The world is in trouble what are we going to do about it?

[sparkindarkness]

The world is in dire straits but Blair is going to help, apparently.

Yes, the reports are in (the many many reports) and they have concluded:
a) Global warming is here
b) we are a major cause of it
c) we should have been doing something about it 20 years ago
d) if we don’t act soon we’re all screwed.

We’ve also got the ongoing issue that Britain sucks at recycling. We’re way behind on the rest of Europe and it’s really quite pathetic, especially since the landfills are filling up and people scream blue murder every time there is a proposed incinerator.

So Blair’s (and local council’s) response, for both, is to introduce green taxes to encourage less waste and emissions and generally better habits.




I can see the point on some things. It really annoys me to see people who have absolutely no need for them driving around cities in Land Rovers or other 4X4s. Nothing would please me more than to tax these Chelsea tractors until people get something more appropriate. I see people, just 2 people living in a house, and they fill the wheelie bin to overflowing every single week. Our council provides a recycle bin as well and will give you a free compost bin - so there is really no excuse for not using either. But every week their wheelie bin is out and overflowing, while their recycling bin never moves. I would love to see them charged for not making even the most basic, simple effort.

But at the same time I think this is a poor way to inspire people to do their bit. Already you have the usual suspect “newspapers” screaming about taxes and Gordon Brown’s rapacious grasping and money hungry back pocket. Basically, people are looking at the legitimate environmental crisis and seeing an excuse to raise taxes. That’s not good at all.

My solution? Well, I think we still need to force the issue and I would look at regulation beyond just taxes. I also think where we ARE using deterrent taxes we need to ensure that ANY revenue generated from them go automatically into environmental causes. So if councils tax people extra for excessively full bins, they should make it EXTREMELY clear that ALL of that money earned is going to be spent on recycling plants/providing recycling services etc. If road tax is going to quadruple for the worst emission producing and petrol guzzling vehicles then it has to be CLEAR that the extra funds are going to be spent on wind turbines and investing in more efficient technology etc.

I would also introduce reward schemes - the recycling bin is full and sorted? Right, have a rebate. Bought a low emissions high efficiency car? Right, very low road tax.

And of course they must actually DO it - not just SAY the money is being invested in green issues, but actually INVEST them in green issues. If people can point to the government using this for revenue then the whole issue will explode.

Oh, and the next person who complains about a wind turbine gets slapped and asked if they’d rather have a coal power plant on their doorstep or if they would rather be without electricity.

And I KNOW that it doesn't matter what we do, if America, China et al don't put aside their denial and actually try to fix their own emissions, we're all screwed anyway. But that doesn't excuse us from not trying. Pointing to someone and saying "they're worse" has never excused the bad things we do.

Comments

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

In Austria it's a criminal offence not to recycle, or so I believe.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about Austria. I knew Germany had very strict rules...

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Some of us in the USA are trying. Not doing as well as we could be, but trying.

A compost bin would be something I'd use if I had one, and our recycle bin is usually about half full with the garbage being about 2/3rds full.

[touchstone.livejournal.com]

They're easy to build, if you have a yard with an appropriate place to put one. Not a help to a city-dweller, admitedly. Since we started trying to separate out compost (and put cardboard boxes in the recycling), our garbage bin mostly contains meat-scraps, dirty diapers, and the cat litter. Oh, and plastic from shrink-wrapped packaging.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I've got research to do before I do that, but I probably will end up building one.

[jerril]

If you're an apartment dweller or cramped for yard space, a worm bin can be surprisingly easy to manage. Also, you can then give/sell the absolutely fantastic earth and worms you generate to urban gardeners, or use it in your own plants, as desired. Of course, a bin with dirt and worms in it is a bit gross for many people.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I've got a fairly good-sized yard, so worm bins are another thing to research. Thank you :)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Sadly many in teh US are still in convenient denial about Global warming being a problem.

Compost bins are great - it's amazing how much of our rubbish is organic.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Pollution in general is a huge problem. There's no such thing as an infinite resource.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

amen.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

But no hallelujah. not yet, alas

[electra310.livejournal.com]

This town I'm living in doesn't have a recycling program. The town I grew up in had a recycle program, but we stopped filling our recycle bin when we realized that the recycling truck didn't want to come down our street, so the trash guys dumped it into their bin. Sigh. We recycle our pop cans, anyway.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Gah, this is the kind of thing that bugs me and why the tax money funneled to environmental programs is needed

[tinimaus.livejournal.com]

I have had days when I've wanted to move back to Germany just because of the ungreenness of Britain. Gets me down, it does. Things we enthusiastically took up 30 or more years ago people still look on as the purview of crackpots and loony Guardian-readers.
I haven't shopped at my local Asda ever since they stopped me at the door for not using plastic bags and demanded to see my receipt (I'd left my folding boxes in the car). Way to encourage people.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how behind we are on the status quo. I've seen people do some basic recycling and act like they're Gaia's own avatar - not doing something that people in Germany and Austria do every day

I like the Tesco scheme of extra points for people who bring their own bags.

[amynnah.livejournal.com]

Everytime someone in the USA buys a new Hummer, Thrall kills a kitten. ;_;

He has a mountain of them somewhere, I know it.

I don't have a hybrid (couldn't afford one), but my Chevy Cavalier is hawtsauce on gas mileage. I keep the load on it very light, and I changed my driving habits on it so I wouldn't waste gas.

I threw plastic over my windows for the winter and turned the thermostat down.

I'd love it if we had wind turbines, but people in the suburbs (the rich suburbs) complained about having to see them from their backyards. Can I borrow you, Spark, to help with the slapping of those people?

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Beware the Ogrimmar kitten mountain!

