The steepest hill, using a direct path, between 2,000 and 2,500 feet from road to summit!

Two weeks ago I visited the lovely Carrifran Wildwood to park in order to visit the summit of Carrifran Gans, the Donald summit high above the wood.  I had an enjoyable walk round the wood because two of your volunteers that I asked, thought that there might be a route direct from the car park, as I also wrongly thought.  Eventually, I found the correct route that starts away from your wood, by a cattle grid.  I had an enjoyable walk but more of a climb, in fact, to the summit cairn because it must be the steepest major hill in Scotland because the summit is so near to a road.  You climb 565 m in 2 Kms of horizontal distance.  Therefore, 28% average steepness from road to cairn, with slopes of 60-80%.  On the descent, it was the nearest thing I've got to via ferrata, with my hanging on to the barbed wire free but, metal fence, on my left.

Perhaps, when you next replace the map, you might consider showing the starting point for the path to Carrifran Gans because more hill walkers, once they have visited Munros and Corbett summits, start on the Donald and Graham summits - like me.  And your hidden away tiny car park is the best place to park!  In fact, most walkers would visit it from White Coomb and return via White Coomb.

Twelve months ago I found your woodland planting scheme at Dryhopehope, 3 Kms north of St Mary's Loch and above the Kirkstead Burn.  I was told it is on the Philip Hawk Estate but the Borders Forest Trust did the actual planting.  Is that correct?  Near the Conservation Project I collected about twenty plastic tree guards and put them in a neat pile.  It was impossible to take them away for proper disposal because I was on a mountain bike with no pannier rack to tie them to.  The wind soon blew them away, of course.  But, do you have a policy of going back to collect the plastic guards after the tree has burst them off as it has grown?  Or, have you tried the new square cardboard guards that I have seen on a new Severn Trent Water wood on Romsley Hill in the West Midlands?  Are they suitable, have you found?

Innovation Agri-Tech Gp doing vertical farming

The feature highlighted the fact that we use significantly less water than tradition agriculture by using our closed-loop, aeroponic irrigation system. 

Lindsey Kinghorn reporting for the BBC explained, "Here you've got Basil and honestly the smell of it is just like something you would find in the garden at home."

Rev Giles Fraser believes in violence

3 August 2009

Always violence, aggression and slaughter for one millennium and still going strong!

The often shameful British history that was the responsibility of our politicians and people of past generations:-

Giving Afghans and Iraqis the vote every few years is just not worth all the slaughter.  It is called bringing democracy down the barrel of a gun; just like we condemned the Communists for spreading revolution down the barrel of a gun - we are no better!  In fact, down the years, the white nations have killed many more black people than they of us.  We whites are so hypocritical and racist!

 

It was the Christian, white nations and not the Muslim, black nations who developed and first used chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.  We were responsible for the 1st WW and its sequel, the 2nd WW.  In fact, we had the Arabs, united to the last man under our army hero, T E Lawrence fighting with us in the 1st WW - only for Lawrence and the Arabs to be let down later!

 

In a recent thirty year period, in one corner of our country, we had a civil war between two branches of the UK and two branches of the Christian Church that resulted in many more Irish republicans killed than they managed to kill of our own Irish monarchists who were loyal to the Queen.  Figures from the BBC website.  Bloody Sunday is only one most disgraceful and shameful episode in the history of the heroic British Army.

 

I have just seen in the 'Church Times' that one leading Christian vicar is arguing in print and, this morning, on BBC Radio 4 that the US/UK/NATO must continue the warfare in and on Afghanistan.  The vicar is the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, Vicar of Putney in London.

 

Giles Fraser agrees with the War of Terrorism on the good people of Afghanistan.  I know it is directed at the Taliban and al Qaeda but, as usual in modern warfare, the people of non-violence get injured and killed in much greater numbers than the wicked Taliban and al Qaeda that our men of violence are trying to eliminate for ever.  Does this really satisfy Giles' Church of England's just war teaching?

David Dimbleby on 'Question Time' last month, said that al Qaeda is to be found in fourteen countries.  Does Giles seriously think that even if we were to defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan, that they would no longer exist in the other thirteen?

Does Giles not know that our current war in Afghanistan is the fourth?  We lost the first three, just like the Russians did more recently in their fewer wars in that country.  We are certainly not winning this current war, even after eight years of desperately trying and we are told it is going to last for decades!

