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Perhaps an ex council house on a peripheral estate.
I earn *by the national average* good money ... That's what I can afford. Or a city centre flat.
The flat can do one.
I can't afford the suburbs either ... But that's a blessing as they get closer and closer and closer to each other
This is again the basic issue. to reduce pollution to sustainable levels requires significant lifestyle changes. changes as we see from here many folk are not prepared to make.
Well no. But that's because we're Mtb riders are M are not local to towns or cities.
Tbh whilst I see pollution as an issue on this planet, theres worse culprits than me by a heck of a lot. There's also far far worse problems to solve on the planet too.
Just to point out I was using "house" to mean "dwelling" as folk do here. It would be an ex council flat not house. any house is well outside affordability for a nurse now.
In France diesel is due to drop around 35 cents/litre next week and unleaded by around 8 to 10 cents/litre.
And thats great TJ, you're doing your bit and you've made some valid points and you're right to challange our cultural car dependence. BUT your lived experience is very different from most people, so please stop applying your circumstances to everyone else. What do think I should done, move house 7 times in 20 years? Economically that would have crippled us, in some cases I wouldn't moved house before I was onto my next job. As an aside in that time my wife has worked less than 5 miles from home but even then public transport is no good and she won't cycle, very busy roads and 800ft of uphill coming home.
If I'd have had job offers closer to home I'd have happily taken them, I didnt enjoy commuting, it was stressful, expensive and a massive time waste. Now I have the opportunity to work from home 3 days a week I'm fully embracing it. Maybe one good thing will come out of Covid.
Got kids ?
Seems to have been glossed over so bringing back to the fore
NO - deliberate choice because you know - pollution and all that. Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have chaildren
I do know two car free families
Maybe one good thing will come out of Covid.
Sadly the "build back better" narrative that the government was spouting has come to nothing and emissions are higher now than they were pre-Covid; the hope of some sort of "green recovery" was dashed before it even got its shoes on.
The UK has for the last 30+ years been walking (or more accurately, *driving*) into this. Ever greater car dependency, a transport system that is permanently at or near the limit (and that's everything, bus/train/tube/car - all it needs is one tiny incident and the ripples are felt for dozens, sometimes hundreds of miles) and a population that is more mobile, more wealthy and more willing to travel long distances.
Sometimes that's been helped by artificial factors like suppression of fuel duty (at vast cost to the taxpayer), sometimes it's social factors where car dependency ends up baked in from the start as there is simply no other economical way of accessing employment, education, and social opportunities.
Around 10% of the UK has low income and high motoring costs - the ones who absolutely need a car to get to their (low-paying) job and they find it near impossible to reduce their fuel consumption so they're at very high risk of price hikes and the related costs of ULEZ, congestion charging, parking etc.
No amount of pushing EVs as the answer is ever going to help these people cos they simply can't afford one and in most cases can't get the credit to buy or lease one.
But for 30+ years, that's been allowed to fester in the background, growing (along with other social factors like cost of housing, location, rents and so on) to result in a transport network that has no resilience and no alternative.
A lot of new housing estates are awful too. Car dependency is built into them with very few local amenities. Very difficult to fix once they've been built.
I can no longer afford fuel or heating. It’s becoming a pretty miserable existance
this this this, the already fragile state of mental health will be devastating for many.
dont shell and british gas have made record profits
TJ why don't you sell your city centre flat, and i believe you have one you rent out also and are retired.
that way you can move out of the city to somewhere cheaper as you no longer NEED to be in the city, sell or rent one out for well below the market rate in order to open up property available to the folk who you are telling to move to the city, often to do very important jobs which are very often low paid jobs but essential.
So TJ what should I have done, I moved close to work, the factory shut. The house we bought was relatively cheap on a brownfield site, mortgage wasn't excessive (less than 2.5 times our joint salaries) I didn't have the luxury of remaining unemployed until a suitable job came along close to home, the state wasn't going to pay my mortgage.
Since the discussions of a few weeks ago I am working hard to tone it down. On this thread I have made no personal attacks at all but what I have done is pointed out some uncomfortable truths
Some advice meant honestly: You may not be doing personal attacks directly, but the level of smugness in your posts is intolerable. You insist that WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING NOW but you're not really interested in discussing what, and you seem to think that the decisions you made are ideal for everyone, and if other people don't make them then they are wrong and morally inferior. This obviously gets people's backs up. It's not "pointing out uncomfortable truths" as you put it, it's just criticising people in the most unhelpful way. This pisses people off.
