December the 20th
and Dick Hobbs sends this with the advice:
"I'm the one in the middle"
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How cuddly looking!
(aherm......)
* blush *
Fifi
Llamas (?Alpacas) on a balcony? Dick please tell us the background! Do they have a good head for heights, coming from the Andes?
the jpg name says "donkey.jpg". These are funny looking donkeys. The nearest looks Llama/alpaca to me. Perhaps I should become Mr Pedant. :-)
Aarrrgh! There must be loads of llama puns I could do, but I can't think of any!
I'll have to ruminant on this for a while, such a glama-rous picture needs a good joke to be properly herd.
Alpaca punch when I've thought about it, you see if I don't!
(Is this a new trend in pictures? Are we going to get a daily llama?)
I think they're llamas. Alpacas have sweeter faces. My brother has a few dozen (as well as the 17 cats...)
Maybe one of the alpacas is called Donkey?
SScat hahaha!
Where's Linda Snell?
Annasee - your brother has llamas - where? I adoire llamas, they are my all time favourites along with alpacas naturally. For my birthday a few years ago we went on a llama trek - only in Whitby, not South America. It was pouring down with rain most of the time but it remains one of my happiest memories.Thank you Dick for the photo which has really brightened up my day.
Yep, Alpacs have sheep type wool i.e they look like a sheep with a long neck. So probably llamas. Two alpaca live near me. They have a field just below a village aptly called Mountain!.
The picture wasn't called donkey.jpg when it left me. They are llamas (Octavia on the left, Paprika on the right if anyone cares) and they like the view from the deck at the back of our house, particularly if it means they can have a nibble at the Christmas tree, too.
Llamas are pack animals: taller, stronger and more intelligent than alpacas which are the fibre producers.
Are they called Baravelli and Pinky?
Ooh Stewart (3), are you proposing to Valery then?
Dick, nice llamas! Cheers!
Big Sis - you got there first - Lynda must be lurking somewhere.
Don't make a llama out ouf a cri-Sis
Yesterday you asked if we had any opinions on "carbon offsetting," and I replied that the government favoured "emissions trading", as they would, wouldn't they? Today we get the announcement.
Tradable emissions are just a new form of government-created MONEY. Permission to pollute can now be granted, bought, sold, bartered or otherwise traded. Wait for a derivatives market and various 'futures' contracts, 'swaps' between different currencies, etc. A boon to City Gents, as though they needed another.
The benefits of travel (for the traveller) are undoubted. That these benefits are worth the enormous true cost (almost entirely borne by less privileged others) is very much in doubt.
Seriously, travellers must begin to pay the FULL COST of their indulgence in completely unnecessary . This includes the entire cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan (Pipelinistan) wars, the subsidies to airports, the bribes to Arab countries, and much much more.
"Only by going alone in silence, without baggage,
can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.
All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter."
-- John Muir
"...the most striking and immediate effect of the spread of European settlement beyond the boundaries of Europe itself was its lethal impact on indigenous peoples and societies." -- Clive Ponting (A Green History of the World)
ed
Ouf? I'm turning French
Eddie, does your team need a picture of a donkey for reference, it seems someone misidentified the llamas!
With respect Mr Hobbs, I think they are a cross between the camels and the reindeer from the beech. RobbieJohnDo has some explaining to do for introducing these two species to each other. ;)
Mary
I once (many years ago) used to suffer the *Ahem* pleasure of the Witnesses knocking on my door about once a month trying to push the 'Watchtower' onto me and convert my Godless heathen soul. I'm sure that many of you have had the same experience.
Around the time of the Gulf War of 1990-91 I got the usual monthly Sunday afternoon interruption. They started laying it on about the end of the world being nigh. How the gathering of the Alliance armies in the Saudi desert presaged the final battle, etc., etc., etc. How we all needed to make our peace with the maker and quickly....
Maybe they caught me in a bad mood that day, I can't recall. Rather than patiently listening and nodding and submitting to it I decided to reply.
I pointed out politely that the movement of the armies was made possible by mass rapid transportation of men, machinery and supplies over the globe to the required point. They agreed.
That these methods of transportation were the newest consequence of the Industrial Revolution, which first enabled mankind to break the shackles which kept him bound to the locality of his/her birth and travel widely over the earth. They still agreed.
They were still nodding when I joined the dots and thought (out aloud) that all mankind had to do to avoid an inevitable Armageddon was to undo two hundred and fifty years of technological progress, unlearn all that we had learned in that time and revert to a mediaeval lifestyle. No petrol, no diesel, no internal combustion engine, no jets, no cars, no vans or lorries, no planes, no powered ships. Oh dear, all of a sudden they stopped agreeing!
What a shock.
