On 2006-12-18 21:13:40 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-06 13:54:50 +0000, David Hansen
said:

On 6 Dec 2006 04:39:40 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

and bizarrely, some people want these folk to have a monopoly on their
waste services!
There is only one "minor" flaw with your assertion. Councils don't
have a monopoly. Unlike the situation with gas and electricity bills
some years ago any householder can contract with any supplier to
deal with their waste.
However, as with roads, education, defence and many other things the
householder will not get a discount if they don't use the government
provided service.

So a monopoly.

Well - I think not. The option to use other services remains.

Oh good grief......






Private armies seem not to be appreciated for some reason, so let's
leave that one aside.

However, if I use a toll bridge or toll road I pay for them, otherwise I don't.

Yes - not too keen on that notion either, but that debate is even
further off topic !


I can imagine not. I find the French peage system pretty effective.
If you want a better service, you pay. If you want cheap, you don't.

On 2006-12-18 21:26:21 +0000, John Beardmore said:


Well that's a matter of opinion, because it seems to me that that no
individual can negotiate a relationship to the state, and when we vote,
opinion is aggregated. Such aggregations might be regarded as society
expressing a view.

No - it's a collection of individuals voting with their pockets and who
the liked on the TV.



Well - you've said that the minimum standards imposed by law are a given.

That doesn't not mean that standards will rise, as you yourself have admitted.

Telling me that they are a "given" is disingenuous wibble.

No it isn't. The minimum standards can be legislated.



Environmental decisions are made to support people and the things on
which they depend.

Then they should be given the freedom to make them.

If they are properly informed.

By all factions in the debate.


It seems to be born of bloody mindedness rather than any real desire
to change in the best way possible.
The best way possible meets the objectives while bringing the customer
with a choice of solutions. It doesn't come out of presenting one
solution and compelling the customer to do that one solution in a
particular way or else.
Well choice isn't a bad thing except where providing multiple services
results in redundant duplicated equipment and journeys.
Again. If different operators are offering different services, there
is not duplication.
Nor is it necessarily lower aggregate footprint.

Nor does it necessarily increase it.

Indeed, though it's not at all easy to see any way it might not.

Geography is but one example.



It may not duplicate services in the same sense that tow bus companies
operating on the same route do not duplicate services, but it may
travel more road miles and use more man hours even with fewer people on
each trip than existing services.

.. and it may not.

Well - if you really believe that, show us how it might not please.


Who's the "us" here?

The amount of waste doesn't change with the method of transporting it.
As I've already explained several times, one has t look at the overall
picture including fuel use
and what is sensibly recovered, which will be more if the services
match the customers' requirements.

On 2006-12-18 21:40:56 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

Quite amazing. I've always considered education to be about finding
out things for one's self, questioning
them and sifting the important and influencing from the dross.

If you were observant, you would have noticed that environmentalists do
not all sing off the same hymn sheet.

There is a green hill far away..... ?

The last thing that I have felt it to be was being fed
a package of goods and treating it as sacrosanct.

This seems to be exactly the way you regard economics.

Not particularly - it's simply a starting point. Experience over
millennia shows that if economic criteria are not met, pretty much any
exercise will fail.

Therefore, it is necessary to satisfy that first and then to look at
what it can buy. Then one can iterate back. If the outcome isn't what
was hoped for, can the economic model be adjusted to support it?



I suspect that that is one reason for my not wanting to buy
unquestioningly into mindless ecobabble for the sake of it.

Maybe you should take the trouble to learn something meaningful about
the work environmentalists have done before you start making
assumptions ?

It is very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.


While acknowledging that you must comply with the law, attitudinally
you seem far more disposed to find justifications for inaction than to
see if action is really required. This alone makes me reluctant to
support your ill specified commercial proposals.

You are missing the point. I have not said that there should be
inaction as long as the proposed action is genuinely worth doing and on
the scale that can be realistically achieved actually affects outcome
in a worthwhile way. In other words if there is a choice between
action A and action B with A resulting in a 0.1% effect and B resulting
in a 10% effect, there is little point in doing A unless it is less
than a hundredth of the effort or cost.

Now let's say that action B is sorting through plastic bottles and so
is worth doing. Then the next question is quite simple. Who is going
to do it? If it *requires* me to do it as opposed to paying extra to
a contractor t do so, then the whole thing comes into question in terms
of whether it was worth doing in the first place.

So if you say to me that I *must* sort the bottles myself and there
isn't an option that I can buy at a reasonable price without paying
twice, then I am going to say no to it. OTOH, if you offer me price C
for the contractor to do it and D if I do it, then there is a basis for
it to be done.

On 2006-12-18 21:28:39 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

Perhaps that's where you are going wrong. The malaise is in broad
daylight for all to see.
I know what you mean in some departments, but it's not universal. I'm
going to support the people in LAs that are worth supporting.

You must spend a lot of time looking.

Well - you can't do much in the environmental sector without running
into them !

That says it all, really, doesn't it......


Well up to a point, but they don't generally encourage the provision
of redundant services to gratify and ideological lust for choice where
any marginal benefit from the provision of choice is swamped by
increasing the environmental footprint of the service provision of a
whole.

Not in touch with reality then...

You could say the same of economists total lack of grip on
environmental issues.

I could, but I wouldn't




And calling it a "Home Care" package implies that there is more
bundled into it than waste collection. I thought you only wanted to
pay for what you used ?
So create "Home Care" bronze, silver and gold products.
Bronze is basic rubbish collection, silver includes collecting
additional things such as garden rubbish etc. and gold includes rat
catching and wasp nest destruction; or whatever. Just illustrations.
Hmmm... The only people to whom this kind of thing seems to appeal
are those who seem to be obsessed by the provision of choice a matter
of principle. Still - make it an election issue, and see how far you
get. It'd be interesting to see.

I think it will....

Go for it then ! Keep us posted please !


Next May is not that far away...

On 2006-12-18 21:54:53 +0000, John Beardmore said:


There is no rant, just an observation on the poor service ethic which
is a UK malaise.

When you repeat it so often with no acknowledgement of other views I
think it is likely to be seen as a rant.

The trouble is that there is so little evidence to support the notion
that LAs are giving good service in most areas.

Fortunately, gradually people are starting to realise that they are
being taken for a ride and will not accept rubbish service. However,
culturally, most British people don't like to make a fuss or to
complain. It's changing, but still has a long way to go.



In terms of public to private sector comparison, the acid test is what
happens when there is good service and bad service. Do people get
rewarded over and above their basic remuneration for giving good
service? Do they get penalised and ultimately fired if not.

Usually in the private sector, then again, sometimes in public sector too.

From observation, it seems that this only happens if fingers have been
in the till.



Does the organisation that they work in cease to exist if it doesn't
deliver?

They may get kicked out or sideways in the public sector, and companies
can take a long time to die in the private sector !

Not any more.



When those fundamental questions are answered, it becomes very clear
that for the most part the public sector is not being correctly
motivated.

It seems to me that when the people near the top of an LA are well
motivated, plenty of opportunities arise for sensible rewarding of
worthy efforts.

How?


In either type of organisation, if the top of the organisation looses
the plot, the whole thing tends to descent into finger pointing, back
biting and arse covering. (Well - you would cover it with all those
teeth flying !)


That's true.

On uk.environment, in , "John Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How typical of Beardmore to be fighting to the death (verbally,
anyway...) over something that wouldn't reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage.

But he is merely another member of the failed 'environmental
movement'. Not unique.

Alan

--
http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/contact.html

Thank you Beavis.

--
article not downloaded:

Info about "Alan Connor"

Alan "The Usenet Beavis" Connor is a good friend of Bigfoot:
http://tinyurl.com/23r3f

A couple of years ago he was kidnapped and raped by Xena,
the Warrior Princess: http://tinyurl.com/2gjcy

Beavis believes that the MSBlast virus of yesteryear was explicitly
targeting him, for some inexplicable reason: http://tinyurl.com/ifrt

Beavis belongs to a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/2hhdx
Beavis's life in a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/24jqm
Beavis knows all about network security: http://tinyurl.com/5qqb6
And he's also a search engine expert: http://tinyurl.com/9pjnt



"But if you must know, Alans' name is Bruce Burhans, and he lives in
Bellingham WA. To his hippie friends he calls himself "Tom Littlefoot"
**Google Tom Littlefoot, Bruce Burhans and "Wildwood"**.

Bruce has some serious mental problems and spends a lot of time as an
in-patient at the big mental hospital in Bellingham, when he's not
hospitalized, he posts to usenet. In every group he posts to he comes off as
some sort of expert in the subject at hand, and when anyone disagrees (and
they will, he sees to that) he starts in on his trollery.

Again, Bruce is a true Professional Usenet Troll. It is his entertainment
and it's what he lives for."


http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/fga.shtml
http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...-MEqh3HQ&hl=en
http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/challenge-response.html
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html#CR
http://www.gatago.com/authors_pgs/13650.html
http://blog.bananasplit.info/?p=84
http://tinyurl.com/ifrt
http://tinyurl.com/3h6a5
http://tinyurl.com/ys6z4

Also in the headers for alan to read.