We should be discussing the system that got us here, not blaming people for being part of it. Every time this comes up we talk about the difficult decisions we've had to make as our lives go on. And every time you dismiss us.
Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have chaildren
And this is banal. You're advocating the extinction of the human race. And remember that some of our kids are funding your pension and will be funding mine. Humanity faces a serious problem, and you're just spewing unhelpful comments (over and over again) that do nothing but start rows. And they start rows because they are intensely irritating.
In short, stop blaming others and start thinking of positive steps to bring to the discussion - or don't be a part of it.
NO – deliberate choice because you know – pollution and all that. Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have chaildren
So in order to save the planet for the next generation ...we should extinguish the next generation...
So in order to save the planet for the next generation …we should extinguish the next generation…
Reminds me of some of the protestations against reducing or quitting meat—consumption:
‘But if everyone stops eating meat tomorrow, then what happens to all the animals?’
Point being: not everyone is going to stop having children tomorrow.
Also, climate emergency is a result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, not population growth. So a larger percentage of us not having kids may help but it won’t solve anything in the timeframe we have (a decade max?) to turn things around.
Letting your car rust and eating much less meat would be better
From the Grantham Institute: 9 things you can do:
1. Make your voice heard by those in power. ...
2. Eat less meat and dairy. ...
3. Cut back on flying. ...
4. Leave the car at home. ...
5. Reduce your energy use, and bills. ...
6. Respect and protect green spaces. ...
7. Invest your money responsibly. ...
8. Cut consumption – and waste.
9. Talk about what we can do
TJ why don’t you sell your city centre flat, and i believe you have one you rent out also and are retired.
that way you can move out of the city to somewhere cheaper as you no longer NEED to be in the city, sell or rent one out for well below the market rate in order to open up property available to the folk who you are telling to move to the city, often to do very important jobs which are very often low paid jobs but essential.
this was the plan before Julie died. I have stayed here for the medium term because of circumstances. The flat I let is let at well below market price. I considered selling it at below market price to previous tenants but they decided against it
Outside the 'life choices' debate, this fuel cost thing could really see people looking for things they could do to reduce personal car cost/use/whatever, while still travelling when needed.
I used to car pool with colleagues, but the whole part-home-working thing means stuff like this is a bit more disorganised. Has anyone used anything like the LiftShare app? Does it work if you aren't always going to the same place at the same time etc? I don't really need my car time to be 'me time' 😀
You may not be doing personal attacks directly, but the level of smugness in your posts is intolerable. You insist that WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING NOW but you’re not really interested in discussing what, and you seem to think that the decisions you made are ideal for everyone, and if other people don’t make them then they are wrong and morally inferior. This obviously gets people’s backs up. It’s not “pointing out uncomfortable truths” as you put it, it’s just criticising people in the most unhelpful way. This pisses people off.
righteo - I am going to take issue with a lot of this
1) I am perfectly prepared to discuss what and have done many times
2) I am not smug at all nor do I point out others are "morally inferior" I make no value judgements whatever. I have made no criticisms of pothers
3) that is your reaction to the uncomfortable truths I say
with that its bye bye time
In an ideal world, I wouldn't own a car. However here in the real world a car is a necessity for me.
I simply can't afford to live in the city, or near where I work - prices are way out of my league. The nearest town, which is where I would ideally live (has public transport links to the city) is also too expensive. Around here, like many places, people have had to move further and further away from the city due to property prices vs wages. We live in a village with few amenities (I'd rather not live here, but I can afford to live here - like most of our friends here). There are 2 buses per day to the nearest town (Mon-Fri), which don't link in to buses onwards to the city. If you work, you need a car - there are no easy/safe cycle routes.
The only possible jobs around here are farm work, school teacher or village shop (staffed by the shop owners family).
TJ must be much older than me and enjoyed low property prices when he/she was younger (or inherited lots of money). What should people like me do - give up a reasonable job to do some local ad-hoc farm work in order to live without a car, or (as we won't qualify for social housing) do I sell my house and use the proceeds to contribute towards renting a small flat in a tower block in a cheap part of the city?
TJ - you seem to live in a different world / the world has changed since you bought your propert(ies).
Public transport is woeful in this country - infrequent, unreliable and very expensive.
NO – deliberate choice because you know – pollution and all that. Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have chaildren
I'm going to stick up for TJ on that point, that definitely holds true, certainly in the west. The world is already massively overpopulated and more people consuming more resources is just making the problem worse.
I don't think he advocated extinction of humans but a big reduction in the population would be a very good thing.
