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Post by PG on Oct 21, 2019 8:18:44 GMT
The Green Party must be really shit politicians to only have one MP at a time when climate change and plastic pollution have never been higher on the agenda. I agree but there is a real problem to overcome. When you are comfortable and have enough money to last you, it is easy to think about the environment and what needs to change to improve it. When you are scraping a living on the other hand and someone wants to take away your car or double the price of fuel or make it more expensive to heat your already cold house, things much closer to home are much more important. People have concerns about green issues but they have bigger concerns about keeping a roof over their heads and feeding their families. It's not without reason that the only Green MP was elected in Brighton.This. To somebody in a shitty flat, scraping a living, preaching that rising sea levels will wash away the Maldives is irrelevant. Most people's desire to see "the environment" improved starts with their own surroundings. As you say, it is generally people from better surroundings who want to save the planet.
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Post by michael on Oct 21, 2019 8:45:01 GMT
There is that. There is also the view that a green approach doesn't have to involve Marxism in the way that the green party and XR seem so keen on.
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 21, 2019 9:54:07 GMT
There is that. There is also the view that a green approach doesn't have to involve Marxism in the way that the green party and XR seem so keen on. Well, yes Amen to that.
Country living also helps a green approach, although I think it needs to be combined with a country upbringing or at least an effort to adapt. For example, I was at my mother's in rural coastal Suffolk for the weekend. On Saturday, we went for a long walk along the sea wall and found an abundance of wild field mushrooms, some of which we picked. Then we stopped for lunch at a little place that has been serving fresh local seafood fished on their own boat since my mother was a child. In the evening, mum cooked some fresh sole bought pretty much straight off the boats, and then we finished that off with delicious locally-made ice-cream. Then Sunday lunch was roast partridge - the butcher at the farm shop gets them seasonally from the local shoot - accompanied by among other things the mushrooms we'd picked the day before, followed by home-made blackberry & apple crumble using blackberries picked by my mother and apples from her friend's orchard.
All delicious, and all hard to replicate if you live in a city.
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Post by Tim on Oct 21, 2019 10:08:50 GMT
Ah but think of the pollution you caused by actually travelling out to the countryside. That's why everyone should be encouraged to live in a city Probably. I think I'm fairly environmentally friendly - e.g. I recycle everything I can - but I choose to live in the countryside and my current commute is 13 miles each way. I could live in a nice flat 5 minutes walk from the office but I don't want to do that....
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Post by michael on Oct 21, 2019 10:37:19 GMT
I think I'm fairly environmentally friendly.... I'm not because I have three large dogs, a 'gas guzzler' car which I use a lot and eat meat.
But, I'm also quite eco friendly in that don't replace my electrical items often, I don't buy lots of plastic disposable crap and don't take that many international flights. I've spent a fortune insulating our house, planted many trees and grow some of our own food. I also don't, and never have eaten avocado on toast.
Unlike a lot of the XR lot I don't consider myself to be a hypocrite when it comes to the environment as I don't claim to be perfect or preach any which way, I just do what I can in the real world.
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 21, 2019 11:13:56 GMT
Ah but think of the pollution you caused by actually travelling out to the countryside. That's why everyone should be encouraged to live in a city Probably. I think I'm fairly environmentally friendly - e.g. I recycle everything I can - but I choose to live in the countryside and my current commute is 13 miles each way. I could live in a nice flat 5 minutes walk from the office but I don't want to do that.... 0.08 tonnes of CO2 apparently to go 240 miles in a car that emits 159 g/km. Or 0.04 tonnes per passenger.
That's double what it would have been by train - 0.02 tonnes per passenger apparently. But it's a royal pain to go by train and takes an hour longer than driving:
Walk with luggage, welly bags etc up to tube station (10 mins); Tube across London to Liverpool Street - 15 stops with a change at Notting Hill Gate (approx. 45 minutes); Arrive Liverpool Street slightly early to allow for delays (15 mins). Train from Liverpool Street to Ipswich (67 mins); Change at Ipswich (10 mins); branch line from Ipswich to Saxmundham (36 mins); Car from Saxmundham to home (10 mins).
You are also then stuck in the depths of the countryside in a village with next to no public transport.
But then of course the most valid criticism of green policies is that they are dreamt up by urbanites who assume everybody lives within easy walk of a super-connected public transport network.
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Post by johnc on Oct 21, 2019 11:35:42 GMT
But who works out the emissions for the train? Is that based on a crammed full train or one with a handful of passengers. Lies, damned lies and statistics!
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Post by PG on Oct 21, 2019 13:11:20 GMT
The city view v country view is an interesting one and another that suffers from sound-bite eco-ism. Apparently living in a city is so much more environmentally friendly. Unless of course you look at the websites that explain why the countryside is better for the environment. A contrary view to other websites of course.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2019 13:13:42 GMT
To somebody in a shitty flat, scraping a living, preaching that rising sea levels will wash away the Maldives is irrelevant. S'alright for them though, they're on the 14th floor!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2019 13:15:51 GMT
But who works out the emissions for the train? Is that based on a crammed full train or one with a handful of passengers. Lies, damned lies and statistics! Probably someone who travels during the commute with carriages busting at the seems rather than any other times of day. Much better figures then of course, unless wiggins from accounting had the bean salad for lunch.
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Post by racingteatray on Oct 22, 2019 12:57:52 GMT
To come back around to XR, I just happened across this quote from David Attenborough, when asked about XR, which I think is on the money:
“Extinction Rebellion doesn’t have the monopoly of people who care about the planet. That’s a section of people who care about the planet, but everybody should care about the planet. We’re citizens of the planet. We have the dominance of it and we ought to care about it.”
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