Forum Topic

Clean Air Zones & Ultra Low Emission Zones

Did you think it was just here in London?https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-10127557/All-towns-cities-Britain-planned-clean-driving-zones.html

Philippa Bond ● 1407d24 Comments

Yes, we all should be looking at and discussing the way other countries deal with care.  We rely heavily here on family members which is lovely except that when needs increase which can be very suddenly they need support.  Although I suppose with the changes now in the way people are working there is likely to be more flexibility.

Philippa Bond ● 1400d

https://www.monkeywrench.org.uk/blog/2020/1/26/chris-packham-seven-billion-people-and-counting-a-review

Philippa Bond ● 1400d

No other European nation relies so heavily on a vast army of the unpaid carers from family members to underpin paid carers and social care. We need, as a nation, to look to Germany and The Netherlands to see how it can/should be done.

N V Brooks ● 1401d

Yes , the  English working class producing children, would be well down a league table

Peter Yale ● 1401d

There are a lot of people eg carers who if they were better paid more would be paying tax.

Philippa Bond ● 1401d

Ironically the UK has a declining birth rate and an ageing population with the consequence that the welfare state can’t be funded in the way it was originally conceived. It’s why we’ve relied on migrant workers for years.

Simon Hayes ● 1401d

The UK birthrate has been in decline for certain demographic groups for a very long time.Then their are the bizarre like those you quoted and those whose religion demands it.But often religion is geographic and the conditions of locations demand it for survival.  Gradually when those conditions diminish or people relocate so to does the birthrate as the odds improve for survival and prosperity.Chris Packham has been widely vilified for that documentary, one for  the few to show the bigger picture and cut through the nonsense.

Raymond Havelock ● 1401d

https://www.cato.org/commentary/reverse-handmaids-tale-just-horrifying-get-facts-straight-population-growth

Philippa Bond ● 1401d

I have posted about population at length before. I've also posted a link to Chris Packham's brilliant Horizon programme last year "7.7 Billion People and Counting" which I suggested was a must view.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dl6qI can't understand people like the woman in Guernsey who has 14 kids.  She is not a recent immigrant.  Or the sheep farmer who has been on a programme on TV - who has 20 kids I don't believe that she is a recent immigrant either.  I think in most people's eyes here we would consider that number excessive in the extreme in this day and age.  Just because you think you can afford them at one point in your life does not mean that that will always be the case.However I think you will find that there are an increasing number of couples who have decided not to have children.Melinda Gates is a practising Catholic and her views on women's education and family planning are worth listening to.The UK birthrate is in decline. 

Philippa Bond ● 1401d

Well put Raymond, I agree with what you have replied to Phillipa . The ONS figures have proved that the UK population growth is coming from recent immigrants. I wouldn't want a one child policy that China had but banging out kids isn't going to do the planet any good going forward. Two should be more than enough whether you are Jacob Rees-Mogg or the local corner shop owner.

peter king ● 1401d

We had large families in 'Victorian Times' because of the high mortality rate.Even amongst the wealthy, disease, deformity and other conditions impeded the developing world. Amongst the poor it was dreadful. It was survival of the fittest and the way that was combatted was to have many children.One of the many things our industrialised society began to conquer as science began to advance, were the wealthy who began to eradicate disease and poverty.It has to be remembered that not all wealthy were greedy, as many were hugely benevolent and instigated many things from schools and education to science,medicine and hospitals for the advancement of mankind.  Long before a welfare state. Similarly later on, Trades Unions and Major employers advanced things further. The Great Western Railways medical service in Swindon was the model for the NHS.We don't need large families as survival, health and longevity has prospered with the modern smaller family.It still exists today in many countries where famine and disease prevail. It is still seen as the only guarantee that one or two will make it to adulthood.You will find that those who have large families here are still in living memory of those times which for them are not very distant.And some who do it because of religious convictions.As for education of Women, that's so patronising. Just look what our idea 'educating' does for Women in Afghanistan.  Even more persecuted than ever.China has become a major force in the world directly as a consequence of bringing its unmanageable overpopulation under control.  It has to be remembered that it had famine, and disease and an unsustainable population.Now it is bringing prosperity and good fortune to the masses. Something that looked impossible.  Highly Draconian that they were, they addressed their problem of overpopulation, birth defects, disease and high mortality rates head on. COP has barely even addressed over densification & populations. Those who do are sidelined.

