What next after COP 26?

 What next for me is this:

To continue to target the decision-makers at 16 Summer Lane to help them to understand that only by cutting spending on luxuries like HS2, Metro and Sprint can greenhouse gases be cut. For every pound we spend, fossil fuels are implicated, such is our addiction.

So only spend to expel more GHG, by going for projects like insulating and putting PV panels on every EWS facing roof; bribing motorists out of their cars by Fare-Free Public Transport; and by Universal Basic Income scheme so that we don't have to find ecologically ruinous jobs just to keep them in food, shelter and clothing.

DUDLEY CLLRS LOVE MISSION TO USE TRAMS TO RUN DUDLEY PEOPLE TO MERRY HILL

DUDLEY SHOPPERS TO TAKE TRAMS TO MERRY HILL

I'm so pleased for you that you have your long-awaited (from the 1980s) Metro trams at long last.  But, don't rest on your laurels; there is still very MUCH more to do, my friends!

I quite understand that you must continue the 60-year-old policy of destroying, this time, Dudley's very last and fifth railway, to relegate our town from having back the mainline Castle Hill Railway Station - to piddling little tram stop and test track.  Dudley's New Fame:- the largest town in the UK by population without a railway station.  Yet, the line was successful for 100 years until we all fell in love with cars.  And nearly 50 Kms, already built, are left with nothing!

What is your personal wish for the former mainline railway and existing freight line from Stourbridge Jct to Brierley Hill and, the mothballed, former passenger and freight railway from Wednesbury to Burton on Trent?  Nearly 50 Kms still wasted alongside or, near congested main roads and motorways.  It has every motorway, road and canal crossing already built but you good politicians forgot to finish the job - with, you know what!

What are you doing to respond to your own Council's Climate Emergency motion that you passed last year and passed over this year?

Why did you bring it forward when it does look, so far, as though you have every intention to change nothing?  You now lay yourselves open to the charge of hypocrisy, of course.

Have you ever considered reforming your actions to ones of retrenchment?  Retrenchment to minimise deadly greenhouse gas emissions and to maximise economic growth in insulation, Passivhaus standards in housing, solar PV on every E, W, S roof and small to medium-sized, highly energy-efficient homes for the homeless and badly housed?

Have you ever considered the carrot, the reward of regional Fare-Free Public Transport that old crocks like me have had for 13 years, so far?  This OAP and friends in Brum are championing the same perk for you youngsters!  Campaign with us over this iniquitous inequality and blatant discrimination against the young and middle-aged.  Co-operation and partnership working, please.

Remember, too the major 22 Kms, business and commuter route that is the fine, upstanding, disgraceful Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway.

And a decent mosque for Dudley town Muslims.  Stop that discrimination and Islamaphobia.

And a cycle-walkway on the other side of Duncan Edwards Way from the tramline.

Am I allowed, please to observe your council Climate Emergency (up and at 'em) All Action Committee?

Twitter to Chris Burden https://twitter.com/WulfrunianChris

Do you want regional Fare-Free Public Transport extended from old crocks like me who are on our way out and increasingly housebound, to you dynamic young things, Chris? timweller1@gmail.com

Twitter to Steve Caudwell

 Promote voluntary fuel rationing to cut greenhouse gas emissions and follow my 50% cut to an absolute maximum of 7,000 miles/year. And Fare-Free Public Transport as your PRIZE for deserting the car. And muscle power bike first!

FIVE SCANDALS that make the West Midlands unique!

1. Do you think there should be a public inquiry into the W Mids Police gross misconduct in the tragic, farcical, inept mishandling of the Brum pub bombings in 1974.
2. Do you want commuter, regional and freight trains on the remaining 47 Kms of the ready-built "railway of national strategic significance" between Stourbridge, Walsall and Burton on Trent that doesn't get the isolated Metro trams on 6.7 Kms?
3. Should regional, Fare-Free Public Transport be extended from elders like me who are well past our prime, getting housebound and are quite wealthy enough, to be also given to the up and coming generations?  Or, regional FFPT simply as the antidote/carrot to the stick that is congestion/pollution charging?
4. Should you investigate the case of Cllr Yvonne Davies who remains the suspended Leader of Sandwell Council on a trumped-up charge of racism and antisemitism?
5. Would you like to write a piece about the major, business and commnuter route, the infamous 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway to be the CA's top transport priority so that all can use it without wellies, walking boots or rough, tough mountain bikes or, using horses?

Question for Coventry Green New Deal hustings on 10 March 2021

Can the climate emergency be addressed by abandoning the £15 billion of greenhouse gas emissions to 2040 for the 150 miles of Metro, underground and overground, "bus on rails" tram extensions, 8 lines and the 380 tram stops, done to replace some buses and trains for, instead, spending the money on extending our partial, regional Fare-Free Public Transport to a full one, ie for everyone with electric buses directly on roads?

One elder apologises

Rachel, mass transit means masses of people on public transport that ends up being underground and overground tram lines at the second most expensive cost to build after HS2. It’s time for decisiveness and speedy implementation of regional Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL to cut greenhouse gases and to leave a healthier planet for you youngsters to take over from elders, like me who have failed you. I am sorry!

