Essay by Eric Worrall
If they break enough stuff, we have to listen, right?
Climate activists dump charcoal in Rome’s Trevi Fountain
By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN
Updated 11:59 AM EDT, Mon May 22, 2023
RomeCNN —
Climate change activists turned the blue water of the Trevi Fountain in central Rome black with diluted charcoal on Sunday.
Around 10 activists from the climate group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) entered the 18th century late-Baroque fountain holding a banner that said, “Let’s not pay for fossil campaigns considering what is happening in Emilia Romagna,” referring to the deadly flooding in northern Italy, which some experts have linked to the climate crisis.
“Our country is dying,” other banners stated.
All activists were arrested and face vandalism charges, Rome police said.
…
Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/charcoal-trevi-fountain-rome-climate-intl/index.html
What should we do about these outrages?
Obviously punishing the miscreants would be a good step, but courts frequently go soft on eco-vandals.
The obvious retaliation is to wreck all their solar panels and wind turbines.
Not the way they do it – not by physical vandalism. WUWT does not advocate breaking the law. Direct action over an issue as ridiculous as the fake climate crisis is for losers.
The wrecking ball we’re looking for is the election of fiscally conservative federal politicians who shut down all the green subsidies and market distorting renewable quotas, and punish states which defy the subsidy shutdown by penalising their federal grants.
Without subsidies and market distortions, the renewable energy industry will die.
I’m looking forward to the day when the only visible renewable installations when driving through the countryside are the rotting corpses of broken turbines and abandoned solar farms.
I heard a report that the floods were caused by the drought, that made the soil too dry to absorb water.
Makes sense … /s
The problem for the alarmists is that these places have local records that go back hundreds of years. Not just the dozen or so years that these maroons personally remember.
History shows that the floods are not unusual.
Enviromarxists will always do their best to destroy the historical record as it is so inconvenient to their cause.
All rivers have flood plains because all have floods. Unfortunately, some people build in the flood plains.
In the UK the Government had to set up a scheme, along with the insurance industry, called ‘Flood Re’ in 2016 to make flood cover as a part of household insurance policies more affordable.
The problem is that every year Local Authorities approve house building schemes on flood plains, often despite objections by the Environment Agency, to increase their own income via Council tax.
Yes. Field capacity is a too complex concept for such simple minds…
Actually that is a problem in Arizona. Turn a hose on the ground and the water bead up like the soil has been coated with oil. The best rain is on that starts as a drizzle break the surface tension down and then after a day or two, the soil can handle more water. This isn’t recent as I remember as a child in the 60s being amazed that the water didn’t soak into the soil.
N Italy is not Arizona, but I agree that this can happen on very dry places.
regular event in most of aussie soils all over, the only places to have some soak ability are the watered gardens n parks
Areas with lots of clay in the soil have that problem as well.
hate to tell ya
thats correct.
after prolonged dry spells the soils become “nonwetting” and a sudden large downpour tends to run off. the best break to drought is small rains over a few weeks that get to sit n soak in. where I live after a dry year it can be as long as a month before rains manage to penetrate soils more than an inch or so down.
IF? you are expecting heavy rains and have time n money you can use soil wetting agents (hint theyre usually just a detergent you can spray on) that break soil bonds and allow ingress, theyre still not going to prevent much in huge or constant rain events though
After reading earlier that NY is going to monitor people’s purchases of meat and dairy, I’m wondering how long real New Yorkers are going to take to jump off of the climate alarmist sinking ship.
Decaf, not only monitor but restrict what you buy when you reach the ‘limit’ of (say) how much meat you can buy in a given period! They will be able to do this when it’s a cashless society and, like Canada, make restrictions on (any) Card Transactions.
Are they going to monitor what you buy in other states as well?
They want digital currency so they can monitor everything one buys or sells.
“They” track gun purchases now with the cooperation of Bank of America.
They don’t need BoA’s help on that – recent federal actions indicate that the instant background check that isn’t supposed to be kept in a registry is actually being kept.
YES !!
the technology exists so they will use it.
Well, no, Mark. That’s the point. People with yachts, jets, politically correct cars— and money— can shop wherever they want for whatever they want. It is the middle classes and poor people who will be restricted in their grocery purchases.
That’s amazing and very concerning as I look out at the cattle grazing my property here in NZ…where was that reported?
hmm dammit I deleted my sent mails I had the page n shared it round about??10 days ago ZeroHedge or SOTT.net ran it I reckon
They will spend the money they saved on meat and dairy on shooting irons instead.
