Discussion > How to reduce global carbon emissions?
At the moment the amount of things/energy we can use are limited by what we can afford. Who gets to decide otherwise?
Dec 22, 2015 at 6:22 PM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2
Probably the same people who decided to restrict the use of plastic carrier bags and want to tax sugar.
At the moment we are collectively still largely free to spend the same money on other things, so they are pushing on a piece of string.
michael hart
@Golf I already told you the scarcity of land in the UK is cos you cannot easily get agricultural land rezoned.
The road networks are complete around here, there won't be any new bypasses.
"stewgreen, what is the Planning history/status of the loads of land around your village, where loads of people want to live?" Ah want to live ..that is a restrictive qualification. "There's land" I said but like most of UK not a place people want to live (given the costs, no jobs and the non-warming climate), but "foreigners who talk funny" move in , I mean mostly white English southern people who have retired.
Lots of agriculture land, and in between villages there are spots of old milairy bases/airfields and former industrial land.
We have 2 hectares of garden land, but not allowed to build on it, cos after the councillors awarded themselves planning permission they declared a 10 year moritorium. There's heaps of similar agricultural land around most villages in UK, perhaps not south east.
Half the shops on Scunthorpe High St have been empty or charity shops for the last 30 years as is common in many northern towns. Floodplain land is still being build on in Scunthorpe as ag land is rezoned as building/commercial land. ah i just got to your bit about corrupt councillors..yep that's the reason why the high street is dead.
stewgreen
@TinyCO2 - Who pays for the green gimmick way of reducing CO2 ? YOU do in everything you buy
Do wanna leave your grans house empty for 6 months or do you want your costs to go up by another $1000.
I think you are getting confused about what I said. 2 different things.
#1 That line about "cheap energy is a problem" is a Paul Erlich quote which isn't without merit.
"Paul Erlich once said cheap energy like giving a machine gun to an idiot child"
#2 Was in line with Raff's campaign - whereby i can see radical efficiency things we could do, if we were really minded to save CO2 instead of wasting money/resources on daft green gimmicks.
Now you are saying "but hey I wanna be free don't tell me what to do"
But the gov is already taking things away from you and restricting your life thru green gimmicks subsidies and restrictions.
Those gimmicks cost you not only in energy bills, but in everything you buy, say $2,000-$5,000/year..and if we increase green gimmicks it will cost more.
So what about as an alternative to taking money away from you the government decreased CO2 emitted in the construction industry by not having your grans house empty for 6 months ?
I never suggested it should be a compulsion for non-greens.
A less wasteful society ? Or a more expensive society cos we all have to pay the inefficiency of green gimmicks?
stewgreen
yep that's the reason why the high street is dead.
Dec 23, 2015 at 7:18 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen
Plus the parking meters.
Martin A
Parking meters ? I'd never seen one until I went to London when I was 15.
But true the council do support the downtown by providing carparks, which people must pay for,
At first people still went downtown cos there was no other choice, but then the council gave planning permission for edge of town developments, which of course include free parking.
stewgreen
What I meant is that the councils decision to charge for downtown parking, seems at one level stupid.
.. but then at another level it seems a deliberate tactic to help their mates edge of town shopping developments.
If they as @Martin mentions they stopped charging for downtown parking, then it would come back to life.
At the Sunday market, people just pay their £1 parking as they enter and they don't seem to mind, it's the hassle of messing around with parking ticket machines that puts people off downtown.
stewgreen
Anyone who owns their home has the capital to improve it to make it livable in cold weather. Rented homes should be required by law to be cheaply heatable.
Dec 19, 2015 at 9:23 PM Raff
Why not move your home to a more optimal warmer climate where you don't require heating?
I suppose we could have lots of British climate refugees moving to the Med, like say Southern Spain.
Rob Burton
...d, it's the hassle of messing around with parking ticket machines that puts people off downtown.
Dec 24, 2015 at 3:17 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen
Or being delayed and finding a penalty notice on the windscreen.
Other than town centre car parks in large towns, I don't remember ever being charged for parking in France.
Martin A
Why not move your home to a more optimal warmer climate where you don't require heating?
I suppose we could have lots of British climate refugees moving to the Med, like say Southern Spain.
Dec 24, 2015 at 3:38 AM | Unregistered CommenterRob Burton
A lot of Brits are already there. But not so easy to move if you have a job, kids at school, circle of family, friends and activities and so on.
Energy can be cheaper too if you do live where you do need to heat your home.
My last EDF bill, standing charge, VAT, the lot, came to a total overall of 0.16€ per kW hr - around £0.11 per kW hr. Not sure how much a kW hr currently costs in UK.
Martin A
Raff - externalities. Who gets to define these, and cost them?
osseo
Stewgreen "What I am saying is if we all live like Al Gore then that probably is too much impact for the planet. I am warning of a concern rather than setting a specific limit."
Very few people live like Al Gore and most people's idea of too much tends to be more than they personally use. Convenient. Vague mutterings about having a higher impact on the ecosystem is useless unless you set a point where people have to stop.
Take a single person living alone (divorced or never married). Should that person be allowed to live alone? How many spare rooms? What if they work from home? If they've converted a garage into a room does it count? Does it matter how big the rooms are? Should they have all the same rooms a family tends to enjoy - a kitchen, a living room, etc. They need most of the items a family use (cooker, tv, computer, vac, ironing board, lawn mower, etc, won't they need the same space for those items? Is that solo person being greedy?
What about how people entertain themselves? Is the amount of energy or materials they use important or are some activities more worthy than others? Is a person who travels a lot to photograph wildlife bad and the person who just sits in front of the tv good or the other way round? How do you compare someone who buys loads of clothes with someone who eats steak and imported strawberries? What about someone who paints their entire lifetime and barely sells a single painting? Are those a waste of resources and storage or are they the next Van Gogh?
What about kids or pets? Is the jet setter with no dependents more worthy than the breeder with a house full of kids and animals?
Sure, we shouldn't throw food away or leave things plugged in when we're not using them but after that who is to say what is waste/greed/too much and what isn't? At the moment the amount of things/energy we can use are limited by what we can afford. Who gets to decide otherwise? (I know the UN is trying but nobody gave them a mandate or is listening to them).