Chris Shore wrote:
I think its lack of political will to do anything that may lose an
election, but I hope it all backfires, and people see that 99% of so
called 'green taxes' are totally ineffective in actually reducing carbon
emission - the way that 99% of traffic cameras are ineffective at reducing
road deaths. But are GREAT for raising money.

Indeed. More money will be raised and squandered. If the money
raised were committed to investment in public transport, house
insulation, subsidised fluorescent lightbulbs, more fuel-efficient
cars etc. etc, then these
taxes might have some effect. The other effect they will have will
be to increase the cost base of our economy relative to, say, China
and India (who don't yet care about these things as much as we
apparently do) and export more production to countries who pollute
far more than we do in the process.


That can be countered by taking an essentially protectionist stance
against China..on account of their pollution being our problem as well,
this can be spun into a 'fair' solution.

As I said, my solutin is to replace income tax with a consumption tax.

And underwrite everyones wages with a citizens income

This might reduce cost of labour in the country to a much lower value
relative to china, and stimulate local manufacturing, and be socially
beneficial, and help offset Chinas instransigence with respect to their
currency policy, that aims to keep the Remnimbi low relative to western
currencies.


One good thing the government could do would be to force car
manufacturers to build far more fuel-efficient engines. We had
the chance to do this when pressure came on them to reduce
emissions. They came up with the catalytic converter - an awful
solution. From the point of view of the manufacturers, it was
wonderful - easy to implement, cost passed directly on to
customer. From an environmental point of view, it's a disaster
as far as I can see as it reduces the fuel efficiency of the engine.
An opportunity missed...


I don;t think paring away at efficiencies is going to net us the overall
50-80% reductions we need.

We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

There are no technical fixes other than those based on that.

Government has only tow tools. Legislation and taxation. Legislation is
oppressive, and taxation will only ultimately work if its *directly*
coupled to fossil energy usage, and the gratuitous consumption of raw
materials in short supply.
In short we need to cerate a playing field that tilts over time (you
need time, because otherwise you get things like the poll tax riots)
towards using what resources we have - unskilled and semi skilled labour
- and away from using what we don't have - energy, particularly carbon
based energy.


The net effect of a switch from income tax/NI/benefit towards carbon
tax, VAT and consumption tax would be to

- raise the cost of importing and imports
- lower the wage cost of local produce.
- make carbon based energy expensive relative to the alternatives.
- reduce government interference and spending on enforcement of fiscal
law - because most of it vanishes.
- eliminate poverty traps and promote entry level labour at very low
employer cost, and make the labour market extremely fluid and flexible.

If there are no 'loss of benefits' no 'income taxes' and no 'employers
national insurance and PAYE then employing someone becomes a simple
matter of 'you work, I pay, cash all right?'..all other pension and
medical assurance stuff is simply done for all citizens as a matter of
right, and of course. If enough jobs are created, you don;t need to
worry about protecting the ones you have..

- make 'stuff' relatively more expensive to PURCHASE, but if the tax is
done the right way, very cheap to FIX..instantly the economics of e.g.
having a £3000 washing machine fixed for £50 - thereby employing someone
local..leads to a huge reduction in refuse and recycling..

The point is you don't have to micro manage this the way Laber is trying
to. Simply by moving the taxation burden, the market itself will go in
the generally desirable direction. No need to send the bailiffs round to
social security scroungers, Make everyone a social security scrounger
and declare it legal..THAT is the sort of equality I want to see ;-)
No need to subsidise alternative technology - make it sufficiently
attractive financially and the banks and private equity houses will do
all that for you , at their risk.




Chris

The Natural Philosopher muttered:

Legislation is
oppressive, and taxation will only ultimately work if its *directly*
coupled to fossil energy usage, and the gratuitous consumption of raw
materials in short supply.

One of the experts on Radio 4 yesterday said that the change required was
similar to that in WW2, i.e. massive.

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in that every
driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say 500 litres of fuel per
month, if a driver stuck to his allowance, fine. If he exceeded it, he'd
have to buy his extra ration from people who'd not used up theirs.