I report for slapping duty - I have never understood those who bitch about these elegant white windmills.

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

Having listened to interviews on the radio about the whole recycling issue, I should point out the one fact that everyone seems to be avoiding mentioning...

The councils don't actually give a toss about recycling. It's just another government target they have to meet. Since the council gets punished for failing to meet targets, the councils feel we should be punished for not doing all we can to prevent the council from getting punished.

The current government (and I'm not saying the others are better) have a real problem with non-punitive regimes; even going so far as to call "higher taxes" "incentives".

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I thought it alwaysw went without saying that governments in total don't give a toss about anything?

Yes, the government's solutions always look like another scheme to make money - they need to work on the press for taht at very least

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I discount most of the globull warming as a religious issue I don't want to gag on. I get enough of that from the fright wing as it is.

Blair's pandering to the unbalanced influence the religious nuts known as greens have in Britain. Maybe that should be neo-religious?

We will govern ourselves and don't need Blair, the EU or the corrupt UN
to interfere and Britain doesn't either.

It's a free market or it's not, you might as well set up rationing. Of course I will be there to make the piles of money on black market gas.
Hell I'll be cooking the shit in bathtubs and making more than meth.

It's not funny since I see where Britain is going and watching you'all slice your own throat bothers me.

Humans are a natural process and are governed ultimately by all other natural processes. So since we're all natural we should be left alone for nature to deal with as she sees fit. The great brillo pad of ultraMom might scrub us right off the planet or force us to burst from this seed pod and go forth and be fruitful and multiply in a much larger ecosystem.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Well, most of our own experts in Britain agree with this report. And all the multiple reports before it.

Greens have power in Britain? I think you are severely overestimating them. And Blair has never pandered to the environmental lobby before, he's a more in the pocket of business politician.

This is not from the EU or the UN - this is Britain's own decisions based on Britain's own research and own studies. The EU and UN make conveneient scapegoats for anything people wish to deny but they rarely are the boogie men people think they are.

Nowhere in the world has a completely free market. It isn't digital - free market or not - it is always a stage of degrees.

Britain is recognising the finite nature of fossil fuels. Britain is recognising the danger of global climate change and the disasters it could cause. Britain is seeing the world ready to slit its own throat and we are worried.

left alone for nature to as she sees fits of course is better said as left alone to pollute to whatever excess we wish then suffer the extreme consequences of it

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Global warming is not science, I discount and ridicule it the same as I would Kreskin or Miss Cleo.

If Britain wants to believe a fabrication it's part and parcel of the path it's been taking of late I don't see a good end to it.

We have no choice but to let nature take it's course for now, because of the pseudo-science drivel that's been spewed of late not many know what will happen.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I'm disinclined to discount the findings of all of our major scientists.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

It's not all of them it's only a small subset, that are 'scientists in name only', priests by action. I had bothered at one time to look at what they did , not something I can share as it's something you'd need to do for you.

Look at the people behind the studies, especially their public statements and publicly stated beliefs and also look at the organizations that fund the studies.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

It's the majority of scientists over here including those duned by the governments.

Well, not those who are funded by oil companies

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

You might want to question the source of your numbers. It's something I wouldn't be able to comment on wrt Britain. Another tool is google, you can look up 'global warming scam' for some indication of where to look further.

Australia

[faithwinslow.livejournal.com]

Down here, we're feeling the bite of too many people using too much of too few available resources. In the city where my parents and other assorted family live (one of our major cities), the dams are down to a quarter full, and there are no other suitable dam sites available.
Most gardeners in that city use reclaimed, roof-gathered or gray water for their gardens, and gardeners everywhere else are keeping one eye on the dams, one on the rainfall predictions, and one on their hip pocket (lots of eyes!). When we get our home replumbed, which it will need sooner or later, we'll be discussing water options ourselves.

Importing the majority of our food would be a hugely expensive option, but crops are failing from lack of irrigation water and lack of rain. Our banana crops (& a number of other tropical crops) were devastated by a cyclone, and bananas are hugely expensive right now.

All our electricity companies (that I know of) provide the option of paying a bit extra for 'green power' - which means they commit to sourcing the amount of power you use (or the amount you pay for - your choice) from 'green' sources such as wind turbines, rather than 'dirty' sources such as coal power plants. (Yes, I pay that surcharge.)

Curbside recycling programs are standard, and our recyc bin is usually fuller than our general-rubbish bin. Worm farms and compost bins are readily available and in common use.

The thing that's going more slowly than I would like is biopetrol and biodiesel, but they're becoming more and more available. I've got a standing request with the biofuels company that's gradually creeping into my area for a servo (service station/gas station/fuel station) within reasonable driving distance from me.

(I'm aware that biodiesel is able to be home-made, but my family refuses to let me home-make it until we have a water connection in the shed, and an eye bath. It requires lye, you see. Besides, we don't have a diesel car, and we have to consider the environmental costs of that too.)

Re: Australia

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

See, the Australians have it right. That sounds like a great idea.

Personally I think every home should have a solar pannel on the roof and even one of those little wind turbindes you can get (you can get very basic ones from B&Q for a couple of hundred pounds, so I imagine buildi8ng more extensivce ones into new houses is hardly going to change the price that much)

Re: Australia

[faithwinslow.livejournal.com]

I think that distributed generation (each home having solar panels/wind turbines) makes an awful lot of sense. Centralised generation (big power plants) involves power loss while the power is transmitted to where it's used,

You can get solar panel roof tiles nowadays that get fitted just like normal roof tiles and look like roof tiles, so adding them to new (or re-roofed) homes is a very small additional expense that pays for itself in the long run. I would imagine that installing a wind turbine to the roof is very cheap if you're already hiring an electrician as well.