Author: 4here4

https://www.ft.com/content/10d839fc-a627-4317-97b1-5698732ff4a7

Le Pen, who champions a “non-punitive” approach to the environment, wants to take France out of an EU “green deal” that Macron has championed. It would make companies pay more for the cost of polluting in order to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The far-right candidate, who told France 3 on Sunday she was not a climate change denier, has stopped short of saying she would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, as former US president Donald Trump did. But her manifesto advocates reaching commitments to lower greenhouse gas emissions “at the rhythm [France] will have chosen”.

She plans to end investments in solar and wind power, saying this would allow her to reduce value added tax on fuel. The measure, aimed at drivers and some rural residents, is a reminder of the “yellow vest” protests that marred Macron’s first term in office when he tried to introduce a fuel surcharge as a form of green levy.

Le Pen’s arguments have alarmed companies in France’s nascent renewable energy sector. One executive involved in offshore wind projects said there was “a real concern for jobs”. Another said he was convinced Le Pen would have to reverse course so as not to imperil energy supplies.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world-news/extinction-rebellion-near-death-experience-23649385

London News

An Extinction Rebellion protestor has told of a “near-death experience” that led her to join the climate crisis activist group three years ago. “When I came out of hospital, what was important to me was put into high definition,” Kat explained, as she held a colourful homemade banner reading ‘nonviolence, direct action’ in Central London today (Saturday, April 9). She was one of 10,000 protesters, a figure reported by a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, who participated in the first day of the group’s latest round of organised protest, the April Rebellion.

She described this current moment as “pivotal”, saying: “Never has there been more urgency than after hearing what we have from the UN and the IPCC report last week.” The UN’s recent landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggested that action on climate change needs to happen ‘now or never’.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/09/extinction-rebellion-xr-climate-protesters-march-london-hyde-park

The Guardian

In Hyde Park, police vans and officers on horses patrolled the periphery of the crowd, but the policing presence appeared low-key. The crowd moved off at about midday for the march through central London, staging roadblocks on the way.

Direct actions were planned on the fringes of the march against specific targets, but XR kept quiet on the details of what those targets were. During the morning, protesters mainly milled about, joining with affinity groups, greeting friends who they had not seen since previous actions, and enjoying a burst of spring sunshine.

“I’ve been living away from the UK but I have been admiring the movement from afar, and I think it’s inspiring, the turnout here. I have been living in New York and I saw echoes of it in New York and I’m really excited to join today,” Goulianis said.

“I think we need radical action. I think often the oil and gas lobby does a good job of making us think it’s about individual consumption, but we need to change everything.”

On the edges of the crowd, with a small group, stood Marcelo Cervone, 28, who had adorned the peak of his baseball cap with XR stickers. He said: “I want to safeguard my son’s future … he’s four months old and I want to make sure he can dream but, as we were allowed to, dream big.”

Cervone said he had been protesting with XR for several years. “We are all hoping we can end the fossil fuel economy. That’s the number one goal: immediate transition out of the fossil fuel economy,” he said.

https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norfolk-extinction-rebellion-activists-london-protests-8887920

Evening News

James Harvey, a project manager from Salhouse said: “I’m going to London to join the Rebellion because I refuse to be a bystander while the UK government continues with its pursuit of dirty fossil fuels that are killing people around the world and driving destruction.  “These protests are what a people-powered response to the climate crisis looks like.

There have also been eight days of prolonged action at oil refineries by Extinction Rebellion and the Just Stop Oil coalition, blocking depots at 10 different locations, Essex, resulting in a number of suspended operations.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/police-extinction-rebellion-hyde-park-london-protests-disruption-b993471.html

Standard

Hundreds of activists gathered at Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park on Saturday morning before marching into the centre of the city.

The Metropolitan Police said protesters initially blocked “traffic in both directions” but later said only the “westbound carriageway on Oxford St. remains closed between Great Portland St. and Regent St and “nearly all of the protesters are now in Trafalgar Sq”.

The activists gathered in Hyde Park at 10am in preparation for an “unstoppable rebellion” that will “facilitate a mass flood of people to grind the capital to a halt”. “We will return to the streets day after day until our immediate demand – for the UK government to immediately end all new fossil fuel investments – is met,” the group said in a recent statement. It has announced plans for over a week of action in London.

