New Tory Leader

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

I'm not trying to argue the case for improving to less polluting vehicles - just the politics of achieving it. Vehicles are improving anyway but few in outer London would normally wish to drive into inner (current ULEZ) London but many from either side of the M25 will be in/out of such proposed new zones for work or family. My particular laugh is Heathrow (and its car parks) being inside such a zone. One size doesn't fit all. It's the buffer zone which is wrong.

And considering Greater London has excellent public transport, there should be less need to use a car.

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

And considering Greater London has excellent public transport, there should be less need to use a car.

London has excellent public transport links, but that is far more true of inner London where boris already put a ulez than outer London where the new ulez is proposed.  Also, public transport is dominated by North / South links. East / West travel is a pain in any part of outer London.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 hour ago, keelansgrandad said:

And considering Greater London has excellent public transport, there should be less need to use a car.

London has excellent public transport links, but that is far more true of inner London where boris already put a ulez than outer London where the new ulez is proposed.  Also, public transport is dominated by North / South links. East / West travel is a pain in any part of outer London.

Public transport links between outer London boroughs and areas outside London are no better than anywhere else in the country. 

The biggest impact of ulez is probably not on  londoners, who will at least get some marginal effect from cleaner air but on those whonlive just outside but have to travel into outer London regularly.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[Barbe bleu 832]

@yellowfeverI think I'm with you on this one.  The new/expanded ulez (delete as appropriate after judgment on the JR) will improve air quality but i don't think it is the right policy for now. I say that for four reasons: (1) the affect will be too small (2) it's probably the most regressive tax currently on the books or planned (3) it doesn't correlate closely enough with mileage (and therefore pollution) (4) the problem will solve itself anyway.

 

On (1) it's worth reading the imperial college study on impact of the original ulez (they basically say that it achieved very little and other measures were far more effective in reducing pollution) and the Jacobs consulting predictions on impact of the expansion . Its also worth remembering that Khan got his knuckles rapped for poor explanation/misrepresentation of data.

 

(2) is obvious. This charge doesn't bother those most able to pay it in the slightest but could have a huge impact on day to day life of the poorest people in the capital and home counties. This is not the time to add extra costs onto those suffering from inflation and all thebreat of it.

(3) the charge is the same for using a small but old car to get to the local shops as it is to take a humvee on a grand tour but the impacts are vastly different.

(4) like you say, the problem is solving itself anyway as people trade older cars for newer ones. In just a few years ulez would cease to have any affect on pollution and would solely be about revenue.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

8 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

@yellowfeverI think I'm with you on this one.  The new/expanded ulez (delete as appropriate after judgment on the JR) will improve air quality but i don't think it is the right policy for now. I say that for four reasons: (1) the affect will be too small (2) it's probably the most regressive tax currently on the books or planned (3) it doesn't correlate closely enough with mileage (and therefore pollution) (4) the problem will solve itself anyway.

 

On (1) it's worth reading the imperial college study on impact of the original ulez (they basically say that it achieved very little and other measures were far more effective in reducing pollution) and the Jacobs consulting predictions on impact of the expansion . Its also worth remembering that Khan got his knuckles rapped for poor explanation/misrepresentation of data.

 

(2) is obvious. This charge doesn't bother those most able to pay it in the slightest but could have a huge impact on day to day life of the poorest people in the capital and home counties. This is not the time to add extra costs onto those suffering from inflation and all thebreat of it.

(3) the charge is the same for using a small but old car to get to the local shops as it is to take a humvee on a grand tour but the impacts are vastly different.

(4) like you say, the problem is solving itself anyway as people trade older cars for newer ones. In just a few years ulez would cease to have any affect on pollution and would solely be about revenue.

 

 

Totally - And I speak as somebody who's just bought a new car.

I'm not into conspiracy theories but with modern cars easily lasting 100,000 miles or much much more (my old faithful 2006 diesel - old but clean DPF etc - that did another 1000 miles last week) but is a now little tired how do the car manufacturers try to get us to buy new models? Arh  - need a game changer, some 'stick' and then iterations upon that. 

We won't take into account the poor environmental value in scrapping early otherwise good cars and the new extra carbon in making new 1st generation (and scrapping) early electric.