Now Ed, how do you propose that mankind can be persuaded to stop despoiling the planet by our 'hypermobility'? What means will you deploy to stop the world enjoying 'Mangetout in January' as you describe it in that essay on your own website? Come to think of it, how did you manage to move across the oceans to arrive at your adopted home in Scotland without using the transport you profess to hate and want the rest of us to give up? How can you bear to live amongst us in a nation which, amongst many freedoms, prizes the ability to move so freely over the earth?
The only way that you can turn the march of humanity is to impose a global dictatorship which will determine who is allowed to do, to go, to be. Which will strictly control the means to do anything at all. Which will constrain our ability to consume. I'd guess from reading your previous postings that such a system is anthema to you, who claims to mistrust central authorities and love freedom?
You cannot permit and indeed advocate freedom without accepting the problems which accompany it & without being accused of hypocrisy at wanting to constrain and fetter it.
Referring to your essay; If people didn't want to drink Coke, it wouldn't be in that airport. Ditto McDonalds, or if it comes to that any of the concessions in an airport terminal. If we used less fuel and shopped locally then we would still demand the exotic items be available in our local shops all year round, because we are used to them. They have to get there somehow. The plane, the ship and ultimately the delivery lorry will need access to your local village shop to deliver the things your neighbours want, even if you don't!
You dislike the consumption of oil, but it fuels the power stations that provide electricity for your home, including the computer and communications which enable you to be part of THIS community.
You entitled it 'The Axis of Hypermobility', which seems to suggest that the ability to travel is a form of Fascism? I would suggest that attempts to dictate to people what they may or may not do is the real Fascism. Who are you to determine what I may or may not do? What I am allowed to eat, and when? How often I am permitted to take a holiday (twice in ten years, both in France, incidentally).
How indeed will you encourage the forging of a global community of all mankind whilst raising barriers to prevent them meeting each other?
Lets all abandon our C21st lifestyles and all the things that we expect and enjoy to go and live in the woods and never travel more than 10 miles from home! Hoorah!
I'm trying to think of a book where the people live in a reduced state of existence and don't hope for anything more than the little they are allowed to have by the controlling authority which governs every aspect of their lives? I have it! 1984 by George Orwell.
Dealing with the points in your (current) 14 above;
Yes, it's just another form of market.
Yes, someone will get rich on the back of it.
No, I don't think it will work.
No I don't think it will change a single opinion or stop a single traveller/holidaymaker. We'll just grumble about higher taxation by the government and vote them out next time around. Because that's easier on our consciences than blaming ourselves and our consumption for the despoliation of Earth. We always like to blame someone else.
Yes, I'm part of the crowd. Yes I like to travel. I'd do a lot more of it if I could afford to, believe me.
Yes the cost will fall harder on the less-affluent. The rich could always afford to travel, even from the earliest days of global exploration.
Tell us HOW you seriously propose that we should pay the 'full cost' of hypermobility. What measures would you take that will achieve your plan without impinging on the lives of your fellow froggers? What is your realistic manifesto? No airy-fairy bleating about how awful we all are, without realistic solutions. Anyone can claim their right to criticise, but not without responsibility to propose the realistic alternative.
Muir was only partly correct. The wilderness is not the only valid place for humans to inhabit. There IS a fascination in visiting and seeing aspects of foreign culture. That includes the people, their religion, art, architecture, everything wrapped up in the word 'civilisation'. Mankind is a gregarious creature, we like the company of others of our own kind. Especially if they share some/all of our own views and prejudices. and make us feel warm and snuggly about ourselves.
Besides, if we all shot off to discover the wilderness there wouldn't be an acre of it left for you......
Let's have a good debate about this. Once again, I may be in the absolute minority here. I often seem to be. But who out there will be swayed by Ed's argument into giving up their 'hypermobility' and settling for something different?
I'm not asking who would LIKE to give it up, but who will actually do so?
Answers on this thread please. This would be a great one for the pub discussion thread proposed elsewhere!!
Si.
Did the llamas make an ass of someone?
DicK are they yours and do you have any others? What do you keep them for? Perhaps I could find you on the British Camelid Society website and then I don't need to bother you with all these questions. Much better names for yours than Wolfgang and Constanza by the way, I never did see Lynda Snell's Mozart connection vis a vis llamas.
Do we think he had a tipple before this Footie report ?
Ed (14) : at lunchtime today on TV there were men in suits 'brokering' emissions credits. It has already begun.
And where will the money raised from the levies and taxes and surplus emissions quotas go?
Into anti-pollution, energy efficiency research and applications?
Don't make me laugh!
I agree: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Fifi
PS read your heartbreaking account of the rockinghorseporch inferno. Oh, my.
:o'(
You filthy dirty crooks !
Si,
Succinct as ever, I see.
"Tell us HOW you seriously propose that we should pay the 'full cost' of hypermobility. What measures would you take that will achieve your plan without impinging on the lives of your fellow froggers? What is your realistic manifesto?"
