@JtC . You can count on the Irish (and the Americans) for some great music.

Thank you Steve Earle.

@MrWebster , about poetry, colonialism and turning the tables. The artists of Ireland responded by returning violence with exposure, awareness, poetry, and possibly a stronger sense of one's own culture and solidarity (and to be sure, violence on their own part).

The Harbour by Eavan Boland

This harbour was made by art and force.
And called Kingstown and afterwards Dun Laoghaire.
And holds the sea behind its barrier
less than five miles from my house.

Lord be with us say the makers of a nation.
Lord look down say the builders of a harbour.
They came and cut a shape out of ocean
and left stone to close around their labour.

Officers and their wives promenaded
on this spot once and saw with their own eyes
the opulent horizon and obedient skies
which nine tenths of the law provided.

And frigates with thirty-six guns, cruising
the outer edges of influence, could idle
and enter here and catch the tide of
empire and arrogance and the Irish Sea rising

and rising through a century of storms
and cormorants and moonlight the whole length of this coast,
while an ocean forgot an empire and the armed
ships under it changed: to slime weed and cold salt and rust.

City of shadows and of the gradual
capitulations to the last invader
this is the final one: signed in water
and witnessed in granite and ugly bronze and gun-metal.

And by me. I am your citizen: composed of
your fictions, your compromise, I am
a part of your story and its outcome.
And ready to record its contradictions."

Several years ago was talking to a Irish co-worker in Ireland. He said that the day had no religious basis and was really a holiday and celebration of Irish nationalism and culture.

Sorta ironic in a big picture way. The English forced colonialism and violence on the Irish, and they in turn gave the English their best poetry in the English language.

@magiamma . Sounds like a wonderful afternoon....going quilting. I'm glad you enjoyed the quilt above, it's quite something isn't it. And yes, a tremendous amount of work, time, and patience.

Thank you for the link. It is irritating to see the net zero targets morph into a... "dangerous mix of pragmatism, self-delusion and weapons-grade greenwash".

I saw the article you linked last week sometime, I think it may have been in lookout's WW. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
It's such a good article , I bookmarked it, it is very clear, understandable and a great summary of what's going on.

Take good care yourself magi, thanks for stopping by.

Thanks for the ot.

Rain coming tomorrow. Going quilting today. Love the quilt you picked. That's a lot of work. Applique is something I steer away from but do love a lot of the work.

At least this is getting some press. Finally.

The climate crisis can't be solved by carbon accounting tricks

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/03/climate-crisis-car...

An astonishing global shift is under way: 127 countries have now stated that by mid-century their overall emissions of carbon dioxide will be zero. That includes the EU, US, and UK by 2050 – and China by 2060. Companies are enthusiastically signing up to similar “net zero” goals. Finally the international community seems to have accepted the scientific fact that we need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere to stabilise our climate. Dare we hope that the climate crisis can be brought under control?

Perhaps, but big problems remain. Long-term commitments have not resulted in sufficient near-term actions. The world is on track for emissions to be just 0.5% below 2010 levels by 2030, compared with the 45% needed on the road to net zero by 2050. The pivotal Glasgow Cop26 climate talks in November will need to tackle this. But a more insidious problem is emerging. Net zero increasingly involves highly questionable carbon accounting. As a result, the new politics swirling around net zero targets is rapidly becoming a confusing and dangerous mix of pragmatism, self-delusion and weapons-grade greenwash.

The science of net zero is simple: every sector of every country in the world needs to be, on average, zero emissions. We know how to do this for electricity, cars, buildings and even a lot of heavy industry. But in certain areas, including air travel and some agricultural emissions, there is no prospect of getting to zero emissions in the near future. For these residual emissions, greenhouse gasses will need to be sucked out of the atmosphere at the same rate as they are added, so that, on average, there are net zero emissions.

Making this work requires carbon removal, also known as “negative emissions”. This can be low-tech, like restoring forests, as this takes carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it in trees. Or it can be hi-tech, like using chemicals to strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then pumping it deep underground into safe geological storage. In theory this is all fine, as pragmatically some carbon removal is needed to balance hard-to-reduce emissions: but negative emissions and offsetting alone are not a route to net zero.
...

(edit: remove copy paste garbage)

Take good care y'all.