Since 2018, XR has staged four extended campaigns of disruptive protest in London, calling for the government to take action on the climate and biodiversity crises.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61050643

BBC

Climate activists are staging a sit-down protest in the heart of London’s West End shopping district, to call for no new investment in fossil fuels. Extinction Rebellion has planned protests in the capital every day until Sunday, 17 April. The Metropolitan Police said Oxford Street and Regent Street were blocked.

The BBC’s the most popular news site on the planet with over 1 billion monthly viewers. Last night this was the fourth most popular site.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/extinction-rebellion-oxford-street-ben-mitchell-london-government-b993485.html

Standard

Canoeist Etienne Stott, who won the slalom event with Tim Baillie at the London 2012 Olympic Games, said he was participating out of fear for the future of the planet.

The former athlete told the PA news agency: “I am here to demand the Government end the fossil economy.

Stott, who held a banner that read “I will need a bystander”, added: “Our voice is the voice of ordinary people saying ‘no, not in my name’.”

He chained himself to a boat with fellow British Olympian Laura Baldwin to blockade the entrance to ExxonMobil’s Fawley oil terminal in Hampshire last October.

He was convicted of a public order offence after Extinction Rebellion protests in 2019, when he was arrested on Waterloo Bridge with other demonstrators after they refused to comply with conditions imposed by police.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/extinction-rebellion-protest-london-oxford-street/

LBC

Canoeist Etienne Stott, who won the slalom event with Tim Baillie at the London 2012 Olympic Games, said he was participating out of fear for the future of the planet.

Stott, who held a banner that read “I will need a bystander”, added: “Our voice is the voice of ordinary people saying ‘no, not in my name’.” The 42-year-old, from Nottingham, earlier urged his Twitter followers to “come and join me” at Saturday’s protest, sharing a quote from the UN Secretary General which says that, instead of climate activists, “the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing production of fossil fuels”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61029511

BBC

Tower Bridge has reopened after an Extinction Rebellion (XR) protest, that saw two activists dangling over the Thames.

The pair used suspension cords to hang from the landmark and unfurl a banner reading, “End fossil fuels now”. 

Police closed the bridge to traffic during rush hour but cleared protesters by midday, arresting four people.

It comes after eight days of disruption at oil facilities caused by XR and the Just Stop Oil coalition.

Both groups are calling for an end to all new fossil fuel infrastructure as the government reviews its energy security in the wake of the Ukraine war.

https://www.itv.com/news/london/2022-04-08/extinction-rebellion-activists-force-closure-of-tower-bridge-after-abseil-stunt

ITV 

Amy Rugg-Easey, who is taking part in the demonstration, said: “I ask myself why I do these things all the time, and the main thing that drives me is that I have tremendous hope and optimism in humanity’s ability to fight the climate crisis – but there are certain people who continue to prevent that for their own profit.”

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/extinction-rebellion-london-protests-april-2022-when-where-b993344.html

Standard

Explainer: 

Extinction Rebellion is a protest group that puts “civil disobedience” at the heart of seeking government action on its aims.

Extinction Rebellion said: “We promote civil disobedience and rebellion because we think it is necessary. We are asking people to find their courage and to collectively do what is necessary to bring about change.

Events: 

Extinction Rebellion have planned events through London from the 9 April to 17 April.

https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/extinction-rebellion-protest-schedule-april-2022-xr-protests-list-where-events-london-1564409?ITO=newsnow

I

Amy Rugg-Easey, who is taking part in the demonstration, said: “I ask myself why I do these things all the time, and the main thing that drives me is that I have tremendous hope and optimism in humanity’s ability to fight the climate crisis – but there are certain people who continue to prevent that for their own profit.”

Events schedule 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/sadiq-khan-extinction-rebellion-xr-protest-tower-bridge-london-disruption-hyde-park-b993359.html

Criticism

Sadiq Khan has said climate activists must “win over public opinion” as he accused Extinction Rebellion of being “counterproductive” following disruption on Friday morning.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/08/extinction-rebellion-fossil-fuels-protest-grind-london-halt

The Guardian

XR organisers are hoping a new strategy will enable them to evade police and again cause major disruption in London. Attempts to take and hold road junctions with large pieces of protest infrastructure, which police had learned to quickly isolate and remove, will be swapped for more mobile and adaptable blockades.