“I’m looking forward to the day when the only visible renewable installations when driving through the countryside are the rotting corpses of broken turbines and abandoned solar farms.”
All of this. With a bunch of nuclear power plants purring like kittens in their place, minding their own business.
They just wanted attention. Mission accomplished.
Fottili.
https://context.reverso.net/translation/italian-english/fottili
😉
Their punishment will occur when they succeed in taking down the economy, where economically useless people like this will starve.
Two year old temper tantrums do not work. Adult weather tantrums do not work, either. The northern Italy flood problem is that it went from too dry to too wet too fast. Weather.
“WUWT does not advocate breaking the law.”
You just know that if sceptics used the same tactics their feet wouldn’t touch!!
Unfortunately, the environmental movement does use illegal tactics all the time, at least in the West, and normally gets away with it.
Greenpeace tried boarding Russian oil rigs in the Arctic Ocean a few years ago. The activists responsible spent several months in prison. Oddly, Greenpeace have not attacked a Russian energy facility since.
Apparently ….
As much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That’s more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a new study.
Let’s burn all the woodlands, ancient and new.
seen the hitech biochar setups? they use more FF to create the idiot setups.
just another dipsh*t green scam.
burning off stubble n plough it in gets rid of weeds mould fungus bugs and improves the soil
and
theres nothing nicer than autumn burnoff haze and scents in a farming area
Well said, Sir(?). Unfortunately, Mrs. Middle-Manager didn’t like smuts on her nice clean laundry when she had moved out to the countryside, so she complained.
“”The wrecking ball we’re looking for is the election of fiscally conservative federal politicians “”
You won’t find any of those here…
“”Lib Dem leader Ed Davey today said women can ‘quite clearly’ have a penis””
We’re still hunting for some common sense
In Orwell’s 1984 O’Brien held up 4 fingers and asked Winston; how many fingers. Winston said 4. Then O’Brien said its 5. Then he asked Winston if the government says it’s 5 then how many do you see? Winston said still 4. Then O’Brien gave him an electric shock. Eventually Winston realized that he had to say 5 to avoid more shocks. When the government can force people to believe things that are demonstrably false then they can control you. Today they want you to believe men can be women, women can be men, men can have babies, women can have penises. If you don’t believe then they cancel you or accuse you of racism, or bigotry. It’s a little variation on the counting fingers scheme but
the same idea. It’s a perfect tool for a totalitarian government.
Bud Light got a shock of a different kind recently, when they decided to promote transgenderism using their product.
I heard yesterday that Bud Light is having to take back the unsold Bud Light beer sitting on their customers shelves because nobody is buying Bud Light.
I doubt the executives at Bud Light are feeling very virtuous right now. They should be feeling really stupid right now. They are completely out of touch with their customers.
Their ignorant virtue signal is costing them billions of dollars. It serves them right.
They seem to be pushing ads featuring construction workers now, and I’ve heard they’re releasing a camouflage can. Apparently they think that will bring back their customers.
Camouflage cans?
How does making your cans harder to find supposed to increase sales?
:*)
Same with Mr Starmer, the labour leader. He also believes that some women can have a penis. We haven’t heard from the PM yet, but at least he has a wife who wouldn’t stand for such nonsense. It will only stop when people and in particular women stop voting for idiots.
Davey has disgraced himself on many occasions but none so much as this statement – imho it renders him unfit for many things that “we” may consider to be “normal” life – I struggle to remain civil when he and his ilk spout such blx – and I do not apologise for one second to anyone reading this who is sympathetic to his delusion.
As my granny used to say …
“A man has one penis; But a woman can ‘quite clearly’ have as many penis’s as she wants, when she wants !!
Your ganny used to tell you that? I’m not sure what to think about that.
Sorry Strad, you will definitely not find it in the Lib Dums.
That’s letting them off way too easy.
Require them to tear the things down, by hand if necessary.
I confess that I first thought I read ” hanging off of ” instead of just ” of ” in the quoted sentence.
Eric as much as I respect you, you are living in a dream world. We can not deal with these criminal activists at the ballot box by trying to vote in conservatives. That would mean a majority of our Senators and Representatives would be conservative. Here in the US we have 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. Republicans have a slim majority in the House and Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate. Looking at the American Conservative Union ratings we find that only 17 members of the House and Senate have a 100% conservative rating. That is 17 out of 535. Seventy three have a 90% or higher, sixty two have 80% but less than 90% and sixty six have a 70% but less than 80%. That means that only 37% have a C rating or higher in a country that is pretty close to evenly split Democrat vs Republican and I would say one of the most conservative nations in the world. Even if the republicans held a substantial majority in both houses that would not mean we would even be close to a majority conservative. If republicans only voted for conservatives democrats would hold the majority in both houses. These ratings are for 2022.
