Media Savvy

This climate change report www.ipcc.ch/ is not just a sensation-seeker by the media.

The IPPC -
"is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change.
^ Currently 195 countries are Members of the IPCC.^
Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to ensure an objective and complete assessment of current information. IPCC aims to reflect a range of views and expertise.

Same reason so many leavers think they know why remainers want to stay in - we all have opinions and are free to express them, and Brexit is one of the issues that will have a huge impact on our lives in the next fifty years (at least)

The other issue is climate change, which is approaching tipping point and affects the whole globe, far more universally than Brexit, but is ignored.

The report issued Monday by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

The date, which falls well within the lifetime of many people alive today, is based on current levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The planet is already two-thirds of the way there, with global temperatures having warmed about 1 degree C. Avoiding going even higher will require significant action in the next few years.

"This is concerning because we know there are so many more problems if we exceed 1.5 degrees C global warming, including more heatwaves and hot summers, greater sea level rise, and, for many parts of the world, worse droughts and rainfall extremes," Andrew King, a lecturer in climate science at the University of Melbourne, said in a statement.

Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach "net zero" around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees C.

Lowering emissions to this degree, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy, industry, buildings, transportation and cities, the report says.

"The window on keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees C is closing rapidly and the current emissions pledges made by signatories to the Paris Agreement do not add up to us achieving that goal," added King.

Why do so many posts have to turn into a discussion about brexit, and why do so so many remainers believe that they know the reasons why others voted leave? Arrogant or what?

I think actually we are less 'brainwashed than we were years ago.
I'm inclined to agree with anitamp1 - there are so many different sources of information available to us these days that we can check and double-check facts if we wish.

People have always been swayed by popular opinion and I don't think they are more now than they were over hundreds - or thousands - of years.

Undoubtedly searching the media for independent non-biased information can be a skilled process especially when it comes to the internet.

If I can give an example to the above, in many instances, my company advises employers involved in disciplinary procedures with there employees. In that, the Assignment Controller may write up a report for the employer advising on the possible outcomes of various actions the company is considering against the employee.

When any report is finalised, it is then passed to a Legal Secretary whose job it is to search online to find law court rulings that will support the advice in the report (or not as the case may be). The foregoing searches involve knowledge of where to access such information as industrial court judgements that are relative to the employers situation and the advise we are forwarding.

Obviously, the information accessed has to be very accurate and independent such as that of an Industrial Tribunal Chairmans judgment and summing up of a case.
Where to find such information is very much a skill in its own right, but to then to write up a non-biased summery for the appendix of any report of that information is genuinely highly skilled work requiring great knowledge only acquired by education in the subject and experience.

In the above, I feel that for an average person to gain accurate independent reports from the media especially online is a difficult situation to achieve. Best advise I find is to be extremely sceptical of all anyone reads and verify that with a second reference if practical.

It's a matter of opinion as to whether the status we earned ourselves by conquering, looting and enslaving other countries and peoples deserves the epithet 'Great'.

Schools, hospitals and social housing are 'stretched to the limit' because of the -unnecessary-- tory cutbacks.

Hospital beds have been cut drastically since 2010.

This report is just about 2016:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-hospital-beds-cuts-nhs-money-saving-governmet-health-department-stps-a7590831.html

EU migrant workers tend to be young and healthy and not need to access the NHS, by the way.

MaisieD. Far be it that I would deem it more important that the geographical position of our green and pleasant land is more important than the status it has earned itself over the centuries that so many wish to be part of.

Sazzl, what you have just said is the kind of incorrect misinformation put up by the popular press, most of whom support Brexit, I do hope you did your research and did not base your vote on this? The bent bananas story was invented by.......Boris Johnson. It was written as a 'spoof' ( allegedly) when he was writing for The Spectator.

sazzl: I think a lot of people voted out because our schools, hospitals, and social housing are all overstretched to the limit and beyond due to the sheer volume of immigrants from EU countries. Also many benefits were being paid at one point to some of those economic migrants which our country could not afford. Pretty sure this is the reason behind the vast cutbacks in funding for police hospitals schools etc.

I think you have missed something here. EU law says if you move to another EU country, you have to have a job or sufficient funds to live. If you can't find a job within 3 months, you have to go back home.
The indefinite leave and offer of benefits is down to UK Government legislation, nothing to do with the EU.
So if it is the reason for the lack of government funding, why blame the EU. Leaving it to the government can only make things worse.

Yes PECS I do beleive this to be the case, we are treated like mushrooms -kept in the dark & fed on S- -t . I no longer take anything at face value, I question what I read & hear, usually there is no substance at all to verify any truth of the attention grabbing headlines. And what Fake news all about!!

I think a lot of people voted out because our schools, hospitals, and social housing are all overstretched to the limit and beyond due to the sheer volume of immigrants from EU countries. Also many benefits were being paid at one point to some of those economic migrants which our country could not afford. Pretty sure this is the reason behind the vast cutbacks in funding for police hospitals schools etc. Resulting in many being made homeless and increased usage of food banks. Most papers have touched on these issues but just as sensational headlines.

As for asking a simple thing like just one set of audited accounts....

If you're talking about the EU accounts they're audited every year.

And have been signed off every year since 2007

fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

we the people do not have any say in who does what and in what capacity in the EU power blocs, they just select and elect themselves.............

