Why have climate change concerns suddenly increased?

[tbtc]

XR and Greenpeace have a very clear message, and even if people get ticked off at what they do, I think that bad is outweighed by the fact that everyone talks about the climate now. And quite a good deal more people care about it now than before. Remember the suffragettes were considered terrorists in their day, but they were very effective at getting women the vote, since, well, women have the vote now

"Getting everyone talking about you" is such a depressing metric (wetting yourself at school gets everyone talking about you, but I wouldn't recommend it!)

But it's where we are in modern Britain - people exist in social media bubbles, all that matters is whether you are playing well with your "base", even if it alienates the mainstream

Look at Corbynism, which was wildly popular with the activists but pushed millions of people to vote Tory (however badly Theresa May did, she won over two million more votes than Cameron's majority-winning performance in 2015, because Corbyn scared a lot of people into voting Tory)

People were certainly "talking" about Fathers For Justice twenty years ago, but is there any evidence that they helped their cause?

We see this with organisations like PETA, who nominally represent vegetarian/ vegan concerns but do the equivalent of wetting themselves online - not the only organisation who are more interested in being seen to make some noise and annoy opponents even if it means losing a lot of people who'd otherwise support your cause - but PETA seem poster boys for this kind of Stunts Over Substance activism

The suffragettes are a simple story that we tell people at school, but I think that women would have had the vote regardless thanks to the suffragists (who were much savvier political campaigners), the general mood at the end of the Great War (as @Gostav mentioned above) and also campaigns to extend the general franchise (bearing in mind that a lot of men didn't have the vote either)

Plenty of other people were "considered terrorists" without helping their cause (Extinction Rebellion glueing themselves to electric trains backfired in the mainstream, people probably class them as closer to Abu Hamza than David Attenborough)

 

[dakta]

"I think it depends. XR and Greenpeace have a very clear message"

I'm not sure, I might know they are activists and eco-minded but to know what they are actually trying to do or what they are communicating (beyond the vague we have problems of the sustainability of how we're living kind) I'd have to google it I think to pinpoint, though I probably wouldn't have to google to know specific examples of inconveniences they have caused. Insulate Britain are 'the brightest star' when it comes to this because they've taken it to yet another level and are a bit topical at this moment in time not only for the inconvenience they cause but their inability to put a good argument together when given the chance but they are not without comparison.

Regarding 'doing more harm than good' - this is admittedly somewhat tongue in cheek but largely because whenever (in my experience) they seem to get discussion locally (as in over the dinner table or at work) - interest seems less in the cause and more so about the inconveniences caused and why they shouldn't be allowed to take these acts, again you could argue insulate britain as the worst offender, but Greenpeace and even more so extinction rebellion are not invalid examples. This is prompting the discussion of 'should these things be allowed or better regulated?' because obviously whilst things need to change, the world also needs to spin. When many campaigns are making their points through inconveniencing ordinary people going about their lives, it builds a bit of a reputation and negative connotations which does get the message lost (in some cases at least).


"Getting everyone talking about you" is such a depressing metric (wetting yourself at school gets everyone talking about you, but I wouldn't recommend it!)"

It's an extreme analogy but actually it's not far off one of the points I was getting at, i think sometimes they think 'we are causing some inconvenience but it is getting our message talked about' when in reality their message is left under the sofa whilst people are discussing a bunch of people causing mayhem for reasons unspecified, impacting others and what can be done about it.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way against saving the environment but i'm struggling to find much in terms of examples where through discussing these types of events I've witnessed positive engagement

 

[brad465]

"Getting everyone talking about you" is such a depressing metric (wetting yourself at school gets everyone talking about you, but I wouldn't recommend it!)

But it's where we are in modern Britain - people exist in social media bubbles, all that matters is whether you are playing well with your "base", even if it alienates the mainstream

Look at Corbynism, which was wildly popular with the activists but pushed millions of people to vote Tory (however badly Theresa May did, she won over two million more votes than Cameron's majority-winning performance in 2015, because Corbyn scared a lot of people into voting Tory)

People were certainly "talking" about Fathers For Justice twenty years ago, but is there any evidence that they helped their cause?