The only time I noticed a distinct drop in traffic volumes in London was the
week of the petrol strike in 2001, London was almost a pleasant place to be.

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:20:55 +0000, Paul wrote:
[ overseas call centres ]
They are *awful*. As soon as I get the "sounds as though he's on
Mars" line quality, the poor English, the accent, and the background
noise, I say "can you tell me where you're speaking from please?" If
it's other than the UK, I hang up.

If enough of us do this there will no longer *be* any overseas call
centres, and a good thing too.

Will there though? If there's no alternative - i.e. every company operates
an overseas call centre - then consumers have the choice of phoning
overseas (cheap for the company) or not phoning at all (even cheaper for
the company).

I suspect that the root cause of everything bad is that, as a species,
humans are far too greedy. Unfortunately there's no way of changing that,
so I expect that we're ultimately screwed :-)

Business owners are greedy and want to make as much profit as possible.
Consumers are greedy and want to spend as little as possible. It's a trend
which seems to be getting steadily worse, but even if it could be reversed
I don't think it's something that can ever be eliminated.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

we ? try they ;-)

our household is quite 'green' already: only 5 flights in the last 10 years,
we drive a fuel efficient cars on the grounds of cost an comfort rather than
what other people think of our choice. we use minimal detergents, cosmetics,
etc and we usually don't fill a wheelie bin, we accept we should recycle more.
out gas and electric bills are nowhere near what other people seem to pay.

to cut out "carbon profile" any further would see 'us' living like communists
did in the 50's whilst watching 'them' do whatever they like. India, China and
America are the main culprits and we will be the main scapegoats, taxed
to buggery for the prestige of the politcos who now have a convenient exit
strategy from iraq and afghanistan.

cynical ? moi ?

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:24:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

I don't know if 'we' can; there's always going to be someone next door
(country-wise) who wants to 'get ahead' by living by existing rules - and
if doing our bit actually ultimately makes no difference, where's the
incentive to try?

I'm sure I saw something on the BBC News site the other day along the
lines that if comsumption worldwide were to happen at UK rates we'd need
three Earths by 2050 to meet demand, which is rather alarming (although
perhaps not surprising). Annoyingly I can't find the reference now


Government has only tow tools. Legislation and taxation. Legislation is
oppressive, and taxation will only ultimately work if its *directly*
coupled to fossil energy usage, and the gratuitous consumption of raw
materials in short supply.

But such initiatives always seem to hit the consumers in small ways.
There's no attempt to deal with the bigger picture, either at the consumer
or the manufacturing level. Unless that changes - and changes worldwide -
it'll be too little, too late.

- raise the cost of importing and imports - lower the wage cost of local
produce.

That I like - couple it with a reintroduction of industry and
manufacturing to the UK, incentives for manufacturers to make products
with greater longevity and ease of repair, and educating society in the
ways of making do and mending what we have rather than always replacing
outright (heck, we managed it for years - it seems like the current
trends have only really crept in within the last 25 years or so).

cheers

Jules

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
The Natural Philosopher muttered:

Legislation is
oppressive, and taxation will only ultimately work if its *directly*
coupled to fossil energy usage, and the gratuitous consumption of raw
materials in short supply.

One of the experts on Radio 4 yesterday said that the change required was
similar to that in WW2, i.e. massive.

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in that every
driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say 500 litres of fuel per
month, if a driver stuck to his allowance, fine. If he exceeded it, he'd
have to buy his extra ration from people who'd not used up theirs.

The problem with this idea is that Public Transport in London at rush hour
is full up. There is simply no more room for any more passengers.

There would be if a legal entitlement to home-working was introduced as part
of the employer/employee contract, 2 days a week, people worked from home,
unless their job couldn't be done from there, I'd say that would cut
peak-time commuter numbers by a quarter.

In article ,
magwitch wrote:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in
that every driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say
500 litres of fuel per month, if a driver stuck to his allowance,
fine. If he exceeded it, he'd have to buy his extra ration from
people who'd not used up theirs.