“We are not going to be coming in with huge objects necessarily, but the plan is to get lots of people to hold areas using their bodies, staying in roads and holding spaces,” said an XR source. “We are going to try to be really mobile as well.”

There would be “people moving around and trying to hold the space, holding spaces that are particularly disruptive and doing direct actions … We want to be movable so we can go to different areas if we want to. We want to be super-mobile and hard to pin down, but we also want it to be really inclusive, easy to find and get involved.”

On Thursday morning Juliette Brown, a 51-year-old psychiatrist from London who was sat in the road by St James’s Park outside the government department, said: “We know that the climate and ecological crisis is a health crisis. Global warming [and] air pollution are largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

“The government declared a climate emergency, yet they are still considering licensing new oil and gas fields [and] financing fossil fuels through tax breaks despite the clear evidence and advice from experts that we need to end all new fossil fuel investment immediately.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/08/tower-bridge-closed-extinction-rebellion-protesters-abseil-london/

The Telegraph

Alex Ede, 28, whose commute to work was disrupted by the protest, said: “I think their cause is a good one but the way they go about it can be very distressful, especially for the general public.”

“I’ve heard that someone’s hanging off the bridge – so, yes, I think the police had to close the bridge if someone’s life was in danger.”

Amy Rugg-Easey, who took part in the demonstration, said: “I ask myself why I do these things all the time, and the main thing that drives me is that I have tremendous hope and optimism in humanity’s ability to fight the climate crisis – but there are certain people who continue to prevent that for their own profit.”

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/surrey-extinction-rebellion-supporters-hang-23642172

Get Surrey

Roger Lockey, aged 66 and a retired builder and property maintenance specialist from Reigate, said: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released this week tells all of us in no uncertain terms that we are in deep trouble, and that we need to stop burning fossil fuels now to have any chance of avoiding the worst of the climate crisis we have been facing for the last thirty years.

1. Marine Le Pen has been campaigning for years to destroy the European Union.

2. In 2014 Marine Le Pen failed to recieve French investment for her political campaigns because of facist ties and got an 11 million Euro loan from Putin.

3. Marine Le Pen has joined Putin activists in Russia to resist what they characterised as a global sodomite conspiracy saying that ‘homophilia is one of the elements of globalisation’.

4. Marine Le Pen personally endorsed Russia’s invasion of Crimea. After Crimea, within the Russian presidential administration people were told to ‘thank the French’.

Despite being a heavy authority on all facets of Anglo-American culture, Christopher Hitchens wrote with little enthusiasm for music. However some support is indicated for the great Leonard Cohen, describing ‘If It Be Your Will’ as ‘beautifully rendered’, adding that ‘Leonard Cohen is unimaginable without, and indissoluble from his voice (I now doubt that I could be bothered or bear to hear that song done by anybody else)’. This brief comment acts as legitimacy for my own obsession with Cohen.

As a teenager, the pursuit of finding new music seemed more concerned with the style and the social than with the literary, likely explaining why Hitchens did not care for it. Cohen was an exception from most Rock and Roll stars. He had attended Columbia University and prior to writing songs, had written two novels, The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). This experienced command of the English language distinguishes Cohen from all other modern songwriters. It gives him the courage to confront themes of love, suffering and irony with an eloquence not expected from a guitar wielding performer.

When one listens to Cohen there is the immense sense that, through virtue of repeated plays, one may acquire the gifts of being irresistible to women and command over an empire of emotions. The desire to become Cohen is based on more than just his song writing. The songs act as a window to a polymath, a magician, a poet, a psychonaut, a man at home in Hampstead Heath, New York, Hydra, a member of one of the most powerful Jewish families in Montreal, a monk, a ladies man, a chain smoker, a poser, a novelist.

The gift of Cohens song writing stems from his honesty. Cohen is an artist who seeks to represent life as it is, articulating the truth merely for the power of doing so. The value of this quality is immense and the relevance of his words grow with all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

In the face of George Floyd’s murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter protest, it is Cohen, on There is a War (1974), who articulates an attitude that would get most politicians and journalists fired:

‘there is a war between the rich and poor, a war between the black and white, a war between the odd and the even’.