Never mind on a global scale, just at a local level it feeds in to both of the problems we are talking about here, why is demand for damaging transport so high and why is decent housing so expensive? Too many people after too few resources.
And on a bigger scale the 'who will pay our pensions' argument is somewhat moot if the planet is completely ****ed
.
.
I don't agree with much of what else he says but he is making valid points about how an ideal world should be, while IMO ignoring the real world, but he is making arguements rather than chucking insults about, the calls for him to be banned are a bit excessive
the level of smugness in your posts is intolerable.
For goodness sake get a grip. Intolerable??
I think TJ would perhaps be more effective in providing convincing arguments for some of his obviously strongly held views if he attempted to be more subtle, but that's a problem for him. To describe it as intolerable or call for a permanent ban, as suggested earlier, is frankly ridiculous.
Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have children
Does that mean that their lifetime carbon footprint is transferred onto me and they get let off? Or do we just count it twice? It's maybe a little twee but do we ignore that there is a non-zero probability that someone's future child will make a discovery of some kind that solves all the world's problems? I find the "children are an environmental disaster" argument very defeatist, likely extrapolated poorly from some misrepresented carbon footprint maths, and is certainly not one that those hopeful for the future of humanity would use.
The main problem is that for the last 100 years or so the entire planet has been built around the availability of relatively cheap motorised vehicles and relatively easy to produce hydrocarbon fuels. Our cities and suburbs and transport systems and supply lines, all have developed the way they have around this fact. The way we get our food, how we are educated, the way we receive healthcare, the way we work, the way we relax, the way we live, all this revolves around motorised transport and/or petrochemicals in one way or another. Yes, certain people are fortunate enough to eschew this way of life, but all the "your life choices are bad for the environment" proselytising in the world won't mitigate the fact that we are WAAYYYY too entrenched in how human society has developed for the last century for there ever to be an immediate global-scale shift to something else. We just need to do what we can do. Switching to EVs, solar power, public transport, etc. are examples - albeit mostly expensive and out of the average person's reach - whereas railing on people because they can't afford to live a cough and a spit from their place of work isn't.
I've been lucky enough to live close enough to work to walk there every day for the past 15 yrs or so. My wife has walked to work for 4 yrs. We have one car for family duties.
My work is due to be "centralised" along with several other sites across lancs and Cumbria. The new site is a 30 mile commute for me. It is not adequately serviced by public transport (would take 1.5hrs by bike, train and bus) and I would be expected to take part in 24/7 shifts so unlikely that public transport would always fit with start/finish times.
In order to relocate for that, my wife would have to give up the job she loves and my daughter would have to leave her school and we would be leaving my father in law behind to fend for himself.
I could change jobs, but I would have to retrain in something entirely new as there is most definitely nothing similar locally. Besides, I actually like my job fortunately, hence I've never moved on.
But woe is me eh?
But then again, there's 200+ people at my work, all in a similar situation. A lot with partners, husband's, wives, kids, elderly parents. And at last count, the total of number of staff being relocated to the new site was 777. All with kids, partners etc. How does that get resolved without a load of people just driving about all over the county?
Living close to work is not always a black and white situation.
The world is already massively overpopulated and more people consuming more resources is just making the problem worse.
If everyone who wants to have kids has no more than two, the population will decline.
If everyone has no kids or even just one, there will be significant societal problems that will then need solving.
Don't over-simplify the problem we face.
Point being: not everyone is going to stop having children tomorrow.
If they are that bad for the environment......they probably should.
Right after they moved next door to their Victorian mill
Hold on....it's the China model.
Does that mean that their lifetime carbon footprint is transferred onto me and they get let off? Or do we just count it twice? It’s maybe a little twee but do we ignore that there is a non-zero probability that someone’s future child will make a discovery of some kind that solves all the world’s problems?
If you didn't have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc, etc then none of the environmental damage they cause would ever happen. If you have fewer the the environmental damage they cause will be reduced.
They might well solve all the problems, but there's a (probably greater, given humans propensity for it) chance that they will invent something which adds to the issues
.
If everyone has no kids or even just one, there will be significant societal problems that will then need solving.
Don’t over-simplify the problem we face.
This is true, but the societal problems of a declining population will be nothing compared to the environmental problems caused by an increasing one.
It is the elephant in the room in a lot of discussions.
The compulsion in the China model, while undoubtedly effective, would no doubt be unpopular in a democracy, but a change in attitudes where more people elect to have fewer/none would be a very good thing.
