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Rolling Ronnie 1468 posts |
Nov 01, 2005, 12:57
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I think what you say is absolutely right Cleira. Perhaps the government should put a tax on business flying. It may suddenly seem less essential in many instances.
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anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Nov 01, 2005, 13:02
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Nah, what they need to do is give tax breaks dependent on a reduction in their travel costs. Obviously, the government could start by setting an example...
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Rolling Ronnie 1468 posts |
Nov 01, 2005, 13:14
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That's a much better idea AQK!!! I'll let you tell John Prescott ;-)
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Rolling Ronnie 1468 posts |
Nov 01, 2005, 14:01
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In all fairness, I don't think that people doing business the way you are contribute to the problem. As I said in an earlier post, the Third World depends on Air Travel to do business. The people who should have their travel curbed are those that travel purely because they choose to in preference to using other forms of communication or do so because it is a business perk.
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shamanic miner 184 posts |
Nov 01, 2005, 22:27
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Nice to be remembered. :-) Been lurking... :-)
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Nov 02, 2005, 16:55
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"That's a bit much." It's not a bit much. Passenger aviation is a bit much. Or, to be more precise, a lot much. The current vast amount of global trade is a very new occurence. It cannot last as there simply is no energy source to make it do so. The decline of oil production means that the age of ordinary people like you taking several long-haul flights a year will be over well within the lifetimes of most of us. So, if we're to have such a crunch, surely it's best we see it coming and wean ourselves off it rather than wait till there's a fan/shit interface. In the meantime, the ever faster consumption of oil is exacerbating climate change. This is a problem that dwarfs all others. There is a serious risk that climate change will make the planet uninhabitable by humans and most other species within a couple of millennia. Climate change is not coming. It is here, and it is intensifying. Extreme weather events are getting more frequent and intense. As they do so, a serious proportion of farmland will be suceptible to catastrophic change. Topsoil washed away in floods, places having their rainfall dry up, temperatures not dropping enough in winter to make seeds germinate in spring, etc. As this gets worse, what will that do to the food supply of the people you presently trade with? Again, much of this is already here. I already have to chill my Lincolnshire spinach seeds in the fridge over winter. This is all the result of fossil fuel consumption. For most people - and certainly those who travel long haul anywhere - by far their biggest consumption of fossil fuels is aviation. I respect your distrust of middlemen and your will to ensure the people you get stuff from are fairly paid. But the effect on climate change far outwieghs the benefit of all but the tiniest amount of aviation. I have no idea what trade it is you're involved in, but I feel it's not likely in that tiny amount. So, put frankly, yes I do think you should find work closer to home. And I think that about your trading partners over there too. Rolling Ronnie's point about dependence on trade doesn't hold much water; the dependece on international trade is a by-product of the cheap fuel to transport goods with. Around the world, people have been quite capable of feeding themselves and living happily for millennia. It's the imposition of European ideas of property ownership, of cash-crops, of western farming methods and the post-colonial problems of government in third world countries that lie behind the overwhelming majority of famines. And certainly, the poor nations will suffer the most as climate change kicks in. Just as we imposed cash-crops, then once the farming had all gone that we we drop the price we pay for the commodity, so soon we will drop it again or withdraw completely as transport becomes too expensive. One exception will be the high price of oil making vehicle biofuels financially viable. We will use Third World countries as plantations for the fuel crops. So, just as today we fly in cut flowers and green beans from Tanzania while people starve 200 miles away, so in future we will be shipping over the palm oil. We have to re-localise our lives, stop flying in onions and apples from New Zealand when we can grow them here. We have to scale back our oil consumption, and that will - be force of circumstance fairly soon even if we don't have the clarity of vision and conscience to choose it now - mean the end of the popular private car and passenger aviation.