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

So it should be made incentive and not penalty.
How did you have in mind ?
There are plenty. Reductions in corporation tax for businesses
implementing a relevant environmental policy would be but one.
OK - a start, though this is hardly a market force. More of a
'financial instrument applied'.

It's exactly a market force. Make an action attractive and people buy.

Well - reducing corporation tax may be a force on the market, but it's
not an expression of, or a response to the will of the consumer, but a
government intervention. I thought that generally you regarded those as
a bad thing ?


Improvement in environmental reality won't happen to any worthwhile
degree until and unless the economic realities are addressed. Hence
the point about incentive rather than bullying.
Hmmm... There will always be a sense in which the prolong absence
of a carrot will be seen as a stick.
I'm not sure that these things can always be 'happiness led'.

It certainly won't work to always lead with the negativity of
legislation and penalties for trivia.

I agree with penalties for trivia, but the effectiveness of legislation
seems to be experienced every day.


Then to take it
further, this failed policy is not repealed but continued! A policy
that wastes energy and costs money is continued.
Not totally convinced it has failed...
It is focus on the irrelevant. In a typical house, lighting
accounts for 2% of energy consumption.
I seriously doubt that's true, at least unless they use low energy
light bulbs, heat electric, cook electric and have TIG welding as a
hobby.
Care to cite a source ?
I said energy consumption, not electricity consumption.
Even so, I'm not at all sure it's right, and as for every kW of
electricity we use, Drax et al push 2 kW up a chimney as 'waste' heat,
consumption at the point of use is a pretty silly way to look at it.
with the PRIMARY energy used to make that electricity.

That's a matter of generation and there are numerous more efficient
ways to do so than to burn fossil fuels at Drax.

Only if you can find a home for the waste heat.


I was, however, referring to energy use in the home.

Well yes, but if you don't take into account of the primary energy used
to deliver electricity, you will paint a very distorted picture.


It's really very simple. Add up the number of incandescent bulbs
required in a house with their ratings. Work out the usage pattern.
Calculate the amount of electricity used in kWh averaged over a year.
Then look at the energy bills.
Yes. I suspect it comes out to more than 2% though.

Try working it out.

I did, but it depends entirely on the assumptions you make.

I assumed that as you gave a particular figure, you might have a clue
where it came from.


They just have a no incentive to, and would rather not bother if
not doing so increases the sale of fittings in the long run.
Exactly. People don't want this stuff and are voting with their
money.
OK - a little cynical, but I would expect no less.

So that should give you the clue. Make it attractive and hassle free
to do something and people might just do it.
Force them and you will a) have a battle and b) a poorer result than if
you had spent the money cajoling and policing on incentivising.

I'm not particularly convinced.


Lets compare what happens with failed policies in the private
business
sector. Either the business corrects it, and they try to, or they cease
being a service provider, and those that come closer to what the buyer
wants stay in business. The motivation to do well is much larger there,
as the individual either prospers or loses it all.
Which is great in those areas that markets address well. The
environment has generally not been one of them.
Then those wishing to promote its maintenance need to go away and
think about how to make
that marketable rather than immediately falling on the easy way
out of forcing unnatural behaviour.
I'm not sure that living sustainably is unnatural, but it's not
something capitalism has been good at.
That's just broad brushed nonsense
It's broad brush, but I can't think of a lot of major environmental
improvements led by industry off the top of my head.
You ?

It doesn't have to be led by, only made attractive enough to win co-operation.

Hmmm... Sounds like woolly broad brushed nonsense to me.

Essentially you are saying that if something is made attractive to
industry it might deign to respond to an emerging mark, but that's about
it isn't
it ? But this is also true of just about anything from atom bombs to
xylophones !

So... It still sounds fair to me to assert that living / acting living
sustainably is not something capitalism has been good at.


Either marketing or legislation might contribute to getting the
job done. I'm not fussed which, and up to a point happy with both,
though marketing does seem to be the art of selling illusions.

Not sure that makes it the most appropriate tool.
Legislation certainly isn't. Marketing is very effective and
produces sustained results if done honestly and competently.
Where it's done honestly and competently, it's little different from
education. But how often is that ?
Look at government advertising on energy consumption. Terrifyingly
naff !

Terrifyingly wasteful

Quite probably.


as well and focussing on the wrong areas.

Not entirely the wrong areas I think, though out of interest, where do
you think they'd have got a better outcome ?


This is something that the green lobby has attempted to do and
has been found out on the first and failed on the second.
Well there are one or two thinks like Brent Spa where there has been
clear misinformation given. I suspect that such cases are rare, and
other state owned companies like BNFL have hardly been squeaky clean
in this area. The asbestos industry lies for the best part of a
hundred years. I don't think industry can lecture the environmental
movement on corporate responsibility !

So honesty needed all round it seems....

Yes !


THe question is how to achieve that.

Indeed.


It's too expensive to police it.

And very tedious and expensive to go to law over anything that might be
seen as misleading or whatever.


Education about environmental issues, in as quantitative a way as
possible seems to be the better long term strategy, and that is
something I'm happy to invest effort in.
That is reasonable, provided that it is even handed and facts are
separated from guesses and agendas.
Nobody is free of agenda, and there are significant errors likely to
be embedded in current climate models, environmental predictions and
economic predictions of all kinds.
A large part of education is learning to react sensibly to
uncertainty, while at the same time trying to establish a more
rigorous understanding of complex systems.

.. and addressing the areas that actually do make a difference. Has
anybody in the West had a word with the Chinese lately?

! Another of Alan Connors better points.

Actually - it is interesting that so many students of architecture and
sustainable technologies are Chinese these days !

It's interesting to note that groups like Eurosolar seem to sense that
the battle in slowly being won in Europe, and a lot of the active
innovative members have moved on to things like WCRE,

http://www.wcre.de/en/index.php

which is contributing to the debate globally. It's also interesting
that at the one Eurosolar AGM I went to in Berlin, some of the more
innovative material came from places outside the EU like Vietnam.
Technically their contributions were not news, but the interesting thing
was the level of 'buy in' they could get in a community. It looks as if
local social structures can have a very dramatic effect.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

On 2006-12-20 01:14:00 +0000, John Beardmore said:


Well - reducing corporation tax may be a force on the market, but it's
not an expression of, or a response to the will of the consumer, but a
government intervention. I thought that generally you regarded those
as a bad thing ?

Correct. However, customers are not empowered to reduce corporation
tax, the government is. One could argue that by reducing a tax take,
the government would be less interventionist, which of course is a good
thing.


I agree with penalties for trivia, but the effectiveness of legislation
seems to be experienced every day.

Along with the ineffectiveness.


Even so, I'm not at all sure it's right, and as for every kW of
electricity we use, Drax et al push 2 kW up a chimney as 'waste' heat,
consumption at the point of use is a pretty silly way to look at it.
with the PRIMARY energy used to make that electricity.

That's a matter of generation and there are numerous more efficient
ways to do so than to burn fossil fuels at Drax.

Only if you can find a home for the waste heat.

I don't have control over what the power generating companies do with
excess heat, however solutions exist for that as well.




I was, however, referring to energy use in the home.

Well yes, but if you don't take into account of the primary energy used
to deliver electricity, you will paint a very distorted picture.

Actually not. If the house is heated by gas, as a high proportion are,
the proportion of electricity used is a small part of the total in
energy (as opposed to cost) terms. This is even before considering
that heat generated from use of incandescent lighting is mainly added
to the heat requirement for the house anyway, since the larger use for
lighting is during the heating months anyway.




It's really very simple. Add up the number of incandescent bulbs
required in a house with their ratings. Work out the usage pattern.
Calculate the amount of electricity used in kWh averaged over a year.
Then look at the energy bills.
Yes. I suspect it comes out to more than 2% though.

Try working it out.

I did, but it depends entirely on the assumptions you make.

I assumed that as you gave a particular figure, you might have a clue
where it came from.

I do.




They just have a no incentive to, and would rather not bother if not
doing so increases the sale of fittings in the long run.
Exactly. People don't want this stuff and are voting with their money.
OK - a little cynical, but I would expect no less.

So that should give you the clue. Make it attractive and hassle free
to do something and people might just do it.
Force them and you will a) have a battle and b) a poorer result than if
you had spent the money cajoling and policing on incentivising.

I'm not particularly convinced.

I can imagine that.





Lets compare what happens with failed policies in the private business
sector. Either the business corrects it, and they try to, or they cease
being a service provider, and those that come closer to what the buyer
wants stay in business. The motivation to do well is much larger there,
as the individual either prospers or loses it all.
Which is great in those areas that markets address well. The
environment has generally not been one of them.
Then those wishing to promote its maintenance need to go away and
think about how to make
that marketable rather than immediately falling on the easy way out of
forcing unnatural behaviour.
I'm not sure that living sustainably is unnatural, but it's not
something capitalism has been good at.
That's just broad brushed nonsense
It's broad brush, but I can't think of a lot of major environmental
improvements led by industry off the top of my head.
You ?

It doesn't have to be led by, only made attractive enough to win co-operation.

Hmmm... Sounds like woolly broad brushed nonsense to me.