TJ – you seem to live in a different world / the world has changed since you bought your propert(ies).
this is certainly true to a large extent - as above I could not buy anywhere now on the salary I earnt. Not that I would have to move out of the city but that I would be renting for life
I think what a lot of you are missing tho is I have been deliberately living a low carbon lifestyle all my life. many of the choices I have made are made in the light of this. Even being a nurse was in part so.
He is back and allowed to continue his old form and it drags down threads which is a shame.
Agreed.
I think this is unjust towards tj. Whilst not even he could deny he has an abrasive style at times, he has not shown it on this thread imho. There are a significant number of threads where a large number of people are in agreement - once enough posts have been made, any alternative view is quashed. Worse still, anyone exposing those views is ‘attacked’.
Tj makes several valid points, as do his detractors- but there is little denying that the way we live now is unsustainable. We have got to where we are, incrementally over a long time. Most people feel that they are entitled to make whatever choices they want and (deliberately or not) turn a blind eye to the consequences.
I think what a lot of you are missing tho is I have been deliberately living a low carbon lifestyle all my life. many of the choices I have made are made in the light of this. Even being a nurse was in part so.
I think we know this, you bang on about it every time these threads come up. But what's your actual point? We need soultions at a societal level. Flashing your credentials on an internet forum all the time just doesn't help anything.
Whilst not even he could deny he has an abrasive style at times, he has not shown it on this thread imho
The problem with internet arguing is that as soon as you start talking about how great you personally are, it is an implicit comparison between you and other people who then feel attacked. And a bun-fight ensues. I'm aware of this and as you can see I'm struggling.
that is your reaction to the uncomfortable truths I say
and you wonder why people react to you in the way they do…
If you didn’t have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc, etc then none of the environmental damage they cause would ever happen. If you have fewer the the environmental damage they cause will be reduced.
Yeah but that's their carbon footprint, not mine. Or if it's on me then what falls on them? Is my carbon footprint actually owned by my parents?
Living close to work is not always a black and white situation.
Which takes us back to the point made by @TheFlyingOx directly above yours as to how society as a whole has evolved / developed to live like this and how sudden shocks to the system (like the price / availability of oil) will have a huge impact on so many people.
And it's like that because (as per my point earlier), we've not built any reliable alternatives. Cycling is fine for short distances but not when there's no safe infrastructure, no safe place to lock or store a bike.
Train / bus / tram are OK in the places that they exist and work reliably which is few and far between and is generally not a full time replacement for a car, it's simply an alternative to driving into a city centre.
Features of modern life such as out-of-town shopping centres, satellite/commuter belt developments have all added to the *need* to own or have access to a car and the lack of that (due to cost, disability, age etc) has a very real bearing on social inclusion as well as access to opportunities such as education and employment. If you're stuck in a low-paid job in Town X and you can't afford to buy a car, get the bus etc to a higher paid job in Town Y, then you're never going to get out of that rut.
Agree, crazy-legs, this is why we need strong government control in how society is organised. Neoliberalism simply does not work, and we are where we are because of 40 years of it.
Train / bus / tram are OK in the places that they exist and work reliably which is few and far between and is generally not a full time replacement for a car, it’s simply an alternative to driving into a city centre.
This is hamstrung by the idea that public transport has to be profitable. Profit-driven ompanies will only build PT where the highest housing density is and to the city centre. This means it's often unusable for people who aren't going to town, which breaks the whole concept.
Happily the Welsh Govt are working on a solution in SE Wales, and I can't wait for it.
I think what a lot of you are missing tho is I have been deliberately living a low carbon lifestyle all my life.
from previous threads and i may be wrong but i thought you had travelled the world quite a lot on some fantastic adventures , certainly more than i have and where planning on doing it more in retirement.
Yeah but that’s their carbon footprint, not mine. Or if it’s on me then what falls on them? Is my carbon footprint actually owned by my parents?
It's less about 'allocating' it to a particular person and more about breaking a chain of causation. You cause your children's carbon footprint, they cause your grandchildren's and so on and so on. Remove one link of that chain and the problem stops getting worse just there.
I think we know this, you bang on about it every time these threads come up. But what’s your actual point? We need solutions at a societal level. Flashing your credentials on an internet forum all the time just doesn’t help anything.
100% this!
A new narrative oil companies have been pushing is that these companies don't need regulating, it's down to personal choice of the consumer.
It's nonsense.
TJ is actually showing how hard it is to solve this problem through personal choice. How many people have decided to live like him after reading his posts??
