Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[peejaye]

You would be "stoned to death" for saying anything good about Margaret Thatcher where I come from RedVex, it really is as simple as that!
She invested in climate change because, as part of the EU, she had no option. I suspect she didn't give a shit about climate change like she didn't give a shit about anything else? Of course, the Tories hatred of the coal miners may of slightly influenced her somewhat?

I find your comments interesting RedVex as you grew up around communism but also find interesting your utter contempt & disliking of it. Reminds me of my ex Russian GF who thought Putins view of their free market was a very positive thing.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=Ts RedVeX;1800381]

I do not know exactly what made her invest in climate change.
--Do some research, RedVex, it was the science that persuaded here. The science absent from your critique of climate change science.

Now if you say "OK, but if there is no regulations as to how much the shoemaker decides to charge for his shoes, then he will still charge 100quid or more". Well, no because then another shoemaker will charge 90quid per pair and as soon as poeple find out the first company won't be selling any shoes and go bankrupt unless they start making shoes for 90quid or even 80quid
--Or the shoemakers could do what they and other commercial enterprises have done for centuries -even Adam Smith pointed this out: meet in secret to decide among themselves not to sell shoes for less than £100. They then charge £150 and laugh while their 'competitor' has a 'sale' with the shoes at £140, shoes that cost £25 to make for which the worker received the equivalent of £1 per shoe. Not a free market but a rigged market, or a 'regulated' market. Your naivete is breathtaking.

[Stavros]

Another Politician! Putting your own spin on everything. Congestion charges were introduced in an attempt to reduce pollution within the city of London, you telling me congestion is down! Take a 15 bus from Aldgate to Trafalgar Square if you think the answer is yes! A hybrid bus that costs over £300,000 each designed to cut emissions, not ease congestion, oh ; & there are almost a 1,000 of them & they are riddled with problems! There is no attempt being made to reduce congestion in London, people just pay the charge, what else CAN they do! You really must be a politician Stavros!
I don't know how many people are employed in green energy but 634,000 people worked for NCB in the 1960's.

1) re the Congestion charge -in fact the Congestion charge did reduce pollution in London in just the first six months:
On 23 October 2003 TfL published a report surveying the first six months of the charge. The main findings were that, on average, the number of cars entering the central zone was 60,000 fewer than the previous year, representing a drop in non-exempt vehicles of 30%.

The charge also had an immediate environmental impact, with Transport for London recording falling particulate levels within the original congestion charge area and along the Inner Ring Road boundary zone. Nitrous Oxide (NOx) fell 13.4% between 2002 and 2003, and there were similar falls for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and Particulate Matter (PM10).
https://leftfootforward.org/2013/02/...estion-charge/

-It also reduced the number of private vehicles on the roads, but this has led to an increase in other vehicles that is the source of the current problem -as if often the case, you solve one problem only to find another has taken its place-

The problem is that the space vacated by those private cars has since been filled up (and then some) by other vehicles—specifically, private-hire cabs and online shopping delivery vans from the likes of Uber and Amazon. The on-demand economy is choking the city.

They weren’t a major factor in London traffic 13 years ago, and they’re are not deterred by the current £11.50 ($14) daily charge to drive into the zone. Because they count as public transit, Ubers don’t even pay the fee.
These new congestion-charge-immune vehicles motor into a city whose road space has shrunk, thanks to lane closures caused by major construction work and new cycle highways. Add London’s galloping population growth, which surpassed its previous peak of 8.6 million in 2015 and could reach 10 million by 2030, and you have a complex knot of problems that will take some unpicking.
https://www.citylab.com/solutions/20...ppened/505454/

2) Employment in the coal mines peaked in the 1920s, but as I said, once oil and gas and de-industrialization reduced the demand for coal in the 1960s it was all one way-


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_m...United_Kingdom

[peejaye]

There you go again.......
I have NOTHING to add to my last report, I am not a Politician but a real person out there on the streets, not looking at figures and graphs in an office somewhere convincing themselves everything is hunky-dory & our millions are well spent! Most of the problems in London are caused by taxis stopping in bus lanes are wherever they want(dropping you lot off) or by vans & lorries making deliveries, whom, may I add, have to pay this latest tax inflicted on them!

[Stavros]

There you go again.......
I have NOTHING to add to my last report, I am not a Politician but a real person out there on the streets, not looking at figures and graphs in an office somewhere convincing themselves everything is hunky-dory & our millions are well spent! Most of the problems in London are caused by taxis stopping in bus lanes are wherever they want(dropping you lot off) or by vans & lorries making deliveries, whom, may I add, have to pay this latest tax inflicted on them!

Peejaye, I understand a lot of your frustrations with the way we are governed, but I often think you fail to stand back and look at the lager picture and instead focus on what is in front of you. This may be logical, but often what happens in front of you has been engineered somewhere else and in another time. Coal declined because it was no longer competitive in the energy market, and because fewer industrial concerns were using it, it is also a dirty and environmentally abusive substance we do not need.