More often than not the difference between the two sides boils down as to whether ‘we the people’ should wear the new ball and chain around out left ankle or our right ankle, plus some compromising over exactly what the weight of said ball should be.
It is easy to see why you and so many others think this way, I agree to a point but for different reasons perhaps. The federal government and the state governments to a lesser extent are grossly over sized and have far too much power. Most of the power and inertia are held in the various government departments, what many of us call the deep state. No matter who the president is or who holds the majorities in the House and Senate the administrators and bureaucrats hold immense control and power. They can advance programs they like and hold up programs they don’t all without breaking the rules. So does it seem like it doesn’t matter who we vote for, yes it does seem that way sometimes. Keep in mind that the country does better under Republican leadership and always slides backward under Democrat leadership. It does make a difference who we vote for.
That’s why we need a “Bull in a China Shop” like Trump who is not part of the Washington DC clique and who does not owe anyone in Washington DC anything.
Trump is free to take action against the domestic enemies of the United States. And he will take it if given the chance. it’s just about our only hope to break out of this socialist/marxist straigtjacket.
Then find new politicians. Somewhere in the USA’s 332 million people are 535 people who can take on the incumbents and win (OK less the 17 maybe). You just need to figure out who they are and support them.
No population this large and varied covering so extensive an area with such variations can possibly be fairly governed by a “democratic/representative” national state. An Eskimo on the Bering Sea has zero in common with a Colombian financier in Miami. A paniolo on the Big Island doesn’t speak the same language as a Maine lobsterman. This form of government was a bad idea from the beginning and hasn’t gotten any better during its relatively short time in existence. Solutions to our current problems won’t be found in it regardless of who wins an election.
I differ with you. Our form of government (constitutional republic) is the best way forward. It can be ugly and nasty at times and sometimes makes us cringe. Anarchy is not the answer, totalitarianism is not the answer, socialism is not the answer, communism is not the answer, Fascism is not the answer, nazism is not the answer, pure democracy is not the answer, theocracy is not the answer and there are plenty more I don’t know. Our republic has strayed from what the founders intended in my view. For instance we have agencies creating and enforcing laws, that was never intended and is a big part of our problem.
We also MUST have term limits for all elected officials- the founding fathers didn’t think being a politician was a career- it was considered an honor to serve for a while, then go home!
Not just elected officials, but for the higher echelons of the bureaucracy as well.
“In the beginning” it didn’t have political parties. Parties are at the root of all that’s wrong. They propel idiots to the top and do not represent any body but themselves. Just don’t vote for them. Do a head experiment and see how things would change if you voted for only independents.
There may not have been parties the way we see them today but they clearly had groups with differing opinions. Big differences no different than today and sometimes far nastier than what we experience today, as hard as that is to believe.
Yes. There are always groups. Even independent lawmakers will become two groups when they vote.
Why lawmakers vote one way or the other is key. Is it party ideology, directive and obligation or is it conscience, intellect and common sense?
George Washington spoke against political parties. He didn’t want them and said they’d harm our fledgling democracy.
Maybe the US has simply become too large and culturally diverse, and should be broken up into smaller, more manageable units.
At least twelve counties in Oregon have just voted to secede and join Idaho (the “Greater Idaho” movement). People there are sick of living under “Progressive” policies emanating from Portland.
No, the U.S. is just flooded with leftwing propaganda which causes people to vote for the wrong things and the wrong people.
The greatest danger to the United States is the lying, leftwing Media. People cannot vote properly when they are filled with falsehoods created by the leftwing Media. The leftwing propaganda causes people to think it is a good idea to vote for an idiot like Joe Biden, while thinking a brilliant man like Trump is really Adolph Hitler.
The Leftwing Media and the people who control them are the greatest danger to the freedoms of all of us. They lie to us continuously, in a effort to gain and keep political power. And they have been very effective so far.
The Leftwing Media is no different than the propagandists of the Nazis and the Soviet Union. They protect those in power and attack the political opposition.
If you are smart, you will assume everything you hear from the Leftwing Media is a lie/distortion until proven otherwise. You will be on pretty solid ground if you do that.
Regrettably, the change needed could only be achieved if the circumstances mobilised the mood for a major societal reset. The downside of democracy is that everybody gets a vote regardless of IQ.
Democracy is in fine health. It reflects perfectly the consequences of voting for gangs that offer bribes. If you want more give more. try integrity.
Eric you just don’t get it. If it were up to me I am sure I could come up with 535 people who would do a bang up job, much better than what we have. But it is not up to me, there are some 330 million others in the country who also think they have a say and they do, about half the population thinks our government is doing fine and is much preferable to the government I would favor. My family is about 98% hard core FDR/JFK democrats, they think things are moving in the right direction with Trump out of office. They don’t care what their guy does so long as Trump or anyone like him isn’t president, same with the House and Senate. Your response wasn’t thought out and wasn’t helpful.
What, we should brawl with them 8n the streets? We know who will be prosecuted and who will get off scott-free.
That would be one path, not the one I would favor. Sitting on our ass crying is my least favorite and accomplishes exactly nothing. We on the right are smarter and better than the left, don’t tell me that with all our talent and imagination we can’t whip those punks.
If you support any political party you are definitely on the left. You do know that parties are unions?
I don’t agree with you, having said that I support ideas not people. I vote for the guy who is most like me. I have never found a candidate that was most like me from the democrat party since I left the democrat party. You can support independents if you choose but the way our government works is that the majority party sets the rules for the coming year. When was the last time independents held a majority of anything? If you check with the American Conservative Union ratings you will see that the independents listed vote with the democrats. You know the guys who are least like me.
Yes. Parties dominate so they make the rules to suit parties. I am advocating a system that does not exist anywhere. A system that cannot be imposed only chosen. A lawmaker can only vote two ways– fore or against a motion. It is what compels them in their choice that makes the difference. Party directive and obligation on one hand or conscience and intellect on the other.
You are confusing me. I understand that you dislike parties. Party is just a name for a group. No matter what the issue there are going to be people for it and people against it. That is life. The people for it we put in one group, the people against it we put in another group. We like to label these groups. Today the group that likes big government, high taxes, more regulation, small military and group identity we call Democrats. The group that likes small government, low taxes, less regulation, strong military and individual identity we call Republicans. We have other groups we call Constitutionalists, Conservatives, Libertarians, Green, Progressive and others I suppose. The point is you can dislike the fact that people form groups with those they most agree with, you can even dislike their names but people will always form groups and name themselves or others will name them.
Voting for the guy most like you won’t work if that guy is a party member. He is not real. He will say and do as the party directs. The ideas they peddle are snake oil.
The guys I vote are real I can assure you and they vote like I would more than I deserve. I admire them and yes they are Republicans just like me.
The Democrats have managed to convince a near majority of the country that they are entitled to endless amounts of free stuff and that the evil rich have infinitely deep pockets in order to pay for it.
That is true the democrats control the mainstream media but that doesn’t mean we are helpless. We need to do something even if it’s wrong, we learn from our mistakes. Crying and sniffling because some bad people did bad things is not the way forward.
Yes, we do need to take positive action on our own behalf.
I think a lot of people are trying to do just that. We’ll have to wait to see if they are successful. We are going up against formidable odds.
Bob, there are some groups that cannot be dealt with peacefully or by a conventional political process. In the past century, this has occurred a number of times. National Socialism was so hateful an ideology that the only way of dealing with it was by military force to obliterate it entirely during the world’s first war over oil.
So it should come as no surprise that totalitarians like the environmentalists cannot be dealt with peacefully and rationally either. Sooner or later, this will manifest in violence.
This is the nature of history. There comes a time occasionally when a conflict arises which is so fundamental that it cannot be resolved through conventional political methods and debate and discussion. The United States had such an event starting in 1861. England had it in 1641. The assorted grievances of the French middle class and peasant farmers could not be resolved in 1789 by negotiation within the States General.
Here is the thing, Eric used the low life criminals who polluted the fountain to make his point. I don’t even know what happened to them, whatever it was I am sure I wouldn’t think it was severe enough. A better example is the antifa and blm riots here in the US. I don’t know if they killed anyone but they did threaten/intimidate hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They destroyed tens maybe hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property, they occupied police departments and much more. What was their punishment? Praise from the left. That is unacceptable. Enforce the law, what is so hard to understand about that. Enforcing the law is not violence, it can turn violent, that is up to the criminal.
Rather than knowing what % have a 100% conservative rating (that is on all issues)- I’d like to know what % always vote against green initiatives.
If every issue was voted on as a stand alone bill I would agree with you but that isn’t how it works. Many bills are jumbled together, sometimes you can’t your bill put to a vote unless some other bill is added on at the same time. It is a mess but it works both ways. I am rarely concerned when someone complains that my guy voted for a crappy bill. Nine times out of ten he had a choice to make, do I vote for this bill even though a measure I don’t like is attached? Or not vote for it and maybe miss the opportunity to pass the bill that is so important to me. You have to consider am I going to benefit more than suffer. It’s not black and white.
If most of them took a principled stand and always voted against any mashed up bill like that, it would stop. Some do, at least to some degree, but being realistic, it’s not going to happen.
I wonder when the practice started.
We can not deal with these criminal activists at the ballot box
Possibly we can, to a degree at least. But it’s not politicians that need to be targeted – it’s District Attorneys. Any that aren’t crazy activists already, pressure them to prosecute. If they don’t then find candidates who will, and work to vote the lazy DAs out. If they ARE the activist type then the only option is alternate candidates (and I realize they will be hard to dislodge).
It won’t have much impact in places like NY or CA, but maybe it can push them to keep their activities limited to places like that.
Of course you are right. These people have to be held accountable. I’ve been thinking about how to force them to do the right thing, the thing they were hired to do.
With the Soros-backed DAs you never will, but there are plenty of red states and counties where it should be possible. I know these activities don’t happen there as much already, but prosecution will deter more from happening – let Dem run areas deal with their own monster.
A RICO prosecution of the NGOs and their major funders that routinely bail out these vandals might deter them.
Is that not what Dr David Martin and colleagues are attempting right now?
Yes, I think a hard look at who is funding all these protests would be revealing.
These protests, whether in Italy or New York City, are not just spontaneous expressions of emotion from people. Somebody is paying them to be outraged and to disrupt society. Who is paying them? That’s what I want to know.
If billionaires living outside the U.S. are sponsoring protests in the United States, then they should be prosecuted for attacking the United States.
No fossils, just hydrocarbon energy: affordable, available, versatile, reliable, and provably renewable with an anthropogenic process. Go green with hydrocarbons, and carbon-based processes (e.g. human life, trees, fish), too.
Uhhh?
Fossil fuels are hydrocarbon energy… or weren’t you aware of that !
The ultimate carbon based fuel.
A relative of mine lived in Florence in 1961 and told us of when the skies opened and de river Arno flooded big time. Curiously, not even an ancient god or goddess was blamed. Those were the days of rationality.
Sì, sì, ci voglio andare!
E se l’amassi indarno
Andrei sul Ponte Vecchio
Ma per buttarmi in Arno!
Mi struggo e mi tormento!
O Dio, vorrei morir!
I walked across the Ponte Vecchio both ways while on my student railpass and I was amazed at the colours looking downstream, which were just like an oil painting in the intensity of hues of the Mediterranean light. On reflection, the oil paintings reliably reflected the reality. The river was a summer trickle, but the rocks along the bank and the height of the bridge itself told of periods of much greater flow.
Florence had serious flooding in 2016 and I remember reading that it has a long record of flooding with at least one catastrophic event per century.
In the US, the party in power isn’t concerned about fiscal conservatism. It doesn’t matter which party is in power. The Republicans only care when they are minority. The Democrats care never.
I’ll take a Republican over a Democrat every time.
How can these idiots explain why deliberately polluting a fountain is good for the environment?
Their banner reads “We don’t pay [for] fossil [fuels]”. Let the power company turn off the circuit breaker to their house, and let them use solar panels, a windmill, or a hyperactive hamster for their power.
I think that would be a good punishment for the judge to impose: 30 days without electricity.
People are going to have to take care of this themselves.
“**** them all. God will recognize his own.”
Arnaud Amalric (WEF before there was WEF)
“I’m looking forward to the day when the only visible renewable installations when driving through the countryside are the rotting corpses of broken turbines and abandoned solar farms.”
Amen to that!!
They used a fossil fuel to protest fossil fuels?
Yes… countries are dying..
… because of people like them and because of their putrid self-indulgent ideology.
The question is, are there enough politicians who will stand up and be counted? Inhofe was one, but he was marginalized. Ron Johnson could be another. The problem I see with republicans (since all democrats push this nonsense), is that they try to appease the masses in some what instead of being brutally direct out of their fear of the media and activists. A courageous republican is an oxymoron.
Ironically, these zealots do a far better job than we can to persuade moderates that climate doomsayers are ridiculous and that their claims, by association, may also be overblown. I find myself quietly encouraging them.