JUNE 2024 ADDITION:

Our ever so righteous, Israel/Western War of Self-Defence on defenceless Gaza (asymmetric warfare) has lasted eight months of devastation and slaughter of rather one sided murder and mayhem, famine and sheer fear.  Sadly and shamefully, so true to form for our side.  I am not proud of my nation or, the 'keep your head down', fear of being labelled anti-semitic.  It's a guilty silence.

Does Giles not suppose that if we were invaded and occupied by foreign armies, that our men and women of violence would not similarly fight back?  People of non-violence, like me, would be classed amongst the non-collaborators rather than the resistance fighters.

Does Giles not recall that our country has not been seriously invaded since 1066?  Instead, we have had one millennium of invading, occupying and exploiting many nations around the world.  Iraq and Afghanistan are simply the latest in a very long list of countries that are the victims of our many crimes of aggression down the centuries.

As a man of the cloth and a Christian believer, should Giles not be leading his flock in the way of non-violence as taught and practised by Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jnr and Donald, Lord Soper?  In my book, Giles is now a man of violence, along with too many in the church and society.

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your email, sorry I'm so late in replying, we've just moved into the flat and haven't set up an internet connection just yet.

I do agree with 95% of your piece, I think that the prospective 'democratic' regime in Afghanistan will not be worth the lives being laid down daily. Having said this, although I'm a humanitarian to the core, I do think certain circumstances are worth fighting for as a country. WW2 for example saw a global threat to not only democracy but to the survival of many groups of our human race, and I think that the lives laid down were justified and indeed honoured by the cause. Had we gone into Afghanistan to a) halt the progress of another such regime and b) set up a genuine, hopeful, well-structured democracy for the future I would be tempted into support. However, we have not done either of these things. The "war" on al Qaeda is not halting their progress, we know it, they know it. The democracy being set up is already corrupt, with Karzai the obvious choice of the USA and not the Afghan people in any way, shape or form. In these aspects I am in complete agreement with you

However, I do feel that drawing racial comparisons, however apologetic, will act to prolong the differences between the races. Undoubtedly, the white race has the more bloody history, but I feel that this is a product of circumstance rather than anything inherent in the white nature. Indeed the idea that there are seperate "natures" for black and white people, is, in essence, pulling the idea of a unified human race further asunder. How are we to know whether, had the people of Africa been blessed with the circumstances that us Western Europeans have in terms of agriculture and proximity to various resources, they would have been any less oppressive than we?
I feel the example best set for racial reconciliation is that of Nelson Mandela who, having assumed power in South Africa after (Tory-supported) apartheid, did not dwell on who should apologise to whom and who was to blame. He instead acted in such a way that seperates great men from the rest of mankind. He sought to reconcile the races, regardless of how successful he was, Mandela acted to look to the future and to ignore difference in skin colour. His dream is not of a South Africa where the whites pay for what they did, but for a South Africa where whites, blacks, those of asian descent and mixed races all have equal opportunities. This is what I feel we must dwell on as a unified human race, if we are to ever see peace,

Joe

Thanks v much for your excellent and thoughtful reply.

 

Nelson Mandela is a great man but I also like Desmond Tutu who initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission but, was it with the agreement of Mandela when he was President?

 

I think my emphasis is to point out that the richest and most powerful white nation sincerely believes it is God's gift to the rest of humanity, that it has a unique divine destiny and, is the world's policeman, judge, jury and hangman.  It was once called gunboat diplomacy (now, hard power by Blair) and has the support of the UK with our special relationship to the USA.  I am trying to correct the "we are right, you are wrong " or, the "we know best for you" mentality.  This is well intentioned but unwelcome by some in some nations.  Now Muslims/Arabs have got in on the act of coercion, warfare, aggression, terrorism.  But our side was first.  We like to point the finger but to forget that there are three fingers pointing back at us!

 

We forget about our side shooting down the Iranian airliner a few  months before they bombed our PanAm plane.  We demand justice for us but certainly not justice for Iran!  Our foreign policy is partial, hypocritical and unethical - as Robin Cook once pointed out.  I want our nation to evolve into a nation more like Norway, the nation that does the most peacemaking in the world.