Personal choice will never solve this. The system needs to change. The easiest choice to make needs to be the most environmentally friendly. Currently the opposite is true.
The kids thing is also nonsense. It assumes the next generation will live like the previous generation, and that's not true otherwise we'd never have got into this mess in the first place. Populations in developed countries are already declining anyway. Kids are often the ones out in the street protesting at the mess the previous generation have made and are refusing to clean up!
Public transport is woeful in this country – infrequent, unreliable and very expensive.
Yes it is. Has been since nearly a hundred years ago when it was decided that ‘private motor vehicles all the way for everything’ was the way forwards forever. Especially in the UK.
We live in a village with few amenities (I’d rather not live here, but I can afford to live here – like most of our friends here). There are 2 buses per day to the nearest town (Mon-Fri), which don’t link in to buses onwards to the city. If you work, you need a car – there are no easy/safe cycle routes.
Car (EV)-sharing/lift-sharing would be the ideal short-term goal in such a village?
Better public transport and cycling infra looking ahead? We are crippled not only by this government (and past, and no doubt successive) but also by the lack of public will/motivation to make changes and to push for change.
Remove one link of that chain and the problem stops getting worse just there.
This is being addressed, UK birth rate is 1.65 kids per woman.
EV car-sharing/lift-sharing would be the ideal short-term goal.
A social democratic government could fix that problem straight away, doesn't need any complexity or EV takeup.
the thing with the massive rise in fuel/gas/electric general living cost is many people are literally not going to be able to do anything but exist
regardless of if you use trains buses etc for hobbies to keep fit mentally and physically or just living.
then the wider economics of it are devastating truly devastating
the thing with the massive rise in fuel/gas/electric general living cost is many people are literally not going to be able to do anything but exist
Quite. So the even deeper question still is do we have a right to do anything other than simply exist? Is a government obliged to provide us with anything other than the means to simply exist? Should it be our goal as a society to give people opportunities to do more than simply exist?
The problem with all this next generation nonsense is that one isn’t needed. The problem with the environmental debate is that it assumes that humans have a right to last indefinitely as a species. We don’t we are merely passing through. The planet will take care of itself just as it has for the last several billion years
It’s less about ‘allocating’ it to a particular person and more about breaking a chain of causation. You cause your children’s carbon footprint, they cause your grandchildren’s and so on and so on. Remove one link of that chain and the problem stops getting worse just there.
Yes I get that, I'm just being facetious. I just have a problem with a) the argument makes assumptions about how the future generations will conduct themselves, and b) the argument doesn't take into account the fact that if we're going to sort the mess out then we'll need people around to do it. It's a childish faux-intellectual soundbite for the pious to throw around as if it goes any way towards solving the problem - "people cause enviromental damage, so why don't we just get rid of people?" 🤷♂️
well thats a whole other question, no need for anything at all to exist in that case, press the big red nuke button
I'll bet TJ's lunch money that pressure will be put on the oil producing nations to increase production to decrease prices. Or alternatively prices will drop once Putin stops/is stopped bombing Ukraine back to the middle ages.
Either way, petrol prices will come down again. Everyone but TJ will sigh in relief, probably
I’ll bet TJ’s lunch money that pressure will be put on the oil producing nations to increase production to decrease prices.
They're already thinking this. Concern in the middle eastern OPEC countries is that high fuel prices will drive consumers to EVs. Given that many of them have large portions of their economies reliant on production of hydrocarbons I don't think it'll be long before the taps are opened fully.
as above I could not buy anywhere now on the salary I earnt. Not that I would have to move out of the city but that I would be renting for life
TJ (I'm not having a go at you), however you have just admitted that if you were a bit younger, you'd have to rent for life if you had made the same career/life choices. Would you really do that now? really?
I'm guessing you are retired and mortgage free, possibly with a top up to your pension via your rental property? Would you be happy to not have that rental income, andalso have to pay rent out of your pension for the rest of your life.
No. I don't think anyone would choose that option.
Alternatively, like many nurses today, you might have to live out of the city - somewhere cheaper to have any hope of not renting for life.
Probably the worst thing you can do for your environmental footprint is have chaildren
Mleh the rate of population growth as fallen off a cliff, and gross numbers aren't growing nearly as fast as they were in the 60's
The problem with the environmental debate is that it assumes that humans have a right to last indefinitely as a species. We don’t we are merely passing through. The planet will take care of itself just as it has for the last several billion years
Well this is reducing to the ultimate nihilism, but the planet won't 'take care' of itself because without a sentient value system there is no concept of 'care' or right or wrong, things just happen. The only reason anyone cares about the planet is because humans exist.