Raymond Havelock ● 1402d

Not many women want to be breeding machines.  Education for women helps to avoid this and is therefore very important.  Education also includes family planning.  Cutting foreign aid has stopped a lot of projects like this.Don't forget that in Victorian times we had very large families here in this country. If you do your family tree you will probably find this if you go back several generations.  However unfortunately there are still some people who over indulge here in this way with very large families.  Do we want to go the same way as China and have a one child policy?  Have you investigated the problems that caused? Or a country which punished people who travelled without paying their bus fares by giving them the snip?  If it is alright elsewhere is it alright here?

Philippa Bond ● 1402d

My comment was on the huge population growth using Nigeria as an example. If we don't crack over population, the rest on it's own is a waste of time

peter king ● 1402d

Most of the wholesale exploitation of the Earth's resources has been carried out by large multi-national companies, so it should be they who have to change their ways and pay to improve things, not the general population.  It's not us who should be expected to reject 'cheap imports', but the companies shouldn't be making them. And we shouldn't have our utility bills loaded to fund 'clean energy', but the producers should come up with better ways of production at their expense, to compensate for the years when they happily poisoned us and destroyed our environment.

Peter Evans ● 1402d

That is why there is a COP26.  Not having any multi-national debates takes it further away from including the countries that some are now using as an excuse for us to not do anything ourselves.  Not everything but anything.We have created a lot of the problems in other countries now by allowing ourselves to be seduced by a lot of cheap imports and not caring about lower standards and poor working conditions.  If you ever catch yourself buying something frivolous and unnecessary and saying "It's alright it was only cheap" - you should think again. Some of the Overseas Aid cuts too will make the situation worse.

Philippa Bond ● 1402d

Given that half of Nigeria's population is under 19, I'd suggest that the biggest threat to the planet comes from over-population. We have cleaned up our act over time in contrast to countries that never will or will when it suits them.

peter king ● 1402d

This should be the worldwide debate.The real cost for us to go over to electric cars is in Africa.Thousands of deformed children, Hundreds of miles of polluted rivers, villages covered in a thick dust.All so Khan, Johnson, Thunberg and the rest can call us green because we have electric cars, and punish us if we don't comply.The suffering we put on those populations is a hundred times worse than what our petrol and diesel exhausts will do to us.Just not worth that.This was on CH4 a fortnight ago called "The Toxic Cost of Going Green". https://youtu.be/ipOeH7GW0M8

Leslie Bailey ● 1402d

That sadly is the rub.  We are tiny compared to other parts of the planet and have done more to clean up our act than almost anywhere.It's infuriating to hear the bleating going own and the resorting to fake and unverifiable data being used to infer how we are illegal polluters.It shows a massive bout of amnesia and pure ignorance.I'm not that old, but old enough to remember how filthy this city was.Standing by the woods at the top of Hangar Hill in the late 1970s and seeing the  acrid fumes from endless HGVs labouring up the hill.  Reduced massively by the  M25 and the GLC Lorry Ban.The fumes and smoke and nasty smells that lined the river from Brentford all the way to Wandsworth.The rubber factories in Brentford and and the many factories belching out all sorts.The filthy buildings.Diesel trains The red dust off first generation jets which flew much lower over here on take off.The asbestos from the tube train brakes and HGVs on the many hilly roads.Constantly hearing of peoples parents dying of Bronchitis and lung diseases, most of which are unheard of now.The stench of the river and nothing living in it.People over 45 and certainly over 55 who grew up here will or should remember all that.None of it is ever mentioned.The achievements of the last 60 -70 years in cleaning up industrial, urban and rural Britain have been humongous and we had led the world on much of it.Solutions and innovations.It all fell away in the 90s where other countries picked up further innovations and we fell behind especially on energy efficiency and building standards.We are healthier, longer living and far more responsible than ever before.Even though there remains a divide between haves and have nots, even those have nots are living longer and healthier. Poor housing and patchy health care remains in too many places.The biggest problem is how this countries industries have sold out raw material  to China and others and no longer can be controlled.It is true that whatever we do in this country or most European Countries and North America, the huge problem will continue to be increased by those other parts of the planet who will not even match what has been done here over the last 50 years.As they now control our supply chains from food to energy and raw materials,which we have allowed to happen we are frankly stuffed with 60 million plus inhabitants to feed.