I'm actually with Mr Bean (Rowen Atkinson) on this (but then he he's also an M.Sc. Electrical Engineer!).

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Rayner has given Khan a bit of lip about his expansion plans.

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,195]

I thought Reform might have picked up a few more disaffected conservative votes last night than they did. It seems they didn't do to well at all, around 3-4%

Even at 10% of the vote, a party won't make much impact at a general election, unless it's the SNP 

[Herman 9,836]

Section 12 h.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/extraordinary-funding-and-financing-agreement-may-2020.pdf

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

17 hours ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

I thought Reform might have picked up a few more disaffected conservative votes last night than they did. It seems they didn't do to well at all, around 3-4%

Even at 10% of the vote, a party won't make much impact at a general election, unless it's the SNP 

They got beaten by Robot Man

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,195]

4 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

They got beaten by Robot Man

Laurence Fox didn't do well either 🙂

[Pyro Pete 1,921]

 

[Barbe bleu 832]

On 22/07/2023 at 13:39, Herman said:

Section 12 h.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/extraordinary-funding-and-financing-agreement-may-2020.pdf

You might want to check if that agreement led to the proposed expansion. The letter is dated May 2020 so came over a year before the first expansion (october 2021).  We are now talking about the second expansion.  

Regardless of origin I think its better to examine policy than blamestorm so the question should be less, who did this and more, Are you in favour of it? 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[littleyellowbirdie 2,599]

On 21/07/2023 at 17:30, Yellow Fever said:

Totally - And I speak as somebody who's just bought a new car.

I'm not into conspiracy theories but with modern cars easily lasting 100,000 miles or much much more (my old faithful 2006 diesel - old but clean DPF etc - that did another 1000 miles last week) but is a now little tired how do the car manufacturers try to get us to buy new models? Arh  - need a game changer, some 'stick' and then iterations upon that. 

We won't take into account the poor environmental value in scrapping early otherwise good cars and the new extra carbon in making new 1st generation (and scrapping) early electric.

I'm actually with Mr Bean (Rowen Atkinson) on this (but then he he's also an M.Sc. Electrical Engineer!).

I'm sticking with diesel. It's still better for the environment on CO2 emissions than petrol.Prices should go down as other people shift and I don't really believe in electric.

Biofuel is a joke: We can't spare the land to simply grow on agricultural land just to burn it.

They had a good episode of wheeler dealers where they reconditioned a Honda CVVC, which over its lifetime is way better than an electric for the sake of the carbon footprint of manufacturing an electric.

[Barbe bleu 832]

4 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

Biofuel is a joke: We can't spare the land to simply grow on agricultural land just to burn it.

 

I dont know.  10% of the fuel any petrol car driver uses is biofuel. They don't even notice it, and that came in before food price inflation was as high as it is.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,599]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

I dont know.  10% of the fuel any petrol car driver uses is biofuel. They don't even notice it, and that came in before food price inflation was as high as it is.

 

Have a read...

Edited July 24, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[canarydan23 4,060]

16 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Have a read...

I'm surprised at you quoting an article like that, as there is a significant crossover between T&A and Greenpeace, and for some reason I didn't have them down as being a very LYBish organisation.

Biofuels is quite a broad term. It encompasses waste, even the stuff we throw out in our food caddies, which is undoubtedly a much greener prospect than burning fossil fuels; however, it's an unreliable source and nowhere near sufficient to meet demand. As your article states, a mass switch to biofuels would require huge amounts of land, which might sound bizarre in a global food production crisis.

However, what I suspect most people don't know is how much land is dedicated to growing food directly for humans, as opposed to growing it for animals. This was a few years ago, but in the UK, roughly 80% of our agricultural land was dedicated to growing feed for animals (mostly cows), 5% was fallow and only 15% for human consumption.

If we, as a species, were to half our dairy and beef consumption, we would have plenty of land to spare to grow dedicated energy crops. And that doesn't consider the 30%+ drop in greenhouse gas emissions that would come about by the reduction in cattle numbers.