Someone remarked on tv last week that if the whole
of the UK stopped using their vehicles (everything)
today, then it would only take a few months for
China's increase in CO2 production to take our place.

--
Tony Williams.

Tony Williams wrote:
In article ,
magwitch wrote:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in
that every driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say
500 litres of fuel per month, if a driver stuck to his allowance,
fine. If he exceeded it, he'd have to buy his extra ration from
people who'd not used up theirs.

Someone remarked on tv last week that if the whole
of the UK stopped using their vehicles (everything)
today, then it would only take a few months for
China's increase in CO2 production to take our place.

57 days iirc and if the entire continent of australia lived like
aboriginies the china would output their CO2 in 10 months.

don't believe the hype.

.. wrote:
Tony Williams wrote:
In article ,
magwitch wrote:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in
that every driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say
500 litres of fuel per month, if a driver stuck to his allowance,
fine. If he exceeded it, he'd have to buy his extra ration from
people who'd not used up theirs.
Someone remarked on tv last week that if the whole
of the UK stopped using their vehicles (everything)
today, then it would only take a few months for
China's increase in CO2 production to take our place.

57 days iirc and if the entire continent of australia lived like
aboriginies the china would output their CO2 in 10 months.

don't believe the hype.


OTOH if we simply didn't buy chinese, we could live like kings forever :-)

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
The Natural Philosopher muttered:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in that every
driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say 500 litres of fuel per
month, if a driver stuck to his allowance, fine. If he exceeded it, he'd
have to buy his extra ration from people who'd not used up theirs.

The problem with this idea is that Public Transport in London at rush hour
is full up. There is simply no more room for any more passengers.

There would be if a legal entitlement to home-working was introduced as part
of the employer/employee contract, 2 days a week, people worked from home,
unless their job couldn't be done from there, I'd say that would cut
peak-time commuter numbers by a quarter.

And it might well work better in London than in many other places, since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

And most Cambridge commuters aren't? I don't think so, unless labourers wear
suits to work around here. I'd say it's people commuting into major cities
unnecessarily by car who output one hell of a lot of CO2.

The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if your
job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in Hyderabad.

Our office had branches in Shanghai and Delhi, but they only entrusted the
flagship international stuff to those working in the London or Manchester
offices. Depends what industry you are working in and it seems that most
light and heavy industrial production has already moved abroad.

Tony Williams muttered:

In article ,
magwitch wrote:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in
that every driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say
500 litres of fuel per month, if a driver stuck to his allowance,
fine. If he exceeded it, he'd have to buy his extra ration from
people who'd not used up theirs.

Someone remarked on tv last week that if the whole
of the UK stopped using their vehicles (everything)
today, then it would only take a few months for
China's increase in CO2 production to take our place.

No I think he said light bulbs (turn them off) so it's even worse.

In message , at 13:09:10 on Wed, 1 Nov
2006, Huge remarked:
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if your
job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in Hyderabad.

And we all know how badly even a simple thing like a call centre
transfers to Hyderabad in most cases. It's not as easy as it sounds
(local teleworking as well as 5,000 mile teleworking).

ps. I wonder if they are teleworking from the moon these days. A speaker
at a conference I'm attending referred to people working "hundreds of
thousands of miles away"
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:09:10 on Wed, 1
Nov 2006, Huge remarked:
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if
your job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in
Hyderabad.

And we all know how badly even a simple thing like a call centre
transfers to Hyderabad in most cases. It's not as easy as it sounds
(local teleworking as well as 5,000 mile teleworking).

ps. I wonder if they are teleworking from the moon these days. A
speaker at a conference I'm attending referred to people working
"hundreds of thousands of miles away"

They are *awful*. As soon as I get the "sounds as though he's on Mars" line
quality, the poor English, the accent, and the background noise, I say "can
you tell me where you're speaking from please?" If it's other than the UK,
I hang up.

If enough of us do this there will no longer *be* any overseas call centres,
and a good thing too.

Paul

P.S. No I don't read the Daily Mail.