 

Now, off for a cycle ride to a local beauty spot, Kinver Edge.  It is cloudy but cool and dry here.

Livestock production is responsible for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions.

Reduce your carbon footprint:

Livestock production is responsible for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the livestock sector is responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with methane being the largest contributor. A standard Western meat-based diet produces about 7.2 kg of CO₂ equivalent per day, a vegetarian diet 3.8 kg and a vegan diet 2.9 kg. If the world went vegetarian, it would save nearly 8 billion tonnes of CO₂e. This is 60% of all food emissions, which is 13.7 billion tonnes of CO₂e. As a vegetarian, you can reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to global efforts to combat climate change.

Efficient use of land and water and conservation of biodiversity:
Livestock production requires large amounts of land and water for grazing and growing feed crops. It takes about 2 to 20 hectares of land and 15,000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of beef, but only 0.01 to 0.05 hectares and 1,000 litres to produce one kilogram of wheat. According to the World Resources Institute, agriculture, including livestock, covers about 40 percent of the Earth's surface, and as a result the world has lost about 5 million hectares of forest every year since 2000. 41 percent of deforestation is for beef and 18 per cent for palm oil and soy. If the world went meatless, we wouldn't have to feed billions of animals, saving a huge amount of land and water needed to grow food. For example, soybeans are one of the most widely grown crops in the world, but nearly 80% of the world's soybeans are used to feed livestock. The expansion of agriculture, especially livestock, has led to the loss of natural habitats and a decline in biodiversity. Switching to a plant-based diet can help stop deforestation and protect biodiversity by using land and water more efficiently.

Mayoral candidate session with Midlands Connect

Once again I am standing as an Independent candidate on the 2 May to take part in hustings that are organised up to the last date for the deposit to be paid.  My deposit goes to three international humanitarian charities instead of the government when nothing is more certain than I would lose the £5,000!

On making this clear in 2021, you kindly gave me a Zoom call with Maria and two colleagues that was invaluable.  I am particularly concerned about what progress has been made over the much needed railway renaissance and the well over 100 Kms of freight only or mothballed railway lines in the Midlands that remain available to take vehicles off our congested roads.

EDF: A Total Basket Case, Weighed Down By Its £50 Billion Nuclear Turkey At Hinkley Point.

FROM JONATHON PORRITT

Which leads to the following conclusions:

1. EdF is even more screwed than it was before, deeper in debt, with further delays for rolling out its look-alike plant at Sizewell C now inevitable.
2. The Tory Government is screwed, with no chance of Hinkley Point C (let alone Sizewell C) making any serious short-term contribution to its decarbonisation strategy.
3. Labour is screwed – for exactly the same reasons.
4. The UK’s Net Zero strategy by 2050 looks less and less viable. And that will soon be tested, again, in the courts.
5. All this because of the nuclear obsessions of the UK’s entire political establishment – Labour just as much as the Tories.

Happily, there’s no need to panic: the case for the “renewables + efficiency + storage + smart grids” option just got a whole lot stronger, both economically and politically. We just need the donkeys in Whitehall to give up on their nuclear turkeys. Finally!

Bus Renaissance led by FFPT and 100% bus lanes, NOT franchising

The cost of bus franchising. If Manchester can afford it, we can afford regional FFPT for all - more radical and effective!

Many thanks, Fran.  Copied to my fellow OAPs, David Humphreys and Brian Allbut to see what they think, please David and Brian.  Our seniority counts for a thing or two!

Here in the West Mids, with our TfWM and their pensioners' transport meetings I try to attend, there does seem to be good contact, even co-operation between the TfWM officers, plus Mayor Andy Street (all in the same building) with the bus operators who welcome more money at anytime, I assume, to run bus services if they get paid from somewhere.

What kind of organisation we have - privatisation or public control - seems to be immaterial.  Far more important is money.  Some places have brought back trams under public control rather than bringing back buses under public control.  Trams are all vanity, prestigious, wealth flaunting and only replace or duplicate existing bus routes and, even worse, mainline railways in traffic choked W Mids.  TRULY SCANDALOUS misappropriation of public money!

