What the COP agreement says:

The decision text from Cop28 has been greeted as “historic”, for being the first ever call by nations for a “transition away” from fossil fuels, and as “weak and ineffectual” and containing a “litany of loopholes” for the fossil fuel industry. 

First ever call to do something they have no intention of doing.

The text states the huge challenge with crystal clarity:

Limiting global warming to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels] with no or limited overshoot requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. [Countries] further recognise the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5C pathways.

The problem is that carbon emissions are not plunging as required – they are still rising. So the text on action is vital.

Well, the text on action is vital if it can change anything, but can it? Nobody is doing anything resembling deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. If they were there wouldn’t be all these billions of cars on the streets and planes in the skies and ships on the seas.

Accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power.

This is no stronger than the text from Cop26 in 2021, which is disappointing as the dirtiest fossil fuel must unquestionably be phased out rapidly. 

There’s a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks near where I live. I cross it often to get to the park where the grain terminal is, on the edge of Elliott Bay. If a train is going by I like to watch it doing so from above…except sometimes what it’s hauling is 50 or 60 or however many it is cars full to the brim of…coal. It’s like a horror movie.

Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.

Extraordinary as it might seem, this is the first time the root cause of the climate crisis – fossil fuels – have been cited in a decision text in nearly 30 years of UN climate talks. But “transitioning away” is weaker than “phasing out”. The latter was supported by 130 countries but fiercely opposed by petrostates. In the real world, fossil fuels are actually being phased up, with many new fields being exploited. Is “transitioning away” a strong enough signal to halt these investments? Probably not, but at least the direction of travel is finally clear.

“Probably not” is quite the understatement.

Progress.

One of the UK’s largest private hospital groups has guaranteed its patients same sex care, prompting calls for the NHS to follow suit. HCA has rewritten its policies to promise that patients will be provided with intimate care by a staff member of the same “sex” rather than the same “gender”. This means that a trans woman could not provide personal care to a female patient unless that patient has given express consent or in emergency situations.

It comes after the hospital was forced to apologise to patient Teresa Steele for cancelling her operation when she requested that only biological women were [would be] involved in her intimate care.

Remember that? October last year? They cancelled the day before the operation and thus caused her horrific problems including months of pain.

HCA is believed to be one of the first major healthcare providers in the UK to offer this guarantee, and the move has led to pressure on the NHS to do the same.

Many NHS trusts offer care based on gender, as opposed to sex, and particular concern has been raised about a policy that allows biological men to be placed on female-only wards on the basis of their self-defined gender identity.

Way to make women terrified to get medical treatment.

Ms Steele is now working with a newly founded group called Caring About Dignity to support women who “like me have been victimised for asking for same sex care”. She said that the NHS particularly “operate self-ID policies which resemble those of the Scottish prison system”

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said that the policy change was “extremely welcome”.

“The news of guaranteed same-sex care will bring much relief to HCA patients and those NHS patients fortunate enough to be referred there,” she said.

But not NHS patients not fortunate enough to be referred there. Get a move on, NHS.

Originally a comment by Rob on Just sprinkle in a few sustainability coordinators.

A long time ago Kim Stanley Robinson wrote about this. He called it Götterdämmerung* Capitalism. He made the point that free market Capitalism will never surrender a resource or technique for exploiting the resource no matter how inefficient or dire the consequences until it is economically imperative that it does so. Really, you say, but we live in a capitalist society and companies adopt practices to look after the environment and reduce emissions. That’s true, but it’s only because regulations have actually forced that on them over decades of incremental change – pushed by activists and researchers working to change both societal and governmental attitudes.

For large and complex problems, especially with long lead times, the free market is woeful. Action has to be taken by governments to regulate responses from both companies and individuals. In democracies we tend to vote that kind of ‘nanny state’ or ‘socialism/marxism’ down. Non-democracies tend not to do it unless forced to because they rely on a complacent population to keep their heads. Fifty years ago we might have got ahead of the curve enough to blunt the effects. Now we’re going to spend the next 10-20 years arguing while doing almost nothing, and the next 40 years fighting vicious wars over dwindling supplies of food and water in habitable parts of the globe. it’s a huge shame. A crime really. Because even now if we acted globally we could at least avoid most of the wars.

* “Twilight of the gods.” Figuratively, the term is extended to situations of world-altering destruction marked by extreme chaos and violence.

Originally a comment by iknklast on Magical solutions.

It’s interesting his notation about sustainability and corporations. I realized quite a long time ago that most sustainability coordinators/directors/whatever, are very much on track with corporate free market agendas, and the only solutions I’ve ever heard have been very business friendly, and very climate hostile, while singing the praises of green this and green that.

