Everywhere I turn there are COP stories. \u00a0Some of these are gloom-filled news items about President X not turning up, or Prime Minister Y. \u00a0Others are about the likelihood of the commitments \/ promises \/ pledges \/ etc made within the Nationally Determined Contributions \u00a0\u2013 NDCs \u2013 not being enough to keep Earth heating below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. \u00a0Well of course they won't be. \u00a0I gave up on 1.5 degrees in 2015. \u00a0But what about 2.0 degrees? \u00a0Will we be on track for that? \u00a0Probably not. \u00a0Let's not be tempted just to blame China and Russia.<\/p>\n
Other stories relate to strikes in Glasgow by bin-men<\/a> (aka bin-operatives) and others sensing an opportunity such as the railway workers<\/a>. \u00a0Lawyers, too, seem to be saying that they'll not be co-operating with the special courts set up to deal with public disorder offences from the zillions of protesters expected. \u00a0These \"forces of anarchy<\/a>\" were so well described by (ex-Major) Jimmy Anderson in the Reggie Perrin series that they need no further explication here.<\/p>\n A worry has to be about the way that all these meeting are organised is that protests just get in the way. \u00a0It's a distractive sideshow to the main event. \u00a0Some are intent on getting in the way though. \u00a0XR in particular whose mission it seems is to disrupt the city to \"highlight the problems\". \u00a0What self indulgence. \u00a0The 10,000 police on the streets will likely be busy, as will the bars.<\/p>\n Then there are the psychologically disturbed \u2013 Insult Britain\u00a0<\/em>I think they're called \u2013\u00a0who take a warped pleasure in gluing their hands to roads and sitting Buddah-like in front of ambulances and people driving to see their dying relatives. \u00a0They're going to be there, it seems, doing more sitting. \u00a0They should try coming to the village where I live and see what happens. \u00a0I suggest blocking the road outside the pub.<\/p>\n Happier news is that if I went to Glasgow by my private jet (currently lying idle) I could park it for free at Prestwick airport thanks to generous \u00a0Scottish government subsidies and incentives.<\/p>\n Most of the stories I read, of course, relate to educational events and activities in and around the COP. \u00a0That's because I spend far too much time looking at this sort of thing when I could be reading mind-expanding literature or spending more time \"in nature\" . \u00a0It's all very impressive I must say, but I do wonder what it's going to achieve. \u00a0No head of state is going to change their minds about their inadequate NDC, of course, but educational COP action isn't really about that. \u00a0Maybe it's more about hearts than minds. \u00a0Raising awareness, influencing values and attitudes, raising consciousness, and stimulating conscience; that sort of thing. \u00a0Let it be said, though, that there are lots of Brownie points to be had by being (and being seen) at this COP and we shouldn't underestimate that as a driver for organisations. \u00a0Very little, if any, educational effort will directly help address the issues that the COP is really all about. \u00a0How could it?<\/p>\n But I sense an optimism that the DfE will be making a (biggish) policy announcement or two around climate education in England. \u00a0These will have to be substantial to satisfy the pent-up demand and growing expectation. \u00a0The DfE\u00a0strategy launch by the Secretary of State takes place on Sat 06 November. \u00a0More details when available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everywhere I turn there are COP stories. \u00a0Some of these are gloom-filled news items about President X not turning up, or Prime Minister Y. \u00a0Others are about the likelihood of the commitments \/ promises \/ pledges \/ etc made within...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}