We already have changed the planet massively, but then so have bacteria and plants and animals. All of this fannying about worrying about greeny eco stuff is purely human. So this is becoming a philosophical debate.
You could very easily end up in a situation where doors close to people as the costs rise but there are no affordable alternative transport options or equivalent local work. Which would be a disaster. It would almost certainly affect people already disadvantaged in the labour market and the low paid the most (e.g. Someone attempting to get back into work after paternity leave etc).
This is already the case. You just don’t know those people. Not being able to take a job, or being sanctioned while out of work for not travelling to an interview on a trading estate only accessible by car, is already a thing.
Very much so Kelvin.
Alternatively, like many nurses today, you might have to live out of the city – somewhere cheaper to have any hope of not renting for life.
Nope - I would never live where I had to drive to work - its a red line for me. also I could not afford to buy anywhere now on a nurse salery in the lothians Not in the 'burbs, not a flat in the city, perhaps an ex council flat on a peripheral estate. Certainly not a house within commuting distance
My choice would be rent for life or move to a much cheaper area IE not take the job in Edinburgh
Edit - its very hard to second guess but the likely thing would have been to find an area I could afford to buy in on a nurses salary and get a job there. Again part of the reason I became a nurse is for the easy availability of work. Probably borders or fife
A social democratic government could fix that problem straight away, doesn’t need any complexity or EV takeup.
How so? Straight away?
An organised and motivated village community could fix it ‘straight’ away. Truth is that neither effective ‘social democratic’ government or ‘effective community’ exist in our society. This is the insular, car-centric (and let’s face it overwhelmingly selfish/overly-convenient) ‘society’/infrastructure that we’ve continued to put in place for the last half a century, completely disregarding all of the ‘early’ warnings. At this point we are most of us convenience-drunk hyper-consumers living in semi-virtual bubbles, tinkering around the edge of a rapidly widening chasm, the edge of which is already hitting those whom have the least the hardest.
ie up to 50% of those now living in Bangladesh’s urban slums (over 2m people) probably moved closer to the city because they were forced to flee their rural homes as a result of riverbank flooding.
How so? Straight away?
Buy more busses, pay more bus drivers, put more busses on. Done.
Truth is that neither effective ‘social democratic’ government or ‘effective community’ exist in our society.
Absolutely. We don't have effective government. I believe that governments need to manage society, not just do the minimum and let whatever happens happen.
It's interesting that much of the "fuel poverty" debate is centered around heating, but almost no discussion of folks being forced to drive to work. It's fine to talk about making a choice of living where you work, but for folks who don't have that choice, (through lack of opportunities, education, entrenched poverty etc etc) If you're working shift patterns in a low paid job, often car ownership is the only way you get to the business estates that these sorts of jobs are located on.
One thing I am with TJ on from reading his input I'm other threads is that EV cars will not solve the problem. They're an easy buzzword for politicians to band about to say they've done something to fix the problem but they're actually the opposite - they excuse personal car ownership and encourage continued overconsumption of resources.
If the problem is to be fixed (which I have stated I don't believe it has to be) then frankly personal car ownership needs to vanish entirely. I don't want that thought.
Except this morning because cars are a bloody pain in the arse and I'm about to spend 6 hours taking my car door apart to replace a broken window lifter... Curse these things.
pay more bus drivers
You are Reg Varney and I claim my...
I have been accused of not offering solutions. Of course ideally we need a time machine as above this has been building for 30 years and was known about 30 years ago
All the below takes a generation to do
Move to carbon taxation. tax on the amount of pollution created. low pollution stuff becomes cheaper, high pollution more expensive
Ramp up petrol prices and use that money to subsidise public transport
Use town planning to reduce car reliance. Stop the building of peripheral megastores. Keep the shops in the towns and cities and villages ( look to the netherlands - this is what they have done. their city and towncentres are still alive as shopping cntres, they do not have megastores ( especially food stores) out on the periphery)
Yes. We scoff at people in the US struggling with petrol at $2.50 a gallon but their lives have been built around cars even more than ours, and people are on the bread line as it is. So yeah an increase of $1 on their petrol prices is a big problem. And because their fuel tax is a lot lower, they are more exposed proportionally to oil price fluctuations. Fuel prices can double in a matter of months.