The price of any transport should include the full cost of the provision of such facility, including the cost of wars to maintain security of fuel supplies, airport construction and maintenance, and at least as much taxation on fuelstuffs as other modes of transport (jetfuel is TOTALLY TAXFREE, and specifically excluded from Kyoto), and all other identifiable costs, including subsidies to manufacturers of aircraft, etc.
It's a simple market solution. If the true cost were reflected in the ticket price, a lot fewer would travel so unnecessarily. Government ministers like Millibrain should also be constrained.
That's for starters.
says it all, with
xx
ed
Frances (15) - LOL! Merci.
Fog at Heathrow - World Cut Off
Aah it's a donkeydeer sometimes confused with a camelrein!
Does anyone else get the Newsnight Newsletter?
From today's offering, by funnyman Gavin Esler:
"This is not exactly a Joke Fit For an 11-year-old, but my techie friend Alan sent me the following seasonally appropriate Christmas item, no doubt stolen from some IT magazine:
Last Christmas I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in the overall performance, particularly in the Flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 un-installed many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable
programs such as: Football 5.0, Rugby 4.3 and Cricket 3.0.
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs; it simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, to no avail. What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate
Dear Desperate:
First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.
Try entering the command: C:/I-THOUGHT-YOU-LOVED-ME to download Tears 6.2, which should automatically install Guilt 3.0.
If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse
of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.
WARNING: Beer 6.1 is a very nasty program that will create Snoring Loudly.
CAUTION: Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law. This is not a supported application and will crash Husband 1.0.
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.
You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. I personally recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.
Good Luck,
Tech Support "
In response to admin annie, they are two of the nine llamas my wife and I keep in the fields at the bottom of our garden in East Sussex. They have no purpose other than to be calming and restful.
As I always explain to people, llamas are the perfect pets for people who like fresh air but are too lazy for long walks. If you are walking along a country lane or forest track with a llama on a lead rope, you can be absolutely guaranteed that everyone you meet will stop and talk to you. A couple of miles can take all afternoon.
Can I just point out 2 things?
1) The Cheeky Girls are great; a fun alternative to bands who take themselves far too seriously. Can anyone guess which [desert] group [palm trees] I'm [mirages] thinking [overrated] of?
and
2) Lembit Opik's interest in setting up asteroid watches/defences are *not* eccentric. Do journalists not realise how much rubble is whizzing around in the Solar System? Despite several governments' best efforts, asteroid watches have now detected many many NEOs or Near Earth Objects which regularly cross Earth's orbit.
Despite the bad science in films like Meteor and Armageddon, the results of a large asteroid impacting on earth could have just as devastating an effect as depicted.
Please Eddie, don't treat Lembit like a crank over this subject. Statistically speaking, the Earth is long overdue for a catastrophic impact. Don't let your final broadcast be an apology to Lembit, because I doubt he and Gabriela would be listening to PM while an asteroid hurtles down on top of us.
All us froggers would be listening of course!
(Um, to PM that is, not to... never mind.)
Further to my anti-consumption rant:
From the PEuT blogs:
No matter what the cost to the less fortunate 80% of the planet's humans, who are left to share our leavings (a mere 20% of the unsustainable annual Earth-rape)
At the risk of raising a sore point yet again, I think this attitude is paralleled by the declaration of Israel's "right to exist", no matter what the cost to others.
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
ed
Yesterday there was a news report (I heard it on 'The World Tonight') of 53 bodies being found in Baghdad, today it is old news and everything has moved on. I know it's been said before, and it's happening every day, but it is amazing how immune we get to hearing about so much violence.
Can George W really believe that he is 'fighting a war' and that he can win that 'war'? And win it by throwing more troups at it? Unbelievable.
I know I'm simplifying here. But I was just struck by the sheer numbers.
Debate on Carbon Issues tonight, repeated Saturday
xx
ed
Would someone kindly tell me the context in which the Clash were mentioned/played earlier? I missed that bit. Why, thank you.
Dr Hackenpunk
Well, what an amusing thread this has turned out to be!
Frances - Thanks for the name check and the new nom-de-guerre it has inspired.
Jonnie - Thanks for the brilliant audio clips. BTW, do you have the one on the Trafalgar Day celebrations (or some other naval event) where the presenter had imbibed several too many at the Captain's table?
Si and Eddie - No doubt you'll both be at it for a while. A very interesting debate. I'll keep my own opinions to myself on this one.
Gossipmistress - Thanks for Gavin's offering. A classic! I'll get all the relevant programme installed here without delay ...
Lembit Opik - ahh, now that's a strange subject, isn't it? Actually, he's my part time MP (for when I'm in Wales) and much talked about by the locals. When I'm up there again, I'll hear all the goss. The locals had been wondering for some time about the Sian/Lembit thing. She's a local lass, and her engagement ring has been on and off her fingers over recent months, which caused a lot of chatter. Now we know why.
Cri,
Probably better to call me ed to avoid confusion with the REAL Eddie/eddie, our esteemed host.
