I can’t tell you how depressed it made me feel watching the first episode of BBC Two’s Big Oil vs the World on Thursday night.
It seems that even when I was a baby, execs at the world’s top oil and gas firms knew exactly what they were doing to the world’s climate.
And it makes me feel sick to my stomach that even now they are still getting away with it.
Read more: DUP MP urged to 'look at the world around him' after heatwave hysteria comments
Part One: Denial, literally set out how Exxon and other firms knew about climate change over 40 years ago but how, instead of accepting the science, went on a campaign to spread doubt through political lobbying and media spin likened to lies in some cases.
In a series of throwbacks to past IPCC reports, UN conferences and TV news reports, it highlights repeated warnings about global warning. And it also highlighted the hope derived from new scientific evidence, ground-breaking reports from US officials and even the Clinton and Algore era.
But here we are decades on and journalists around the world are still highlighting the impacts of climate change first reported widely since in the 1970s - and nothing has changed.
Former US Vice-President Al Gore described the efforts of big oil companies to delay the response to climate change as “the most serious crime of the post-world war two era”.
“I think it’s the moral equivalent of a war crime… The consequences of what they’ve done are just almost unimaginable,” he told the film makers.
Current reports about the crisis are growing ever more stark and the alarm bells couldn’t be louder.
But it appears Big Oil’s campaign against the science has been a huge success as they are still squeezing every last penny out of us they can with staggering prices at the pumps - damage be damned. And I have no doubt that the gas lobbyists were out in force ahead of a decisions that saw fossil fuel gas branded ‘green’ in the new EU taxonomy designed to encourage investment in sustainable fuels.
Then there are people like DUP MP Sammy Wilson calling concern about heatwaves caused by the climate crisis “hysteria”.
I am all for people holding opposing views and I will defend anyone’s right to free speech. But how have we arrived at a world that is so grey and filled with loopholes, that our laws no longer prevent wrongdoing and damage even when we know it’s to the detriment of the whole of humanity and every living thing on this planet.
It’s the never-ending story of global corporations and how money can buy you out of just about anything and has been laid out time and time again for us mere mortals in movies like Erin Brokovich (a power company), The Insider (tobacco industry), Dark Waters (chemical company) and Promised Land (natural gas company).
Each and every one of them highlight the sometimes sinister lengths big business will go to to keep raking in the dosh.
Big Oil has basically done it to whole world and made the global north complicit in the damage with our gas boilers, oil heating, coal fires and diesel and petrol guzzling motors. When are we going to catch ourselves on and really rise up against governments letting this happen?
The system isn’t even just broken anymore it’s been downright corrupted. If we want a safe world for our children, we all need to fight for it together.
Why not start with letters to every MLA and MP you can think of to get every suitable home fitted with solar panels, insulated to within an inch of it’s life and a heat pump installed.
It will save us a fortune and help save the world.
Catch-up on iPlayer or check out the next two parts on BBC Two.
New home specs still not up to snuff
Despite the climate crisis, and everything knowing we need to remove fossil fuels from our lives, Stormont Building Regulations that came into force on June 30 still allow the installation of fossil fuel boilers in new homes.
The Department of Finance, which is in charge of NI’s building regs, said the revisions “require substantial reductions in carbon emissions from new houses and flats”.
But they could have gone so much further.
They say if fossil fuel boilers are included in new builds, the emissions “must be reduced or partially offset, most likely through provision of renewable generating technologies like solar panels”.
But again, this isn’t a specification.
I asked if all new homes had to be fitted with solar panels - they said ‘no’.
What a missed opportunity.
And after the review, new homes still don’t have to be built to a carbon neutral spec while they said the amount of greenspace around a home is not a matter for them.
And when we asked if new houses have to have quadruple glazing, which insulates from heat loss, and the best level of insulation and cooling properties possible, they said: “The Department set our latest uplift of Part F of the building regulations with a view that the standards should provide insulation levels in new buildings that will be at, or very close to, levels likely to maximise energy savings but still pay back the increased capital cost over their lifetime. This will be reviewed again in future uplifts which will also require improved consideration of overheating.”
‘Likely’ - well that’s a loophole, if ever I saw one.
How are things ever going to change if the people with the power to enforce that change, fail to do what’s needed every single time?
This will put a smile on your face
After all the bad climate news this week, this really made me smile.
Sustrans has helped six asylum seekers in Belfast to get on their bikes with the gift of six refurbished bicycles.
The men, who arrived from Eritrea, East Africa and Iran got their new wheels, hi-viz vests, helmets and bicycle locks after a five-week cycle skills course.
Orla Gardiner, Migrant Help Regional Manager, said: “These workshops have provided opportunities which otherwise would not be available to [asylum seekers]. Having the added value now of owning their own bikes... well, what can I say... the smiles on the gents’ faces said it all!”
Caroline Bloomfield, Sustrans Northern Ireland Director, added: “Cycling is a low cost, healthy way of travelling and,.. we are delighted to be able to work with this group of asylum seekers.”
The programme was co-designed with Migrant Help and Belfast City of Sanctuary, and supported by the PHA and Big Loop Bikes.
Stop the office air-con wars
I know it’s been warm everywhere and we have to do what we can to keep cool and sometimes that means air conditioning.
At Belfast Live HQ, we did a bit of homework and discovered that setting it at 21/22 degrees keeps people cool and cuts the amount of power it uses.
Why not ask whoever manages your building to do the same!
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