I suspect the rise of the sustainability coordinator is less a signal of corporate commitment to fighting climate change and more a commitment to doing nothing. Any time Congress started rattling the swords of possible regulations, the businesses could point to their sustainability department and crow about their free market commitment to sustainability, helping to stave off any new regulations so they could keep doing business as usual but with a nice coat of greenwashing.

Congress would have no trouble accepting that, because most of the representatives and senators are more than happy to deregulate or not impose new regulations. Voters can be swayed by an opponent pointing to new regulations, saying “this cost taxpayers [fill in astronomically large price] for what? Something that won’t feed you or put clothes on your back or gas in your car.” Then voters go to the polls, misinformed…or maybe half informed, but most regulations do not cost what the anti-regulation propaganda says it will, and often does more than they say it will. The problem is, most of what it does is unseen by the average voter, so it looks like wasting money to them

So they put in sustainability coordinators, sign agreements with bodies made up of corporations to show their commitment, and change nothing. And Congress (Parliament, etc…fill in legislating body of your preference) is happy to believe them.

Auden Schendler is the senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen One and the author of the forthcoming book Terrible Beauty: Reckoning With Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul. He wrote about the futile “magical solutions floating out of Dubai” in the Times:

I have spent my career working on climate change — not theoretically but in the trenches, crawling under trailers to insulate them under a federal government program to help low-income families conserve energy, building solar farms, capturing methane from coal mines, bolstering the climate movement through various nonprofit boards and crafting policy at the state and municipal levels. I served as a state regulator and an elected town councilman.

I have also spent 25 years in the field of corporate sustainability, trying to figure out how business might become a meaningful part of the climate solution. Over time, I came to understand that the ethic being applied — the idea that free markets can solve societal problems and that even a monstrosity like climate change can be fixed without regulation — was a ruse that I had bought into, realizing that fraud only late in the game.

Free markets probably can solve some societal problems, but all of them? Hardly. This one? Oh hell no.

As the global climate summit in Dubai has unspooled, I’ve read inexplicably cheerful social media posts from colleagues and friends, climate leaders I admire and total unknowns at COP28, the Conference of the Parties — which I’ve come to call the party at the end of the world. These “Look, Ma!” posts strike me as forced, naïve at best, trending toward willful blindness and delusion.

One “breakthrough” being lauded includes a purely voluntary commitment by fossil fuel companies to better capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas we absolutely must contain.

Well you see if it’s not purely voluntary it’s not the free market, and then where would we be?

For fossil fuel companies, committing to containing methane leaking from their pipelines and wellheads is a way for those businesses to appear beneficent while continuing to traffic in oil and gas. It is that very trafficking that causes the leakage that must be regulated, even as scientists tell us the essential action required to control warming is to stop burning coal, oil and gas.

Aw come on. They say they’ll fix the leaks. Surely that ought to be enough for you people??

At the same time, there were glimmers of hope. As the climate conference began, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced comprehensive new rules to regulate methane in the United States, at least. There are also plans to create a fund to help vulnerable nations hit by climate disasters, and to set a goal of tripling the amount of renewable power worldwide by 2030 (if high interest rates don’t derail that objective). There were also calls for a full fossil fuel phaseout.

But that proposed phaseout rattled the conference hosts in Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s leading oil producers. It is ramping up oil production. The idea was quickly scuttled. The head of the OPEC cartel called on its members to reject any plan that would threaten the production and sale of oil, gas and coal. And it was no idle threat: All 198 participating nations must consent to any agreement.

You don’t see the cruise industry phasing itself out either.

It’s not going to happen.

Oh we can’t do that.

A statement delivered by the Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, on behalf of what’s known as the umbrella group of countries, came as tensions flared at the United Arab Emirates over the text of a draft deal proposed by the summit presidency.

Released early on Monday evening local time, the draft avoided highly contentious calls for a “phase-out” or “phase-down” of fossil fuels in an attempt to find consensus from nearly 200 countries that have been meeting in Dubai for nearly a fortnight.

Sssshhhh don’t mention fossil fuels. Touchy subject.

Some observers welcomed elements of the draft, including the first mention in a Cop text of reducing fossil fuel production, but others were scathing, describing it as “grossly insufficient” and “incoherent”.