Following the nomination of Donald Trump, it was the Cohen song Everybody Knows (1988) that provided the most effective insight towards the collective disturbance, singing:

‘Everybody knows the war is over/ Everybody knows the good guys lost/ Everybody knows the boat is leaking/ Everybody knows that the Captain Lied/ Everybody got this broken feeling/ Like their father or their dog just died’.

No singer has articulate the fear of accelearting to a planet of 3 degrees global warming better than Cohen in The Future (1992):

‘Your servant here, he has been told/ To say it clear, to say it cold/ It’s over, it ain’t going any further/ And now the wheels of heaven stop/ You feel the devils riding crop/ Get ready for the future it is murder’// ’Things are going to slide/ Slide in all directions/ Won’t see nothing/ Nothing you can measure anymore/ The blizzard, the blizzard of the world/ Has passed the threshold/ And it has over turned the order of the soul’.  

Cohen’s lessons are free from the chains of ideology or retail. While Johnny Rotten may go from the Sex Pistols to advertising Country Life butter, Cohen is worthy listening from Songs of Leonard Cohen in 1969 until his last album, You Want It Darker, released just 17 days before his death on the 7^th of November 2016.

So Long Marianne, found on The Songs of Leonard Cohen, introduces us to Leonard Cohen’s longest love affair, conceived in Hydra and concluded on Marianne’s death bed. Songs from a Room includes a The Partisan a song originally sung by the French Resistance during World War Two and to my mind the provides the best use of French in English popular music. Famous Blue Raincoat from Songs of Love and Hate provides a riddle of lost love and rivalry through the medium of a letter. New Skin Old Ceremony houses Lover, Lover, Lover, written during the time of performances to Israeli troops during the Yom Kippur War, provides a vision of conflict through love, the self and the family.

Death of a Ladies Man, produced by a gun wielding and cranky Phil Spector, offers songs like Memories where Leonard Cohen injects 1950’s ballads with a heavy dose of lust. Came So Far for Beauty on Recent Songs provides a story, familiar yet never articulated, of an individual who fails to gain respect for spiritual and aesthetic achievements. Various Positions provides Cohen’s most famous song Hallelujah featured in The OC, The Watchmen and Shrek. Hitchens’ interpretation that Cohen’s voice elevates his songs beyond reach of covers is truest when listening to covers by John Cale and Alexander Burke but for many challenged by Jeff Buckley’s version. With the line ‘there is a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in’, found on Anthem in The Future, Cohen pens what would come the title of the planet’s biggest philosophy festival (HowTheLightGetsIn).

Ten New Songs provided the first Leonard Cohen album following a five year hiatus in the Mt. Baldy Zen Center. In my Secret Life, a song I first heard drinking in a beach hut in Gorkana, South India, Cohen confronts the difference between public persona of competition and conformity with the private persona of memory and principle. If you’ve ever thought what happens to lust around the age of 70, the song Because of on Dear Heather provides an intimate expression of the carnal appetite. The song Nevermind on Popular Problems articulates political contradictions and resignation in the face of an objective understanding of the past; ‘There’s truth that lives/And truth that dies/I don’t know which/So nevermind’.

On You Want It Darker, Cohen uses his final breaths to warn of the eternal struggle of existence. Cohen talks to the God of genocide, ‘they’re lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim’, and the murderous middle class ‘I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim’. In the last verse Cohen sings the same words Abraham replied on the suspension of his sons sacrifice, ‘hinenei hinenei/ hinenei hinenei’ (here I am here I am/ here I am here I am (Isaiah (6:8)) followed by ‘I’m ready my Lord’.

 

Christopher Hitchens’ describes understanding that with the emergence of identity politics in the 60’s a ‘truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse’. Sam Harris supports the condemnation arguing that ‘the nature of any argument is that its validity doesn’t depend on who you are… a person’s identity and life experience often aren’t relevant when talking about facts’. In effect the casual identity politics argument can very often be the oratorical equivalent of the water bomb in rock, paper, scissors as the moment someone asserts identity as a legitimate argument their opponent, if not of that identity, is expected to either be silenced or respectful given the absence of the subject’s identity. Taken seriously this logic suffocates the ability to seriously entertain and interrogate ideas. 