We see this with organisations like PETA, who nominally represent vegetarian/ vegan concerns but do the equivalent of wetting themselves online - not the only organisation who are more interested in being seen to make some noise and annoy opponents even if it means losing a lot of people who'd otherwise support your cause - but PETA seem poster boys for this kind of Stunts Over Substance activism

The suffragettes are a simple story that we tell people at school, but I think that women would have had the vote regardless thanks to the suffragists (who were much savvier political campaigners), the general mood at the end of the Great War (as @Gostav mentioned above) and also campaigns to extend the general franchise (bearing in mind that a lot of men didn't have the vote either)

Plenty of other people were "considered terrorists" without helping their cause (Extinction Rebellion glueing themselves to electric trains backfired in the mainstream, people probably class them as closer to Abu Hamza than David Attenborough)

Sometimes its better to control the narrative than worry about the content of the narrative. This is why Trump got to where he did, the difference is he had a lot of rich oligarchs in the media and other corporations on his side giving him a positive spin on his publicity, something that many of the groups you talk about here will never get.

Also, these extreme groups are a symptom of a society that's both divided and failing because neoliberalism isn't working anymore; unless we change the whole system to one that works for society on many issues that a majority are concerned about, silencing particular groups is not going to stop others taking their place. Trump might be out of office, but he could try and get back again, and/or a successor with similar views may do. We've also seen Insulate Britain become a newer force taking the spotlight from XR. Whatever one's views of these groups, they exist because because of mainstream social, environmental, economic and political failures.

 

[MattA7]

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups.

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

 

[AM9]

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups.

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

Nobody wants to live on a flood plain, or next to HS2, or near a busy motorway, or next to a large land-based wind farm, or ... the list goes on but something has to give. It's galling that those who make the most noise about not having certain things 'in their back yard' are never prepared to forgo the service/products that depend on being in somebody else's neighbourhood.

 

[takno]

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups.

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

Older environmentalists are often quite anti, but I get the impression that there's much more acceptance in younger generations that it's just some tech which solves problems in a fairly sustainable way.

Looking back over nuclear disasters, Fukushima caused a lot of local damage, but nothing like as much as the tsunami which led to it. Three Mile Island has been almost completely forgotten. Even Chernobyl, which was much worse than the worst could possibly be with modern reactors, probably killed less of its workers and neighbours than coal-burning stations

NIMBYs are a problem with any modern development of course, and they will trump up some imagined threat to health from almost anything. Witness last year's attacks on 5g masts for example.

 

[najaB]

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

Except nuclear power plants don't pose a serious threat to health, other than in the exceedingly rare radiation release accident.

 

[brad465]

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups.

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

I think there is a future in mini reactors, a concept Rolls Royce have proposed, which would allow nuclear power sources to spread out far more widely and be quicker and easier to both setup and manage (mini reactors are already a thing on nuclear submarines). If they could be setup in the next decade to at least match all the power stations coming offline before 2035, that would also avert an energy shortage, as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell both won't be able to offset everything.

 

[najaB]

I think there is a future in mini reactors, a concept Rolls Royce have proposed, which would allow nuclear power sources to spread out far more widely and be quicker and easier to both setup and manage (mini reactors are already a thing on nuclear submarines). If they could be setup in the next decade to at least match all the power stations coming offline before 2035, that would also avert an energy shortage, as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell both won't be able to offset everything.

There's a lot of noise around Small Modular Reactors, and they definitely could go a long way to meeting energy needs both as replacements for coal/gas plants as they age and, more importantly, to provide developing economies with clean power sources so that they can skip carbon entirely. Unfortunately, so far it's been all noise and no substance.

There are some issues around proliferation, but the solution there is to provide power-as-a-service, at non-exploitative rates. If I had a couple billion pounds sitting around I would acquire and supply a fleet of SMRs for both short-term (e.g. remote mining operations) and long term PaaS solutions.

 

[tbtc]

Also, these extreme groups are a symptom of a society that's both divided and failing because neoliberalism isn't working anymore; unless we change the whole system to one that works for society on many issues that a majority are concerned about, silencing particular groups is not going to stop others taking their place. Trump might be out of office, but he could try and get back again, and/or a successor with similar views may do. We've also seen Insulate Britain become a newer force taking the spotlight from XR. Whatever one's views of these groups, they exist because because of mainstream social, environmental, economic and political failures.