In article ,
Huge wrote:

And it might well work better in London than in many other
places, since most of the people on those trains are office
workers.

Even before 9/11 there was a move in the US to
disperse employees out to the suburbs. ie, A
large city centre office would downsize in the centre
of a city, and rent simple office space in or near
shopping malls in outlying suburbs. The idea was
to move the work out to where the (ex) commuters live.

--
Tony Williams.

That can be countered by taking an essentially protectionist stance
against China..on account of their pollution being our problem as well,
this can be spun into a 'fair' solution.

We'd never get away with that.

As I said, my solutin is to replace income tax with a consumption tax.

And underwrite everyones wages with a citizens income

I'm with you on both of those.

One good thing the government could do would be to force car
manufacturers to build far more fuel-efficient engines. We had
the chance to do this when pressure came on them to reduce
emissions. They came up with the catalytic converter - an awful
solution. From the point of view of the manufacturers, it was
wonderful - easy to implement, cost passed directly on to
customer. From an environmental point of view, it's a disaster
as far as I can see as it reduces the fuel efficiency of the engine.
An opportunity missed...


I don;t think paring away at efficiencies is going to net us the overall
50-80% reductions we need.

I agree with you but it still doesn't excuse going with policies which
make things worse when a better solution is available.

We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

With you again there.

There are no technical fixes other than those based on that.

Chris

Huge wrote:
On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
The Natural Philosopher muttered:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in that every
driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say 500 litres of fuel per
month, if a driver stuck to his allowance, fine. If he exceeded it, he'd
have to buy his extra ration from people who'd not used up theirs.
The problem with this idea is that Public Transport in London at rush hour
is full up. There is simply no more room for any more passengers.

There would be if a legal entitlement to home-working was introduced as part
of the employer/employee contract, 2 days a week, people worked from home,
unless their job couldn't be done from there, I'd say that would cut
peak-time commuter numbers by a quarter.

And it might well work better in London than in many other places, since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if your
job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in Hyderabad.


Actually not true as people are beginning to discover.

- people in Hyderabad hacve trouble understanding broad regional accents
and vice versa, and simply do not understand the intricacies of UK life
to understand what 'take er roond me mooms arse if ahm oot when tha
calls' actually means.

- people in Hyderabad may not be able to compete if the UK introduced a
basic citizens income...

- people in Hyderabad can not drive in to a meeting in London etc.

And of course, if its that simple, isn't it time we all moved to
somewhere nice, like rural S France, and sat at our keyboards there instead?

Paul wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:09:10 on Wed, 1
Nov 2006, Huge remarked:
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if
your job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in
Hyderabad.
And we all know how badly even a simple thing like a call centre
transfers to Hyderabad in most cases. It's not as easy as it sounds
(local teleworking as well as 5,000 mile teleworking).

ps. I wonder if they are teleworking from the moon these days. A
speaker at a conference I'm attending referred to people working
"hundreds of thousands of miles away"

They are *awful*. As soon as I get the "sounds as though he's on Mars" line
quality, the poor English, the accent, and the background noise, I say "can
you tell me where you're speaking from please?" If it's other than the UK,
I hang up.

If enough of us do this there will no longer *be* any overseas call centres,
and a good thing too.

I am inclined to agree.

I spend an utterly delightful ten minutes on the phone to Rita, In BT in
Dundee this morning. Who understood exactly what I wanted, the total
situation and how to sort it, and was I imagined, drop dead
gorgeous..her voice was anyway..
...contrast the hell of bank call centers in India, where you have
trouble getting the most basic stuff across because the English quality
simply is not there.


Paul

P.S. No I don't read the Daily Mail.

On 1 Nov 2006 13:09:10 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
The Natural Philosopher muttered:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in that every
driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say 500 litres of fuel per
month, if a driver stuck to his allowance, fine. If he exceeded it, he'd
have to buy his extra ration from people who'd not used up theirs.

The problem with this idea is that Public Transport in London at rush hour
is full up. There is simply no more room for any more passengers.