Considering some of the definitions of 'troll', I sometimes wonder if I'm 'trolling', especially since where I grew up, trolling was a fishing technique, trailing a baited hook behind the boat, whether metabolic powered or extra-. I'm seeming always to want to see active discussion (not to the exclusion of fun, by any means) on topics which verge on 'taboo'.
I think these topics are important to our wellbeing. There is also much wry humour to be had in observing our pathetic attempts to face reality (or deny it?)
Simon sure takes the bait, and admittedlly, so do I. As many have noted, this blog seems to be remarkably cordial, despite some 'active' disagreement here and there. We all love each other in some strange way, or perhaps I can only speak for myself.
Anyway, welcome in your new guise. Maybe I should become Cri d'cour?
xx
ed
Priceless, gossipmistress, ta!
Given the above - I might have to think twice about Stewart M's proposal, Appy! :o)
Admin Annie (8) Our "family" alpacas (not llamas) are in NZ, I'm afraid - but any time you're visiting...
So, looks like the first Froggers Conference is going to have to be near East Sussex so we can all go Llama Trekking- Yes or No? Should be fairly environmentally friendly, so Simon & Ed could both participate.
I can't wait!
Loved that joke from Gavin Essler. Not "joke" actually. All too true.
I think I'm in love with Dick Hobbs.
Doctor Strangelove is alive and well!
A number of prominent scientists and economists fear that we won鈥檛 be able to cut carbon emissions quickly enough to avert catastrophe. Now some are considering a radical alternative - re-engineering our planet.
In this week鈥檚 Frontiers, Peter Evans meets the engineers and scientists devising schemes to rebalance the Earth鈥檚 climate. Collectively termed 鈥榞eo-engineering鈥, these ideas range from sending a giant sunshade into space, to making seaclouds shinier.
" -- that was the Greeks' word for what ails you.
Pride fueled the pyres of tragedy
Which died (some say) with Shakespeare.
O, incredible delusion! That potency should have no limits!"
God(s) (generic) save us from such mad scientists!
xx
ed
In this week鈥檚 Frontiers, Peter Evans meets the engineers and scientists devising schemes to rebalance the Earth鈥檚 climate. Collectively termed 鈥榞eo-engineering鈥, these ideas range from sending a giant sunshade into space, to making seaclouds shinier.
if you dare!">Listen
Llama trekkers always welcome in East Sussex, but not for another month or so as I have a broken ankle.
Simon (18)
At the risk of being accused of resisting Ed at every turn, I agree with you. I hope your words have been received by those so-called Green organisations that generally produce more hot air than the rest of us put together. Personally I hate pollution, including cigarette smoke and bonfires. But I doubt if our carbon emissions amount to more more than a drop in the ocean in terms of the cause of global warming. It seems more than likely to me that "Nature" is running its course of cycles. "We" didn't bring about the end of the Ice Age. Roman Britain was warm enough to grow grapes along Hadrian's Wall etc. etc.
In any case, I produce more carbon warming my house than travelling, so if the earth warms up (I haven't noticed it here) my gas consumption will fall, thus reducing my carbon emissions and counteracting any effect I may have had on the climate.
Just wouldn't want you to think you are on your own.
As for rationing by price, that is not the best way as it gives too much advantage to the rich. Better to ration by amount, e.g. you may only have x gallons of petrol/diesel per week, and - shock, horror - you may only borrow y amount of money. That's more reliable than trying to ration the money supply by interest rates, which catch people out when they change.
Eddie,
Mr Blair may not have been interviewed under caution by detectives investigating cash-for-honours claims, but the very fact that he has been interviewed by police at all represents a personal nadir for the Prime Minister who promised to clean up politics when he came to power. Remember?
It will, we're informed, be up to the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether any criminal charges should be lodged against any of those donors, or politicians, who remain at the centre of Scotland Yard's investigations.
This process no doubt could still take many months. However, that this should not preclude the Government, in the meantime, from bringing forward detailed proposals on the three interrelated issues of party funding, the award of honours and whether peers should, in future, be elected to the House of Lords.
All of these matters have been left in the political wilderness for too long, given the extent to which the main parties used loans prior to the last election in order to circumnavigate Legislation that was actually passed by the Government.
Vyle, Eddie & Simon,
A few comments on the carbon emissions debate.
(1) Increases in world population as a driver for climate change:
World Population 1900 >1.6 billion, all producing emissions of some kind
World Population 2006 = 6.5 billion, all producing emissions of some kind.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population provides useful general information.
That's a fourfold increase in the world population. While it is difficult to assess retrospectively what the carbon emissions worldwide may have been in 1900, it does seem highly likely that they were significantly less than now, even allowing for cleaner technologies. It's a mathematical thing, really.
(2) I agree with Vyle over his last paragraph. Whatever solutions are adopted, in my opinion they should incorporate the basic principle of entitlement rather than of rationing by price. I think I've already expressed that view on another topic much earlier on the Blog. Taxes hit everybody, but have a different impact according to individual circumstance.