There's a term for the change in consumption as well, demitarian. If the world switched to it overnight, humanity would probably be saved for centuries more. And realistically, how much of a sacrifice would it be to put half the milk you do on your Weetabix, eat 50% less burgers, use turkey mince instead of beef mince half the time, and have steak once every month rather than once a fortnight, and have your tea a little bit darker or your coffee black?

The solution is so simple. And yet even as an advocate of change, I'll be drenching my Corn Flakes in semi-skimmed tomorrow morning and nailing a cup of tea an hour whilst at the office (though I do have mine with just a dash of milk). What we need is strong government; I won't change by myself, but I would actually vote for a government that forced me to make the necessary sacrifices. Ration milk, ration beef, and to a lesser extent pork. Within six months it'd become the new norm and we'd wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

[MooreMarriot 313]

 

Charlotte Owen takes her seat in the House of Lords.

She reminds me of someone but I can't think who.

[Herman 9,836]

27 minutes ago, MooreMarriot said:

 

Charlotte Owen takes her seat in the House of Lords.

She reminds me of someone but I can't think who.

Any comment from the people that insisted we had to get away from the unelected Eurocrats? 

[Barbe bleu 832]

29 minutes ago, Herman said:

Any comment from the people that insisted we had to get away from the unelected Eurocrats? 

Do you see brexit in everything?!

I'd not keep the Lords as it is, but right now  the Lords is providing effective opposition to a lot of government measures, possibly more so than the opposition in the commons. Careful what you wish for might be rightnphrase to employ when considering constitutional reform 

[KiwiScot 1,479]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

Any comment from the people that insisted we had to get away from the unelected Eurocrats? 

That she is British so hardly a Eurocrat. That getting away from unelected Eurocrats(which best my knowledge were elected) and argueing against them doesn't mean you dislike your own unelected body.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

2 hours ago, MooreMarriot said:

 

Charlotte Owen takes her seat in the House of Lords.

She reminds me of someone but I can't think who.

I'm open to Lords reform where the Lord's remain un-elected (no hereditary or bishops etc) being the repository of expertise of the great and good but this peerage simply brings the whole edifice into disrepute. A Johnson joke.

Time for it all to be swept away.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Yellow Fever

[littleyellowbirdie 2,599]

10 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

I'm surprised at you quoting an article like that, as there is a significant crossover between T&A and Greenpeace, and for some reason I didn't have them down as being a very LYBish organisation.

Biofuels is quite a broad term. It encompasses waste, even the stuff we throw out in our food caddies, which is undoubtedly a much greener prospect than burning fossil fuels; however, it's an unreliable source and nowhere near sufficient to meet demand. As your article states, a mass switch to biofuels would require huge amounts of land, which might sound bizarre in a global food production crisis.

However, what I suspect most people don't know is how much land is dedicated to growing food directly for humans, as opposed to growing it for animals. This was a few years ago, but in the UK, roughly 80% of our agricultural land was dedicated to growing feed for animals (mostly cows), 5% was fallow and only 15% for human consumption.

If we, as a species, were to half our dairy and beef consumption, we would have plenty of land to spare to grow dedicated energy crops. And that doesn't consider the 30%+ drop in greenhouse gas emissions that would come about by the reduction in cattle numbers.

There's a term for the change in consumption as well, demitarian. If the world switched to it overnight, humanity would probably be saved for centuries more. And realistically, how much of a sacrifice would it be to put half the milk you do on your Weetabix, eat 50% less burgers, use turkey mince instead of beef mince half the time, and have steak once every month rather than once a fortnight, and have your tea a little bit darker or your coffee black?

The solution is so simple. And yet even as an advocate of change, I'll be drenching my Corn Flakes in semi-skimmed tomorrow morning and nailing a cup of tea an hour whilst at the office (though I do have mine with just a dash of milk). What we need is strong government; I won't change by myself, but I would actually vote for a government that forced me to make the necessary sacrifices. Ration milk, ration beef, and to a lesser extent pork. Within six months it'd become the new norm and we'd wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

That last paragraph almost seems to argue that battery hens are better than free-range hens because you can have more hens alive in the same space, only with humans instead of hens!

