Written By:
weka - Date published:
9:53 am, December 5th, 2020 - 19 comments
Categories: climate change -
Tags: climate emergency
These are not targets to hit, but catastrophic points of no return. To call them "objectives" is a dangerous abuse of language that validates the pursuit of a model until the planetary limits are reached. pic.twitter.com/YKlBRLCGin
— Extinction Rebellion Global (@ExtinctionR) December 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/CubaRaglanGuy/status/1334304858799685632
Why carbon capture and storage and related technologies won’t save us. What we can do instead.
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First we need enough surplus electricity to charge the vehicle fleet; then we must have the electric infrastructure to recharge electric vehicles.
With ALL industrial heat processes being change to electric there is already not enough generation capacity for the future vehicle fleet.
plus how to manufacture all the current replacements and future stock for all of that without using FF. Atm we're using FF. Barking mad, although I think it's largely a failure of imagination too.
Not to mention the importation of it all – paid for by export of primary products
AND that each EV contains 750 – 1,000 kg of PLASTIC sourced from FF along with the tyres which will still need replacing just as often as those on FF vehicles.
The 'imagination' is there but the practical engineering nexus is not yet available and cannot be brought in to physical being by mere legislation.
Surely there should be a focus on re-jigging the current fleet…?
some way of electrifying/modifying those vehicles that is greener than building new ones..
but we should be in no doubt that massive changes in transportation can occur quite fast..if the will/technology is there..
this can be seen in photos of the streets of london…chocked with horses/buggy's/carts..
then ten years later..not a horse to be seen…
so we have done it before..
yes we could (but all the signs are we wont)….electrified public transport, a huge reduction in the private fleet and more compact towns and cities.
this is the importance of systems thinking. We're fixated on the GHG emissions, and a reductionist response (EVs!!), but if we started with regenerative and sustainable we'd see the tyre pollution, the manufacturing true costs, the impossibility of everyone on the planet owning an EV, the social justice issues that then arise, and underlying all that all the things that feed into the impacts on natural systems.
Most people find that too challenging, but the beauty of it is that if we start with the natural systems and build out from that then the tech systems we design are naturally sustainable and regenerative. It's challenging but not impossible.
Hemp can be used to replace yr fossil fuel plastics…
We have become co-dependant with the fleet and now face mutual extinction. We can remedy this by working from home and downsizing and redistributing industry and other workplaces to suburbs so people are able to walk to work.
It's such a beautifully simply answer, esp coupled with putting in really good public transport systems now while we have the advantage to do so (imagine of all the industrial and political effort went into that instead of EV infrastructure). Then multiple benefits of improved health, social cohesion, better mental health and so on.
Or walk away from work 🙂
But how will little Johnny and Jenny get to mummy’s favourite out of zone school that is on the other side of town? Because the local school just doesn’t work for the special dietary needs of Jenny and Johnny needs a special kind of essential oil in his vaporiser and the local school uses the wrong brand.
btw mumsie votes Green
[Bravo! You are a dipshit troll who happened to be banned for eight months for trolling and ignoring Moderation and now blatantly flouting the ban. Your reward for your good form is another eight months added to your current ban – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 5:03 AM.
Or adopt an equine mode of transport.
I'd be into that. People will freak out at the idea, because of pre-industrial phobia, but we can have all the things now, just need to figure out how to do them sustainably and regeneratively. Horse and carriage, bamboo bikes, walking, public transport, some EVs (probably with a different ownership/sharing structure), ride sharing…
Horses lead to the great horse manure crisis:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/
"This huge number of horses created major problems. The main concern was the large amount of manure left behind on the streets. On average a horse will produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day, so you can imagine the sheer scale of the problem. "
"Each horse also produced around 2 pints of urine per day and to make things worse, the average life expectancy for a working horse was only around 3 years. Horse carcasses therefore also had to be removed from the streets. The bodies were often left to putrefy so the corpses could be more easily sawn into pieces for removal."
"The streets of London were beginning to poison its people.
But this wasn’t just a British crisis: New York had a population of 100,000 horses producing around 2.5m pounds of manure a day."
About half the horses were required to remove the Horse Manure!
sometimes I wonder who is worse in living in cloud cuckoo land. Folk who vote or, those who govern us?
Anybody worth their salt, will know how much more expensive life in general is in Germany
"Cockaigne, the land of plenty in medieval myth, can be considered the predecessor to the modern day cloud cuckoo land. It was an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures were always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life did not exist."
Yes, extreme luxury, pleasures immediately at hand – that's what Labour voters expect!
Or more realistically, not.
I understand that the wages are better in Germany and I think they get people to pay their taxes. Also the unions learned to work with the employers and bargain more rationally, with all gaining from that system.
All things in life have a price tag. Living in what one can call the 'old world', we are are somewhat more ahem, advanced from the 'new world' in the seceneros of bedwetter politicians, and of course environmentalists, in thinking wind turbines and such are the next best thing in invention since slice bread!