Incidentally, while trying to find out more information about carbon emissions in 1900, population changes, etc., I came across an interesting website which looks at the world in the light of different issues, including population, namely:
No doubt Ed I already knows this one.
LadySnorkPenMaiden (39) : You too, huh?
Has anyone else heard Jenni Murray mention a moment ago that she's just been diagnosed with breast cancer?
She will be having treatment over the next few weeks; the prognosis, she declares firmly, is "excellent"; and she'll be back on Woman's Hour as soon as she is well enough.
Wonderful woman, with a voice like hot chocolate.
My best wishes, and I'm sure many more of us on the PM blog, to you Jenni.
Fifi
Sis,
Thanks for that, but the works better without period pains. I hadn't see that one before, so thanks again. I'll have a proper peruse.
For present day data and country profiles, etc., try , part of World Resources Institute. The country profiles are very interesting.
My friend, Bob Davidson, who publishes Capital Doctor, sent me , from David Nicholson-Lord, who often writes for , always an uplifting read, and coming every two months, it's the nearest to a menstrual cycle I'll ever know...;-)
ed
Ed;
The argument is too complex to be dealt with in a facile, throwaway manner. You can't get away with discussing this in two lines.
You damn me by mocking the fact that I make a complex argument. Then you 'overlook' answering directly any of the points I raised. Or, like a true politician, answering a different question to the one that was asked.
Take (24); "a simple market solution". Once again, who are you to decide what travel is unnecessary? If not you, then who? How much of the freedom that we currently enjoy will you remove, to limit our right to travel? What is your REALISTIC manifesto? One that people will sign up to.
I would defend, and have defended, the right of anyone to hold any opinion they want to, no matter that I disagree with it. But issuing sermons to a, frankly, disinterested public won't advance your interests one iota.
(31); this would be the same Archbish who, along with other leading British churchmen has flown to the Holy Land this week? Why was their journey necessary? A case of 'Do as I say, not as I do'.
Oh God, not the Israel thing again! You cannot demand that Israel comply with UN resolutions against it, whilst disagreeing with the one which brought it into existence. You either uphold the UN resolutions 'in toto' or you don't. Choose.
And your next point is well made. We consume ever greater amounts of .... everything. And we don't particularly care about it. Note that no-one has, so far, come to your defence on this topic, as they did in numbers previously over Israel/Palestine. That ought to inform you that people are uncomfortable about your line on this.
(36); on a more light-hearted note I'm sure that you recognise the origins of the word 'Troll' in the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff? Hides under a bridge and comes out when provoked to eat someone who offends them, then disappears back to their hidey-hole?
I like to think that I'm a realist, not a dreamer. I deal with the world the way I perceive it to be, not the way I'd like it to be. I agree with you that we deny reality, even 'in extremis'. I believe (sorry Vyle) in global warming as a reality now. I think that it is largely man-made, although Vyle correctly points out the warm periods in Earth's recent history. I also think that 98% of us don't give a damn and won't alter our way of living to accomodate it. Or that we do care, but haven't the willpower to degrade our lifestyles in order to make a difference.
It's not a question of taking the bait. I will defend my beliefs as passionately as you defend yours. I see nothing wrong in that for either of us. And I also love the heated, but 'gentlemanly' debate on these threads. Long may it continue!
I really wish, however, that you would answer the serious questions and points that I often seem to raise when debating with you, rather than ignoring them or selectively misreading them. I try my best to respond to your well-expressed opinions. How about doing the same in return?
Look back at (18) again. There are many questions there and debatable issues. Please respond to them, or some of them, seriously.
I can read your credo, as expressed on your website, and sincerely admire a man so passionately committed to his belief that he adopts a way of life that reflects it. But in order to 'save the planet' you need to convince the entire western world to follow you at least some way down that path. And stop the current montrous rate of development in the East. Your problem is that although most of the world might agree with you about the cause and the effects, they cannot see how they can possibly make a difference. Especially when their neighbours won't take part with them.
Tell me how you think it can be done. Don't just sit on the sidelines ranting at the injustice of it all. Convince me that you have solutions that will really make a difference.
Si.
Yes, Fifi, I just heard Jenni Murray make her announcement. My best wishes to her.
Mary
Sis,
Regarding historic emissions, it's a fact that, as well as a quadrupling of population in the last century, the percapita carbon emissions have risen exponentially. This provides a sort of double-exponential twist to the runaway train we're riding - more people, each one burning more every minute.
! Man wasn't mature enough to have fire. Now, when most of us couldn't start a fire without a butane lighter, each of us has more fires burning on our behalf than ever before, more today than yesterday, more tomorow, and the 'third world' want their share, too.
And, not to get too dark in this festive season, this morning there are some living mouths to feed than yesterday.
xx
ed
Simon:
May I just add my support to your points in the last posting?