There would be if a legal entitlement to home-working was introduced as part
of the employer/employee contract, 2 days a week, people worked from home,
unless their job couldn't be done from there, I'd say that would cut
peak-time commuter numbers by a quarter.

And it might well work better in London than in many other places, since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if your
job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in Hyderabad.

Has anyone online or on a 'phone line got any professional
satisfaction from anyone doing anything useful for them in Hyderbad?

I have a solution. Intruduce Cypercommuter trains. Everybody sits
there on mainlines with laptops and connections, doing stuff (unheard,
because they have headphones), and at the end of the day they end up
at their home station. They have a good day out, achieve some
undistracted work, save on their employer's city rental space, and are
able to go back to their families with the feeling of having
contributed a good day's commuting. Meanwhile, they will have
contributed considerably to the nation's transport infrastructure.
Someone merely lazing around in Hyderbad is not going to have
contributed much to that, let alone anything else.They will speak
English, whilst not actually having anything technically subsatantive
to say in it. This is what people find. So who are the nuts?

---
GR

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:29:40 GMT, "." wrote:

Tony Williams wrote:
In article ,
magwitch wrote:

A poster on the BBC HYS forum had quite an interesting idea in
that every driver would be rationed with a fuel allowance, say
500 litres of fuel per month, if a driver stuck to his allowance,
fine. If he exceeded it, he'd have to buy his extra ration from
people who'd not used up theirs.

Someone remarked on tv last week that if the whole
of the UK stopped using their vehicles (everything)
today, then it would only take a few months for
China's increase in CO2 production to take our place.

57 days iirc and if the entire continent of australia lived like
aboriginies the china would output their CO2 in 10 months.

don't believe the hype.

Of course I believe the hype. Because our Government is planning to
make us voters pay for our national 2% - and for all the others -
including the Americans, one presumes. Someone has to pay for it (
though somewhat on a red bill), and no-one else seems to be willing to
do so. What do we do? Boycot Chinese takeaways?

---
GR

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Paul wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:09:10 on Wed, 1
Nov 2006, Huge remarked:
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that
if your job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely
in Hyderabad.
And we all know how badly even a simple thing like a call centre
transfers to Hyderabad in most cases. It's not as easy as it sounds
(local teleworking as well as 5,000 mile teleworking).

ps. I wonder if they are teleworking from the moon these days. A
speaker at a conference I'm attending referred to people working
"hundreds of thousands of miles away"

They are *awful*. As soon as I get the "sounds as though he's on
Mars" line quality, the poor English, the accent, and the background
noise, I say "can you tell me where you're speaking from please?" If it's
other than the UK, I hang up.

If enough of us do this there will no longer *be* any overseas call
centres, and a good thing too.

I am inclined to agree.

I spend an utterly delightful ten minutes on the phone to Rita, In BT
in Dundee this morning. Who understood exactly what I wanted, the
total situation and how to sort it, and was I imagined, drop dead
gorgeous..her voice was anyway..

mcpThey're almost always fat, the nicer the voice, the fatter the
speaker/mcp

pcLook at the three Tenors/pc

Paul

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:06:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

- people in Hyderabad hacve trouble understanding broad regional accents
and vice versa, and simply do not understand the intricacies of UK life
to understand what 'take er roond me mooms arse if ahm oot when tha
calls' actually means.

To be honest it doesn't actually matter. If (say) a BT call centre
operative in Hyderbad doesn't understand what a test socket is, or
other basic connection stuff, then they are of no use to the consumer.
It doesn't really matter whether or not they can communicate
linguistically with an irate Glaswegian subscriber on a Saturday
night.

....
And of course, if its that simple, isn't it time we all moved to
somewhere nice, like rural S France, and sat at our keyboards there instead?

Yes.

---
GR

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:06:15 +0000 The Natural Philosopher wrote :
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that if your
job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely in Hyderabad.


Actually not true as people are beginning to discover.

Call centres may have their problems, but if you check out www.rentacoder.com
where you can get computer projects bid on, four of the top five coders are
in much lower wage areas - India, Ukraine, Argentina.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Huge wrote:
On 2006-11-01, Paul wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:09:10 on Wed, 1
Nov 2006, Huge remarked:
The downside of this, as several people have pointed out, is that
if your job can be done remotely at home, it can be done remotely
in Hyderabad.