Essentially you are saying that if something is made attractive to
industry it might deign to respond to an emerging mark, but that's
about it isn't
it ? But this is also true of just about anything from atom bombs to
xylophones !

So... It still sounds fair to me to assert that living / acting living
sustainably is not something capitalism has been good at.

You are presenting a circular argument. When policies that don't take
account of the requirements of business are forced on it, it's hardly
surprising if there is little interest in co-operation and effort goes
into avoiding the negative impacts. This comes about when governments
believe that regulation and legislation is the way to achieve
advancement, either because of misguided control games or lack of
competence in running a business.
It's then not reasonable to blame those shortcomings on industry.

I don't believe that operating sustainably has to come about by there
being a reduction in the ability of business to be successful. If
they are not, the economy as a whole is less successful and less money
is available to fund the programs that people would like to have. The
correct action is to incentivise industry to take particular courses of
action. One only has to look at companies moving their operations to
lower tax locations and development areas to figure that one out.




Either marketing or legislation might contribute to getting the job
done. I'm not fussed which, and up to a point happy with both, though
marketing does seem to be the art of selling illusions.

Not sure that makes it the most appropriate tool.
Legislation certainly isn't. Marketing is very effective and
produces sustained results if done honestly and competently.
Where it's done honestly and competently, it's little different from
education. But how often is that ?
Look at government advertising on energy consumption. Terrifyingly
naff !

Terrifyingly wasteful

Quite probably.


as well and focussing on the wrong areas.

Not entirely the wrong areas I think, though out of interest, where do
you think they'd have got a better outcome ?

Refer to the point about lightbulbs. More reasonable expenditure is
around things that do make a worthwhile difference such as reasonable
levels of loft and cavity insulation.



This is something that the green lobby has attempted to do and has
been found out on the first and failed on the second.
Well there are one or two thinks like Brent Spa where there has been
clear misinformation given. I suspect that such cases are rare, and
other state owned companies like BNFL have hardly been squeaky clean in
this area. The asbestos industry lies for the best part of a hundred
years. I don't think industry can lecture the environmental movement
on corporate responsibility !

So honesty needed all round it seems....

Yes !


THe question is how to achieve that.

Indeed.


It's too expensive to police it.

And very tedious and expensive to go to law over anything that might be
seen as misleading or whatever.

Which is exactly why legislation is such a poor instrument in these areas.


Actually - it is interesting that so many students of architecture and
sustainable technologies are Chinese these days !

A supreme irony.



It's interesting to note that groups like Eurosolar seem to sense that
the battle in slowly being won in Europe, and a lot of the active
innovative members have moved on to things like WCRE,

http://www.wcre.de/en/index.php

which is contributing to the debate globally. It's also interesting
that at the one Eurosolar AGM I went to in Berlin, some of the more
innovative material came from places outside the EU like Vietnam.
Technically their contributions were not news, but the interesting
thing was the level of 'buy in' they could get in a community. It
looks as if local social structures can have a very dramatic effect.



Perhaps they should have a word with their immediate neighbours about
building nuclear rather than coal fired power stations.

Perhaps we could have a word with ours about not buying cheap Chinese goods.

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

On 2006-12-20 21:17:13 +0000, "Mary Fisher" said:


"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

At what?

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:


On 2006-12-20 21:17:13 +0000, "Mary Fisher" said:


"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

At what?

Pretending that you are environmentalists.

Like always.

Alan

--
http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/

Thank you Beavis.

--
article not downloaded:

Info about "Alan Connor"

Alan "The Usenet Beavis" Connor is a good friend of Bigfoot:
http://tinyurl.com/23r3f

A couple of years ago he was kidnapped and raped by Xena,
the Warrior Princess: http://tinyurl.com/2gjcy

Beavis believes that the MSBlast virus of yesteryear was explicitly
targeting him, for some inexplicable reason: http://tinyurl.com/ifrt

Beavis belongs to a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/2hhdx
Beavis's life in a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/24jqm
Beavis knows all about network security: http://tinyurl.com/5qqb6
And he's also a search engine expert: http://tinyurl.com/9pjnt



"But if you must know, Alans' name is Bruce Burhans, and he lives in
Bellingham WA. To his hippie friends he calls himself "Tom Littlefoot"
**Google Tom Littlefoot, Bruce Burhans and "Wildwood"**.

Bruce has some serious mental problems and spends a lot of time as an
in-patient at the big mental hospital in Bellingham, when he's not
hospitalized, he posts to usenet. In every group he posts to he comes off as
some sort of expert in the subject at hand, and when anyone disagrees (and
they will, he sees to that) he starts in on his trollery.

Again, Bruce is a true Professional Usenet Troll. It is his entertainment
and it's what he lives for."


http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/fga.shtml
http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...-MEqh3HQ&hl=en
http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/challenge-response.html
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html#CR
http://www.gatago.com/authors_pgs/13650.html
http://blog.bananasplit.info/?p=84
http://tinyurl.com/ifrt
http://tinyurl.com/3h6a5
http://tinyurl.com/ys6z4

Also in the headers for alan to read.

On 2006-12-21 00:27:15 +0000, Alan Connor said:

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:


On 2006-12-20 21:17:13 +0000, "Mary Fisher" said:


"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

At what?

Pretending that you are environmentalists.

Like always.


Not me - at least not in the popularly understood way....

In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

Time permitting !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:
On 2006-12-20 21:17:13 +0000, "Mary Fisher" said:
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

Are you two still at it?

At what?

Pretending that you are environmentalists.

Like always.

Peoples Front of Judea thrown you out again ?


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall
writes

Are you two still at it?

Time permitting !

Well I wish you'd stoppit. I have christmas to prepare for :-)

Mary


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Mary Fisher
writes
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary Fisher
writes
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 01:43:59 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall
writes

Are you two still at it?

Time permitting !

Well I wish you'd stoppit. I have christmas to prepare for :-)

Hmmm... I know the feeling. A lot of water has gone under the bridge
while this thread has been running !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in , "John
Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

But commented on anyway.


I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !


How typical of Beardmore to be fighting to the death (verbally,
anyway...) over something that wouldn't reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage.

Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None the
less, we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather
than letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal for
the market.


But he is merely another member of the failed 'environmental
movement'. Not unique.

How typical for you to say that from the woods !

Rather than carping from the sidelines, why don't you come back and do
something useful ?


Happy Christmas ! J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message .com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message .com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message . com,
writes
sarah wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-03 17:47:04 +0000, (sarah) said:
Andy Hall wrote:

but not half as mythical as saying LAs must use the least energy of all
options!

Straw man. All I've expressed is the concern that the proposed scheme
would increase fuel used, congestion, number of vehicles and staff used
to do the same job etc.

...exactly what you just called a straw man then.

Your saying

"but not half as mythical as saying LAs must use the least energy of
all
options!"

is a straw man because that isn't what I've said.

My saying

"All I've expressed is the concern that the proposed scheme
would increase fuel used, congestion, number of vehicles and
staff used to do the same job etc"

isn't a straw man - it's a legitimate concern for many people - and
it's probably true, regardless of what you want to hear.


At the moment, I think they are obliged to chase 'bast value', which I
guess gives them a lot of scope for subjective consideration.

nominally yes, but realistically no. There isnt the competition there,

Anybody can tender. How much competition do you need ?


the investment in new trials,

It's certainly true that a process has to demonstrably work before an LA
will or should sign up to it.

Trial are possible though, if the project might bring enough benefit.


incompetents stay in their jobs etc.

Or move to other regions when the laughter from their colleagues echos
too shrilly !


Or alternatively, the rubbish is processed the cheapest way, regardless
of consequences.

its down to the customer and the law. Personally I'd be in favour of
reducing customer costs,

This is fine as long as the people at the sharp end don't have their
wages cut just because some suit fancies better first quarter figures.

I think the basics of capitalism are already well known.

As are their limitations.


To get
factual, wages in the private sector are mostly higher than in the
public sector, despite services being delivered more competitively.
Feel free to wonder why.

So are your facts taking the values of pensions, job security, health
and safety provision etc into account ?

I don't think people stay in town hall jobs because "incompetents stay
in their jobs etc". Seems to me that it has something to do with other
factors too.


and can think of ways to do it while in the
same measure increasing recycling.

Maybe. Go on then...

I was about to tell you my thoughts on that, but it would take us off
the point. The whole point here is that in a freeish market everyone
that thinks they can improve on existing services is free to try it,
and see if it works. (And motivated to do so.) And if it does, others
will follow. This just doesnt happen in the command economy of LAs.

I'm not sure that's true - I think the limiting factor is that while
appropriate recycling brings environmental benefits, there just aren't
many ways to make putting stuff in the right bin exciting.


Hopefully there would be no loss of
environmental stringency in the process.

why would one lower the legal requirements at the same time as
privatisation?

It's not so much that the minimum environmental standards would be
lowered, so much as that the culture is likely to shift to looking for
ways to cut costs rather than exceeding standards.


Are you proposing a two- (or more) tier cost for
refuse disposal, with one price for those of us who sort their own and
another for those who prefer not to sully their hands with it? How much
would implementing *that* cost?

nothing. You leave the market to it,

And that makes it free ? Oh good !!