Stop the building of peripheral megastores. Keep the shops in the towns and cities and villages
I am not sure this is anywhere near as big of a problem as the fact people have to drive to work. If you live in Merthyr, you can shop locally, you can get a bus into town and you can get your food delivered. But you might have to drive 25 miles and 1hr each way to get to work. I think this is probably a much bigger issue and it's a lot harder to solve.
but their lives have been built around cars even more than ours,
The US; especially the centre/ mid-west only really works - as it exists now if you have cheap fuel.
Either way, petrol prices will come down again.
Maybe short term (possibly with some Government intervention to cut duty) but everyone knows that fuel is a necessity for the way of life we have and the majority of people are going to suck it up somehow. A few less other luxuries, one less holiday or whatever but most people will continue buying fuel - maybe not at the same level as before if they're using the car less / driving more economically but the oil companies know that the entire world is built on their output and they'll do just enough to keep the prices manageable and keep their profits coming. Once it's been shown that petrol at £1.80/l can exist and people will pay for it, it'll creep back up there fairly quickly.
Buy more busses, pay more bus drivers, put more busses on. Done.
No, that just adds to existing congestion. No point putting a dozen buses on if they're going to be sat in the current level of traffic and if the fares are the current level of unaffordable.
You need to get people out of cars first; you can do that by a combination of schemes such as bus priority routes, 24/7 bus lanes, city centre car park charging, LTNs, ULEZ / Clean Air Zone and using the funds generated from that to pay for a gradual increase in bus services. Chucking a dozen new bus routes in solves nothing, in fact it adds to congestion. Most of the modal shift to buses comes from existing walking and cycling trips, not existing car trips.
Alternatively, like many nurses today, you might have to live out of the city – somewhere cheaper to have any hope of not renting for life
And then have to drive everywhere. But only because everyone drives everywhere. All this fairness talk needs to remember that we have made driving essential away from city centres because we “all” drive. What happens to the young, the old, the poor, the disabled…? We have made it so that not driving, through choice or situation, is itself a handicap. It doesn’t need to be. It is the result of our addiction to cars.
Not sure what petty bickering is on the thread, once I saw tjagain’s involvement I knew there was nothing worth reading after the first page. But, this fuel price situation has got me seriously ****ing miserable… I buy an ebike so I can continue riding to work through various ailments. Two days after owning it I get another leg injury, can’t even walk now, so will be driving everywhere. ****ing grim.
It is the result of our addiction to cars.
And how did we become addicted to cars? Neoliberal government policy.
No, that just adds to existing congestion.
Not out in the countryside, which is what I was talking about.
Stop the building of peripheral megastores. Keep the shops in the towns and cities and villages ( look to the netherlands – this is what they have done. their city and towncentres are still alive as shopping cntres, they do not have megastores ( especially food stores) out on the periphery)
In Alnwick we have a growing small retail park, less then 20 years ago it was fields. It’s now a leisure centre, sainsburys, Argos, Homebase, Pets@home, M&S food, Starbucks, local butcher food hall and others are due.
It’s allowed those at the other end of town somewhere closer to shop as there’s a Morrisons at the other end. Meanwhile in the town centre shops that where once mainly chains there are now small independent shops, we’ve had 4 independent pubs open up in less than 2 years. It’s not all bad news when it comes to out of town shopping.
Public transport needs huge investment, drop the subs for air travel, no privately owned bus companies for public transport or trains.
I moved for my job 27 years ago, it held me back on career choices I wanted to do due travelling, I walk to work. I’ve gone through a restructure and now face a third of my shifts travelling to Newcastle to start work. I could drop down to a different role but I’d take a financial hit and probably have to drive to work for every shift. Not everyone has the chance in life to have circumstances and choices that allow them the ‘ideal’ green life.
But you might have to drive 25 miles and 1hr each way to get to work.
Bad, but more than half of car trips nationally are less than five miles. Modern ICE vehicles can emit twice as much pollution in the first five minutes of running.
I’ve gone through a restructure and now face a third of my shifts travelling to Newcastle to start work.
Maybe in a few decades when they've finally dualled the A1 it might not be so bad from Alnwick to Newcastle or vice versa..
And how did we become addicted to cars? Neoliberal government policy.
Dr Beeching's report to a Labour government that cars were the future was made in the 1960s, at a time when the Britian was a social democratic country and had enjoyed uninterrupted social democratic governments since WW2.
I actually agree with TJ about the 'No kids' thing as it's one of the reasons I've decided not to have any myself. We can't have everyone not breeding but if a decent section of society decide to not have one or more kids then it will make a difference in the long term.
Outside the ‘life choices’ debate, this fuel cost thing could really see people looking for things they could do to reduce personal car cost/use/whatever, while still travelling when needed.