Ed I:
The moral high ground is not your exclusive domain. May I say that occasionally what you say I find to be patronising and even offensive? I've hesitated to say this before because I try to keep away from personal criticism. .
I hope that you are sufficiently committed and honest to be able to think back on some of the things you have said and the motives behind them and understand where I'm coming from on this.
Anyway, let's not fall out. I hope we are all bigger than that.
Si,
"Take (24); "a simple market solution". Once again, who are you to decide what travel is unnecessary? If not you, then who?" -- Like I said, "a market"
"A case of 'Do as I say, not as I do'.", I agree about the hypocrisy. Every week I see invitations to conferences in resort hotels for academics to fly in and discuss the developing crisis...then a paragraph or two later, "And stop the current montrous rate of development in the East."
We cannot expect them to pay any attention to us, while we act like spoilt children, and refuse to change our own ways.
"Look back at (18) again. There are many questions there and debatable issues."
I have looked, and found very little except excuses for 'spoilt' behaviour:
"If we used less fuel and shopped locally then we would still demand the exotic items be available in our local shops all year round, because we are used to them. They have to get there somehow."
Do they, indeed?
"How indeed will you encourage the forging of a global community of all mankind whilst raising barriers to prevent them meeting each other?"
Now, to dispel any illusions: I have flown more miles by jet than anyone should be happy to admit. I have oil-fired central heating as well as wood fires. There is an automobile in the household, a TV, , electric cooker and - shock, horror - a tumbledryer. I am not coming at this from a position of purity, nor trying to pretend so. I am deeply ashamed, but trying to improve, and I have given up much excessive mobility - at my age it's an easier decision, and I've already used up more than my share.
The only hope is if each of us tries to do better. "The Government" ain't gonna do anything worthwhile, and if it did, like the fuel tax escalator, they won't stick to it when the spoilt brats start whining.
Ten two letter words to live by:
If it is to be it is up to me
xx
ed
Sis,
Like ex-smokers, we who have seen the error of our ways can, whether we intend or not, coma across as 'holier than thou'.
Trust me. I am as bloody as Lady MacBeth, and it won't wash off.
Please also make allowances for my congenitally handicapped sense of irony
xx and no offence taken.
ed
Ed I: Thanks for that. I think between us we've cleared the air (Oh, if only!)
Vyle (42)
I agree with you when you say that 鈥淣ature鈥 is running its course of cycles and that we did not end the last Ice Age. The main problem that I have with the 鈥渟o let鈥檚 just carry on regardless鈥 attitude is that it does not address the issue of can nature cope with the modern lifestyle of the rich human? The cycles of nature that you would have been taught in school (the water cycle, the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle) are being interrupted by modern living. We are taking carbon based compounds (usually, though not exclusively, from oil) and turning them into plastics that do not degrade or gases (such as CFCs) that also do not degrade and have an affect on global temperatures. We use the internal combustion engine that oxides atmospheric nitrogen to a form that can not be taken up by plants so that we need to use nitrate fertilizers in the agricultural business. The subsequent changes that are taking place in the atmospheric chemistry are leading to periods of draught and flood, not just in this country but around the world. Have you heard about the bush fires in Australia, again? Have you heard about the lack of rain in sub-Saharan Africa during the monsoon season again?
So can nature cope? Actually the question I would prefer to ask is should we risk finding out? What if the answer is no?
As for rationing by price I agree that it is not the best solution. However, it is an option. In answer to Simon鈥檚 question to Ed about how he would bring about the change although a world dictator is one option, changing the hearts and minds of people is another. Getting people to want to change their lifestyle. One way of doing that, in a society dominated by money, is to use rationing by price. Yes it gives an advantage to those who are richer than others but for most people it could be something that makes them think 鈥渄o I really need to do this?鈥 I believe that rationing by quantity is likely to make people think 鈥渢his is mine; I have a right to use it.鈥 whether they need it or not.
H.
(34) One of you must have heard that bit!
Humph,
Have you seen (40) above? Scientists considering releasing SO2 aerosols to conteract GW? Experimenting with the planet....Here's the link again. Can we afford to experiment like this?
It's not just whether the Earth can handle the lifestyle of rich humans, it's how many humans there are, and all of them wanting to enjoy a California lifestyle. At my age, I have witnessed almost a tripling in world population. I suspect you're part of that tripling. There are more people alive right now than have ever died.
I like your preferred question. My answer is "No!"
xx
ed
(sitting quite high at the table which has 4/5ths of the food for one fifth of the party)
P.S. When I played with Fluorine, I was young and immortal. God knows what went down the drains. :-(
Dr H: While you're around ..... I've not got far with the tapes, but haven't forgotten.
This isn't just another paving stone on the road to Hell.
(57) I鈥檓 about half way through.
Right, Dr. H - I'll move a bit faster. And will post when they're done and ready to mail.