Raymond Havelock ● 1403d

"The UK contributes about 1 percent of global emissions. Reducing that won’t make a jot of difference to climate change."Yep, and with many of the Government's expensive & inefficient/ineffective idiotic schemes, financially hard pressed people in the UK will be paying through the nose to make bugger all difference.Meanwhile, China and Others laugh.......

Rosco White ● 1403d

It all comes down to money. Until the solutions prove to be affordable to the majority, which at present they are not, then people won’t put in heat pumps and reinsulate their homes.And to lay the blame with ‘us’ is a bit silly. Perhaps tougher measures on those who now contribute most to emissions - and deforestation - is where the focus should really be. The UK contributes about 1 percent of global emissions. Reducing that won’t make a jot of difference to climate change.

Simon Hayes ● 1403d

Only a lot of those things are already happening elsewhere.  So pretending it isn't and isn't going to happen here and that we should just continue business as usual instead of trying to mitigate the effects - particularly on those who are suffering more than us right now and who have contributed less than us is not the answer.Sudden and heavier rainfall in winter and hotter drier weather in summer already appears to be here with us.  Apart from cleaning up our air, our rivers and seas, we should be thinking about the safe insulation of our homes.  This is tricky with our Edwardian and Victorian ones and the more people who find out about how to do this without causing condensation and rot the better.  https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2017/10/kiribati-the-angry-sea-will-kill-us-all/

Philippa Bond ● 1403d

Fantastic post.It’s almost like you’ve read my mind but articulated better than I ever could

Colin Goodman ● 1404d

They are doing these things precisely because they know it cannot work as they claim.If it does it could slam the whole economy into sharp decline.It remains all about short term fiscal gain.The Carbon footprint for the ULEZ infrastructure will take 11 years to offset _ Based on 2014 figures - already outdated.It will never be achieved as the issue will be gone before then just by simple evolution of technology.So no doubt another reason to widen the range will have to be created as it's all about revenue.However if it actually worked and all vehicles vanished or became minimal,then we really will have a problem. Mass unemployment, mass division between haves and have nots, serious shortages and real hard poverty.All the things the uber environmentalists have been claiming will happen from Climate change will happen, but not from the Climate emergency, more from the hysteria and profiteering that it is spawning and the economic collapse that hysteria and paranoia is leading us into.Yes Children will starve, wars will break out, mass migration will occur and it will be the survival of the fittest.Fact is even without us burning so much as a twig, The climate will change, as it has thousands of times in this planets existence.The planet is over populated. There is no will or sense to be responsible about that.As we are seeing with forced car free developments, already people are being herded into having their work opportunities curtailed. People who are already in the weakest range of opportunity. We do have to be responsible about finite resources and how what we have is protected from abuse.As we cannot even control overdensification and over development stretching infrastructure way beyond its limit, creating social and economic stresses beyond sanity. So major change without consequences of magnitude are never going to be anything but.But we also have to recognise that Mother Nature and Mother Earth could wipe us out without our own efforts.

Raymond Havelock ● 1406d

It’s a tax pure and simple The car owner seems fair game these days.

Colin Goodman ● 1406d