The touble is everyone will see every journey they make as essential.
Which takes us back to the point made by @TheFlyingOx directly above yours as to how society as a whole has evolved / developed to live like this and how sudden shocks to the system (like the price / availability of oil) will have a huge impact on so many people.
My old job was based away from anywhere that you could reasonably live, surrounded by industrial estates and the really rough parts of Cardiff or the really expensive bits. Out of 60 staff there was only two of us that could reasonably cycle to work, public transport was out as the buses didn't start running until after we had started! Driving was pretty much the only option for most, it wasn't something they could cut down on. All down to where work was. Try changing that en masse.
The other issue is lots of decisions on public transport are taken with a 9-5 view of the week, leading to massive holes in coverage for shift workers and the like. It's the same on weekends round me too. To solve all of this we would really have to rebuild out towns and cities in a massive scaleabd there just isn't the time or impetus to do it, plus construction generated a massive amount of pollution as it is so no real net gain.
It's a problem we've ignored as a species for too long and I fear it's too late now.
Maybe in a few decades when they’ve finally dualled the A1 it might not be so bad from Alnwick to Newcastle or vice versa..
😂
I’ll be retired by then so won’t care I can sit smug and complain about people driving to work instead of buying a property close to a job.
a time machine
a time machine - would do you no good whatsoever. We’ve known about the issues, for what 50+ years? - and have continued down the same path. We’re still building new housing estates, where the occupants are totally reliant upon cars.
We’re doomed.
We can’t have everyone not breeding but if a decent section of society decide to not have one or more kids then it will make a difference in the long term.
This is happening, see above.
The other issue is lots of decisions on public transport are taken with a 9-5 view of the week
Of course, decisions should (sometimes) be made and money spent for the majority of cases. We dint have to get every car off the road, just most of them.
Don't forget the Scottish gov came up with a bonza plan.
Those of you that live near your work will now be fighting with all those being charged to park at their place of work for the on street spaces.
Just to say great thread 👍🏼
And when I was young man (in the UK W Midlands) if you took the bus you were regarded as a failure at life, and if you cycling you were similarly regarded as a freaky failure. Didn't bother me I sort of enjoyed the freedom (both financial and ‘spiritual/philosophical’) of not having a car and also couldn't understand the attractions of traffic jams and pollution. I finally caved in to car-ownership at 38yrs old, but still prefer the bike or train (from a wholly selfish angle) and every MOT is basically a study in corrosion.
Don’t know what current attitudes are in the younger population (towards multimodal and/or public transport).
I used to work in the automotive industry and went to Detroit a few times.
Not only is there very little public transport, apparently thanks to lobbying by the automotive industry, many places don't even have sidewalks (pavements). It's also illegal to jaywalk. If you want to go to a shop on the other side of the road you literally have to drive there.
Nuts!
If you want to a ride a bike, you need to stick it in your car and drive to a recreation area. If you want to go for a run, you drive to a gym.
Don’t forget the Scottish gov came up with a bonza plan.
Those of you that live near your work will now be fighting with all those being charged to park at their place of work for the on street spaces.
Hopefully they’ll introduce/increase the cost for on street parking. [Also do something about vehicles parked on the pavement.]
Pavement parking is due to be made illegal. I really look forward to that. My father recently had a nasty fall because of a car parked on the pavement. He is 87 and that fall has changed his life for the worse
there are roads around here where you have to walk on the road because of pavement parker
IMO all on street parking should be at least a tenner a day. thats the rough value of the public land used.
I used to work in the automotive industry and went to Detroit a few times.
Not only is there very little public transport, apparently thanks to lobbying by the automotive industry, many places don’t even have sidewalks (pavements). It’s also illegal to jaywalk. If you want to go to a shop on the other side of the road you literally have to drive there.
Nuts!
If you want to a ride a bike, you need to stick it in your car and drive to a recreation area. If you want to go for a run, you drive to a gym.
Makes me think of Mega-city One.
Pavement parking is due to be made illegal. I really look forward to that.
I am less optimistic it will bring about the slightest change in behaviour.
Apologies, I hadn’t realised quite how far off topic we had strayed.
Maybe in a few decades when they’ve finally dualled the A1 it might not be so bad from Alnwick to Newcastle or vice versa..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
More lanes = more cars = more congestion = the idea that you can build another lane to "relieve congestion" = more lanes = more cars...
Drac - a difficult situation
what I wonder is what would your employer do with a person in your position who did not have a car? Would they still require the part time move?