I'm not aware that 'we the people' have any say in who is appointed as a UK government minister either. What's the difference?

Many people are just believing what they want to regrdless of facts! One current example is the case in America where a woman makes an allegation against a man and millions believe her despite the fact that the two people who were allegedly there, one of whom was her best friend, failed to substantiate her story! Then we come to Brexit! People just ignored facts that didn't go along with their way of thinking and believed the lies because they do! I'm far from convinced that Democracy works rather than just stumbles through!

It's not only the skewing of stories I object to, the choice of stories which reach the national news and dominate the headlines concerns me. For example the story of the girl who died after eating a Pret sandwich was constanty headlined recently. At about the same time there was another shooting in London. In fact the number of violent deaths (particularly of teenagers) in London is horrifying. Sad as it may be I do not understand why the girl's death was so featured whilst the deaths in London are consigned to the inside pages. Because. they are poor and black and she was rich and white perhaps? Anyway it is concerning. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/london-cemetery-shooting-death-tottenham-met-police-a8521051.html

The President of the EU has v limited power. It is the elected MEPs who vote on the decisions made and the proposals are put forward by the Heads of Government of the various countries involved. In fact, the UK has been a driving force behind many of the EU directives.

There are respects in which the EU is MORE democratic than the system we have in the UK.

Not knowing the MEPs' names is really our own fault isn't it?

PECS, I think perhaps Marieleee was referring to the fact that the election system within the EU bodies is just that: within the commision, council, , is all rather incestuous:
Europe's political parties put forward a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. The European Council then votes on a nominee for the post of president — the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the Council must take into account the European elections — who becomes the Commission's new president after obtaining approval in the new Parliament.
So just those in power voting for those in power.

The nearest ordinary citizens get to voting is in voting for MEPs.
There are 751 members in the European Parliament, 73 of them represent the United Kingdom. MEPs are elected every five years, when the general public of each member state votes on who they want to represent them in Europe. Once elected, MEPs from across the continent form political groups with MEPs who have similar ideologies, regardless of their nationalities.
MEPs vote for a president in the beginning and the middle of each parliamentary term. They elect a president, 14 vice-presidents, and five quaestors who all form the Parliament's bureau.

So apart from voting for someone most folk have never heard of to be an MEP, ( How many can you name at moments notice?) we the people do not have any say in who does what and in what capacity in the EU power blocs, they just select and elect themselves.............

As for asking a simple thing like just one set of audited accounts.........well seems no-one has yet been elected to see to that. Makes you wonder why people are chomping at the bit to be subject to them.

It’s only in fairly recent times, historically speaking, that people received any news at all, except snippets from passing travellers. They just got on with their lives. I’m not sure if I would find that peaceful or boring. I suppose that the occasional army passing through, raping and pillaging, brought a little excitement into their dull existence.

We are bombarded from a lot more sources nowadays compared to 40/50 years ago with news and advertising being communicated almost instantly. Our wants and expectations in life are also different from then so if we are told anything that could threaten or improve these we absorb it until something else comes along to tell us different. All the media is out to impose their own views of the world on anyone who will listen. Always been that way and probably always will be.

I think I'll follow Gyles Brandreth's example and stop listening to or reading anything about politics,

I think that sort of statement is all very well when said jokingly (which, I suspect is the spirit in which Brandreth said it) but seriously? If you weren't informed at all about politics how could you responsibly vote in local and general elections?

GreenGran yes like all the myths about not being allowed to sing certain nursery rhymes, banning teaching times tables etc. etc.
There are some who are too ready to feed their prejudices by believing the propaganda put out there by people happy to stir the sh8t .

I get really annoyed when people share scurrilous posts on Facebook without bothering to check if they are true. Just today I have been sent two which are blatant lies, and designed to stir up racial hatred. One which states that schools are going to stop teaching children about the holocaust, and another saying that there are 'no-go' areas for selling poppies in case they upset Muslims. Both are untrue. Some of these stories have been going around for years. Like Pandora's box, the evils they dispel can not be recalled once published.
A simple search on Snopes.com, or simply Googling quickly and easily provides the information needed to verify or disprove these posts.
People are either too lazy to take the trouble, or prefer to believe and share whatever is put on social media.

I wonder how many of us understood the meaning of Maastricht and all it entailed?
We are but flotsam on the river of politics with all it's undercurrents.
Personally, although 'they' in power who seek to impose their views would say otherwise, I think that the views of Joe Public are massively disregarded as having any validity.
Mind you, the DM, which is sinking ever lower, has, to their credit, waged war on some issues by starting public petitions, most of which have been successful.

I worked for a local evening paper when I was young (ie. 60 plus years ago). There were at least a dozen reporters in the newsroom and every day they went to all the council meetings, the law courts, the police station etc. and reported on what was going on.

Today our local paper has few reporters and they sit in the offices and polish up the hand outs that local societies, the police and the three layers of local government send out to them - and that is virtually all that gets published. Everything is P.R. We have no idea what is really going on even locally - where we might be able to make a difference. As narrowboatnan says, there is more examination of what is going in in the U.S.

I think I'll follow Gyles Brandreth's example and stop listening to or reading anything about politics, especially Brexit. He maintains he's a lot happier living in ignorance ?