That makes it more cost efficient.

Key word there is COST.

Yes, thats one of them. Lowered costs mean more people can afford
silver medal type services.

This is where the dustman wears a tie ?


The cost of deciding on price is a
very small part of a large business operation's costs. Other
differences will dwarf this one.

I had in mind the delivery of multiple services rather than the
submission of prices.

OK. Lets take fro example garbage collectors being willing to go onto a
persons property to collect bags if they have an orange sticker in the
front window. The cost of that little exta labour is paid for by the
silver service buyers. In fact in private enterprise it is common to
have basic services at cost with the fancier options bringing in the
profit. Thus all win, the low cost service is cheaper, those wishing
and happy to pay for fancy services can have that too. All standard
stuff in retail today.

The orange sticker is of course an example, there are various ways to
do it irl.

Yes - though I'm not sure that this sort of provision couldn't be made
within a single contractor arrangement.


and people will buy from whichever
firm does closest to what they want. It would result in economies
rather than costs.

Yes - but that makes the preferred outcome cheap, not the most
sustainable one.

it makes it whichever the people of Britain vote for on a yearly basis,
it is the ultimate democracy.

I'm not sure that democracy is much better for 'saving the planet' than
capitalism, but I don't remember when we last had a referendum about
waste services, never mind one per year !

Man, this is basics of free markets stuff. Each time a customer buys a
service they are voting with their wallet. They will vote for the
service they prefer by paying for it. Capitalism is the ultimate
democracy. Capitalism enables the people to determine what they get by
this method of voting with their money.

OK - I see what you mean, but the word 'democracy' is normally
associated with larger scale political systems.


With private enterprise comparison and analysis are pssible. How well
comparison is done varies of course.

Actually I don't see any evidence at all that private business is at all
good at making environmental performance data public, either in
sufficient detail, or in a timely way.

And if the data isn't generally available, saying "comparison and
analysis are possible", while formally true is utterly missing the
point. In the real world, this information is generally not available.

It is elementary to legally require publication of environmental data
(or if the market is controlled via the LA, ie without a change in the
law, to contractually require it).

I'd certainly be very happy with that !


When you've only got one system,
there is no possibility of comparison of the options, and nothing can
be learnt, because there are no comparison facts to learn anything
from.

If it can be measured, it can be improved. 'Continuous Improvement'
doesn't requite competition.

no, it just happens 4x faster in a free economy. This is 101 stuff.

It's certainly a 101 assumption !


The availability of comparison
data

What availability would that be ??

Is that a promise ?

is it a sensible question to ak me to promise what I dont control? I
think it relevant to garbage collection and would vote for full data
being available.

OK - good ! But I'll believe it when I see it.


why cant he have another option, such as not sorting and not recycling?
Its not like the recycling option is beyond debate.

I guess the real answer is that most people are happy enough to recycle
what they can easily, and while not ecstatic about LA waste services,
don't really want to think about alternatives foisted upon them.

foisted? wouldnt they rather have choice than the current foisting?

I'm sure some wouldn't given that the current system works pretty well
for most people.


All
those people that have changed from british gas and BT have all voted
yes with their wallets to that one.

Yes - though until we know what we're paying for waste disposal at the
moment and what we'd be charged in your scheme, it's quite hard to know
if we'd be interested for a start.

In the old days, BT was clearly a technical backwater and an obvious rip
off. This is far less clear with waste disposal provision.


At the end of the day, LCA will indicate where materials aren't worth
recycling, and should be able to give a clue as to the best way to
dispose of them.

In a sense, it doesn't require a debate, such as doing the LCA in each
locale. Maybe when you have the LCA data there might be something to
debate.

you're welcome to your undying faith in LCAs.

You're welcome to show mw a better tool.


To pretend there is no
debate is so unrealistic

Well - I can only comment from my experience in Derbyshire. There has
been loads debate about waste disposal methods, but none about service
provision by multiple competing providers.


it seems almost disingenuous, though I daresay
you really do believe so.

Well - you can stir up debate as you have here, but you've also kept it
a pretty fact free zone, and based your assumptions about improvement on
your undying faith in markets !

You've talked up the possibility of environmental improvements without
addressing any of the issues that make such outcomes unlikely, and you
can't even be sure that the costs would be lower...

So yes - debate if you like, but expect the various positions to be
scrutinised by techniques such as LCA when people want to go beyond
dogma to assess actual performance.


Well - you can lobby your democratically elected members using sound
numerically supported arguments if you like.

I hope youre kidding, but I get the feeling you're not.

Well - you seem keen on democracy

yes. Do you see how a free market implements it, whereas LAs are
command economy?

I do, but that doesn't mean that in aggregate, they do the job with
lower environmental impact, or that the benefits accruing from the 'more
free' market should necessarily be valued more highly.


... ...but less able to come up with
plausible figures.

what figures, concerning what? If you want examples of what happens
when command markets go free, UK has several examples you can look at.
If you want 101 principles of capitalism, again theres no need for me
to rehash it all.

No - I would like plausible figures to justify the change you propose,
and specifically the claim that the environmental impact of delivering
the new multiple services need be no higher than delivering the existing
single service.


Happy Christmas all ! J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in , "John
Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

But commented on anyway.


I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !

But why?


Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None the less,
we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather than
letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal for the
market.

Hurrah!

Happy Christmas ! J/.

And to you and yours.

Mary

In message . com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-05 08:10:40 +0000, (sarah) said:

Ultimately, regulated environments don't work because people will find
a way around them if they deem them to be too intrusive.

And unregulated ones do what's cheapest and 'hang the consequences'.

So what's the right compromise ?

Again this has long been known.

From an economic perspective perhaps. But this has not achieved
sustainable development - indeed quite the opposite.


Free markets with laws that prohobit
the worst practices.

But don't encourage the best ones.


In the sense that sorting is a requirement that is imposed neither by
you or the LA, neither of you is trying to reduce the service provided

by the other - this argument is just emotional fluff. If you want to
deal with the imposition, take yourself off to the EU and exercise your
democratic right.

thats emotional fluff if ever I heard it.

No - it's a process for making legislation.


You really seem in need of
more understanding of politics.

And you need to think in terms of sustainable development, not the
development of markets.


Rather, one of you is being asked, and may ultimately be required, to
sort waste, and this is generally held to be something that is least
resource intensive when done at source.

It is ultimately up to you and the LA to decide how this might be
accomplished, but either way, you will pay, by the commitment of time or
money, if, or perhaps when it becomes a legal requirement.

it is asked yet unsupportable.

Well - you don't support it anyway.


Many consumers just say no.

And for the time being at least, they are quite within their rights to
do so.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in , "John
Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

But commented on anyway.


I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !

But why?



An excuse to have a pop at environmentalists in general and me in
particular maybe ?


Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None the less,
we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather than
letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal for the
market.

Hurrah!

Incrementalism lives...


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary Fisher
writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in , "John
Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

But commented on anyway.


I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !

But why?



An excuse to have a pop at environmentalists in general and me in
particular maybe ?

Everyone needs a hobby ...


Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None the
less,
we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather than
letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal for the
market.

Hurrah!

Incrementalism lives...

Yes.

I've just thought of a consideration when siting panels on the roof.

Don't let it be anywhere near the chimney, there might be an accident which
could devastate many people.

Happy Christmas to everyone and don't forget to recycle cards, wrapping
paper, and sprout leaves.

Mary


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

I never sprout leaves and I do not have roots either.

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary
Fisher writes

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Alan Connor
writes
On uk.environment, in ,
"John
Beardmore" wrote:

article not downloaded:
http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline

But commented on anyway.


I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !

But why?



An excuse to have a pop at environmentalists in general and me in
particular maybe ?

Everyone needs a hobby ...


Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the
ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None
the less,
we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather
than
letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal
for the
market.

Hurrah!

Incrementalism lives...

Yes.

I've just thought of a consideration when siting panels on the roof.

Don't let it be anywhere near the chimney, there might be an
accident which could devastate many people.

Happy Christmas to everyone and don't forget to recycle cards,
wrapping paper, and sprout leaves.

Mary


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Mary Fisher
writes
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Mary Fisher
writes
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Alan Connor
writes

I've read one of Andy's posts on this subthread.

How conscientious of you !

But why?



An excuse to have a pop at environmentalists in general and me in
particular maybe ?

Everyone needs a hobby ...

Just so !


Almost none of the individual decisions we make reduce the ecological
footprint of this civilization by a measurable percentage. None the
less,
we are better off fighting to make things a little better rather than
letting them get a little worse just to gratify somebodys zeal for the
market.

Hurrah!

Incrementalism lives...

Yes.

I've just thought of a consideration when siting panels on the roof.

Don't let it be anywhere near the chimney, there might be an accident which
could devastate many people.

Why ? We try not to put them near chimneys, but it generally has more
to do with avoiding shadows, and it's not as if most panels burn.


Happy Christmas to everyone and don't forget to recycle cards, wrapping
paper, and sprout leaves.

Indeed !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...


I've just thought of a consideration when siting panels on the roof.