Cedric Schuster of Samoa, the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”

Bowen referred to Schuster’s statement in his intervention in a later meeting between government representatives and the UAE summit president, Sultan Al Jaber. He was speaking on behalf of the umbrella group of countries, which also includes New Zealand, Norway, Israel, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

“My friend Cedric Schuster, the Samoan minister, said tonight of this draft that we will not sign our death certificates,” Bowen said. “That’s what’s at stake for many countries who are represented here tonight and many people who do not have a voice. We will not be a co-signatory to those death certificates.”

…

Instead of requiring producers to cut their fossil fuel output, the draft framed such reductions as optional by calling on countries to “take actions that could include” reducing fossil fuels. Some country groups, including the EU, indicated it could lead them to walk out of the talks if not addressed.

While many countries wanted the text strengthened, climate campaigners feared that others such as Saudi Arabia and its oil producing allies in Opec might use the final hours to try to further weaken the draft. The Saudis have spent the meeting insisting the document should refer to dealing with emissions, not fossil fuels.

Because without fossil fuels Saudi Arabia is a sandy spot on the globe.

I keep ranting about cruise ships, no doubt partly because I can see them from here for about six months of every year. I should start ranting about gigantic yachts, too.

There is much more at stake in this burgeoning market than these yachts’ purchase prices. Megayachts are an increasing blight on our societies, and the world would be better off without them.

First and foremost, owning a megayacht is the most polluting activity a single person can possibly engage in. Abramovich’s yachts emit more than 22,000 tonnes of carbon every year, which is more than some small countries. Even flying long-haul every day of the year, or air-conditioning a sprawling palace, would not get close to those emissions levels.

And all for what? Fun. Pleasure. Entertainment. It’s like burning down Yosemite to toast some marshmallows.

How about a global law against building them?

In the case of nuclear weapons, our collective safety has been advanced by nonproliferation treaties, which undermine the spread of missiles and encourage their gradual withdrawal. Some activists, academics and policymakers have argued that the approach should now be applied to fossil fuels, which pose just as grave a threat to our future. A megayacht nonproliferation treaty would see countries agreeing to stop building vessels beyond a specific size.

Any effective approach will also have to target existing yachts, though, and not only new ones. Their outsized carbon footprint means that megayachts are catastrophic contributors to the climate crisis simply by virtue of existing.

But the people who could draw up such a treaty probably all want to be guests on some of those yachts themselves.

I thought I was going to be able to share this Guardian piece about ferocious abortion restrictions in Arizona as just that, but alas it was not to be. About halfway through:

Amid the confusion, some Arizona abortion providers resumed work in July 2022. But in September, a court reinstated the 1864 ban. For about two weeks, until a state appeals court order halted the ban, abortion providers were once again unable to offer the procedure.

What is clear is that abortions are currently outlawed past 15 weeks in Arizona. A near-total ban, Taylor said, would push pregnant people in the state to a breaking point.

Thud. Sigh.

I wonder if that really is what she said. I wonder if the Guardian changed one little word for her.

“We have an exploding homeless and drug-using population here,” Taylor said. She added that she was starting to see people terminate pregnancies they would otherwise keep out of fear of something going wrong later in pregnancy when an abortion would not be legal. “To have people be forced to continue pregnancies and bear children without the resources to help – I just think we’re creating conditions of misery.”

The consequences of a near-total ban in Arizona could also reverberate across the south-west. While most of Goodrick’s patients are from Arizona, she estimates that about 10 to 20 Texans come to her clinic each month for abortions.

Such creativity – people, patients, Texans.

One of the justices who was originally set to rule on the 1864 ban, Bill Montgomery, said in a 2017 Facebook post that Planned Parenthood “is responsible for the greatest genocide known to man”, the Phoenix New Times reported in 2019. Montgomery has also said that abortion should only be allowed when a pregnancy threatens someone’s health or life and that the “unborn are entitled to the same degree of protection as anyone else”.

Someone’s health or life? But whose? Some random person in North Dakota, perhaps?

Oddly, though, the Guardian does allow the w word the last word – the very last paragraph of the longish article is:

“It would definitely push us over the edge. My motto would be just burn it all down,” Goodrick said. “I really, truly believe that the people of Arizona do not want a total ban. We’re not going to go back to 1864, where women were property.”

Not patients, not people, not Texans; women.

I hope Giuliani is sweating even more than he was that time the hair dye ran down his face.

How much should it cost to defame two innocent citizens in the service of a dangerous fallacy that sought to undermine a U.S. presidential election?

That’s the question jurors are set to answer in the defamation and conspiracy trial of former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. Jury selection took place on Monday in the federal district court in Washington, D.C.

This phase of the civil case centers on the penalty. District Judge Beryl Howell has already found Giuliani liable for defamation and civil conspiracy for repeatedly making false statements about two Georgia election workers: Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who are also mother and daughter.