These groups exist a lot of the time because of the narcissism of a handful of attention seekers who have cottoned onto "green" issues as a "crusade" - especially those who want to Smash The System and bring down capitalism by their stunts

Other countries have similar mixes of "neoliberalism" and Governments that aren't particularly green, without generating the same number of wacky zany protesters

Greenpeace were too mainstream for some, so Extinction Rebellion was created - but Extinction Rebellion was apparently too mainstream so now we have Insulate Britain - we'll probably have another couple of splinter groups by this time next year as protestors need to out-do each other (in the way that there's a new "socialist" party being created every few months)

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups

This is the problem with a number of "eco friendly" groups - they are instinctively against a lot of things without proposing solutions - e.g. the Green Party being against HS2

That's why they remain protest groups - much easier to oppose

Nobody wants to live on a flood plain, or next to HS2, or near a busy motorway, or next to a large land-based wind farm, or ... the list goes on but something has to give. It's galling that those who make the most noise about not having certain things 'in their back yard' are never prepared to forgo the service/products that depend on being in somebody else's neighbourhood.

Agreed

I've mentioned this before, so apologies for repetition, but there's a sweet spot for things like HS2 - people are annoyed about it being too close to their house but people are annoyed if it doesn't have a stop near their town/city - it's impossible to create a High Speed railway line that is five-to-ten miles away from everyone's house, no closer and no further away

NIMBYs are a problem with any modern development of course, and they will trump up some imagined threat to health from almost anything. Witness last year's attacks on 5g masts for example.

This is the problem - there are always things to be "against" - remember when mobile phones were all going to cause us brain cancer, or 3g phone masts caused leukaemia?

There's always some new "scare"

 

[najaB]

This is the problem - there are always things to be "against" - remember when mobile phones were all going to cause us brain cancer, or 3g phone masts caused leukaemia?

There's always some new "scare"

That's not because of NIMBYism, it's because of a lack of basic science education in society generally. People aren't able to tell that ideas are BS so they stick around and get a following.

 

[brad465]

These groups exist a lot of the time because of the narcissism of a handful of attention seekers who have cottoned onto "green" issues as a "crusade" - especially those who want to Smash The System and bring down capitalism by their stunts

Other countries have similar mixes of "neoliberalism" and Governments that aren't particularly green, without generating the same number of wacky zany protesters

Greenpeace were too mainstream for some, so Extinction Rebellion was created - but Extinction Rebellion was apparently too mainstream so now we have Insulate Britain - we'll probably have another couple of splinter groups by this time next year as protestors need to out-do each other (in the way that there's a new "socialist" party being created every few months
This is the problem with a number of "eco friendly" groups - they are instinctively against a lot of things without proposing solutions - e.g. the Green Party being against HS2

Then demand improvements to our education system and political systems that discourage these splinter groups emerging, and look at what those other countries you refer to have about them and demand we implement similar systems, rather than just attacking protest groups. In the words of JFK "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable" (I'm not suggesting these groups here are peaceful, but if they're violent then it seems peaceful revolution hasn't been allowed to work, and trying to shut these groups down will only risk more violent groups emerging). If these groups want to "smash the system" it's because they believe the system doesn't work for them, so the way to go about this is to either prove to them the system is working for them, or change the system in a sensible way that does work for them better without making it unworkable for others.

I agree these groups are not doing much to propose solutions to what they're protesting about, but I could easily say the same thing about you with regards to handling these protest groups sensibly.

Agreed

I've mentioned this before, so apologies for repetition, but there's a sweet spot for things like HS2 - people are annoyed about it being too close to their house but people are annoyed if it doesn't have a stop near their town/city - it's impossible to create a High Speed railway line that is five-to-ten miles away from everyone's house, no closer and no further away

HS2 has a lot of NIMBY opposition of course, but it also has a lot of opposition from non-NIMBY folk who oppose the high cost of it, even if they live a good 100+ miles from its planned route. The way to counteract this is to present comprehensive cost to benefit analyses of the whole project and show how the costs breakdown and what is being done to mitigate drawbacks. One could say this has already been done and is being done, but every time the expected cost and timescale for completion increases, opposition grows and the estimates need redoing. In this country (and some other western countries too) we have a serious problem with project management for large projects that goes a long way to explaining why spiralling costs and delays exist with HS2, Crossrail, GWML electrification, a 3rd runway at Heathrow, Stonehenge Tunnel, and many others I suspect too.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

In this country (and some other western countries too) we have a serious problem with project management for large projects that goes a long way to explaining why spiralling costs and delays exist with HS2, Crossrail, GWML electrification, a 3rd runway at Heathrow, Stonehenge Tunnel, and many others I suspect too.

