On 2006-12-06 21:00:52 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message . com,
writes
Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.
Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.
So the net is that it is an unknown quantity because there is not firm
evidence one way or the other.
Under those circumstances there is no need to have the restraint of
trade from having a single supplier.
It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.
Again, you make assumptions. I do care, but I choose not to address
the issues in the (single) way promoted by a monopoly supplier.
You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.
Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a
whole.
whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.
Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose
a supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my
concerns in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well,
it's impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that
material could be lower.
.... or higher.....
I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.
You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.
Which do you think I'm going to believe ?
I get the feeling its whatever you were told.
No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !
Which is the precise problem with the greenwashing agenda through the LAs.
Or that you think everyone agrees with it?
Well - environmentalists seem to.
Which environmentalists? Are you suggesting that they are incapable
of independent and individual thought?
No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.
There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.
Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.
Good. Then nobody should have an issue over whether an individual
chooses to buy his rubbish collection on an open market basis from his
supplier of choice without also paying the LA to do it, or indeed the
approach taken.
With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.
Except contribute.
There is only a point to this if it makes a tangible difference to the outcome.
Your arguments leads to the conclusion that
nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything
where as those with a little more presence of mind see that
if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.
That is naive in the extreme. The focus of the 2% should be on what
it takes to achieve the 98% - i.e. look at the largest aspects of an
issue first. Just because it isn't easy does not mean that it isn't
the correct action.
Unfortunately people seem to think that "doing their bit" is the right
thing to do. The only real effect of that is that they may feel good
about it - it doesn't make a significant difference to the outcome.
The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.
Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole, but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.
Conventional nuclear technology is perfectly able to address the
shortfall until that happens. Little bits here and little bits there
generally result in all of the bits being inadequate because of
insufficient investment in each.