Realistic alternatives to direct action type protests is what I was getting at. I’m not a signed up member of extinction rebellion etc but any half educated person can see we are rapidly killing the planet and our government isn’t acting fast enough or being decisive hence our electric car roll out is nowhere, our reliance on gas for electricity is at an unprecedented level and you can’t build an onshore wind farm if one person within a 30 mile radius says no! Suggest ways these protestors can get the message noticed without inconveniencing anyone?
Fuel price discussion thread (was ‘chaos’)
- Thread starter watercooledman
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Soldato
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My usual Shell on the route home from work (SE London) is all out. Will have to keep an eye out as I'll need fuel at some point this week. Hope this isn't a repeat of last year's shenanigan's trying to get a full tank.
I should work for ER, but, they should perhaps be blocking the airline terminals instead, it's equally flights that are disproportionately causing emissions, or the government could just tax them appropriately - is it a myth that one years ice car emissions occur from a cross-atlantic flight.
flying is much more a discretionary purchase than commuting.
flying is much more a discretionary purchase than commuting.
They could try getting an education and working on research into renewable and alternative energy sources, but that takes actual effort and commitment compared to chaining yourself to a fence, which lets face it any ******* idiot can do.
I had the same argument with an anti-abortion "activist" once, and he seemed quite taken aback when I calmly pointed out that any moron can shout and scream aggressively in people's faces, and that if he actually felt that passionately about it why wasn't he busy studying medicine to try and find an actual solution.
I have zero time for these people - as far as I'm concerned they don't really care about their cause, they're just jumping on the latest attention-seeking bandwagon to get their face in the papers because they've failed at everything else they've tried in life.
A medical solution to abortion really........
There are already many alternatives to fossil fuels the issue these protestors are trying to highlight is that our government is not acting fast enough to move towards them, basically you are saying that in order to protest an issue someone needs to be a highly educated expert working in the field. So for example a Army General would be allowed to attend an anti war demonstration but I would not, I get you don't like these protests but your logic is flawed.
The government dont want to act fast enough because they know that it would adversely affect their electorate and the economy. If they wanted to stop people using petrol and diesel over night, they could up the tax on fuel by a few quid a litre. The problem is they cant, as it would prevent people being able to afford to get to work, transport costs would be ridiculous so everything would go up massively etc. The whole thing is finely balanced so nothing can be done quickly else it would cripple people and the economy. What are these many alternatives petrol and diesel?
EVs are being sold in ever increasing numbers due to the tax incentives the government have given but the barrier to entry for most is the current cost of EVs and that will only come down with time
Or go up. Tesla have had two big increases within 3 weeks and lots of other manufacturers are increasing their cars by up to £5k this week EVs seem to be getting more and more expensive and outstriping the price increase in ICE cars and making the deficit bigger.
And the tax incentives are mainly company car orientated. They should give more for private buyers.
Plus I can see the protestors point. The recent scheme to improve home insulation which would make a massive difference to long term energy use has now been shelved by the Govt due to "costs". And yet they are still going ahead with the £150bn on HS2.
There are other things the govt could do, like putting fibre to the premises of every home so more people can work from home and travel less.
Quite. The Government have already acted, they have banned the sale of ICE from 2030 onwards and given manufacturers the opportunity to bring alternative products to the market before that happens. There isn't the infrastructure or products to bring a ban forwards and making the cost of fuel higher just punishes the poorer portions of our society. Overhaul takes time, it cannot be done overnight.
Why don't those protestors go and target something that is genuinely apprehensible - cruise ships. The pollution they create is on a scale that makes vehicle use in the UK insignificant. The cruise line industry operating from the UK for LEISURE purposes utterly dwarfs the pollution from cars and is completely needless.
Yes slowly. The timescales they set themselves is useless. They could have thrown a fraction of what HS2 cost and everybody could have had fibre by 2025.
85% of the population covered by Gigabit fibre by 2025 is hardly slow. We already have a massive shortage of labourers to dig up the road and lay fibre on top of messy wayleave / legal issues to deal with. It can take 1 year or more to deal with particularly lazy land owners and wayleave problems. Besides which VDSL is already more than enough for 99% of those that work from home (hell, even ADSL is suitable for the majority of home workers).
A medical solution to the reasons behind the abortion.
- Research into better contraception methods for both men and women - all current methods are either permanent, can have unpleasant side effects, are not 100% effective, or usually a combination of all of the above.