Don't let it be anywhere near the chimney, there might be an accident
which
could devastate many people.

Why ? We try not to put them near chimneys, but it generally has more to
do with avoiding shadows, and it's not as if most panels burn.

But if Farther Christmas were to slip on one and sustain fractures or worse
there's be a lot of disappointed children.

And adults.

Mary

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:19:29 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Or time.
But I think there are some things like eating and going to the
toilet that we seldom depute to others.
Really? Letting the government run services is exactly doing that
i.e. letting others wipe our arses.
Sorting your own waste takes the process under your control.

I can have control by paying somebody else to do the work

But it's hard to see how that can be done without increasing the
environmental footprint.


The trouble is that the government always uses Bronco sheets and
tells us that it's Andrex.
N/A in this case.

Very applicable.

Mere diversionary word games.


Maybe sorting our own waste might be seen in that light.
If we are stupid enough to buy into that notion
If it gives the lowest environmental impact, it may not be 'stupid'
but 'responsible'.

That's pseudo-moral-highground-

Well - it wasn't about that, but why do you think you feel that way ?


not impressed.

I don't care if you're impressed. I care if you are living with a
reasonable environmental footprint.

I care far more however, if by imposing a market on those who don't
really care, you manage to increase the environmental footprint of
thousands of people.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen
said:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw
a line,
but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The
competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to
inclination, ability and legislation.
surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to
with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one
example.
Precisely....
I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.
You are missing the points...
Idleness and pride ?

Delegation.

But at what environmental cost ?


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-03 19:16:19 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Central government and the EU are not spending their own money but
ours. I would rather have a situation where I have control of how
my money is spent rather than these people.
I'd rather have it spent by whoever will improve environmental
performance rather than accept a bare minimum.

Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU at
work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time, effort
and money that goes on there.

I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we face
is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work with
the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to getting
something right.


There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself.
already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum offering
to meet minimum requirements.
Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'.

Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the minimum
or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing are at
liberty to do so.

Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.


and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most dangerous
situation of all.
No wonder with you breathing down their necks !
Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing
what they should be doing.
Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you
and your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA agree
on what they should be doing. You may be breathing down their necks
just because they doing what the law dictates.

I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in firms
of management consultants to do the work that their own staff should be
doing. One or the other should be dispensed with.

Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify, but I
don't see this kind of thing going on around here.


I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not
normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor
should provide only a small data point and nothing more.
I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about
sustainable development either.

Have you looked?

Very extensively.

Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but what
there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !


I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all
solutions which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go.
You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines what
we have to accept.
Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it. This
is the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem then comes
that the good and useful things are ignored along with the worthless.
Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of
silly town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other things
too.

Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people is it?

I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different
authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them in
different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the details,
but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them, or
occasionally taking the **** out them.


Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of
consumption; forget it.
I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than by
GDP, or Contraction and Convergence either ?
Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way.
Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you
regard as good outcomes though.
Freedom of choice for the individual.
Only that ?

No, but I think it's the most important,

Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most important
issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized human population
can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom of choice can deliver
that.


provided that the requirements for the outcomes

Which requirements ?

Which [other] outcomes ?


are met in one way or another.

Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't
being at the moment !

If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?


Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that
provided that the outcome is achieved, the method, in terms
of who does the work is irrelevant.
Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased.
As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant.
From your perspective perhaps.
I'm the customer.....
But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and not
all stakeholders are customers.
Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not
suppliers.
I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder.

??

Customers are not the only stake holders.

The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives are
changed as a consequence of our actions. You might want to consider
mitigating your environmental impacts for their benefit.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-17 13:13:27 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-16 22:45:01 +0000, John Beardmore
said:

In message , Andy Hall
writes

So would I. It should be based on these principles:
- short, medium and long term recognising that if the short term
isn't done properly, there will be no long term
Good...

- staffing levels to match the level of business. This inevitably
means hiring people when business is good and letting them go when
it's not.
Or at least redeploying them.
Only provided that the positions to which they are redeployed are
viable and are beneficial to the business.
The what ?

The business.

Which it isn't.


If not, then they have to go.
Well yes ultimately.

Sooner rather than later.

The Micawber principle seldom works.

I think there is an issue here. The notion of 'unconditional jobs for
life' has rightly gone, but if you are going to employ people on short
term contracts or otherwise with little security, they are going to want
to be paid more. In extremis, this takes you back to employing
consultants.


Though again, this assumes that LAs are a business.
They should operate on business principles but don't. Probably
because they don't know how to do so.
Again, this assumes that they are businesses.

Operating on business principles ensures the best return on investment
for the capital employed.

Operating on environmental principles ensures that there will continue
to be a habitat in which business can be done.


Since council tax payers are funding all of this, they are entitled
to the best return.

They are entitled to a fair return. As are council staff for their
effort.

I'm not sure that council staff should be exploited by rate payers any
more than staff should exploit their position.


That means the minimum cost to achieve the objectives required.

That's fine as long as the objectives include things like reasonable
terms and conditions of employment.


Seems to me that the number of bins needing to be emptied will be
the same in good times and bad, even if the volume of waste falls.
True. However, if one company does not do a good job and loses
customers, its market share will decline. If that isn't corrected,
the consequences are obvious.
Yes - we mover back to a single provider solution and will have
wasted a huge amount of effort implementing your scheme.

Nope. N-1 does not equal 1 unless N was 2 beforehand.

Indeed, but it is possible to decrement more than once. Or did you plan
some intervention when n=2 ?

If so, what of market forces ?


Do you think we need less government during an economic down turn
? If so, why ?
Absolutely. We always need less government.
But not particularly in an economic downturn then.

That's especially when it is needed. Reduction of the tax burden is
one of the best ways to stimulate an economy.

If as much work needs doing, it should take as many staff unless you
plan to start exploiting people ?


That means reducing public sector costs. The most effective way of
doing that is to reduce head count.

That's fine as long as the population served is willing to accept lower
levels of service.


This is even more true during an economic downturn because effort
should be directed towards making money for the economy rather than
spending it.
But the bins still need to be emptied.

Of course. However, this does not require public sector involvement.

Nor private I guess.

It remains to be decided, and there has to be good reason for change.


- quarterly profits are important as are half year and annual
ones. The occasional shortfall is allowable, but continued
failure should result in change of management.
But while LAs should be efficient, they should not be about making
a profit.
It is possible for an organisation to run on business principles
and for profit to be engineered to zero.
I'm not suggesting that it be "engineered to zero", but that it
"should not be about making a profit".

Therein lies the rub. If the mentality is that there will always be
more funding to cover the incompetences and wastage, then there is
never an incentive for improvement.

Well there is, because unspent funds can always be used for additional
projects.

Despite your jaundiced views, there are no brownie points for public
sector overspend.


Unless the tools of carrot and stick are available, that doesn't
happen. Every organisation should be run on this basis - extras for
over-performance, dismissal for persistent under-performance. It's
perfectly simple to run an operation on a profit basis and reinvest the
profits or to distribute as a staff incentive.

Yes - it is, but that doesn't mean that it's the only way "an
operation" can be run.


There is, however, nothing wrong with making a profit.
Nothing wrong with delivering a service as your primary objective
either.

Only provided that people want to buy what you have to sell and accept
the price to be reasonable.

Yes, though I expect that when clean water, sewers, municipal waste
disposal and other services were put in place, there were plenty of
people who would have thought that the price was unreasonable.

I'm not especially sure that the public will always make good decisions
on this sort of infrastructure, or that the private sector make great
custodians. It seems to me that both public and private sector can make
an utter balls of it.


- cost should always be minimised while keeping the level of
service that the customer is willing to buy.
Broadly.

This does not mean minimal provision or minimal environmental
standards.
Well, unfettered capitalism would probably opt to provide the
thing that providers can make most profit out of, and ignore the
environment utterly.
Nobody said anything about unfettered capitalism other than you.
Nor have all your assertions about capitalism and markets specified
any particular fetters.

They have all the way along. Several times I have said that the
service products offered would have to achieve a minimum level but that
providers may wish to offer more for a higher price.

Yes - you have said that, but you can't guarantee that multiple
competing providers won't in aggregate have a greater environmental
impact than the current single provider, and clearly it's not something
that the market, or those that would have a market care much about.

Even if a few providers offer better 'environmental' performance, it
seems highly unlikely that this will amount to much more than removing
dog muck and chewing gum - nothing that will undo the damage caused by
running multiple vehicle fleets, never mind anything significant and new
that in aggregate can better the current situation.


I am not aware of any significant environmental progress that has
not been driven by legislation. Are you ?
This isn't particularly relevant to the subject.
Nor does the whole discussion have much to do with "Siting of panels
for solar water heating".
But my point stands - unfettered capitalism takes pretty much no
account of global commons and environmental performance.

Nobody proposed unfettered capitalism.

If the market is free to make the present situation worse, I suggest it
is not fettered enough !

By only complying with minimum standards, you don't do anything to
improve the environmental performance, and very probably make it much
worse.

By leaving it to the market, you offer people a bunch of solutions, the
selection of any of which are unlikely to achieve more than the
reduction of new environmental harm.