What are the key issues?

Deliberately underbidding at the outset to get the project?

Allowing costs to run away after a certain point in the project when a shed load of money has already been spent?

Not properly costed changes of specification, mid-project?

Something else?

 

[brad465]

What are the key issues?

Deliberately underbidding at the outset to get the project?

Allowing costs to run away after a certain point in the project when a shed load of money has already been spent?

Not properly costed changes of specification, mid-project?

Something else?

Pretty much all those yes.

 

[najaB]

What are the key issues?

Deliberately underbidding at the outset to get the project?

Allowing costs to run away after a certain point in the project when a shed load of money has already been spent?

Not properly costed changes of specification, mid-project?

Something else?

As I see it the main issue is underbidding, but not in a malicious/corrupt way.

The tender system generally forces companies to be super-optimistic in their estimates rather than building in realistic contingencies (both time and money) into their bids. I'm not sure what the solution would be, other than a formalised way to factor previous performance in to evaluating bids (e.g. Company A went x% over budget on their last project, therefore they're scored 10 points lower than company B), but that then would put new companies at a potential disadvantage.

 

[AndrewE]

That's not because of NIMBYism, it's because of a lack of basic science education in society generally. People aren't able to tell that ideas are BS so they stick around and get a following.

That point is somewhat indermined by the fact that lots of scientists are pretty vociferous at the moment, and the ones that aren't are watching their backs or concerned about thair future employment. I agree it's a pity that so many of the population are frightened off a discussion if any chemical names or SI units are mentioned though.

As I see it the main issue is underbidding, but not in a malicious/corrupt way.

The tender system generally forces companies to be super-optimistic in their estimates rather than building in realistic contingencies (both time and money) into their bids. I'm not sure what the solution would be, other than a formalised way to factor previous performance in to evaluating bids (e.g. Company A went x% over budget on their last project, therefore they're scored 10 points lower than company B), but that then would put new companies at a potential disadvantage.

I understood that the big problem with HS2 was the insistence on an unnecessarily high linespeed (requiring cemented ballast) and that the contactors carried all the risk for 25 years or something like that. Hence a high initial price for construction and ultra-cautious (very high) pricing against the risk of slight settlement of an embankment: you can't just tamp the track!
If only they had been honest and said "It is a new set of fast lines (which we desperately need,) 125 or 140 mph will be quite enough and the cost of going any faster will make it unviable." The lower speed would also have reduced nuisance (and hence the extent and cost of mitigation measures) and probably allowed a cheaper alignment too. If it was a straightforward railway civil engineer's new build with "BR" taking the risk it might have been very much cheaper.
I wonder whether it is too late to have another act and de-scope the speed a bit? After all, energy consumption goes up with the cube of the speed or something like that, so you could justify it in those grounds while offering an olive branch to the opponents, whether they were Greens or just NIMBYs.
A

 

[Gostav]

I'm not suggesting these groups here are peaceful, but if they're violent then it seems peaceful revolution hasn't been allowed to work, and trying to shut these groups down will only risk more violent groups emerging

Violent groups and violent revolutions inevitably face high risks, the participants know that if they are arrested, they will never be released as easily as members of XR or Greenpeace. Those people are not fools, first of all, they know that even in the UK and Western society, non-violent & disobedience can allow them to be released quickly, but they will face serious criminal charges if they cross the line.

Historically, only when the country had very serious turbulence and the people really in serious survival problems (such as Irish independence, the Middle East issue), the people would consider participating in a violent revolution. No, not fit for climate groups.

 

[AM9]

As I see it the main issue is underbidding, but not in a malicious/corrupt way.

The tender system generally forces companies to be super-optimistic in their estimates rather than building in realistic contingencies (both time and money) into their bids. I'm not sure what the solution would be, other than a formalised way to factor previous performance in to evaluating bids (e.g. Company A went x% over budget on their last project, therefore they're scored 10 points lower than company B), but that then would put new companies at a potential disadvantage.