The politics as you know intensified in the 1970s as miners fought for what remained of their jobs and better compensation. The showdown in the 1970s which ended Edward Heath's government not only did not resolve the problem, it led the Tories to plan long term to smash the National Union of Mineworkers -if you remember Nick Ridley he wrote an article in The Economist in 1978 called 'Appommotox or Civil War' in which he presented the case, which led the govt to first make sure there were abundant sources of coal for those still using it, and then provoke the miners, so that when the damn burst in 1984 the govt just sat back to watch the miners fail to achieve what they had achieved in 1973.

They were helped in this with the rank behaviour of Arthur Scargill, who remains one of the most utterly stupid trade union leaders we have ever had and a disgrace to both the Labour movement and the Labour Party which I was a member of at the time. As I am sure you must concede, we are moving into an era of driverless trains and the RMT cannot stop it. I do think they have a case for long-term protection of pension rights, and other forms of compensation when the time comes, but on the London Underground new technology may see a travelator on the Circle Line, and driverless trains on other lines. This is the future, and we cannot stop it.
I left London years ago and it was one of the best decisions I ever made, even if I was obliged to at first. I have since lived in towns where I was never more than 15 minutes from home and never more than just over an hour by train from London if I have to visit that awful place. If it wasn't for the British Library and some cultural venues, I would happily live the rest of my life knowing I need never see its grubby streets again. But that is a different issue.

The climate is better off without coal, just as in time the streets of our cities will be cleaner and less polluted without carbon-drunk cars. Slowly we are transforming our cities, though some, like New Delhi and New York have some way to go, and when we think we have solved those problems, others will emerge, because that is the way it is.

[peejaye]

Your views are you're own, you're opinions would be better kept to yourself.
It's no secret that you have nothing but contempt and dislike for anyone left of centre!
As I've said before, you people in the south live in a totally different country to us people up here, I know all you Politicians or whatever connection with the Westminster elite you have will disagree with that remark. You can have the last word but it's wasted on me.
I'd like to suggest you go & live somewhere like Switzerland because the world you wish for in this country is light years away!

[Ts RedVeX]

I have been born in a country far less communistic than it is now. Reforms from 1988 made it probably the best country to live in in Europe at the time. Unfortunately, Poland has been building socialism ever since...

As to the new congestion, that is exactly what happens when you give privileges to taxis, busses, Uber or whoever else. First you get one publicly funded idiot who pretends to solve congestion problem then you get another, and there will always be a new one until you privatise roads and get rid the politician responsible for all that waste and have him interned to somewhere like Siberia with just enough to survive. The whole bus lane concept is a completely absurd idea.

Socialism is like cancer. It is no good cutting half of it out. You have to purge of it completely. Otherwise it will soon grow back and spread until it consumes you whole. Thatcher, unfortunately, did the former which was probably better than doing nothing at all though.

[filghy2]

When the fuck are you going to get off your high horse! You're worse than a politician thinking you know best & trying to correct people all the time! You people pick out the facts that suit you & your views!

So whenever someone points out facts that don't fit your preconceptions, your response is to put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and yell abuse at them? Well why not? Ignorance and poorly-directed anger have always proved to be a sure solution to all kinds of problems.

[nitron]

Ts RedVex, don't you think it's safer to be careful?

Maybe people are powerful enough to fuck the planet.
I mean every time I go to buy some smoked fish , I wonder what it has eaten, makes me a little nervous.
N'est-ce pas?
I should add that under the communists ,historically, the environment did not do any better than under capitalism.
This problem, I fear, might be to big for our human nature.
Greed mixed with stupid technology,
Companies and Governments ,together !!!!!!
,screwing up.

We can fuck the planet, and our self's.

[Stavros]

Your views are you're own, you're opinions would be better kept to yourself.
It's no secret that you have nothing but contempt and dislike for anyone left of centre!
As I've said before, you people in the south live in a totally different country to us people up here, I know all you Politicians or whatever connection with the Westminster elite you have will disagree with that remark. You can have the last word but it's wasted on me.
I'd like to suggest you go & live somewhere like Switzerland because the world you wish for in this country is light years away!

Peejaye, whatever you think of my opinions about Scargill and Corbyn, the facts are there and the decline of coal and its causes can be and have been verified, the same is true of the initial environmental impact of congestion charges on pollution in London. It is not about being for or against the left, on some issues I am sympathetic on others neutral or opposed. As I have said before, I knew some of the people currently in Momentum in days past and consider them untrustworthy, they are people who have not changed their views for 30 years, which is like denying anything has changed in that time, when it has. I don't live in the 'south' by the way but must admit, if I could choose, Switzerland would be a congenial place in which to live, as I like mountains and cheese.