Biofuel accounts for about 5% of all transport fuel use. That means if it’s to take up the whole load you need 20 times the current land usage dedicated to transport fuel. It’s not just taking land away from food, but also woodland and wild areas to support biodiversity. It’s a reasonable tactic to get sustainable hydrocarbon fuels in themselves, but you’re not gaining anything overall other than less hydrocarbon extraction from the earth and you’re losing big time in terms of sustaining animal life on the planet.

But also, eat less to use more transport? Why not just ban travel for pleasure if we’re looking to cut resource consumption and we’re taking a view that quality of life is secondary to sustaining as many people as possible?

That last paragraph is simply incomprehensible to me. Why on Earth would anyone want an autocracy that dictates to you how you should live because the government says it’s for your own good? China’s doing great on behavioural control akin to what you yearn for, but environmental protection isn’t high on their agenda. But there’s no recourse for anyone to influence their ‘strong government’. The problem with all authoritarianism is that in the end, nobody has a say except the leader.

There’s an easier explanation for why you’re still drinking tea and having milk on your corn flakes; deep down you don’t believe what you’re arguing.

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[canarydan23 4,060]

55 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

That last paragraph almost seems to argue that battery hens are better than free-range hens because you can have more hens alive in the same space, only with humans instead of hens!

Biofuel accounts for about 5% of all transport fuel use. That means if it’s to take up the whole load you need 20 times the current land usage dedicated to transport fuel. It’s not just taking land away from food, but also woodland and wild areas to support biodiversity. It’s a reasonable tactic to get sustainable hydrocarbon fuels in themselves, but you’re not gaining anything overall other than less hydrocarbon extraction from the earth and you’re losing big time in terms of sustaining animal life on the planet.

But also, eat less to use more transport? Why not just ban travel for pleasure if we’re looking to cut resource consumption and we’re taking a view that quality of life is secondary to sustaining as many people as possible?

That last paragraph is simply incomprehensible to me. Why on Earth would anyone want an autocracy that dictates to you how you should live because the government says it’s for your own good? China’s doing great on behavioural control akin to what you yearn for, but environmental protection isn’t high on their agenda. But there’s no recourse for anyone to influence their ‘strong government’. The problem with all authoritarianism is that in the end, nobody has a say except the leader.

There’s an easier explanation for why you’re still drinking tea and having milk on your corn flakes; deep down you don’t believe what you’re arguing.

I should have known better than to engage with you; once again you don't actually address the points raised, but make up your own and address them instead. Including the LYB classic of telling the person they are debating with what they actually believe as if you're the authority on it.

You seem to have ignored the fact that the vast, vast majority of our arable land is dedicated to producing food for animals, predominantly cows to fuel beef and dairy demands. However, only around 2% of our arable land is used to produce biofuels. Reduce the demand for beef and dairy and you can increase the amount of land use to produce energy crops WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL LAND BEING USED. I thought that point was patently clear in my post, but obviously not because you went off on a bizarre tangent about taking away woodland and wild areas. Did you ignore it because it didn't fit in with your perspective, or did it fly over your head?

Rationing goes on in the NHS all the time and we all know it was necessary during the war. If we continue on the rate we are going, it won't be long until climate change accounts for more lives than World World 2, therefore we need drastic measures to tackle it, just as we did in the 30s and 40s to tackle the Nazis.

Again, no one said anything about eating less to use more transport; once again that's another squaddie for your vast straw man army. Eat (and drink) different to make transport cleaner.

Sadly, it appears it wasn't only the last paragraph that was incomprehensible to you; I suspect most paragraphs are incomprehensible to you.

With any luck, the requirement for feeding millions of cows will become redundant anyway as lab-grown meat and dairy becomes a thing. There was a scientist on 5Live the other month who was speculating that once the infrastructure and technology is in place, lab-produced meat and milk would be significantly cheaper to produce than through livestock and would be indistinguishable. At that point, you can convert animal feed land to biofuel without the perennially entitled screeching "AUTHORITARIAN, HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO", ignoring the fact that it's what most governments have been attempting to do through the lens of the principle of utility for decades. It just only triggers them when it affects something they like.

Right now, the dairy and beef industry is far more destructive to society and the environment than cannabis. Yet it is the latter that is criminalised. Bloody Chinese-style behavioural control, telling me how I should live and telling me what's for my own good.

