Turkey, at the UN’s annual international conference to set out agreements on how to tackle climate change.

2009
100 months to act on climate, warns Charles

The Prince of Wales is to issue a warning that the world has only "100 months to act" before the damage caused by global warming becomes irreversible.

As part of a tour of South America, his speech to business leaders in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday will echo predictions made by climate change experts who believe there are about eight years left to cut C02 emissions. He will warn that failure to act urgently could have catastrophic effects for the planet.

We must mix with the herd

Tories pull five points ahead of Reform

The Conservatives have pulled five points ahead of Reform UK in an opinion poll as the battle for the Right intensifies.

A poll of 2,013 people by More in Common has Kemi Badenoch’s party on 25 per cent – up two percentage points on the previous week – and Reform on 20 per cent, down two.

On Monday, the Tories also overtook Reform in The Telegraph’s poll tracker, which aggregates approved opinion polls, for the first time in almost two years.


Yes! we must mix with the herd; we must enter into their feelings; we must humour their weaknesses; we must sympathise with the sorrows that we do not feel; and share the merriment of fools.

Benjamin Disraeli – Vivian Grey (1826)

A comprehensive framework of actual malice

Florida court rules Donald Trump’s defamation case against BBC can proceed

A Florida court has dismissed the BBC’s attempt to have US President Donald Trump’s 10 billion dollar (£7.5 billion) defamation claim against the broadcaster thrown out.

Mr Trump is seeking substantial damages in a Florida court over the editing of a 2024 Panorama documentary about the US Capitol riots.

The documentary faced criticism for giving the impression Mr Trump had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol building on January 6 2021 after he lost the 2020 White House race to Joe Biden.

It is interesting and very common to see politically adverse events toned down by language in the media. This piece is a good example - "The documentary faced criticism". The "criticism" in this case is a £7.5 billion defamation claim. We have the BBC doing it too, in a typically BBC manner -

The BBC had been seeking to have the case thrown out, warning of the “chilling effect” it would have on “robust reporting on public figures and events”.

Again, the “chilling effect” is the prospect of financial annihilation. Fully deserved in my view, but unfortunately an out of court settlement is far more likely.

The court gave another description of this example of "robust reporting" - 

The court documents state: “Trump has plausibly alleged a comprehensive framework of actual malice by alleging the context in which the speech was edited along with a long list of circumstantial evidence to support a showing of actual malice with respect to theedit. [sic]”

How to be Tiresome - Lesson 496

Greta Thunberg warns everything we love is at stake as she arrives at UN climate talks

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived at U.N. climate talks on Tuesday, condemning the annual proceedings as hypocritical and urging leaders to put people and the planet ahead of profits and power.

The COP31 conference is being held in the Turkish resort city of Antalya following a year of deadly climate-related disasters, including heat waves and floods, and another energy shock caused by the Iran war.

“It’s a hypocrisy every year that the host countries are given an opportunity to whitewash themselves and we know that these negotiations are filled with lobbyists, paid by the very destructive industries which are benefiting from our extremely violent status quo,” Thunberg said as she arrived. “Our political and economic systems that have become incompatible with human nature.”


Strewth - the bone-aching tedium of it all, year after year, the impenetrable dullness of the fanatic. Unfortunately this is part of human nature too.

I think I'll wander off into the kitchen for a biscuit and a cup of tea, even two biscuits.