Minimum standards of safety, health and environmental legislation
have been imposed, which on the whole, industry has not wanted, and
there is little reason to expect much more than minimum levels of
compliance from industry, if indeed that.

It's quite possible to set the standards required by legislation.

Indeed - and despite, your not liking it, the market and the bluntness
of legislative instruments, this is having some benefit.


If those aren't adequate, then the requirements can be altered to
take account of that.

Yes - though I'm trying to suggest that, given how marginal the
benefits of introducing more actors to this market, you alter your
scheme to only go ahead if the life cycle impact will be lower then the
present mechanism.


Customers should be able to buy the service appropriate to them
and for the best price.
In many situations, yes.
In almost all situations unless there is a very good reason why
not. Waste collection isn't one of them.
But protection of the environment is.

No it isn't.

Well - I don't agree with you, and fortunately, not do the EU
directives.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore
said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen
said:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a
line,
but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-)
The
competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according
to
inclination, ability and legislation.
surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to
with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one
example.
Precisely....
I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.
You are missing the points...
Idleness and pride ?

Delegation.

But at what environmental cost ?


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore
That has yet to be determined......let see Sierra group does legal action to
save the wetlands on the Mississppi.
Targets levees to save the planet with responsible action.....pockets half
the money with little shown on wetlands recovery money.
Levees are delayed and in some cases downgraded.......then Kitrina hits and
nobody remembers the actions that screwed the levee system.

Sierra club and Greenpeace decide to save the forest preserves........sues
over debrushing and much of anything that is forest management.
Pockets half the money and has little to show on wilderness or any other
forest restoration money.
Under growth sparks some of the biggest fires in US forestry history
..Estimates are, it will take 50yrs to thin underbrush and dead wood to safe
levels.
And nobody remembers why the forest were not managed.

Malaria outbreak in 40's kills millions in Africa Then DDT virtually killed
off malaria in Africa by 1948.......Sierra and similar groups to the recue
with pressure to ban DDT.
53million Africans die from malaria before someone notices that DDT did not
have the effects it was thought to have.
Sierra and similar groups has that covered as well and blames global warming
for the outbreak. Before anybody notices they had it banned.

One writes books on the well intended screw ups, complete with hand wringing
and death predictions.
And to date,none of the predictions have come as fore told.But you aren't
supposed to notice that
,because there is a new hand wringer out there to absorb your interest and
cover past mistakes.

Indeed one should look at the environment cost.....and maybe ask some
accountabilitys for ones action as well.






----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
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On 2006-12-28 00:27:24 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:19:29 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Or time.
But I think there are some things like eating and going to the toilet
that we seldom depute to others.
Really? Letting the government run services is exactly doing that
i.e. letting others wipe our arses.
Sorting your own waste takes the process under your control.

I can have control by paying somebody else to do the work

But it's hard to see how that can be done without increasing the
environmental footprint.

Perfectly simple. "Environmental footprint" is a nebulous term.
If this is something that makes the difference between recycling being
done or not being done, then (assuming that the recycling was worth
doing in the first place), the environmental footprint will have been
reduced.




The trouble is that the government always uses Bronco sheets and tells
us that it's Andrex.
N/A in this case.

Very applicable.

Mere diversionary word games.

Depends on whether you are happy with Bronco. You introduced the
topic of botty wiping.



Maybe sorting our own waste might be seen in that light.
If we are stupid enough to buy into that notion
If it gives the lowest environmental impact, it may not be 'stupid'
but 'responsible'.

That's pseudo-moral-highground-

Well - it wasn't about that, but why do you think you feel that way ?

I don't think how I feel, I know how I feel.



not impressed.

I don't care if you're impressed. I care if you are living with a
reasonable environmental footprint.

I am. However, it has to be consistent with all other activities.



I care far more however, if by imposing a market on those who don't
really care, you manage to increase the environmental footprint of
thousands of people.

You can't *impose* a market. The whole point is that it's a free
choice, which is not what we have today. The imposition is the status
quo.

On 2006-12-29 01:47:04 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

- staffing levels to match the level of business. This inevitably
means hiring people when business is good and letting them go when it's
not.
Or at least redeploying them.
Only provided that the positions to which they are redeployed are
viable and are beneficial to the business.
The what ?

The business.

Which it isn't.

Of course it is. It should be run on exactly the principles of a
business, but with the target of not making dividends for the
shareholders. Any surplus goes back into investment.




If not, then they have to go.
Well yes ultimately.

Sooner rather than later.

The Micawber principle seldom works.

I think there is an issue here. The notion of 'unconditional jobs for
life' has rightly gone, but if you are going to employ people on short
term contracts or otherwise with little security, they are going to
want to be paid more. In extremis, this takes you back to employing
consultants.

Nobody said anything about short term contracts. Pay is what the
customers and the market will support.

The difference here is that the supplier delivers a service to the
customer for a period of time. It would be reasonable for the
customer to be expected to sign up for an agreement for a minimum
period of time as they are with other utilities and services. In the
same way, if they are willing to sign up for longer, then they get a
better price. If the supplier doesn't perform, the customer has the
choice to go elsewhere, not to pay and ultimately to take legal action
against the supplier.

Contrast this with the current situation where the customer pays
anyway, the service is what the supplier deems to give and there is no
redress.




Though again, this assumes that LAs are a business.
They should operate on business principles but don't. Probably
because they don't know how to do so.
Again, this assumes that they are businesses.

Operating on business principles ensures the best return on investment
for the capital employed.

Operating on environmental principles ensures that there will continue
to be a habitat in which business can be done.

So a chicken and egg situation. It's perfectly possible for both
objectives to be met. However, this will be achieved, and more
quickly, by incentivising the business community, not by
environmentalists attempting to force the issue.




Since council tax payers are funding all of this, they are entitled
to the best return.

They are entitled to a fair return.

As customers they are entitled to the best return


As are council staff for their effort.

I'm not sure that council staff should be exploited by rate payers any
more than staff should exploit their position.

Nobody is talking about exploitation.




That means the minimum cost to achieve the objectives required.

That's fine as long as the objectives include things like reasonable
terms and conditions of employment.

People are free to work for an employer or not. If the conditions are
not reasonable, the employer will not be able to recruit staff.



Seems to me that the number of bins needing to be emptied will be the
same in good times and bad, even if the volume of waste falls.
True. However, if one company does not do a good job and loses
customers, its market share will decline. If that isn't corrected, the
consequences are obvious.
Yes - we mover back to a single provider solution and will have
wasted a huge amount of effort implementing your scheme.

Nope. N-1 does not equal 1 unless N was 2 beforehand.

Indeed, but it is possible to decrement more than once. Or did you
plan some intervention when n=2 ?

If so, what of market forces ?

No intervention required. People will always produce rubbish, so the
case doesn't arise.




Do you think we need less government during an economic down turn ? If
so, why ?
Absolutely. We always need less government.
But not particularly in an economic downturn then.

That's especially when it is needed. Reduction of the tax burden is
one of the best ways to stimulate an economy.

If as much work needs doing, it should take as many staff unless you
plan to start exploiting people ?

Nobody raised the subject of exploitation apart from you. It is not
the case that work amount X requires a head count of Y - for example if
not all of X was actually required in the first place.



That means reducing public sector costs. The most effective way of
doing that is to reduce head count.

That's fine as long as the population served is willing to accept lower
levels of service.

No. Reduction of headcount does not imply reduction of service.
Unnecessary work that does not affect outcome can be removed.



This is even more true during an economic downturn because effort
should be directed towards making money for the economy rather than
spending it.
But the bins still need to be emptied.

Of course. However, this does not require public sector involvement.

Nor private I guess.

It remains to be decided, and there has to be good reason for change.

Provision of customer choice is a reason for change.




- quarterly profits are important as are half year and annual ones. The
occasional shortfall is allowable, but continued failure should
result in change of management.
But while LAs should be efficient, they should not be about making a profit.
It is possible for an organisation to run on business principles and
for profit to be engineered to zero.
I'm not suggesting that it be "engineered to zero", but that it
"should not be about making a profit".

Therein lies the rub. If the mentality is that there will always be
more funding to cover the incompetences and wastage, then there is
never an incentive for improvement.

Well there is, because unspent funds can always be used for additional
projects.

... and to cover incompetence.


Despite your jaundiced views, there are no brownie points for public
sector overspend.

My views aren't jaundiced, just realistic.



Unless the tools of carrot and stick are available, that doesn't
happen. Every organisation should be run on this basis - extras for
over-performance, dismissal for persistent under-performance. It's
perfectly simple to run an operation on a profit basis and reinvest the
profits or to distribute as a staff incentive.

Yes - it is, but that doesn't mean that it's the only way "an
operation" can be run.

It's the only way to run one properly. If there are no carrots and
sticks, the donkey becomes lazy.




There is, however, nothing wrong with making a profit.
Nothing wrong with delivering a service as your primary objective either.

Only provided that people want to buy what you have to sell and accept
the price to be reasonable.

Yes, though I expect that when clean water, sewers, municipal waste
disposal and other services were put in place, there were plenty of
people who would have thought that the price was unreasonable.

