cannuck

AND governments all over the place are doing so with my grandchildren's tax dollars. Meanwhile, nobody looking at or spending a nickel on fixing the actual problems, just devising more expensive and less sustainable ways of making a fast buck doing the same things that got us in this position in the first place Any time you want to understand human behaviour, just use the Golden Rule and follow the money.

the thousands of people who drove and still drive their Lupos would certainly not agree with you (and your obviously totally uninformed opinion).

Our diesel VWs, Audi and Ram meet 100% of our needs all day, every day. Things no electric can or will ever be able to do with current battery technology. If we are travelling each and every one can easily rack up 1,000 kms. at very illegal speeds and any weather. If you want to see useless: hook your Tesla to a trailer in the winter and see how far you can go.

Then we have "the Settlers". Hardly an element of seeking peace.

As I understand it, Palestine refuses to accept the two state model as that would recognize that Israel exists. Similarly, Israel would like Palestine to just go away, so there isn't a lot of traction there either.

Interesting to see what the media brings to this situation. Biggest laugh is suiting up reporters in flack vests and helmets to look the part - when the film crew are all in shorts and T shirts. My wife picked up on another detail yesterday. Looking at pictures on the streets of Gaza everyone seems to have enough nutrition and water to be alive, wearing clean clothes, speaking on their cell phones, chain smoking cigarettes and DRIVING THEIR CARS. How do you do that having no food, fuel, water, electricity, etc. for 3 weeks???

So far, Li Ion battery recycling is in its infancy from what I understand. But the 6L/100km is pure nonsense. VW sold the "3 litre Lupo) decades ago (name is not engine displacement, but 3L/100kms fuel consumption). I can tell you from personal experience the BTE of ICEs is no where near the end of its development/improvement. A lot of really exciting work going on. Worth noting: EVERYTHING so far in this thread is all about devising newer, more expensive, more polluting ways of doing more of the same things that got us into this mess in the first place. Any real effort to protect our sustainability starts with how to do LESS or NONE of the foregoing.

Late to the party, but not exactly outside of this topic. Interesting to want to look at the climate change thing as a component of human/group behaviour as it relates to politics. There certainly IS a problem there that seldom gets addressed. First there has to be some kind of prioritization of things we know are actually "the problem" and things we know might be some kind of "solution". Political processes are one of the worst devices of mankind to deal with such important things. Most of all, one needs to identify what is the driving mechanism of political policy and action. IMHO the top of the list is realizing that politics is 99% about assigning privilege - most of the time for the financial benefit or at least perceived benefit of those in power or those who hold sway over them. The end result is that politics becomes the smokescreen for the truth while the politicos scrap over who gets to benefit from what policies and actions. We know that climate is changing - not a big surprise since it has done so for billions of years. The question is the anthropomorphic contribution. Since politicos are anything but objective scientists, they feed on whatever public opinion evolves or is influenced by circumstance. The so called "green" movement has gained a life of its own based on the profitability and profile of those who benefit from scaring people and government into financing their fear-based programmes with knee-jerk reactions. When you get millions sucked into this distortion of reality the politicos have little choice but to jump on the bandwagon to stay in public favour. Then you get economic activity happening, not because of real market forces, but because of the inrush of cash from people, companies (who have to show a public green face to maintain their perceived position) and the technical base grows from the core of people doing hard science into the mass of bodies recruited to nod their technical heads to the tune of the hysterical initiators and now you have an economically driven massive inertia that sings off of the original song sheet. Politicos have little choice or skills to look any further. All of this serves as a genuine if not conscious mask of the real problems. #1 above all else is our contribution to all environmental damage is directly proportional to population x wealth. Few politicians have either the brains or the balls to go down that road. Nothing going to stop it. #2 is IMHO very close to the magnitude of #1 - damage to the oceans. We really do NOT have a carbon emissions problem, we have a carbon absorption one. We have damaged the biota of the oceans so badly the first genuine crisis will be the collapse of phytoplankton - that is by far the largest component of absorbing CO2 and emitting O2. Diatoms alone account for 42% of all of the oxygen in our atmosphere, but dying off at an alarming rate. Why? We are poisoning the oceans with multiple chemicals, the most significant in this case being plastics (the UV blockers and plasticizers at top of the list). Quick, easy, SIMPLE solution is to stop making and using these things NOW - not to demonize carbon to deviate from solving the real problems. Instead we get politicos throwing hundreds of billions of tax and incentive driven dollars at total BS such as Li Ion battery powered vehicles. In other words: fining more expensive, equally damaging and unsustainable ways of doing more of what is causing the problems in the first place. All at the cost of destroying the existing economic infrastructure to do more virtue signaling instead of addressing and fixing the actual underlying problems.