Giuliani also admitted over the summer that, while working on behalf of former President Donald Trump, he spread lies about Freeman and Moss. He had previously said the women were caught on video pulling out “suitcases” of pro-Biden ballots. State and federal inquiries concluded there was no truth to the allegations, which Giuliani and his allies kept repeating.

What a pile of dung he is. That’s a horrible accusation, and they’re two obscure citizens doing their jobs, and oh by the way they’re not white. What an awful thing to do – all for the sake of helping the worst person in the world ruin everything for everyone.

Freeman and Moss say Giuliani inflicted emotional harm, damaged their reputations, and exposed them to death threats. They’re seeking tens of millions of dollars in punitive damages.

I hope they get them. I hope they bankrupt him.

Lauren Smith at Spiked:

Even if someone looks like a man, talks like a man and actually is a man, you can now get yourself in trouble if you refer to him as a man. 

That’s been true for at least ten years.

That’s the take-home message of last week’s social-media bust-up over Melissa Poulton, previously known as Matthew Viner.

Previously known as Matthew Viner because that was his name, presumably on all kinds of official documents and records. It’s his new handle that’s the alias, not his old one.

Poulton is a transwoman who has been selected as the Green Party’s candidate for Bromsgrove in the next UK General Election. He describes himself as a ‘proud lesbian’. Last week, Rachel Maclean, the MP for Redditch and deputy chair of the Conservative Party, shared a post on X that referred to Poulton as a ‘man who wears a wig’.

I wonder why the Greens selected him. Is he particularly electable, charismatic, effective, inspiring?

Poulton was then invited on to BBC News Midlands to respond to Maclean’s comments. 

Easy way to get onto the BBC, isn’t it – look ridiculous, tell silly lies, inspire someone to point out that you look ridiculous and tell silly lies and boom, you’re talking into a microphone.

As the Mail on Sunday reported earlier this year, Labour is considering making it an ‘aggravated offence’ to purposefully ‘misgender’ a trans person. Should Labour win the next election, people may soon face serious legal trouble, even imprisonment, for accurately describing a man like Poulton as a man.

It’s so churchy – so theocratic. You have to repeat the lies; you may not say they are lies; if you defy our rules we’ll torture you to death.

A new study has been commissioned.

University of Gloucestershire has been commissioned by UK Athletics (UKA) to lead an important new study around transgender athletes.

Experts from the University will consult with transgender athletes and advocacy groups to examine how the sport of athletics can be as inclusive and welcoming as possible.

The sport of athletics? What does that mean? Is there a single sport called “athletics”?

Pause to consult Google

Yes, there is.

Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross-country running, and racewalking.

Ok, got it. So, all stuff that relies on strength and size to do well.

So now the question becomes what do they mean by “how the sport of athletics can be as inclusive and welcoming as possible”?

Unfortunately, we know what they mean. They mean as inclusive and welcoming of men into women’s athletics as possible. That of course entails allowing men to destroy women’s athletics.

Why don’t experts consult with women athletes for a change, to find out how the sport of athletics can continue to have a place for women instead of being for men only? Why don’t they care about that?

BBC News Midlands puts down its brioche for a moment to fret about transphobic comment shock-horror.

“Melissa Poulton” used to be Matthew Viner.

The difference is his stunning bravery and brave stunnery!

The peasants are revolting!

Wait.

Qu’ils mange de la brioche!

Wait.

Boycott this bakery!

There you go.

Pains chocolats to the wall! Pains aux raisins along with them! Nothing but scones from here on out!

Now here is some good news.

A breath of sanity at last.

Biology according to Pink News:

Trans fems have periods too!

It’s true! Many trans-feminine people on estrogen experience menstrual cycles similar to that of people with uteruses due to gender-affirming treatment.

Because of the shift in hormones, several trans people on feminising doses have reported that they experience hormonal cycles consistent with premenstrual syndrome.

Symptoms have been noted to include feelings of anxiety, changes in appetite, mood swings, cramps, fatigue, and more. Bleeding is not part of the cycle for those assigned male at birth (AMAB).

You don’t say. If bleeding were part of the cycle, where would it come from and where would it go? Would it be chunks? Because, news flash, menstrual bleeding isn’t like bleeding from a knife cut; it has chunks. If men could bleed as “part of the cycle” then where would the chunks come from and what would they be?

And for any TERFs still reading – no, just because trans-feminine individuals don’t bleed doesn’t invalidate the factual things that are happening to their bodies.

Sure, bro, but just because trans-feminine individuals are sucking down the estrogen ≠ they are menstruating.