W Midlands taxpayers take over the running of part of the national railway network by building their own empires of trams on them, would you believe!!  Great British Railways is becoming Great British Tramways run by local councils.  We are getting 150 miles, 8 lines, 380 tram stops - all for a small fortune that should go, urgently I think, for a bus renaissance led by FFPT (universal Fare-Free Public Transport) - and bus lanes.

EVEN WORSE:

Trams are the second most expensive transport mode to construct after High Scam 2 fast to stop at stations AND, are highly expensive to subsidise once actually in operation - and constructing them takes decades, literally!!  23 Kms in 42 years!  7 years for only 700 metres in Wolverhampton to connect the tram with the bus station and the railway station.  And that would not have been necessary if only the transport 'experts' had put the trains back on the train line instead of the tram.  What idio!!

SUBSIDY FOR 2022/2023

Assume 1,000 Kms of bus routes - £9.6 m in W Mids

For 23 Kms for one tramway - £7.6 m in W Mids.

For Manchester's Metrolink: 103 Kms is £39 m cost for 23/24.

This is quite disgraceful and irresponsible spending of public money and worsens the climate emergency because every £ spent = lb weight in GHG emissions (v rough rule of thumb but helpful).

To Good Energy

Very good.  However, electric cars are not the answer to all our problems.  We are all so entitled, privileged and fortunate.  We all expect to carry on forever living unnaturally on a natural planet and infinitely on a finite planet.  This is obviously absurd and unsustainable.  Therefore, we need to

• live more simply so that others may simply live - both our own descendants and poorer communities, societies and nations.
• using food fueled walking and cycling and bus and train, instead of automatically jumping in the car to get somewhere.
• wearing more instead of turning up the central heating.
• travelling less and doing things more locally and regionally.
• retrofitting, insulating, solar powering our own homes.

AND LOTS MORE!

"Eliminate" - our ally's favourite watchword. A variation of 'exterminate', 'exterminate', 'exterminate'!

How humans love to eliminate other humans - especially wayward and embattled Bibi Netanyahu who so loves to eliminate his enemies to fan the flames of hatred and so generate ever more of them to eliminate!

Protestants spent decades trying to eliminate Catholics and vice versa - failed.  The Nazis tried to eliminate the Jews and other minority groups - failed.  France followed by America, for decades, tried to eliminate Communists in SE Asia - failed.

Immoral Israel has tried for 76 years to eliminate Palestinian soldiers - failed but, is succeeding in eliminating Palestinian civilians in a rigorous but ever so righteous war of self defence - that has no end.  Many more children are murdered, by our weapons and ammunition, than soldiers!

If your country is born out of violence and has profited from unprovoked aggression, you may forever live with violence and killings. Until you learn to share the land gained by aggression and learn to live as a GOOD SAMARITAN to all your surrounding neighbours.

Eloquent, right thinking speech from Corbyn in Brum

20 January 2024

Magnificent 20 mins outdoor speech from Corbyn in Brum city centre this afternoon.  Details about the appalling horrors inflicted on children and civilians by Israel's illegal and immoral obliteration of Gazans' homes, shops and a high percentage of their buildings with the people still inside.  It is incredible that only 1% have actually died over the first 100 days of collective punishment meted out by our great friend and ally.  What is the matter with us all?  It reflects badly on our Creator who must have known what he was doing.

I think Corbyn is easily the most outstanding MP for very many years. But even he cannot talk of non-violence, that was not mentioned by any of the speakers at the rally, such is coercion, force, violence, killings entrenched in our Western/British/American culture - and for many centuries in the case of merry England and our spread of such ways to the rest of the empire!

I want those who aspire to be morally upstanding to be a shining example of non-violence.  The primary violence comes from the powerful and the oppressor, like Israel and against the weak and powerless like Palestine.

Another parallel with the Post Office Scandal

Nick Wallis

@nickwallis

·

46m

It’s basically this. It wasn’t the duff IT, duff though it was. It was idiots wielding power without training, ability, accountability or oversight.

This could be said, too of the idiots giving away two mainline railways to the W Mids Combined Authority (and its predecessors) knowing they would be part converted to tramways and, therefore, spoilt for ever.