Almost right. It actually started in 1917 when Lord Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild (a Zionist) telling him England should give Jews a homeland in Palestine - all because England couldn't get enough acetone (almost all made in Germany at that time) to make enough gunpowder - but a prominent Zionist scientist could extract from IIRC walnuts. When the San Remo conference of 1920 was divying up the spoils and territories captured by the allied forces they gave admin of Palestine to UK and declared the Balfour letter to be policy. This was then re-iterated by the League of Nations and then the new United Nations after WWII. If blame needs to be spread around: it really goes back to Rome in 135/6 who threw the Jews out of their homeland.

Being familiar with MENA I concede that "elections" are more of a show than reality - mostly because one the Ayatollah or their front group runs for office opposing them is likely to cost your life. I think I was quite clear that I do NOT condone the tactics of either side in this conflict, but pointing out the harsh reality that once you start a war you really need to be ready for the response coming from your declared enemy. What is a shame is that the problems with Palestine go back to the mess left by Rome in 136, England in 1917/47, the Ottoman empire before, UN in 1948, and so on. All of these things imposed upon Palestinians (including the Jews) by outside occupying forces. Sticking a mouse in a cage with a cat pretty much determines how things will end.

Shooting your own troops is not what an army in good shape is going to be doing. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67234144 I think Moonbox has a pretty realistic grasp of conditions in Russia today. I have a very good friend from Russia (PhD in nuclear physics) and another American (PhD in cultural anthropology) who was in Moscow from the start of Gorbachev into early Yeltsin and I can tell you there are a lot of very smart people there, but the results of a communist system followed by what has devolved into an oligarchy and then a simply corrupt dictatorship are an anathema to the will and well being of the people and the country.

I am not condoning either side's actions, but have to observe that you misspoke about "defenseless people". Palestinians elected Hamas, Hamas is a military organization and their ELECTED political leaders - who therefore are responsible to defend Gaza. Instead they are hiding behind the skirts of women and nurseries of children and continuing to attack Israel rather than defend Gaza. If they had any balls they would be standing along the border. The sole, simple and very sad fact is that if you are going to start (or escalate) a war, you had better be prepared to finish it.

Uh.....sorry to have to correct that. Our neighbour to the North was for decades "on the other side" as they are once again due to Ukraine. They violate our sovereignty in the Arctic regularly. Our neighbour to the South was once at war with and invaded. Only Iceland (i.e. Greenland) has never offended our state.

As I have clearly stated, but some readers don't seem to comprehend: I can not and will not choose "sides" in this matter. There is enough bad blood to go around for both parties. Israel and Pakistan were created by the same mechanism, but not for the same reasons. While Israel exists legally, so does Palestine, but the "settlers" are a clear violation of that sovereignty. What it comes down to, once again as I have clearly stated is how far back occupancy confers "rights" to territory somewhere down the road. If it is in the 2k year range, Israel is "right" morally and ethically. That then begs the question of how much further back one can go and that applies to the rest of the world.

You would have to ask a bunch of Arab states who would rank where on that list when it comes to absorbing Palestinians. Irrelevant as they already HAVE their own territory.