I'm not especially sure that the public will always make good decisions
on this sort of infrastructure, or that the private sector make great
custodians. It seems to me that both public and private sector can
make an utter balls of it.

Undoubtedly. At least when there is proper accountability, complete
with sackings for incompetence, the issues can be addressed.



- cost should always be minimised while keeping the level of service
that the customer is willing to buy.
Broadly.

This does not mean minimal provision or minimal environmental standards.
Well, unfettered capitalism would probably opt to provide the thing
that providers can make most profit out of, and ignore the environment
utterly.
Nobody said anything about unfettered capitalism other than you.
Nor have all your assertions about capitalism and markets specified
any particular fetters.

They have all the way along. Several times I have said that the
service products offered would have to achieve a minimum level but that
providers may wish to offer more for a higher price.

Yes - you have said that, but you can't guarantee that multiple
competing providers won't in aggregate have a greater environmental
impact than the current single provider, and clearly it's not something
that the market, or those that would have a market care much about.

You're taking too narrow a view. Assuming that recycling is worth
doing in the first place (which in some aspects seems to be
questionable), matching the services offered to the customers' needs
will result in more of it happening. Those who want to DIY it can,
those who wish to outsource it to the supplier can as well.


Even if a few providers offer better 'environmental' performance, it
seems highly unlikely that this will amount to much more than removing
dog muck and chewing gum - nothing that will undo the damage caused by
running multiple vehicle fleets, never mind anything significant and
new that in aggregate can better the current situation.

That depends on what you are measuring. Use of smaller vehicles is
one possibility; another is whether the recycling exercise is worth the
effort and impact.



I am not aware of any significant environmental progress that has not
been driven by legislation. Are you ?
This isn't particularly relevant to the subject.
Nor does the whole discussion have much to do with "Siting of panels
for solar water heating".
But my point stands - unfettered capitalism takes pretty much no
account of global commons and environmental performance.

Nobody proposed unfettered capitalism.

If the market is free to make the present situation worse, I suggest it
is not fettered enough !

It depends on what you are measuring to define better and worse.



By only complying with minimum standards, you don't do anything to
improve the environmental performance, and very probably make it much
worse.

Nonsense. That is simply a matter of defining what the minimum
standards are. It's perfectly possible to adjust them over time as
well.


By leaving it to the market, you offer people a bunch of solutions, the
selection of any of which are unlikely to achieve more than the
reduction of new environmental harm.

Reduction of environmental harm is one of the objectives.




Minimum standards of safety, health and environmental legislation have
been imposed, which on the whole, industry has not wanted, and there is
little reason to expect much more than minimum levels of compliance
from industry, if indeed that.

It's quite possible to set the standards required by legislation.

Indeed - and despite, your not liking it, the market and the bluntness
of legislative instruments, this is having some benefit.

Questionable. Imposition is a poor substitute for incentive




If those aren't adequate, then the requirements can be altered to
take account of that.

Yes - though I'm trying to suggest that, given how marginal the
benefits of introducing more actors to this market, you alter your
scheme to only go ahead if the life cycle impact will be lower then the
present mechanism.

Sigh.... it's called freedom of choice. The whole point is to match
the service to the customer in order to improve outcome rather than
trying to bang square pegs into round holes.



Customers should be able to buy the service appropriate to them and
for the best price.
In many situations, yes.
In almost all situations unless there is a very good reason why not.
Waste collection isn't one of them.
But protection of the environment is.

No it isn't.

Well - I don't agree with you, and fortunately, not do the EU directives.

Those can be changed, applied in different ways or ignored.

On 2006-12-28 16:05:19 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen
said:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a line,
but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The
competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to
inclination, ability and legislation.
surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to
with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one
example.
Precisely....
I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.
You are missing the points...
Idleness and pride ?

Delegation.

But at what environmental cost ?


The difference between something happening or not. If services were
available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be
willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the
recyling won't happen.
The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the
first place. If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well,
then there should be no issue.

On 2006-12-29 01:27:46 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU at
work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time, effort
and money that goes on there.

I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we
face is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work
with the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to
getting something right.

It would be if they were. It's cloud cuckoo land to believe that is the case.



There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself.
already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum offering
to meet minimum requirements.
Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'.

Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the minimum
or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing are at
liberty to do so.

Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.

Yes it does if it makes the difference to objectives being met or not.
Your assumption is that everybody has to be forced into sorting their
own rubbish for that to happen. I don't accept that principle, simple
as that.




and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most dangerous
situation of all.
No wonder with you breathing down their necks !
Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing what
they should be doing.
Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you and
your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA agree on
what they should be doing. You may be breathing down their necks just
because they doing what the law dictates.

I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in firms
of management consultants to do the work that their own staff should be
doing. One or the other should be dispensed with.

Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify, but
I don't see this kind of thing going on around here.

Have you looked?



I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not
normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor should
provide only a small data point and nothing more.
I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about
sustainable development either.

Have you looked?

Very extensively.

Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but what
there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !

have you asked why or thought about it? Could matching services to
customer requirements have anything to do with it, or incentivising
businesses?





I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all solutions
which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go.
You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines what we
have to accept.
Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it. This is
the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem then comes that
the good and useful things are ignored along with the worthless.
Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of silly
town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other things too.

Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people is it?

I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different
authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them
in different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the
details, but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them,
or occasionally taking the **** out them.

I don't see them as benevolently. They are a huge drain on financial
resources with a poor ROI. Apart from a few professional services
such as building control, which does have value, they behave
arbitrarily and do not provide what their customers want. What is even
worse is that they largely don't realise it.




Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of
consumption; forget it.
I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than by GDP,
or Contraction and Convergence either ?
Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way.
Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you regard
as good outcomes though.
Freedom of choice for the individual.
Only that ?

No, but I think it's the most important,

Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most important
issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized human
population can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom of choice
can deliver that.

Ultimately, freedom of choice is what does happen. What happens in
addition are financial and other implications. Unnatural
restriction doesn't work because if people feel it's unreasonable, they
will find a way around it.




are met in one way or another.

Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't
being at the moment !

If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?

As I've said, it depends on what you measure.




Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that provided that
the outcome is achieved, the method, in terms of who does the work is
irrelevant.
Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased.
As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant.
From your perspective perhaps.
I'm the customer.....
But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and not all
stakeholders are customers.
Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not suppliers.
I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder.

??

Customers are not the only stake holders.

They are, however, the main ones. Without them, the others are not
significant because there is nothing to discuss.



The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives are
changed as a consequence of our actions.

Too nebulous.


You might want to consider mitigating your environmental impacts for
their benefit.


I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue. I would
prefer to pay for services
that match my requirements better and produce a better outcome as well.

In message , Arnold Walker
writes
"John Beardmore" wrote in message
...
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen
said:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to draw a
line,
but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-)
The
competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according
to
inclination, ability and legislation.
surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to
with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one
example.
Precisely....
I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.
You are missing the points...
Idleness and pride ?

Delegation.

But at what environmental cost ?

That has yet to be determined......

I think it's pretty clear that sorting your own domestic waste at source
always has a lower environmental impact than sorting it after further
mixing.

If you can think of any circumstance where this would be wrong, I'd
certainly be interested. Please share.


let see Sierra group does legal action to
save the wetlands on the Mississppi.
Targets levees to save the planet with responsible action.....pockets half
the money with little shown on wetlands recovery money.
Levees are delayed and in some cases downgraded.......then Kitrina hits and
nobody remembers the actions that screwed the levee system.

Sierra club and Greenpeace decide to save the forest preserves........sues
over debrushing and much of anything that is forest management.
Pockets half the money and has little to show on wilderness or any other
forest restoration money.
Under growth sparks some of the biggest fires in US forestry history
.Estimates are, it will take 50yrs to thin underbrush and dead wood to safe
levels.
And nobody remembers why the forest were not managed.

Malaria outbreak in 40's kills millions in Africa Then DDT virtually killed
off malaria in Africa by 1948.......Sierra and similar groups to the recue
with pressure to ban DDT.
53million Africans die from malaria before someone notices that DDT did not
have the effects it was thought to have.
Sierra and similar groups has that covered as well and blames global warming
for the outbreak. Before anybody notices they had it banned.

One writes books on the well intended screw ups, complete with hand wringing
and death predictions.
And to date,none of the predictions have come as fore told.But you aren't
supposed to notice that
,because there is a new hand wringer out there to absorb your interest and
cover past mistakes.

Seems to me though, that many of the environment movements views have
been broadly correct, and as it is increasingly a science led, evidence
based discipline, as opposed to an activist led, sentiment motivated
protest movement, it is certainly evolving, and I think improving, all
the time. There is an interesting tension between the science and
activism camps though.

I know nothing of the Sierra club and regard Greenpeace with some
suspicion, but it seems to me that the arguments against using DDT had
some merit - the error was perhaps in simply giving up, rather than
finding better ways to use it in conjunction with other compounds.

But either way, none of this has much to do with UK waste. Did you have
any specific examples that illustrate that sorting your own domestic
waste at source has a higher environmental impact than sorting it after
further mixing, or bringing people in to do it ?