FEET BEFORE FOSSIL FOOLING

I think we are all guilty of living unsustainably and, therefore, threatening all life support systems on earth.  The size of our homes and gardens, the size of our families, the kind of commuting and consuming we do and the holidays we take, all contribute to resource depletion, especially of finite fossil fuels and, highly dangerous greenhouse gases to bring climate catastrophe to end all life on earth.

I am very guilty of all this.  My land take and lifestyle mean that if everyone lived like I do we would need three or four planets!  I’ll work it out from 

http://www.footprintcalculator.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwuJz3BRDTARIsAMg-HxXbEjRqUmqs0ZEJXBOAusr6nHxzsfRPC7osTIur-aC9aBe0NFAOCzYaAn7fEALw_wcB

In fact, I need 2.1 planets and my overshoot day is 24 June.  I’ve probably biased it in my favour!

To compensate, I cycle instead of the car whenever I can; and, I used the bike for commuting and work visits before retirement.  I drive to 70 mpg, cut down on meat and dairy and v nearly never go abroad and certainly don’t fly - a big blown raspberry for that one.

To compensate, I am writing and working to open our English and Welsh 19th century railway network for trains or, as cycle-walkways.  I am working to maintain our footpaths in our 32 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle, bounded by M5, A456 and A491.  I continue to ask for it to be the first area to go in the 2019 announced W Mids National Park to prevent any built development on fresh land.  Land that must go only for farming and for recreation, as we are doing in lockdown.  I am trying to win over all our wonderful farmers/landowners not to sell their land for the false, fools gold of concrete, brick and tarmac.  Especially at Tack Farm that is so near to the bypass boundary that must not be breached. But farmer Charles Bibbey has had enough of farming and wants his farm land for housing.

Lockdown for all slashed the world’s greenhouse gases.  I think, to achieve the same bliss but to help those who suffered, governments have, as their first duty, the defence of the realm from civil unrest by protecting the worst off with:

• a Basic Income scheme for all to cover food, clothing and shelter;

• East Europe’s Fare Free Public Transport for all and not just for the disabled and over 60s, like me;

• Carbon allowance for all to start rationing the calamitous burning of finite fossil fuels.

Learn from the UK’s disastrous laid back approach to the virus and prepare now for the inevitable Really Big Crisis we have been warned about for decades.

We cut economic activity to kill the virus.  We must now continue the good work of minimum economic activity in order to leave the planet’s life support systems able to support our descendants.

 

Join the buy less crew and don’t head out to the shops.  Feet first to our footpath network, instead and lower your eco footprint!             

Tim Weller  17 June 2020

ONLY ELECTRIC BUSES, ON RAILS ON ROADS AND RAILWAY LINES, ARE ALLOWED!

Since February 2020, WMCA has been working on a £15 BILLION to 2040 scheme for mainly Metro "bus on rails" trams, underground and overground, replacing buses and trains when it is electric buses without rails that are needed with Fare-Free Public Transport for all age groups, as reward/compensation for a slightly greater risk of Covid in doing the right thing in using bus, train, tram.

Now, underground tram lines - what a thrill to spill yet more greenhouse gases!

"As part of his re-election campaign, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has unveiled his ambitious £15bn transport plan for the region. ... At 150 miles long, the ambitious transport network expansion would feature eight new Metro lines, 380 new stops and 21 new rail stations.5 Feb 2020"

FROM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=andy+street%27s+metro+plan&oq=Andy+Streets&aqs=chrome.3.0i355i457j46j0j0i10i22i30l2j0i22i30l2j0i10i22i30.19727j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

SPRINT DIESEL BUSES

 I'm opposed to Sprint buses for your excellent reasons - cost and road widening and,

1.  they are a two-class bus system when all buses must become first-class and as superior as Sprint.
2. the authorities will always be mesmerised by flash, glamorous but highly expensive, high greenhouse gas emitting, transport modes like Metro and now Sprint.
3. BUT "All that glisters is not gold".
4. Sprint is diesel.  We must move to first-class electric buses on bus priority roads.
5. The money saved by abandoning Sprint and Metro should be spent on Fare-Free Public Transport as a reward for not using a car and as compensation for greater Covid-19 risk.
6. Sprint has fewer stops so ordinary buses are still needed!
7. You might just as well do away with them!

Proposed resolution for WMGP

"As compensation/reward for doing the right thing in using the bus, train and tram, the concessionary Free Travel Pass that disabled people and many others have had since they were 60 years old, must be extended to everyone.  Such a Fare-Free Public Transport system would apply at all times.  Dunkirk and Luxembourg have been the most recent in introducing it.

This should be paid for by abandoning the £15 billion of mainly underground and overground tram extensions in the West Midlands to 2040. It should also be used to improve disabled access for all ages, and to finish the 120 Km Worcester to Derby mainline railway through Dudley, Sandwell, and Walsall (costing less than £200m).

This line would be finished with commuter and regional trains, freight and the nine stations where new settlements have been built since the line was closed in the 1960s."