And we all know how badly even a simple thing like a call centre
transfers to Hyderabad in most cases. It's not as easy as it sounds
(local teleworking as well as 5,000 mile teleworking).

ps. I wonder if they are teleworking from the moon these days. A
speaker at a conference I'm attending referred to people working
"hundreds of thousands of miles away"

They are *awful*. As soon as I get the "sounds as though he's on
Mars" line quality, the poor English, the accent, and the background
noise, I say "can you tell me where you're speaking from please?"
If it's other than the UK, I hang up.

You do realise they're trained to lie, don't you?

I've covered that. If I don't believe them I hang up anyway. I could write
you a program to deal with it but I can't be bothered, my brain suffices.

Paul

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

OTOH if we simply didn't buy chinese, we could live like kings forever :-)

Have you ever tried to not buy things made in China?

Getting *very* difficult these days.

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

And it might well work better in London than in many other places, since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

And most Cambridge commuters aren't?

Calm down. I wasn't getting at you, and I didn't know you were in
Cambridge to start with. And yes, they aren't, or no they are. Or
whichever it is that I agree with you. )

Puzzled. I didn't think you were getting at me.

I'd say it's people commuting into major cities
unnecessarily by car who output one hell of a lot of CO2.

I don't believe that anyone goes anywhere "unnecessarily" for any
reason. All that means is that you don't agree with their reason.
And no-one drives into a city at peak times unless they've a
damn good reason. No-one sane, that is.

So why are there _thousands_ of cars jamming up the roads every morning?
Especially in Cambridge, so many that those trying to get to the station
from outside the city to catch a train to London can't get there. That is
what it was like a few years ago and I doubt whether it's changed.

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.

"Jules" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:24:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

I don't know if 'we' can; there's always going to be someone next door
(country-wise) who wants to 'get ahead' by living by existing rules - and
if doing our bit actually ultimately makes no difference, where's the
incentive to try?

If they jumped in the lake ...

"magwitch" wrote in message
...
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

And it might well work better in London than in many other places,
since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

And most Cambridge commuters aren't?

Calm down. I wasn't getting at you, and I didn't know you were in
Cambridge to start with. And yes, they aren't, or no they are. Or
whichever it is that I agree with you. )

Puzzled. I didn't think you were getting at me.

I'd say it's people commuting into major cities
unnecessarily by car who output one hell of a lot of CO2.

I don't believe that anyone goes anywhere "unnecessarily" for any
reason. All that means is that you don't agree with their reason.
And no-one drives into a city at peak times unless they've a
damn good reason. No-one sane, that is.

So why are there _thousands_ of cars jamming up the roads every morning?
Especially in Cambridge, so many that those trying to get to the station
from outside the city to catch a train to London can't get there. That is
what it was like a few years ago and I doubt whether it's changed.

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.


It has been estimated that a carbon price equivalent to $900/tonne would be
required to change significant private motoring behaviour (David Mackay,
slide 88 of
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/m...ons/youfigure/ )

It has also been estimated (Exeter conference 2005, 4CMR research group)
that a carbon price of approx $200/tonne would be adequate to stabilise the
atmosphere at 450 ppm. by savings elsewhere worldwide.

These are all Cambridge people mostly.

That does assume that the savings elsewhere are fully fungible - which is
true for CO2 but not for the special case of liquid fuels. Eventually, in
the long term, when all the various technologies get sorted out, we will
probably be able to drive as much as congestion allows and still have a
decent climate. however, the earl;y 21st century is not that time and will
be "interesting" - for a Chinese definition of "interesting".

(Personally, I think 400ppm is living on borrowed time; or at least a
significant risk thereof)

"Paul" wrote in message
...

mcpThey're almost always fat, the nicer the voice, the fatter the
speaker/mcp

pcLook at the three Tenors/pc

OY! Domingo swoon isn't fat!!!