Fraudulent claims for High Scam 2

Fraudulent claims for High Scam 2:

1. N edge of London to Manchester with some trains only diverting off into Curzon St and Crewe.
2. Otherwise, stops at Brum and Manchester airports, only.  No other stations, so all the intercity trains will have to remain!
3. Capacity, therefore is improved but mainly for plane passengers giving them more choice between flying through the air on a plane or on a train.  Why can't they stick to the plane?
4. What a colossal cost in price and in weight of greenhouse gas emissions to give high speed to climate disaster and shortages of all resources!
5. Nature gets yet more of a battering.  Not a good idea.

However, I am more active in kicking up a fuss about the £15 billion (Jan 2020 figure) to be spent on 150 miles of overground and underground tramways that is still being talked about by Andy Street and the Combined Authority.  8 lines in total and 380 tram stops are planned.  Andy was enthusing about it to Rishi Sunak, according to Rishi reporting back on 'Midlands Today' this evening.  Here are my alternatives:-

SUMMARY:

On Radio 4's, 'Across the Divide'

I heard one Jewish Israeli, on the programme, liken what they were doing​ to the Gazans, to ​what was done to Dresden​ in Feb 1945. Both were about making sure those ​"brutes​" (Germans and now Palestinians), the Other, ​"got the message"​, she said.

No realisation that Dresden was a war crime and that perhaps the indefinite collective punishment of Gazans, with a similar number slaughtered, might also be one!!

We humans find killing - of animals and humans - far too easy and popular.  Good for the arms trade and economic growth.

to John Davison

Dear John

This is a most helpful email and, as always, you are so right in what you have written.

However, it is the phenomenal expense of building tramways in Scotland and England that has taken billions of pounds in construction when that public money could have been better spent on modernising the existing railway network and bringing the Beeching closures back into use, rather than completely destroying them for buildings, roads, farmland and trams.

A brand new railway that only stops at one station, Brum Airport, between Old Oak Common and Curzon St and, costing at least £66 billion is a scandalous way to waste precious resources and to accelerate the climate emergency that is not being treated as a climate emergency at all!

For this reason, I think it is legitimate to call it High Scam 2 fast to stop at any useful station.  Is that fair enough, John?

Our taxes are being used for the wrong priorities; economic policy means economic greed from a diminishing capital resource base; and, human expansion and domination puts such a strain on life support systems that ecocide is the only correct word to describe our behaviour!

Thanks so much for writing, John.  It would be wonderful for Maggie Simpson to please write to me once more, Maggie!  I will now find her previous email and re-read it.

A Methodist view of the Israel/Palestine tragedy

The Question of Zion and the Future of Israel/Palestine by Warren R. Bardsley

At the end of November 2008, I returned from Jerusalem, where I lived for three months as a human rights observer with the World Council of Churches’Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Israel/Palestine. I was a member of a group of 24 internationals from 14 countries, serving in 6 ‘placements’ on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the Israeli Occupation of these territories (including Gaza), impinges on every aspect of the individual and communal life of the Palestinian people. It was a life-changing experience. Although I have read in the various histories and background studies of the 60–year old conflict, I felt I needed to re-visit these sources and try to understand how the children and grand-children of victims of the European Holocaust have become perpetrators of policies which effectively condemn millions of Arab Palestinians to an existence as prisoners in their own land. The basic rationale of this essay is that a proper appreciation of the present state of Israel demands a serious attempt to understand the reality of Zionism; why it appeared when it did; how it developed in the fifty-year period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of World War Two and the events which followed the founding of the state of Israel in May 1948. We will examine the psychology at work behind the Zionist project, and drawing on my recent experience attempt to show its practical consequences in the ongoing conflict and what hope exists for a different future.

https://www.methodist.org.uk/media/2594/epworth-review-warren-bardsley-0111.pdf

Only the last can be first. Only being the Bottom can you be the Top. Only giving instead of grabbing can you HAVE!

I fancy to think, God giving all of the Holy Land to only the Jews, and His Only Promised People for the Only Promised Land, is to blame for so many Holy Land Children of Abraham living in terror, one from the other two branches.  Especially, more so from 7/10/23 onwards.  The Judeao-Christian world has turned out to be the most powerful and able to impose its view on the Other - by coercion instead of constraint or fairness or equality or thinking the best of the Other.

That wonderful, and funny, and gloriously illustrated children’s story, ‘The Squirrels Who Squabbled’, is a story for our time.  Two squirrels.  One, the Jews, could be one branch of the Children of Abraham.  The Muslims are the second branch of Abraham.  The Christians, the third.

That third branch, the Judeao-Christian world has never actually followed its Founder's insistence on non-violence, only 'peace' that is forever talked about by the Powerful but it's all a sham because they actually believe in coercion, force, violence, killings and above all, a complete inability to share - anything.  Violence breeds yet more violence.  What our side did to Dresden we now do to Gaza.  To make quite sure they get the message.  An Israeli Jew who was interviewed likened the Dresden war crime to their own collective punishment of Gazans.

After a disastrous World War in two halves for the empires of the earth, we moved, last century from Pax Brittanica to Pax Americana, with the Brits wisely toeing/towing the US line, as obedient puppy dogs.  Churchill knew, at least by July 1914, that if we did not war with Germany for domination, we might well lose our precious British Empire.  But we did, anyway, even though we WON both mighty BIG world wars!  Dominating over others is an undesirable trait, I think.

Churchill once said, “War - and gardening - are the normal occupations of man.” *

“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”

Humanity is a disaster upon the face of the planet.  WE are the virus, unfortunately.  Only an acceptance of this can ever begin to allow us to live in true justice, in genuine peace and with thinking the best of the Other and, so putting them first.  And nature first would also be a very good idea.

Ironically, our much loved Holy Land is the most unholy land on earth - for 76 years, with our inability to share that beautiful land.  But we humans, alone, are to blame.

“The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man”  is a phrase used to refer to a fundamental problem confronting Zionist ambitions to found a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  Wikipedia

Religion is an essential part of the cultures of different peoples.  Our belief systems can change towards doing ourselves down and raising the Other up.

* Quoted in Siegfried Sassoon: ‘Siegfried’s Journey 1916-1920’

Tim Weller 22 January 2024

Stephen Hutchings on Russia - our evil twin

 

Professor Stephen Hutchings will be looking at how Russia's history of empire and militarism is intertwined with our own. Hutchings' view is that we are locked into a deeply troubled relationship that reflects the respective imperial and post-imperial rivalries, fears, blind spots, and prejudices of both sides. What does our shared past mean for how we deal with Russia in a future with, and without, Putin?

Stephen Hutchings is Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester and Fellow of the UK's Academy of Social Sciences. He has published various volumes on Russian literary, film and media studies. Hutchings has held eight large research grants with the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council since 2000, and was President of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies from 2010 to 2013

Talking 'peace' is acceptable in polite society but not 'non-violence'

Magnificent 20 mins outdoor speech from Corbyn in Brum city centre this afternoon.  Some details of the appalling horrors inflicted on children and civilians by Israel's illegal and immoral obliteration of Gazans' homes, shops and a high percentage of their buildings with the people still inside.  Incredibly, only 1% of the population has actually died over the first 100 days of collective punishment meted out by our great friend and ally.  What is the matter with us all?  It reflects badly on our Creator who must have known what he was doing.

I think Corbyn is easily the most outstanding MP for very many years. But even he cannot talk of non-violence, that was not mentioned by any of the speakers at the rally, such is coercion, force, violence, killings entrenched in our Western/British/American culture - and for many centuries in the case of merry England and our spread of such ways to the rest of the empire!

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

 QUESTIONS

1. Does anyone pray for unity and no more killings between Israeli and Palestinian Christians?
2. Does praying for the peace of Jerusalem include praying for a humanitarian ceasefire for fewer Gazans of all faiths to be killed by Israeli Jews and Christians?
3. Should people of integrity, and not just Christian believers, now consider distancing themselves from armaments and drone sales to Israel?
4. Is Israel a good Samaritan to Gaza and the Occupied West Bank?

My own view is:  Israel should stop bombing Gaza.  Full and permanent ceasefire.  Work for permanent reconciliation and peaceful co-existence.  An end to the UK and US bombing campaign on Yemen.

READ the children's story, 'The Squirrels Who Squabbled'.  

https://fatherreading.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/day-39-the-squirrels-who-squabbled/

A parable for we humans squabbling over land and, simultaneously a modern-day David and Goliath story except the Goliath (Israel this time) wins every time to consolidate his position, power and monopoly over land!

Tibet, S Africa and N Ireland show an alternative to mutual killings

Our great friend and ally is stuck in a morass.

What was thought to be a quick and surgical invasion of Gaza to sort them out and win our war objectives, has meant that our NATO leader and chief supporter of Israel remains pleading with Israel to try and avoid killing so many non-combatants, especially not so many women, children and babies.  There must be more precision air strikes to kill the actual attackers of Israel, our side tells them.

The West's weapons and armaments that we manufacture and export to Israel and Ukraine are ending up killing many more civilians than Hamas fighters do defending their homeland. And as Ukrainian soldiers are doing, too.  Is this an ethical practice?

China invaded Tibet in 1950. It did not lead to further invasions of more countries by China, as the fear is that Russia will do once Ukraine is part of Russia.  "The Dalai Lama and some 80 supporters fled into exile in India on March 31, 1959.  Some 87,000 Tibetans and 2,000 Chinese government troops were killed, and some 100,000 Tibetans fled as refugees to India, Nepal, and Bhutan during the conflict."  FROM: https://uca.edu/politicalscience/home/research-projects/dadm-project/asiapacific-region/chinatibet-1950-present/#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20government%20demanded%20that,)%20on%20October%2019%2C%201950.

ALL OUT WAR CAN BE AVOIDED - examples:

In South Africa, apartheid was eventually seen off without warfare and with far fewer killings than we see in Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank.

In our own UK, after thirty years of The Troubles and over 3,000 slaughtered, many years of secret and not-so-secret talks eventually prevailed with the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement that ended the war.

"Jaw jaw, not war war", as our great Victorious War Leader spouted in his more reflective, declining years of greater wisdom, has turned out to be a more positive and constructive tactic.

This also happens to be in tune with what our spiritual Master, Lord and Saviour taught and practised and that we all need to follow, I think.

However, it also means having nothing to do with drones.  Some end up in the arms of the military along with all their other tools of death and destruction.  Some types of employment are ruled out for disciples of the Prince of Peace and the King of Love.

Can our pulpit preachers make that crystal clear to their flocks?

Over 24,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. Over 60,000 injured.

FROM: STOP THE WAR COALITION

 

"These aren’t just harrowing statistics from 100 days of destruction and suffering, but each number has a story behind it. A life cut short. Dreams and ambitions that can now never be realised. 

 

"Those killed by Israeli bombardment include over 250 doctors. Over 200 teachers. Over 130 UN workers. Over 80 journalists, silencing those showing the world the horror on the ground. 

"That’s why this weekend, we’re asking you to join your local demonstration to show in towns and cities across the UK that the world is watching Israeli war crimes - and call on our government to support an immediate ceasefire.

"Politicians who fail to call for a ceasefire are complicit in the bombardment of Gaza. Just this week, the South African government announced it was launching legal claims against the US and the UK for complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza - something the British media has refused to report. That’s why we must redouble our efforts to call for a ceasefire and campaign for Palestinian rights: the right to self-determination, the right to national liberation and the right of return for refugees."

SHARP, PERTINENT POINTS to solve the problems

THE PROBLEM       FFPT = Fare-Free Public Transport

Clogged rush hour roads on radial main roads.

Commuter cars are the problem.

Reward them to encourage them to leave them at home, to take the bus, train, tram.

Give them and us all FFPT, more buses, more smaller buses, more frequently.

Use CCTV to charge commuter cars who have not registered and, therefore, must pay the charge.

Proof must be provided by essential vehicle users to have the privilege of registering and so get emptier roads to speed them on their lawful business.

SHORTER:

Clogged roads. So:

Stop the commuters by rewards 

FFPT, more buses and smaller 

All essential users must register 

If you don't, you get charged to pay for FFPT & superior bus provision.

MORE SHORTS:

Stop thinking that homes, offices, shops, factories and vehicles must run down railway lines.

Use railway lines for railway trains.

End Metro and Sprint expansion. Pour that money into buses and FFPT.

Connect the Dudley Tram to the national railway network at Stourbridge Jct, with electric bus connection to Merry Hill from the Waterfront.

This saves nature, public open space and housing land at Merry Hill.  And, my very important vertical, guerrilla garden!

China gets it in the neck from Cllr Dave

Good morning, Dave

It was really good to hear from you last month.  Thanks for debating.  You wrote,

DAVE: "NetZero should be done in a balanced way that does not deny freedoms and to penalise the British people."