Indeed one should look at the environment cost.....and maybe ask some
accountabilitys for ones action as well.

Well yes - that's what I had in mind !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-28 16:05:19 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-18 02:38:05 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall
writes
On 2006-12-04 13:06:00 +0000, David Hansen
said:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:22:26 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

Perhaps like most things we're not looking for the place to
draw a line,
but rather painting subtle shades of grey across a wide area :-) The
competent and concerned get to do more, the rest follow according to
inclination, ability and legislation.
surelt the competent have far more useful and important things to
with their time, like try to crack technological problems for one
example.
Precisely....
I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.
You are missing the points...
Idleness and pride ?
Delegation.
But at what environmental cost ?

The difference between something happening or not. If services were
available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be
willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the
recyling won't happen.

OK, but this is your personal position. A lot of other people see the
value in recycling and are willing to make some minimum level of
personal sacrifice to organise things so that it's quick and easy to do.


The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the
first place.

Well - we've done that one to death, but in general it seems likely
that it is. You won't get a much higher standard of evidence than that
unless you want to dedicate your life to data collection so that you can
do rigorous LCA.


If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well, then there
should be no issue.

Assuming it is left to the consumer to choose, any more than it's left
to drivers to pick speed limits.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

On 2007-01-04 09:55:06 +0000, John Beardmore said:


But at what environmental cost ?

The difference between something happening or not. If services were
available to sort and deal with recycling, as I've said I would be
willing to consider them, even at extra cost. When they are not, the
recyling won't happen.

OK, but this is your personal position. A lot of other people see the
value in recycling and are willing to make some minimum level of
personal sacrifice to organise things so that it's quick and easy to do.

That's fine then. They can have their personal choice provided that
they are willing to allow me to have mine.



The real question is then whether the recycling was worth doing in the
first place.

Well - we've done that one to death, but in general it seems likely
that it is.

I don't find the evidence at all compelling in a lot of cases. There
are just too many examples of stupid things being done just in order to
meet artificial targets or for political correctness. This is where
the environmentalists to the whole thing a disservice. There is far
more about positioning and marketing than there is about honest science.

You won't get a much higher standard of evidence than that unless you
want to dedicate your life to data collection so that you can do
rigorous LCA.

I'll let you do that since you claim to be qualified in that area.



If it is, and the customer is willing to pay as well, then there
should be no issue.

Assuming it is left to the consumer to choose, any more than it's left
to drivers to pick speed limits.


Ultimately, the consumer will always choose.....

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-29 01:27:46 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
Have you actually been to Brussels and seen the machinery of the EU
at work? It made me physically sick to see the waste of time,
effort and money that goes on there.
I don't doubt it, but if dealing with the environmental problems we
face is any kind of a priority, and some of us think it is, we'll work
with the institutions we have thanks - especially when they seem to
getting something right.

It would be if they were. It's cloud cuckoo land to believe that is the case.

I'll take notice of that opinion when you show any evidence of having
done any environmental work with any institutions.

In the mean time we are back to allegation and assertion.


There is nothing wrong with unconditional choice in and of itself.
already said that each supplier would have to have a minimum
offering to meet minimum requirements.
Yes - the key word here is 'minimum'.
Again, those who would like to buy services over and above the
minimum or go sorting through rubbish as a Sunday afternoon outing
are at liberty to do so.
Indeed - but this hardly protects global commons.

Yes it does if it makes the difference to objectives being met or not.

Which objectives ?


Your assumption is that everybody has to be forced into sorting their
own rubbish for that to happen.

There are many ways global commons can be protected, and our dependence
on them is clear enough - there is a point to all this.

Sorting waste is only part of the issue. It might be possible to live
sustainably without sorting waste at source, but if sorting it elsewhere
has greater impacts, it's unlikely to be an efficient way to be
sustainable.


I don't accept that principle, simple as that.

We guessed that I think. Does that make you right ?


and are unwilling to admit to mistakes. That's the most
dangerous situation of all.
No wonder with you breathing down their necks !
Nobody breathes down anyone's neck provided that they are doing
what they should be doing.
Maybe. Without knowing the history of the interaction between you
and your LA it's hard to know. Though I doubt you and your LA
agree on what they should be doing. You may be breathing down
their necks just because they doing what the law dictates.
I am sure that the law doesn't dictate that they need to bring in
firms of management consultants to do the work that their own staff
should be doing. One or the other should be dispensed with.
Well - I can't comment on the particular situations you identify,
but I don't see this kind of thing going on around here.

Have you looked?

I don't look for problems so much as ways forward.

Maybe you go looking for trouble and find it ?


I'm simply making the point that ivory tower academics are not
normally in very good touch with economic reality and therefor
should provide only a small data point and nothing more.
I'm not at all sure that industry demonstrates any clue about
sustainable development either.
Have you looked?
Very extensively.
Which isn't to say that no progress has been made of course - but
what there is, is massively short of achieving sustainability !

have you asked why or thought about it? Could matching services to
customer requirements

Which requirements ?

To live sustainably ?

To shovel waste for the lowest price ?


have anything to do with it, or incentivising businesses?

You mean have massive government intervention to bend the financial
structure of the universe away from capitalist excess towards something
else ?


I am simply not going to accept that one-size-fits-all
solutions which assume that I take a specified role are the way to go.
You may not like them, but legislation ultimately determines
what we have to accept.
Unless legislation is changed or people choose to ignore it.
This is the ultimate result of over regulation and the problem
then comes that the good and useful things are ignored along with

Yes - a lot of truth in that - which is probably why a lot of
silly town hall waste interpretations are ignored - but other
things too.
Hardly a situation in which to encourage co-operation from people
is it?
I don't know. Lines have to be drawn somewhere, and different
authorities and individuals will see various benefits to drawing them
in different places. I don't agree with our LA on a lot of the
details, but it doesn't stop me co-operating with them, advising them,
or occasionally taking the **** out them.

I don't see them as benevolently. They are a huge drain on financial
resources with a poor ROI.

Well - much of that is open to debate I think.


Apart from a few professional services such as building control,
which does have value, they behave arbitrarily

Perhaps in part because they are led by political whim.


and do not provide what their customers want.

They are not there to provide what customers want. If you think they
should be, you have to address bigger issues !


What is even worse is that they largely don't realise it.

I'm sure they are very well aware of what their duties actually are, and
that many people don't get they want.

But people can't always have what they want. Or do you think they
can ? Discuss...


Before you make the next suggestion of altering patterns of
consumption; forget it.
I don't suppose you big fan of measuring progress other than
by GDP, or Contraction and Convergence either ?
Clearly defined measurements and outcomes are the key way.
Yes - it's a question of which indicators and what changes you
regard as good outcomes though.
Freedom of choice for the individual.
Only that ?
No, but I think it's the most important,
Hmmm... I'm inclined to feel that in the long term, the most
important issue is still having a planet where a reasonably sized
human population can survive, and I doubt that unrestricted freedom
of choice can deliver that.

Ultimately, freedom of choice is what does happen.

! Whose choice ???


What happens in addition are financial and other implications.
Unnatural restriction doesn't work because if people feel it's
unreasonable, they will find a way around it.

Hmmm... I think on careful inspection, you'll find that most peoples
are repressed in various respects.

Or maybe we should be debate which restrictions are 'natural' or maybe
even which boundary conditions are 'imposed by nature'.


are met in one way or another.
Well - if you had in mind good environmental outcomes, they aren't
being at the moment !
If you didn't have them in mind, why not ?

As I've said, it depends on what you measure.

Well - which environmental outcomes do you measure ?


Therefore, I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that
provided that the outcome is achieved, the method, in
terms of who does the work is irrelevant.
Not if the total effort required to do the job is increased.
As long as the cost is covered, it's irrelevant.
From your perspective perhaps.
I'm the customer.....
But not the only customer, not the only type of customer, and
not all stakeholders are customers.
Stakeholders are at liberty to become customers if they are not
suppliers.
I had in mind more that the EU is a significant stakeholder.
??
Customers are not the only stake holders.

They are, however, the main ones.

Well - not always in any particularly direct way. This isn't Tescos -
this is government we are talking about, and maybe you should think
'citizens with duties to each other' rather than 'customers with a right
to purchase'.

Don't confuse your aspirations with reality !!


Without them, the others are not significant because there is
nothing to discuss.

Who ? Citizens or customers ?

All the worlds a shop where all the men and women are merely economic
units ?

I think there's more to it than that !


The full set of stake holders includes all the people whose lives
are changed as a consequence of our actions.

Too nebulous.

Too bad...


You might want to consider mitigating your environmental impacts for
their benefit.

I do already by paying for services to deal with the issue.

That may be quite sub optimal however, and in this specific case I
thought you stated that you were refusing to separate your rubbish ?

If so, it's a bit disingenuous to say "I do already by paying for
services to deal with the issue", as clearly it isn't a service that's
intended to be provided out of the tax you pay.

If you want to change this, the usual democratic channels are open to
you.


I would prefer to pay for services
that match my requirements better and produce a better outcome as well.

Wanting to pay for an environmentally better service doesn't stop
entropy precluding it.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore