I hope the Climate Activists are proud of the effect their lies are having on the younger generation

Peter Bernard Ladkin: 
 

So what will be the next big thing? How can we deal with it more humanely? As it turns out, Covid-19. […] But it is different from tobacco/cancer or anthropogenic climate change in that there are no major powerful interests vested in denying the existence of the disease.

Great post Peter, but I would slightly take issue with this point - which I think is relevant to this thread - I've been reading over the last few days the “everyone should go back to the office” / “everyone should be very wary of going back to the office” debate. The science that say we'll kill people if we mix them together vs. the short term economics of the effects on the transport and city centre service industries. (I work in the rail industry, and we have been hit very very hard by covid, but I do NOT think people should risk their lives for the sole purpose of keeping me in a job!!) It's a smaller case of one section of the climate debate: “ok, maybe it is real, but we can't afford to do anything about it because it would damage the economy”. For covid we can relocate coffee shops to  support home based workers, and redesign transport infrastructure to move to a more flexible and network coverage (away form “everyone into cities for 9:00am and out again at 5:00pm”). For climate change, as others have said here, we can build a low carbon economy if we want to using a huge range of different means. But it does mean challenging the “major powerful interests vested” in a short term view status quo economy, who don't possess the attitude, imagination, skills, or downright humanity to see that the economy must change - but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be for the “worst” (whatever that means).

That's made me feel better posting that, even if I probably should have been doing something more useful instead. Having been posting on these forums for over 15 years now I'm very well aware of the importance of these discussions in the context of wider society i.e. absolutely miniscule!!! Still, I suppose if climate change deniers are posting here it's stopping them causing more damage elsewhere…it's just frustrating as someone who would like the IET forums to be a useful place for engineering discussions, and like most other forums on the internet they keep degenerating into a home for conspiracy theorists. And this one's particularly nasty because we should be the ones solving the problem - the scientists have determined the problem, it's taking engineering to sort it. (Despite the fact that our forebears created it! Literally in my case, having a father who was a chemical engineer on gas works for most of his career. But that's irrelevant, as new facts come to light engineering needs to change. Much though I love steam engines.) 

But thanks Peter for your hard work on this thread, as Simon mentioned earlier most of the rest of us can't be bothered any more…which is probably not the right attitude…

Cheers, Andy

edited to correct maths: I didn't seem to be able to subtract 2006 from 2021!

Peter Bernard Ladkin: 
 

So what will be the next big thing? How can we deal with it more humanely? As it turns out, Covid-19. […] But it is different from tobacco/cancer or anthropogenic climate change in that there are no major powerful interests vested in denying the existence of the disease.

Great post Peter, but I would slightly take issue with this point - which I think is relevant to this thread - I've been reading over the last few days the “everyone should go back to the office” / “everyone should be very wary of going back to the office” debate. The science that say we'll kill people if we mix them together vs. the short term economics of the effects on the transport and city centre service industries. (I work in the rail industry, and we have been hit very very hard by covid, but I do NOT think people should risk their lives for the sole purpose of keeping me in a job!!) It's a smaller case of one section of the climate debate: “ok, maybe it is real, but we can't afford to do anything about it because it would damage the economy”. For covid we can relocate coffee shops to  support home based workers, and redesign transport infrastructure to move to a more flexible and network coverage (away form “everyone into cities for 9:00am and out again at 5:00pm”). For climate change, as others have said here, we can build a low carbon economy if we want to using a huge range of different means. But it does mean challenging the “major powerful interests vested” in a short term view status quo economy, who don't possess the attitude, imagination, skills, or downright humanity to see that the economy must change - but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be for the “worst” (whatever that means).

That's made me feel better posting that, even if I probably should have been doing something more useful instead. Having been posting on these forums for over 15 years now I'm very well aware of the importance of these discussions in the context of wider society i.e. absolutely miniscule!!! Still, I suppose if climate change deniers are posting here it's stopping them causing more damage elsewhere…it's just frustrating as someone who would like the IET forums to be a useful place for engineering discussions, and like most other forums on the internet they keep degenerating into a home for conspiracy theorists. And this one's particularly nasty because we should be the ones solving the problem - the scientists have determined the problem, it's taking engineering to sort it. (Despite the fact that our forebears created it! Literally in my case, having a father who was a chemical engineer on gas works for most of his career. But that's irrelevant, as new facts come to light engineering needs to change. Much though I love steam engines.) 

But thanks Peter for your hard work on this thread, as Simon mentioned earlier most of the rest of us can't be bothered any more…which is probably not the right attitude…

Cheers, Andy

edited to correct maths: I didn't seem to be able to subtract 2006 from 2021!