I don't think that net zero has made the slightest difference to 99.99% of the British people.  We have all carried on as normal, as if nothing is up.  Nothing has changed!

We all find it extremely difficult to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because everything we do is dependent on finite fossil fuels.  Thanks to Mrs Thatcher, we got out of coal, almost totally.  Coal is the worst for GHG emissions out of coal, gas, oil and timber burning.  Each of us, in our advanced, heavily industrial dependent societies are finite fossil fuel freaks or addicts, don't you think, Dave?  Therefore, there is very little we can do apart from cutting our consumption of everything and, to live more simply, less greedily so that others - both the poorer, developing nations and our very own descendants - will have something of coal, oil, gas and even wood left for them to burn, to simply survive.  Without burning something we cannot survive.  Unfortunately, it is a double whammy.  One day, fossil fuels will be gone and, as we burn them up as if there is no tomorrow, we change the planet's climates for the worse, meteorologists and other scientists tell us.  We are between the devil and the deep blue sea.  Snookered!  But, what little we can do to help ourselves, we MUST do.  Exactly what my wife and I are doing in our home in heavenly Halesowen!

Achieving net zero means that we carry on burning and emitting GHG but, somehow, find a way of sequestering or storing the GHGs.  This is extremely difficult to achieve, if not impossible.  Our world populations are expanding fast and that means more forests and woodland must be turned into concrete, brick and tarmac.  With the help of the Chinese who are doing more than any other nation to go down the renewables route but, they also have to build more coal fired power stations because they are the workhorse, the workhouse, the industrial powerhouse of the world, just as we were from about 1760 for 150 years.  To save ourselves we have to cut production and consumption, even population, and rapidly reduce our dependence on finite resources.

DAVE: "All your protesters want, is to control and oppress the British people – not ONE protester, that I’ve heard, has mentioned the big polluters – what’s your answer to China building 300 new Coal fired power stations by 2050??"

It is the very uncomfortable scientific facts of life living on planet earth, with the way it is that it is scientific laws of life that are "controlling and oppressing the British people" and all of life on earth.  "Either, we get our numbers and our activities into harmony with the powers of the earth to support life or, collapsing life support systems will do the job for us."  (anonymous)

What do you think, Dave?  By the way, Stourbridge ring road is slow going because of all our cars.  In my previous email I suggested what we need to do.  In addition, I still cycle and use the bus when I can.  I was a very rare cycling, full-time social worker in Brum when I gave up the car for 90% of journeys in the early 90s.  I still cycle at 76.  Do what I do!

All the best.  And thanks so much for writing.

Tripling of renewables at COP28 and SERIOUS ACTION NOW would be a good idea!

We have to keep bashing away at the decision makers and tell them "that COP28 has elicited support of 118 countries for tripling of renewable energy and doubling of energy efficiency."  And the money for this can come from abandoning the acceleration of climate disaster by abandoning Metro and Sprint expansion (and arms manufacturing for more warfare) and doing everything that is here:

 Nine Action Points from W Mids Climate Coalitio...

 7 priorities/pledges for you lot to rival Rishi

and

My suggestion:

1.    Such is our fatal addiction to finite fossil fuels, as a rough rule of thumb, even with more renewables slowly coming on stream, we still have to regard £1 in price = 1 lb in weight of GHG emissions.

2.    Vast quantities of steel and concrete are used in constructing tramways ("buses on rails", says UK tram promotion group).  Both are highly energy intensive and that means high GHG emissions.  Bad news for climate and us!

3.    Use that money to upgrade bus provision, as is in our petition.  BUT MUCH MORE IS NEEDED:

4.    Bring in charging on radial routes into urban centres for all vehicles that are not essential for work/business but are used, in particular, for commuting, shopping when those drivers should be using bus, train, tram.

5.    Essential users must register to avoid the charge.

6.    Financial inducements MUST be used to reward car commuters and shoppers who leave their cars at home and use bus, train, tram.  Therefore, FFPT - Fare-Free Public Transport for all and not just my age group is essential.

7.    To accompany the above, big campaign by the authorities to make it as socially undesirable to take the car into town/city centres as it is to smoke in public places.  But the rewards must be emphasised.