Maybe a better way to construct a bid for something like HS2 (as an example) would be to run a cost benefit analysis of both the proposed project and at least the cost of the 'do nothing' project. That would apply to most major projects where those who oppose are content to dig in claiming that the 'do nothing' project doesn't cost anything. Although it is off-topic for this thread, to use the example of HS2 as it is well understood here, the 'do nothing' has an environmental impact of proliferating yet more road traffic, and the 'let's spend all that (investment) cash on something else' which is often proffered by those who don't even understand how long-term investments work and if all of the petty local tweaking was undertaken would bring a few years mild improvement like the WCML upgrade did over the 10 years to 2008 at a cost of over £10bn. If all of those options were fully impact assessed and costed, the selected option would at least have sufficient relative merit to proceed without costly attempts to stop the live programme every 6 months.
How is all the above relevant to the topic of this thread, - well the 'do nothing' options would have costs not only in money, but also trade, health, political and almost certainly human life itself. The 'lets procrastinate because it is too embarrassing in electoral terms' would be revealed as a net increase in the overall cost with potentially as bad results as the 'do nothing' option because it may be too late to recover. The issue of protest groups fades into the background even politically) compared to the ensuing disaster that we are facing. Blaming them is a diversion.

 

[najaB]

That point is somewhat indermined by the fact that lots of scientists are pretty vociferous at the moment, and the ones that aren't are watching their backs or concerned about thair future employment. I agree it's a pity that so many of the population are frightened off a discussion if any chemical names or SI units are mentioned though.

The specific point I was replying to was that nonsense claims (e.g. 5G masts being used for mind control) aren't being immediately seen as nonsense by a large enough proportion of the population that they die out as soon as they arise. That's completely different to climate change scepticism which, as long as it is scientifically based, is a healthy thing.

As to scientists being concerned about future employment, any scientist who could prove that anthropogenic climate change isn't a thing wouldn't have to worry about future employment, aside from deciding which chairs they would decline. We don't know names like Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Curie and so on because they confirmed the scientific consensus but precisely because they were able to prove that the consensus was wrong.

 

[takno]

That point is somewhat indermined by the fact that lots of scientists are pretty vociferous at the moment, and the ones that aren't are watching their backs or concerned about thair future employment. I agree it's a pity that so many of the population are frightened off a discussion if any chemical names or SI units are mentioned though.

I understood that the big problem with HS2 was the insistence on an unnecessarily high linespeed (requiring cemented ballast) and that the contactors carried all the risk for 25 years or something like that. Hence a high initial price for construction and ultra-cautious (very high) pricing against the risk of slight settlement of an embankment: you can't just tamp the track!
If only they had been honest and said "It is a new set of fast lines (which we desperately need,) 125 or 140 mph will be quite enough and the cost of going any faster will make it unviable." The lower speed would also have reduced nuisance (and hence the extent and cost of mitigation measures) and probably allowed a cheaper alignment too. If it was a straightforward railway civil engineer's new build with "BR" taking the risk it might have been very much cheaper.
I wonder whether it is too late to have another act and de-scope the speed a bit? After all, energy consumption goes up with the cube of the speed or something like that, so you could justify it in those grounds while offering an olive branch to the opponents, whether they were Greens or just NIMBYs.
A

While we certainly do need the extra capacity, we need the speed as well. On the west coast it's required in order to gain the full benefits to Birmingham and Manchester, and for journeys to Glasgow it's essential to compete with air.

For journeys to East Mids, Sheffield and Leeds the speed is essential in order to free up capacity on the midland mainline and east coast. If you're only going to build at 125mph you're going to need another whole line going directly north to relieve the East Coast, and neither will ultimately be affordable because you aren't gaining enough additional speed benefits to fully justify the business case

 

[AndrewE]

As to scientists being concerned about future employment, any scientist who could prove that atherogenic climate change isn't a thing wouldn't have to worry about future employment, aside from deciding which chairs they would decline. We don't know names like Newton, Faraday, Einstein, Curie and so on because they confirmed the scientific consensus but precisely because they were able to prove that the consensus was wrong.

I bet you don't know the names of Marshall and Warren. They were derided, gaslighted (?) and almost made unemployable because of what they published in 1982 - only being rehabilitated in the 2000s. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall says

H. pylori was first discovered in the stomachs of patients with gastritis and ulcers in 1982 by Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia. At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium could live in the acid environment of the human stomach. In recognition of their discovery, Marshall and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[163]

Note the interva between 1982 and 2005. There was quite a full biography in the Guardien 10 years or or more ago which described how, because they were challenging the consensus and threatening the drug companies' income they were almost detroyed. I think Marshall had "tenure," but he was stripped of his lab, teaching and research funding and only allowed to continue working alone in a basement.