Ed (51);
Markets in emissions and the like are fundamentally unequal. Those who 'have not' will sell to those who can afford it. So the poor will alleviate their poverty by permitting the affluent to despoil more. The rich would continue to travel whilst the poor do not. It was you who decried the notion of emissions trading in your (14) above. Have you gone about-face?
The market you espouse in travel is akin to the market which puts those Cola vendors and burger joints you dislike into the airports. The law of supply and demand. If you restrict supply whilst not dealing with demand then the price of the commodity rises. Those who can afford to purchase something will do it. Those who cannot will resent the inequity. That's a recipe for civil unrest on a national or international scale.
Is everyone who drinks Cola or takes the kids to a burger bar therefore committing a grave moral crime?
Who sets the rules on the market? Government, so they can cream off a further tax and use it to help fund a war you hate?
(18) did not reflect excuses for poor behaviour. It reflects the reality of the modern world.
Demand exists for good and services of every type and variety. It exists all over 'the Western world' in particular, which was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, and which thereby developed technologies for the betterment of their populations.
Companies exist to make profits for shareholders by servicing that demand. This is the very market that you would replicate to control emissions.
That demand includes your own neighbours, and mine, wanting to buy foreign-grown/manufactured items in a local store, be it a supermarket or the village shop. So yes, as long as the demand exists there will be someone lawfully satisfying it by flying planes and driving trucks to your neighbourhood.
Your quoting of the 80th stanza of the Dao de Zhing does not answer the question which you allied it to. The only way to return to the existence depicted in that verse is to wind the clock back to pre-Industrial times. But reducing the global population to a far lower and more primitive level of existence will not forge a global community, except one bathed in misery because of the knowledge of what they have lost or given up.
Rationing by entitlement will simply create an inequitable market (and a parallel black market), where the poor lose out, the rich carry on regardless and criminals exploit the margins between them. The trade in Levis jeans and other western goods in the old USSR proved that beyond a doubt.
And you still have not answered the question. What realistic solution can you propose that the population will buy into?
Finally, you have an appalling view of your fellow man, which stuns me with its frankness. "... the spoilt brats start whining". In a democracy the government rules only with the consent of the governed. The people spoke with a suprisingly united voice, once a bunch of people (the hauliers) gave a focus for that voice. The message which Gordon Brown got was 'Thus far and no further'. And he got the message.
Si.
Would someone kindly tell me the context in which the Clash were mentioned/played yesterday? I missed that bit. Thank you.
Si,
All I suggested was that the goods and services we 'demand', reflect their true cost in the price.
Present economic assumptions regard all raw materials as free gifts. The only price we pay is for the getting. There is no consideration of the 'costs' of the free services the Earth provides in digesting our pollution and other 'waste' either.
Only in such an 'economy' can 'profit' be 'made'. "All profit is Nature's loss." -- Arne Naess
"The people spoke with a suprisingly united voice, once a bunch of people (the hauliers) gave a focus for that voice. The message which Gordon Brown got was 'Thus far and no further'. And he got the message."
Yeah! "We regard cheap extra-metabolic acceleration as an inalienable right! And we don't care a damn for what it might cost the less fortunate, or even ourselves in the long run. We want it NOW!" Like I said, spoilt brats.
Read some , or
If you want "a recipe for civil unrest on a national or international scale.", try for starters.
xx
ed
There cannot be economies without ecology. I commend to one and all the "Planet Earth Debate" broadcast last night and listenagainable, and repeated Saturday.
Ed;
We already pay the full costs of every commodity. It's called general taxation.
You wrote above: "The price .. should include .. the cost of wars to maintain security of fuel supplies, airport construction and maintenance, and at least as much taxation on fuelstuffs as other modes of transport (jetfuel is TOTALLY TAXFREE, and specifically excluded from Kyoto), and all other identifiable costs, including subsidies to manufacturers of aircraft, etc".
Taxes pay for war. The cost of airport construction is paid by the owner and passed on to the airlines and thence to the passenger. I agree entirely that the lack of tax and duties on jet fuel is insane. Subsidies to manufacturers are paid from taxation via government grants and loans.
One way or another we pay for it alright.
Ever read 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave' by Alvin Toffler? He identified the overconsumption of energy as the Earth's greatest danger decades ago. He compared the total estimated amount of energy consumed before the Industrial Revolution as one 'Q', if I remember?? And went on to discuss our consumption of energy in multiples of 'Q' in the decades since. It highlights the real threat to Earth in stark clarity. I don't recall that it offers any real solutions though.
This is the crux of the argument about global warming/global despoliation. Most of us would acknowledge that it is happening. We hear people like George Monbiot from the eco-lobby on our radios and on our TV's increasingly. They all have their pet theories and ideas about 'What is to be done'. But they can't agree with each other. And crucially they can't carry the argument to the population at large. Until someone can manage that feat, nothing significant will be done. There it is in a nutshell.