Douglas Murray describes how much of the desire of social justice campaigners ‘is not to heal but to divide, not to placate but to inflame, not to dampen but to burn’. Obama shares this conviction describing the pitfalls of wokeness saying ‘if all your doing is casting stones you’re probably not gonna get that far’. In conjunction with undermining people’s logic and reasoning through their lack of identity is an attempt from those that willingly recognise their lack of identity and seek to contribute nothing towards an argument aside from protecting the given identity claim. 

This rhetorical madness of weaponizing identity serves to undermine reasoning and destroy freedom of speech. If we are not able to flexibly wield language then we arrest the development of imagination and creativity.

The idea of advertisers playing the role of God is around a century old. In The Great Gatsby, written in 1925, the ‘blue and gigantic’ eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg, a billboard for an oculist, watch over the ‘valley of ashes’. At one stage Wilson, mourning the death of his wife, looks ‘at the eyes’ of Doctor T.J Eckleburg and says ‘You may fool me but you can’t fool God…. God see’s everything’.

Today, the internet is the most omnipresent tool mankind has created. The advertising industry provides Facebook and Google with 90% of its profits. In return they are given the power to wield the all seeing eye of the internet. Like all Gods the advertising industry is decorated in myth. One of the most commonly told tales is that people’s phones are listening to them. These days, we fear that Doctor T.J Eckleburg hears everything we say.

People with power and authority have started to believe that advertising companies are listening to their phones. I asked a room of ten business experts and PHD researchers how many thought that companies were listening to their phones to maximise targeted advertisements. 70% believed that they were.

On the 30^th of October Zeynep Tufceki, a leading thinker on Social Media surveillance, publically challenged the myth on Twitter. She highlighted that ‘Facebook has lost so much trust that I’m constantly explaining to strangers that no, it’s not listening to you through your phone’, however, this resolution lasted just 6 days. On November 5^th she declared that she had gotten so many targeted ads that she was leaning towards the view that ‘Facebook is listening’ through your phone.

The reaction from both the Virt-Eu seminar and Tufceki demonstrates the overwhelming cloud of distrust. Through not only speculating but accepting that their phones are being listened to, there is a resignation towards the omnipotence of technology companies.

While technically the collective may be ignorant, communication is one tool we can use to defend ourselves. Interviews and conversations paint a picture of how we believe advertisers are using technology to target us.

Emma, described how the CEO of the company Klook was going to speak at her company. After long conversations with work colleagues about the CEO, she went on to her Facebook and found an advert for them. At first it seems that this may be a result of cookies tracking her website searches, alas, she claims not to have searched the work Klook on Google nor sent it through an email.

Katie, gave the example of talking on the phone to a friend about some trainers that she wanted to buy. After the conversation, the very trainers she had mentioned started to be advertised on her friend’s homepage. This could suggest the language from dialogue was being recorded by the phone and then translated by machine learning.

Cece, detailed how she had been speaking about ‘Hygge’ with her family, and lo and behold, an hour later the following advert was on her Instagram.

The online advertising industry is big business with approximately half a trillion dollars being spent every year. As, the technology gets more complex, it is likely that adventurous ways of targeting users will be deployed.

One anonymous source claimed that he worked for a start up that ‘if you downloaded an app with their code, they could see the users web history, what apps they owned and for how long they’re on them’. This company acted as the middle man doing technological dirty work. When working for Nike they would make sure to send adverts to people who viewed the Adidas homepage.

The companies machine learning would continually analyse online reactions to adverts and modulate the way adverts were targeted. The method was hugely successful, as they received an astonishing 30% engagement with all their adverts.

This article does not reveal the methods of Doctor T.J Eckleburg. Instead, it is a witness to the miracles that people claim to have seen. Without drawing any firm methodological conclusions, it seems we are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the surveillance economy. As Doctor T.J Eckleburg looks on in silence, it is up to activists, journalists and academics to meet his gaze.

Sam Gangadin-Guinness (07.11.12)

Across Facebook and WhatsApp I am part of six group chats. As long as I am accompanied by a suitable phone and app these avenues know no spatial barriers. These communal networks can pervade my daily existence, at work, on the tube, or in a nightclub. These group chats exchange information that will organise my day and construct my imagination; instructions may be given over what to do on the weekend, or alternatively, someone may link my new favourite song. While Facebook profiles and Instagram pages are too public, WhatsApp and Facebook group chats combine effective tools of sharing information with the informality and intimacy of conversation and thus have created one of the most important communal spaces on the internet.