Now isn’t that charming.

And guess what, it’s not just a badge.

Hur hur. What could possibly go wrong? It’s never a problem when groups of people are called vermin, rats, infectious, diseased, filth. This is fine, this is normal, this is very enlightened and progressive and benevolent.

The relentless obfuscation is getting ridiculous.

Trans inmates can visit women’s prisons to prepare them for outside

The Times doesn’t mean “trans inmates”; it means male inmates who are or claim to be trans. The Times specifies female prisons but doesn’t specify male trans inmates – thus creating pointless confusion in its own headline. The Times presumably is not even captive to the ideology, so why on earth does it do this?

Prison executives in Scotland have ruled that transgender criminals can serve time in female jails to allow them to prepare for life as women on release, according to a report.

Male transgender criminals.

Even trans inmates deemed too dangerous to serve their sentences in women’s prisons may be allowed to mingle with female inmates. Women’s campaigners have branded the decision “outrageous”.

Last week the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) published new policy on the management of transgender prisoners, due to come into effect in February.

Critics argue that the door has been left open for trans women, including people [men] self-identifying as female who have convictions for violence against women, to serve their sentences in the female estate if there is “compelling evidence that they do not present an unacceptable risk of harm to those in the women’s prison”.

What could such “compelling evidence” be? Other than quadruple amputation?

The report says: “Transgender people in custody should be provided the opportunity and supported to work towards being accommodated in an estate that aligns with their affirmed gender so that, on release to the community, they have had the opportunity to live with those who share their affirmed gender.”

Does the report go on to say “Helpless women in custody should not be protected from the potential violence and abuse of delusional narcissistic men moving in with them”?

Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary, said: “The new policy on transgender prisoners effectively permits male sex offenders access to women’s prisons.

“In line with the SNP’s dangerous gender self-ID law, the rights of male-bodied sex criminals who say they are female are deemed more important than vulnerable women in custody.”

Conservatives get this while “progressives” do everything they can to conceal it.

Smug creep condescends to women who don’t think he should be the keynote speaker at an event to commemorate the murder of fourteen women for the crime of being women.

The choice to invite him wasn’t controversial because he’s trans, it was because he’s not a woman. He should, obviously, have declined the invitation and told the people who invited them that it’s a horrible idea to invite a man instead of a woman for this particular commemoration.

I don’t care. I don’t care what he believes. I don’t care what he believes deeply. I don’t care about him in any way. The people who invited him are far more to blame than he is, but he did accept the invitation and he should have politely declined it. That’s all. He himself is not significant.

Bahahahahahahaha

PS For even more laughs, the “transbians” pictured are actually women.

There’s freedom of speech, and there’s also truth. There’s a tension there.

The press and the news media generally have a duty to tell the truth, but it’s not a duty codified in a slogan the way “freedom of speech” is. Some news media of course don’t tell the truth, and know they don’t, and make big bucks by not telling the truth.

So. Is it a glorious moment for freedom of speech that Musk has allowed Alex Jones back on Twitter? Or is it a triumph of The Big Lie? Or is it both?

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has had his account on X – formerly Twitter – reinstated by Elon Musk.

Musk asked users to vote in a poll whether or not to lift a Jones ban pre-dating his ownership of the platform, signalling he would honour the result. Around 70% of roughly two million respondents voted to lift the ban.

Jones is most notorious for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults died, was “staged”. He was ordered to pay $1.5bn (£1.32bn) in damages to family members of the victims, after courts found he had caused them to be subjected to harassment and death threats with his false claims.

Jones of course pales into insignificance compared to Trump, who lies constantly and brazenly, and gains power and money by doing so.

But on Saturday Musk asked users to vote on whether or not Jones should be allowed to return – a repeat of the move which saw former US President Donald Trump’s account reinstated a month after Musk took over the firm. After Musk posted the poll, Jones shared a video online in which he called on his supporters to vote in favour of his ban being overturned. Jones’s old account was reinstated hours after the poll ended.

Responding to one user on Saturday, Musk said he “vehemently” disagreed with Jones’s statements about Sandy Hook, adding: “but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?”

Freedom of speech including lies? Including systematic deliberate destructive lies? I for one can’t say I “believe in” a freedom of that kind, but then I’m not a platform.

There’s also the fact that rich people have a whole lot more freedom to broadcast their lies than their victims and stooges do, and they also have a lot more protection from the consequences of their lies. The purported freedom is unevenly available to people depending on how rich, famous, powerful they are.

It’s that famous saying again – the rich and the poor alike are free to sleep under bridges.