There are current parallels, and you still get dismissed as a fantasist or delusional if you try to point out that the Emperor has no clothes on!

 

[AndrewE]

While we certainly do need the extra capacity, we need the speed as well. On the west coast it's required in order to gain the full benefits to Birmingham and Manchester, and for journeys to Glasgow it's essential to compete with air.

[/QUOTE]
I disagree: both journeys are adequately served now and both are competitive with air. Taking 20 mins off the time from Euston to Brum is not worthwhile. We are repeatedly told here that easing low line speed restrictions is infinitely more cost-effective than trying to push for an extre 10 mph at the top.

For journeys to East Mids, Sheffield and Leeds the speed is essential in order to free up capacity on the midland mainline and east coast. If you're only going to build at 125mph you're going to need another whole line going directly north to relieve the East Coast, and neither will ultimately be affordable because you aren't gaining enough additional speed benefits to fully justify the business case

Higher linespeeds cut capacity because the longer signal sections increase headways. Don't talk about moving block: if it goes wrong or something falls onto the track you have 3 or 4 trains piling up. You can't rely on the braking curve of the train in front for your braking distance.
One of the problems of the current WCML is that the S end was resignalled for 140 mph, so capacity is reduced because headways are unnecessarily long for trains at 125 mph max.

 

[takno]

I disagree: both journeys are adequately served now and both are competitive with air. Taking 20 mins off the time from Euston to Brum is not worthwhile. We are repeatedly told here that easing low line speed restrictions is infinitely more cost-effective than trying to push for an extre 10 mph at the top.

Higher linespeeds cut capacity because the longer signal sections increase headways. Don't talk about moving block: if it goes wrong or something falls onto the track you have 3 or 4 trains piling up. You can't rely on the braking curve of the train in front for your braking distance.
One of the problems of the current WCML is that the S end was resignalled for 140 mph, so capacity is reduced because headways are unnecessarily long for trains at 125 mph max.

It's 37 minutes off Euston to Brum. The 20 minute figure is just a plain lie which seems to have gained a life of its own.

Speeding up the slowest sections of line in the middle of a route will always provide the greatest speed (and environmental) benefits. On the current mixed-use network that tends to be some very tight curves or things like level crossings which exist for historical reasons. On a new build railway which has a broadly consistent maximum speed throughout there aren't any pinch points to improve.

As to moving block, it exists and will be used regardless of whether you believe in it or not.

 

[The Ham]

It's 37 minutes off Euston to Brum. The 20 minute figure is just a plain lie which seems to have gained a life of its own.

Speeding up the slowest sections of line in the middle of a route will always provide the greatest speed (and environmental) benefits. On the current mixed-use network that tends to be some very tight curves or things like level crossings which exist for historical reasons. On a new build railway which has a broadly consistent maximum speed throughout there aren't any pinch points to improve.

As to moving block, it exists and will be used regardless of whether you believe in it or not.

Indeed, the 20 minutes assumes that everyone walks at a given speed and needed to go to New Street before they went anywhere else in Birmingham.

The reality is that there will be some for whom their journey time improves by 40 or more by not going to New Street.

 

[najaB]

I bet you don't know the names of Marshall and Warren.

I did actually.

Note the interva between 1982 and 2005. There was quite a full biography in the Guardien 10 years or or more ago which described how, because they were challenging the consensus and threatening the drug companies' income they were almost detroyed.

As I recall it the main issue was that it took several years for anyone to duplicate their results. Had they held off publishing until they had a repeatable protocol things may well have played out differently for them.

 

[AndrewE]

I did actually

As I recall it the main issue was that it took several years for anyone to duplicate their results. Had they held off publishing until they had a repeatable protocol things may well have played out differently for them.

Go to the top of the class! I bet you are the only one here, I certainly didn't remember the names, just the principle, and looked it up. Some things are too important to keep under wraps, and immediate publication is justified. The Wikipedia article does say that the culture/analysis has to be run for much longerthan the standard test to get the result for this bug, but I can't imagine it woud have been that difficult to replicate it.

Challenges are always worthwhile... see what I found: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/mar1int-1 says (transcription of interview):

How did you come to specialize in gastroenterology?

Barry Marshall: As I said, when I was doing my training every specialty was interesting to me. I even liked geriatrics. Just the challenge of having older people, who are lovely patients, and very grateful when you're helping them. But many of them have five different diseases, instead of just one, and the interaction of all those diseases and drugs! I needed a rest, because I'd had a busy term in internal medicine.