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Rolling Ronnie 1468 posts |
Nov 02, 2005, 17:19
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There are usually two ways out of a problem. You can either work your way through it or you can go backwards. Without knowing a great deal about you or your ideals outside what I read here, you come across as a Luddite. You seem to hanker after a romantic vision of 'the simple life' as is used to be before the Industrial Revolution. Yes, fossil fuels are finite but once they are gone they are gone. It is up to science to attempt to find self sustaining methods of travelling and that is, I believe, the right course of action. I'm not suggesting that it's being tackled well or with the right urgency. Simply that forward is the better direction.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Nov 02, 2005, 19:03
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"You can either work your way through it or you can go backwards." This is such a subjective term as to be meaningless. You imply that we have to look for technological answers, and if we find none then just assume they do exist and will be found soon, and that anything else is 'going backwards'. The continued use of methods and technoologies that work well is not 'going backwards'. For example, organic farming is how we've produced food enough to feed ourselves up until the last 50 years or so. The methods in what is curiously called 'conventional farming' ruin the land, the wildlife and the quality of the food produced. They cannot be sustained for much longer, not only for the reasons just mentioned, but also because the chemicals they rely upon are derived from oil and gas, which are about to become prohibitively expensive, permanently. So, in that example, what is the 'work through' response and what is the 'going backwards'? Whislt I do beleive high technology to be intrinsically disempowering, i certainly don't want to do without all it brings. Big yay for sanitation, recorded music and modern medicine. But yes, much of the trappings of the industrial age are going to disappear in the next generation or two. "It is up to science to attempt to find self sustaining methods of travelling and that is, I believe, the right course of action." This places blind faith in science to come up with them. Given that the oil crash is almost certainly going to happen within 20 years, given that fossil fuel consumption exacerbates climate change that threatens the very continuance of humanity and a serious proportion of other species, even if science does have no-problem limitless fuel a decade or two away, we should still be taking drastic measures right now to curb oil consumption. Given that there are 6bn people here, and that'll likely be 10bn by the middle of the century, I think we ought to be finding ways of makingsure there's enough of everything for everyone. That means not fucking over the soil we get our food from (eg, we import milk and export it too! What's *that* about?), that means not squandering resources moving things all around the world that we've got right here, that means not using up more resources than the ecosystems that support us can handle. Private cars and passenger aviation are two largely superfluous things that make a huge difference, and as such seem to me to be the place to start. As it is, that wonderfuel is very unlikely to exist. I think we'd better work with what we know and what is likely rather than faith.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Nov 02, 2005, 19:12
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"His posts smack of 'My way or no way'." I'm flattered that you'd think me responsible for humanity's understanding of climatology, ecology, geology and meteorology, but I must inform you that I'm really not that clever. So it's not 'my way'; it's basic facts of what happens when you put certain gases into the atmosphere. I wonder which of the following you dispute: - Climate change poses a serious threat that will almost certainly lead to major famine, and in the longer term threatens the ability of Earth to sustain human life. - Climate change is exacerbated by the release of gases from the burning of fossil fuels - Passenger aviation contributes more greenhouse gases than is sustainable If you disagree, please do say which and why. If you agree, then surely to continue flying is a declaration that the passenger's immediate convenience means more than the lives of people yet to come, a statement you contested. It certainly is important that you and your staff and all of your families are fed. However, as there are methods of doing it that live within sustainable limits, it's really not life and death, just convenience.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Nov 03, 2005, 17:21
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I can tell by your 'it's only convenience' doesn't really matter stance that you don't have a family. I do indeed have a family. I care about them dearly, which is part of the reaosn why I am concerned about averting humanity from its present suicidal path. The midle part of this century is going to be a very ugly place if we don't make serious changes in the very near future. I have a broad concern for all of humanity and other species, but it is certainly personal too. That said, I think the idea of only changing your actions if the consequences affect you or those near to you lacks compassion. I think we should take into account the lives our actions will affect. What if we were to be the ones here in 100 or 200 years? If we had lifespans of 500 years then we would not consume as we do. That being so, how dare we inflict this mess on our descendents. "So, should I go in tomorrow and say "Sorry everyone, planes are gobba kill us all in the end, your all sacked"??" Should you continue to exacerbate a problem that is the single greatest of our time, one that stands a credible chance of making earth uninhabitable for humans within a couple of millennia, when you have other options available? "You do see things in such black and white terms. " Some things yes, some things no. "Motorists - Bad" Motorists are not bad, but motoring certainly is. "Sell outs - Bad" What, as opposed to sell outs good? "try to find some shades of grey" One of the first articles I posted on U-Know was Robin Fishwick's excellent 'In Defence Of Hypocrisy'. I'm well aware that we are all part of the problem, we all frivolously consume unsustainable resources, we have all been duped into depending upon things that ruin us. I'm interested in how we all get out of the mess. That said, we have real work to do and drastic changes will be forced upon us if we don't chose to ease our way out of them. There are too many seriously fucked-up things going on that warrant attention, so I'm really unlikely to write an article about something that doesn't matter much either way. That being so, they're going to be strongly advocating a position. Even then, I very rarely just tear into something, there's almost always examples of positive alternatives. Whenever there's criticism of something there are reasons given. I note you don't actually pick me up on any of the reasons for criticising any of the things you mention above. If you have information, ideas or a line of argument that opposes anything I've written, I'm more than prepared to listen to your point and either change my mind, intelligently defend my position, or find the truth in some different place to either of our starting points. "I thought fair trade with less well off countries was supposed to be a good thing." Compared to unfair trade? Yes. Compared to removing the ability of people to sustainably feed themselves? No. "My family is the most important thing to me, (I know your going to tell me to stop flying to safeguard their future)" can you explain why you're not? I note you haven't chosen to dispute any of the points I made about climate change in the earlier post. "giving them a good standard of living is my main concern" Having that be your main concern is honourable, but at what expense to others? At what expense to them in the long term, at what expense to your grandchildren? If there were no other way to stop them from starving other than to consume, by an order of magnitude, more fossil fuels than the climate can handle then you'd have a sticky ethical problem there. But as there are undoubtedly other options available, I don't see any real defence. If climate change does even half of what's credibly expected, you wouldn't be able to justify aviation to your family five generations hence.
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