Mary

Paul

"Gropius Riftwynde" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:06:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

- people in Hyderabad hacve trouble understanding broad regional accents
and vice versa, and simply do not understand the intricacies of UK life
to understand what 'take er roond me mooms arse if ahm oot when tha
calls' actually means.

To be honest it doesn't actually matter. If (say) a BT call centre
operative in Hyderbad doesn't understand what a test socket is, or
other basic connection stuff, then they are of no use to the consumer.
It doesn't really matter whether or not they can communicate
linguistically with an irate Glaswegian subscriber on a Saturday
night.

...
And of course, if its that simple, isn't it time we all moved to
somewhere nice, like rural S France, and sat at our keyboards there
instead?

Yes.

---
GR

Mary Fisher wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...

mcpThey're almost always fat, the nicer the voice, the fatter the
speaker/mcp

pcLook at the three Tenors/pc

OY! Domingo swoon isn't fat!!!

I haven't seen him lately, he was always rather portly in my experience.

Experience of life has taught me that the larger the person the more
profound the voice, and the smaller, the thinner and reedier, that was my
point. It doesn't have to be sexist it applies to both genders.

Paul

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.

As I always suspected; PT weenies want to see people herded onto
their appalling "service" with whips.

How about making the PT sufficiently attractive that people *want*
to use it?

Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

OTOH if we simply didn't buy chinese, we could live like kings forever :-)
Have you ever tried to not buy things made in China?

Getting *very* difficult these days.

I think its easier to buy things not made in china, that to not buy
things made in china.

Mary Fisher muttered:


"Gropius Riftwynde" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:06:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

- people in Hyderabad hacve trouble understanding broad regional accents
and vice versa, and simply do not understand the intricacies of UK life
to understand what 'take er roond me mooms arse if ahm oot when tha
calls' actually means.

To be honest it doesn't actually matter. If (say) a BT call centre
operative in Hyderbad doesn't understand what a test socket is, or
other basic connection stuff, then they are of no use to the consumer.
It doesn't really matter whether or not they can communicate
linguistically with an irate Glaswegian subscriber on a Saturday
night.

...
And of course, if its that simple, isn't it time we all moved to
somewhere nice, like rural S France, and sat at our keyboards there
instead?

Yes.

France runs on (mainly) nuclear power (77%).

Jules wrote:
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:24:11 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
We need a total re-evaluation of lifestyle to a low energy one to start
with, and then replace oil with things like nuclear and wind power...

I don't know if 'we' can; there's always going to be someone next door
(country-wise) who wants to 'get ahead' by living by existing rules - and
if doing our bit actually ultimately makes no difference, where's the
incentive to try?


Massive sea change in taxation would make it that way.

I can remember when a fridge cots 300 quid, and you got paid £1500 a year.

Thats about £1500 equivalent today. If fridges were that expensive, do
you think you would say 'sod it, i'll chuck tis one and buy another'
when it breaks?

If it cost you £4 a mile to travel, would you use teh car toi opo diwn
te shops to get a newspaper?



I'm sure I saw something on the BBC News site the other day along the
lines that if comsumption worldwide were to happen at UK rates we'd need
three Earths by 2050 to meet demand, which is rather alarming (although
perhaps not surprising). Annoyingly I can't find the reference now


Precsiley.

Government has only tow tools. Legislation and taxation. Legislation is
oppressive, and taxation will only ultimately work if its *directly*
coupled to fossil energy usage, and the gratuitous consumption of raw
materials in short supply.

But such initiatives always seem to hit the consumers in small ways.
There's no attempt to deal with the bigger picture, either at the consumer
or the manufacturing level. Unless that changes - and changes worldwide -
it'll be too little, too late.

Thats why OI described the setup. Its perfectly possible to live more or
less comfortably and happily without consuming one quarter of what we do.

Honestly i think we were just as happy in the 50's as we are now. CXrs
were things you might have to go down to the coast on the weekend, but
you certainly wouldn't use one on a daily basis.


- raise the cost of importing and imports - lower the wage cost of local
produce.