Edited July 25, 2023 by canarydan23

[A Load of Squit 5,222]

3 hours ago, MooreMarriot said:

 

Charlotte Owen takes her seat in the House of Lords.

She reminds me of someone but I can't think who.

Is she an inbetweener?

[Herman 9,836]

1 hour ago, KiwiScot said:

That she is British so hardly a Eurocrat. That getting away from unelected Eurocrats(which best my knowledge were elected) and argueing against them doesn't mean you dislike your own unelected body.

It would be lovely to hear their opinions on this rank level of cronyism. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,599]

8 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I should have known better than to engage with you; once again you don't actually address the points raised, but make up your own and address them instead. Including the LYB classic of telling the person they are debating with what they actually believe as if you're the authority on it.

You seem to have ignored the fact that the vast, vast majority of our arable land is dedicated to producing food for animals, predominantly cows to fuel beef and dairy demands. However, only around 2% of our arable land is used to produce biofuels. Reduce the demand for beef and dairy and you can increase the amount of land use to produce energy crops WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL LAND BEING USED. I thought that point was patently clear in my post, but obviously not because you went off on a bizarre tangent about taking away woodland and wild areas. Did you ignore it because it didn't fit in with your perspective, or did it fly over your head?

Rationing goes on in the NHS all the time and we all know it was necessary during the war. If we continue on the rate we are going, it won't be long until climate change accounts for more lives than World World 2, therefore we need drastic measures to tackle it, just as we did in the 30s and 40s to tackle the Nazis.

Again, no one said anything about eating less to use more transport; once again that's another squaddie for your vast straw man army. Eat (and drink) different to make transport cleaner.

Sadly, it appears it wasn't only the last paragraph that was incomprehensible to you; I suspect most paragraphs are incomprehensible to you.

Why would I refute points if I don't think they're wrong? The question here is not about facts, but about underlying values and priorities. I don't buy into the concept that the world's here to sustain the maximum possible number of humans in exclusion of anything else. Most discussions involve looking at different aspects of the same problem.

The point you missed is we already exceed sustainable land use. Reallocating land for different usages is shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. Burning biofuels releases CO2 into the atmosphere just as much as conventional oil and gas production. The argument that the fact it's made from plants that have sucked Carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in being grown ignores the fact that their could have/should have been some other plant life growing in its place that might have been far more efficient for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, like woodland, that would also help the planet's biodiversity at the same time. The argument for biofuels is basically an accountancy trick.

'No one said' anything about eating less for more transport? I said it, because it's a logical fact that if you have a finite amount of land for growing food and fuel, the more you allocate the fuel, the less is available for food (or woodland, or antyhing else). It's not a straw man argument simply to point out the obvious consequences of a path.

My view is quality of life shouldn't be sacrificed for quantity of life. As far as climate change is concerned, it's already too late. There is an excess population of humans on the planet and nature is taking care of it, both through climate change and our own increasing disinclination to breed. We passed the point of no return on climate change years ago, and the big changes in human behaviour still aren't happening fast enough. You've bought into the idea that your milk on your corn flakes, red meat and your cup of tea is the difference  over destroying the world; that's rubbish. Fossil-fuel based transport and heavy industry account for the lion's share of that problem and they're simply not going away fast enough.

The UK's lucky to be one of the best bits of land on the planet for survivability as climate change gets more and more traction. Mitigation of the effects is a worthy cause, but also a futile one given too many of the world's governments are still arguing why others should be dealing with it and not them.

There's no happy ending on this one, no matter how many of life's little pleasures you're willing to be forced to give up for a desperate belief otherwise. But eventually, there'll be less people on the planet thanks to mother nature's supreme power, and the planet will adjust back in the direction of being able to sustain more animal life.

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

The Earth will recover. Whether human civilisation will is a different story.

[KiwiScot 1,479]

3 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

The Earth will recover. Whether human civilisation will is a different story.

And then risive the crocodile people

[ricardo 7,402]

11 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

The Earth will recover. Whether human civilisation will is a different story.

Never mind US Congress is investigating UFO's this week.

[A Load of Squit 5,222]