I did gastroenterology. It was just interesting that there was so much going on in those days, because ulcers were very common and patients were coming in. Every single night we'd have a patient with a major bleed. They'd be getting blood transfusions and going to surgery. It was just an interesting thing to find those little bacteria in the stomach. Actually, I had a colleague, Dr. Warren, who was a pathologist. He's very obsessional, a little eccentric, and it was difficult for him to get any of his colleagues to take this seriously. He sort of gave me a tutorial on them one afternoon, and it was just wonderful to me to see these bacteria that weren't in the medical books. I like to do things a little differently, buck the authority, try something out of the box. Thinking out of the box, as it's been said. And the idea that bacteria could survive in the stomach, when the medical books said they couldn't survive in the stomach, that's what made me so curious about it.[my bold)


Could you tell us about Robin Warren and his impact on you, the partnership that you had? Was he a mentor?

​

Barry Marshall: We didn't actually have parallel careers, we just crossed paths when I was doing a gastroenterology fellowship. He had collected about 20 patients with these bacteria, but he didn't have the clinical correlation. He could see the biopsies and the inflammation, but needed somebody else to go and talk to the patients and find out what they felt like, whether there was any relationship between their disease and these little bacteria on the biopsy. He taught me a lot about microbiology and pathology. And then, from what he had told me, I would then go and read the medical books and try and find out what was in the books. And every single pathologist in the whole world who wrote a book described gastritis totally differently. In other words, they didn't understand it.



I'd actually worked this out when I was a student in college, that if I went to a lecture and came out of the lecture thinking, "I don't understand that," it was because it was a bad lecture, and the lecturer didn't know his stuff. Because when I had a good teacher, I would always know exactly what he was talking about and I'd never have to refresh it. I would just understand it. And that's actually something that I've taken into my teaching career, is that if I know the subject and know my stuff, I don't have to get nervous about getting up in front of hundreds of people and giving a lecture, and they'll say it was a good lecture. And so, it's the preparation you put into it, and you have to know your stuff to be able to teach it to others.


The fact that all those pathologists had different interpretations of the same material meant to me that they didn't understand it. So I'm thinking, maybe these bacteria play a role in there.

One of the things that happened with me is that I was interested in computers, even in 1980 with e-mail, but it was really teletypes in those days. Our library had just got a line to the National Library of Medicine. So I came in and started doing literature searches, because I was interested in computers and it was fun for me. But I started trying to track these bacteria. And I found various, very widespread, dispersed references to things in the stomach, which seemed to be related to the bacteria, going back nearly 100 years. So that we could then develop a hypothesis that these bacteria were causing some problem in the stomach, and maybe that was leading to ulcers. And then, instead of having to do 20 years of research checking out all those different angles, the research was done, but it was never connected up. And so, with the literature searching, as it became available, we were able to pick out the research that was already there and put together this coherent pattern, which linked bacteria and ulcers. It didn't happen overnight. We actually thought about it for two years before we were reasonably confident. It was really quite a few years before we were absolutely water-tight.


So you did some of your important research through searching existing literature. But you had to test this hypothesis in the lab. That was a different challenge, wasn't it?

Barry Marshall: That's true. We started off being very successful with patients when we first started treating them. They would tell us that this new treatment was much better than what they had been taking.

One of my little discoveries was I discovered that these bacteria were killed by Pepto-Bismol. We started giving a combination of a Pepto-Bismol type drug with an antibiotic, and about 1994 we had a 75 percent cure rate. So we were able to say, "Okay, if these bacteria are causing trouble, let's eradicate them," and the patients felt better. But everybody has a treatment which supposedly works, and until you've done the double-blind studies, the medical fraternity are very skeptical. So I didn't expect that to be accepted.

You presented this in Belgium, didn't you?

Barry Marshall: I presented that in Belgium, but I'd actually submitted it to the gastroenterology meeting in Australia first.


What did they do?


Barry Marshall: Well,

They said, "Dear Dr. Marshall, we're so sorry that we couldn't accept your abstract. It was such a high standard this year, we had 67 applications and we could only accept 64." So mine was in the bottom 10 percent. Looking back at it I can say it was pushing it a bit to try and get it accepted, but it's fun to have the rejection letter after all these years. My boss knew about the conference in Brussels, so he said, "Don't be downhearted, I still think it's good. You go to Belgium." The hospital paid my airfare, and I connected up with some researchers in Belgium, and made phone calls and whatever, and presented it in Belgium, and that's when it sort of hit the news.