That I like - couple it with a reintroduction of industry and
manufacturing to the UK, incentives for manufacturers to make products
with greater longevity and ease of repair, and educating society in the
ways of making do and mending what we have rather than always replacing
outright (heck, we managed it for years - it seems like the current
trends have only really crept in within the last 25 years or so).


Yes, they have. The days when there were engineering shops to
recondition engines in every large town..and shops that repaired
radios..and the like..are gone. They could come back. Several people I
know do this kind of thing.

Its perfectly possible to make a washing machine that can be
economically repaired - or does 10 years without needing it.

BUT there is no money in it largely. And therefore no money to pay an
expensive qualified design engineer to do it.

cheers

Jules

magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.
As I always suspected; PT weenies want to see people herded onto
their appalling "service" with whips.

How about making the PT sufficiently attractive that people *want*
to use it?

Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

So make it relatively expensive then...

The Natural Philosopher muttered:

magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.
As I always suspected; PT weenies want to see people herded onto
their appalling "service" with whips.

How about making the PT sufficiently attractive that people *want*
to use it?

Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

So make it relatively expensive then...

Yes, fuel consumption _should_ be made relatively expensive. Just gradually
up the duty on petrol, as they were doing until a few years ago, giving
society time to adapt and using the extra money solely on public transport
nation-wide.

magwitch wrote:
The Natural Philosopher muttered:

magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.
As I always suspected; PT weenies want to see people herded onto
their appalling "service" with whips.

How about making the PT sufficiently attractive that people *want*
to use it?

Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

So make it relatively expensive then...

Yes, fuel consumption _should_ be made relatively expensive. Just gradually
up the duty on petrol, as they were doing until a few years ago, giving
society time to adapt and using the extra money solely on public transport
nation-wide.

AND on gas and oil for heating, and use most of it to give fueal
allowance rebates to pensioners etc.

You will be amazed at how much more insulation people will cram in their
houses if heating them costs three times as much..

France runs on (mainly) nuclear power (77%).

Which is why they'll be laughing all the way to the bank in 30 years
time when we will most likely buying the vast bulk of our electricity from
them...

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:41:44 +0100, magwitch wrote:

Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.

As I always suspected; PT weenies want to see people herded onto
their appalling "service" with whips.

How about making the PT sufficiently attractive that people *want*
to use it?

Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

But I still don't get how PT *on its own* can ever be sufficiently
attractive for the significant number of people who don't happen to live
within city boundaries. A bus every ten minutes taking a reasonable route
to every single destination just isn't practical - what's needed first is
a fundamental shift in the way people work and shop and manage their time,
such that there's less need in the first place to do so many journeys or
micro-manage them to tight timescales.

Only then does PT become feasible - but as usual the emerging plan seems
to be screw over the public by removing choice, rather than thinking about
the bigger picture and tackling the wider issues so that more people *can*
use PT.

Business as usual I suppose - short-term measures which soon do more harm
than good, just so that whoever happens to be in power can be seen to be
Doing Something. Then when it all screws up five years down the line and
all that money's been wasted, someone else comes in and repeats the cycle.
It's about time we got someone in charge who thinks not 4-5 years ahead
but 40-50 or even longer... :-(

cheers

Jules

magwitch wrote:
Doesn't need to be attractive for me, but the PT we have now: unavailable,
unreliable, uncomfortable and expensive is the way things are, and probably
the way PT will stay, because at the moment people have a comfortable,
reliable, relatively cheap alternative: endless car travel, which happens to
be damaging the planet.

Public transport is useless.

Getting to work :- By car 20-30mins - £3/4 Petrol. Public transport
- 1 Hour £8
Visiting my parents (there and back) :- By car 5-6hrs £40 Petrol.
Public transort 9 Hours £111

Both journeys involve a train and a bus and are "on a good day" and I
live across the road from a train station. Obviously there are other
costs associated with owning a car but at present I have to own a car
so I have to pay them whether I use it or not.

Even if travelling by car was more expensive I'd still think twice just
because of the sheer inconvenience. Especially the journey to and from
work.