Si.
Ed (62) Is there a transcript? I don't like this listening again as (a) it burns up my money in telephone charges and (b) I usually only think of the logical (and, of course, sound and irrefutable) counter-arguments hours later or after several readings.
Si,
My point precisely. The price should be on the ticket, not in general taxation, and it should include the things not even paid for by that, the ecological costs. That's all I've been saying.
Those who want to fly should pay the price, not be subsidised by general taxation.
Yes, I've read Toffler and a whole lot more, and I was taught the first law of thermodynamics long ago. The link I gave you to Ivan Illich is from 1970, but he was only re-stating what Henry Thoreau wrote in 1854.
And continue to 'demand' imported food and cheap hypermobility.
So you see, we are in complete agreement.
xx
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And in addition Si, let's not skirt around the fact that actually until the government of the USA not only decides to believe in global warming etc but also to do something about it, the rest of us might just as well not bother for the amount of difference we could make.
And people will not 'go back' to a more primitive and limited existence. Culturally it is simply impossible for them to do it. Like the genie in the bottle, once things like central heating, international travel and a global market are here, they are here to stay.
And just to put some of my cards on the table; we have spent some time planting a wood on the field behind our house and we'll be getting a wind turbine early next year to generate some of our own electricity. So far, so good as we will be carbon positive rather than even just carbon neutral.
However I am not prepared to give up foreign travel; the world is a huge and exciting place and I haven't seen nearly enough of it yet. I'm quite prepared to do some of it by ship if I can find a ship to take me where I wnat to be, other than that I'm afraid I will continue to fly.
THE World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.鈥擥reat God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,鈥 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreath猫d horn.
-- W. Wordsworth
see Ed I loathe Wordsworth, always have, In fact I can't stand any of the Romantic poets, they rabbit on about nature far too much! so you'll never win me over by quoting them:-). Stick with Auden like you did on another thread!
Annie,
It isn't true what they say about not enjoying trees you have planted. A forest stands behind me where there was not a tree visible on our arrival. It's full of squirrels and birds and bluebells in spring, indicating it was woodland before and probably most of the time since the glaciers last withdrew.
It is true, to some extent, that, "Old men plant trees, and young men cut them down." and that, "A good forester must always plan for a harvest he cannot hope to see."
Regarding 'going back' to a 'primitive' and 'limited' existence, please note the unnecessary pejorative tone assumed by these terms. The Lao Tzu I quoted, said, in part,
"once things like central heating, international travel and a global market are here, they are here to stay. "
Until, if we don't voluntarily limit our greed, they will be taken away:
A man said to the universe;
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
a sense of obligation."
-- Stephen Crane, 1899
So spoke the poet, at century's end;
And in those dour days when schools displayed the world,
"Warts and all," to their reluctant learners,
These lines thrust through the layers of wishfulness,
Forming the minds that later found them to be true.
All that is past, now.
Original sin, then mere personal ego,
Open to the shafts of consciousness,
Now flourishes as an ego of the tribe
Whose battle cry (which none dare question) is
"Justice!" -- But hear the poet's shade:
A tribe said to the universe,
"Sir, We exist!"
"So I see," said the universe,
"But your multitude creates in me
No feeling of obligation.
"Need creates right, you say? Your need, your right?
Have you forgot we're married?
Humanity and universe -- Holy, indissoluble pair!
Nothing you can do escapes my vigilant response.
"Dam my rivers and I'll salt your crops;
Cut my trees and I'll flood your plains.
Kill 'pests' and, by God, you'll get a silent spring!
Go ahead -- save every last baby's life!
I'll starve the lot of them later.
When they can savor to the full
The exquisite justice of truth's retribution.
Wrench from my earth those exponential powers
No wobbling Willie should e'er be trusted with:
Do this, and a million masks of envy shall create
A hell of blackmail and tribal wars
From which civilization will never recover.
"Don't speak to me of shortage. My world is vast
And has more than enough -- for no more than enough.
There is a shortage of nothing, save will and wisdom;
But there is a longage of people.
"Hubris -- that was the Greeks' word for what ails you.
Pride fueled the pyres of tragedy
Which died (some say) with Shakespeare.
O, incredible delusion! That potency should have no limits!
`We believe no evil 'til the evil`s done' --
Witness the deserts' march across the earth,
Spawned and nourished by men who whine, 'Abnormal weather.'
Nearly as absurd as crying, 'Abnormal universe!' . . .
But I suppose you'll be saying that, next."
Ravish capacity: reap consequences.
Man claims the first a duty and calls what follows Tragedy.
Insult -- Backlash. Not even the universe can break
This primal link. Who, then, has the power
To put an end to tragedy? Only those who recognize
Hubris in themselves.
Copyright: Garrett Hardin, 1975.
From Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept by Garrett Hardin
My world is vast and has more than enough -- for no more than enough.
xx
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