- Research into cures for pregnancy related diseases (e.g. in our case hyperemesis, my partner was on the verge of organ failure due to it, so when asked "is there anything I can do to persuade you not to go through with it", the only realistic answer is "yes, find a cure for the disease".) Shoving leaflets in our faces about how every life is sacred and trying to block our way into the clinic isn't going to help - if anything, what you're doing is traumatising a poor woman who is already facing a devastating event having made an almost impossible solution. All I can say is that guy was very lucky I'm relatively slow to anger...
- Research into cures for hereditary diseases. Maybe it's cruel and shallow, but many people would choose not to continue with their pregnancy if they know the child is going to be born with a lifelong serious disease or disfigurement.
The alternatives all have issues. Solar is very inefficient and takes a relatively large amount of space, it's also not ideal for our climate given the 99% of the time it's grey and overcast.
Wind is unsightly (well, that's a matter of opinion), causes issues for wildlife and is very unreliable.
Electric cars are better than ICE for local pollution, but their production is very polluting and the use of rare materials causes a lot of environmental issues with how they are mined.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying it's easy to protest - it's just another step on from clicking "like" on a Facebook post or signing an online petition. It's about as effective as trying to put out a house fire by peeing on it. If you feel strongly about an issue, actually do something about it. To use your analogy, if you're that strongly anti-war then join the army. Get all your mates to join the army, become that General. And then lay down your arms and refuse to fight when the time comes. That is what will make a difference, not stopping some poor guy from being able to get to work because you've blocked the main road on his commute. But like I said - doing that is hard. It takes commitment and conviction, rather than just jumping on the hot topic of the day.
I can see how working from home will help but as we have seen post Covid, many people have been forced back into the office by their bosses or people just want to go into the office due to their mental health. People that want to are already working from home as Covid has shown it was possible with the odd exception as there are those out in the sticks that still have poor coverage
The first point is utter nonsense, Solar is perfectly viable in the U.K. and should be on every building that can have east/south/west panels. The issue mainly comes down to people not wanting to spend the money improving their property (residential or commercial) because the investment takes a number of years to recover and they ‘might move’ or it only benefits the tenant if it’s rented.
It’s the same issue when it comes to insulation. If there were simple finance options in place from mortgage providers or the government, take up would be stronger. That said Solar provers are turning down loads of work at the moment due to demand.
wind turbines are very reliable, the production however varies. At the end of the day, I’d rather live next to a wind farm than a huge coal/gas/oil/nuclear power station and 99% of the sensible public would agree if that was the choice and in reality, that is the choice.
Oil extraction also causes huge environmental damage, I don’t think you can take any moral high ground there. Oil is being spilt into the environment every day. Most go un-reported in the media outside of the big ‘spills’ such as deep water horizon.
I’d suggest researching the state of the Niger Delta these days, it’s really not pretty reading and it certainly isn’t the locals who are benefiting from all that liquid gold.
Soldato
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My issue with solar is that, even if you spend 12-13k, it still cannot provide with all your electric needs. Thats a hell of a lot of money, you still have reliance upon the grid for the average house/family.
but imagine if every house, office block school etc in the country had it? the reduction on overall grid demand would be significantly which has a knock on impact on the generating capacity required your argument is the same one everyone uses for leaving things on standby and mobile phone chargers plugged in ie what's in it for me when we should be looking at the overall impact if everyone did something.
Initial costs will always be an issue which is why the government should be making things easier but they are not interested, look at the recent energy strategy it was laughable and this all plays back round to the current situation with protests around green issues people feel they need to take direct action for the issue to be taken seriously as the time to act is clearly now and we are merely scratching round the edges.
2 out of 3 stations near me were out of diesel and regular. Only found some vpower at shell that was it. My mate had to travel to 4 stations before he found some 95(crawley area)
I'm spending £12k on solar and a battery and i'm expecting my household electricity use to be easily covered by the solar generation from April to September. Obviously the odd day will be thick dark clouds, but then that's where the storage battery kicks in, charged up at 7.5p. Also, excess generated power through these months will go into my car and to heat water, so saving on gas too.
I found even if you don't have the full amount of cash/savings for solar then you can borrow it - the monthly payments for £10k over 6-7 years is about the same as the savings on your monthly energy bill* from installing solar. So basically, instead of giving it to the energy company, you're investing in your own energy future. [some months the difference may be £10-£40 depending on the amount of sun and your use]. (* at current energy prices)
Then you have another 14+ years of very cheap energy (expected life of solar 25 years).
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But this should have been started years earlier. There is good reason we are 76th in the world for internet connection speeds. Lack of investment. When you see stats that Portugal have 75% FTTP and they are a relatively poor country in comparison to the UK, you can see just how far behind the rest of the world are. Where we live it isnt good enough to have zoom meetings without switching off the video feed.
Also