Some of your colleagues thought the way you presented it was a little crass, didn't they?


Barry Marshall: Well, I was fairly confident at that stage, and I was sticking my neck out.

I knew there'd be a lot of Americans there. And we were then challenging for the America's Cup. And so, in fact, I got up and I really threw down the gauntlet. My first slide was a photo of Perth in Western Australia, lovely river and sea, and a yacht. And I said, "This is Perth, Western Australia, and this is the yacht that's going to win the America's Cup in 19..." I think it was '86 or '87. And everybody, "Ahh!" You know, paper balls were being thrown at me. And then I went on to present the new bacteria. I wasn't totally alone though, because I had connected up with the head bacteriologist in England who was interested in that species or that type of bacteria. I'd visited with him for a couple of days before the conference and he had kind of given me a little more confidence than usual, and backed me up on it. As he introduced me, he said, "Well, this is Barry Marshall. He's got this wonderful, interesting new bacteria." So although people were skeptical, and they all went home with the aim of trying to prove me wrong, that's how science moves forward. Someone has a hypothesis and you say, "Okay, if I can prove it wrong, I can publish a paper saying he's wrong." Gradually, over the next few years, one by one, these people trying to prove me wrong fell by the wayside and actually converted over to my side, and became experts in their own right, in helicobacter.

which puts a rather different complexion on

Had they held off publishing until they had a repeatable protocol things may well have played out differently for them.

 

[Ediswan]

"H. pylori was first discovered in the stomachs of patients with gastritis and ulcers in 1982 by Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia. At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium could live in the acid environment of the human stomach. In recognition of their discovery, Marshall and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[163] "
Note the interval between 1982 and 2005.

There is nothing sinister about there being a long gap between a scientific discovery and it being recognised with a Nobel Prize. It is common.

 

[AndrewE]

There is nothing sinister about there being a long gap between a scientific discovery and it being recognised with a Nobel Prize. It is common.

Yes, but the discoverer isn't usually vilified and excluded from his professional environment in between...

 

[backontrack]

I count it as a surprise (albeit a totally expected one) that we've reached the fourth page without anyone mentioning the fact that the climate crisis is achieving greater recognition because the generation expected to bear the brunt of it are reaching adulthood. I think someone mentioned the IPCC report, but apparently the fact that we're on track for 3°C of global heating by the end of the century isn't cause for concern for some people on its own - they have to add some kind of critical statement on the people 'pushing' this (potentially calamitous) issue in order to explain why we're talking about it.

It's also so often the case that people frame the climate as a trojan horse for people with radical left-wing agendas, when in reality it's the climate crisis that pushes people towards those agendas. People are increasingly looking at our capitalist system and seeing cause-to-effect. Now I'm not a revolutionary - I'm far too internally domesticated and English for that - I'm wishy-washy and utopian and recognise that wholehearted. Neither do I endorse what Insulate Britain are doing, they seem to be on a mission to manufacture public opposition to climate activism. But as a young person it is genuinely hard to think about my future while ignoring the looming question of the climate emergency. It all feels so much more conditional, so to speak. And an awful lot of people are feeling that way.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I count it as a surprise (albeit a totally expected one) that we've reached the fourth page without anyone mentioning the fact that the climate crisis is achieving greater recognition because the generation expected to bear the brunt of it are reaching adulthood. I think someone mentioned the IPCC report, but apparently the fact that we're on track for 3°C of global heating by the end of the century isn't cause for concern for some people on its own - they have to add some kind of critical statement on the people 'pushing' this (potentially calamitous) issue in order to explain why we're talking about it.

Reading that bolded bit, one thing does strike me and makes me feel more optimistic that humanity is improving in its approach to these kinds of issues: 3°C is of course very serious, but the end of the century is also still a very long way away! Could anyone imagine in - say - back in 1921 - lots of countries coming together and agreeing to take economically disruptive action in order to avert some crisis that would otherwise happen by the year 2000? It's just not believable is it! From that perspective, the fact that in 2021 we are doing exactly the equivalent thing is actually quite remarkable (even allowing for that it's a difficult process with all sorts of reluctance by certain countries and that the commitments made so far are predicted to be inadequate).