Preposterous

It is preposterous that an all-knowing and all-powerful; a just and loving God should create humans with a life span like the blink of an eye when compared with the infinity of the geological time span.  And a species of mammal that has been at each other's throats since time immemorial and is now committing mass ecocide.  Most responsible is that section of humanity that is most committed to burning up the delights of finite fossil fuels to live it up today and to hell with tomorrow.  A practice that gives wealth beyond imagination but also has the most unfortunate side effect of the runaway greenhouse effect to turn, possibly earth into venus.

And God knew how we would turn out but still went on to create us.  This is preposterous.

We are flawed individuals from day one.  Floored, too.  Knocked out, fair and square by our own sin but sin that was evident so soon after we were created.  And the good Lord must have known that would happen before creating us.

WORSENING PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND CLIMATE EMERGENCY!

Hi Mark - too much to read, here I know so don't bother!  Just read the next para!   Tim

Thanks very much for sending me the article, that is exactly what you had to write and is very good.  Thanks so much for giving me a mention - actually, including me!

from your piece:

He said public transport spending had gone up “nearly tenfold” with £38 million (SELF: 2016/17) spent the year before the combined authority was introduced (SELF: that means 2015) compared to £363 million this year. (SELF: 2021/22?).

It seems that the start of the "nearly tenfold" explosion of transport spending coincided with the opening of the Metro extension in 2016, five years ago and the formation of the WMCA in the same year.  It just shows how phenomenally expensive Metro "bus on rails" trams are!  Yet, road and railway congestion and air pollution are as bad as ever, five years on!  Slightly relieved by Covid, I expect.  Andy should be thoroughly ashamed that throwing money at the "solution looking for a problem" has made no difference and made no sense.  Actually, made things worse with railway infrastructure destroyed and buses without rails on roads replaced by the "bus on rails" trams on roads and railways.  SEE BELOW

What was/is the cost of the WMCA and how many people employed?  I will ask an FoI question.

As the extension opened in 2016, the start of the hundreds of millions for Metro extensions pre-dates the WMCA if they got the money for that extension before.  Neither it nor Andy can claim credit for the explosion of transport spending on Metro.  It had nothing to do with him because he was not in the CA.  He was elected in 2017 and during the most recent election campaign he was saying that during his four year term there had been a sevenfold increase in transport spending.  He was claiming the credit!  Sevenfold over the last four years and tenfold over the last five years.

In only five years, at a time of low inflation, their expenditure on only transport has gone up nearly tenfold.  This is shocking and disgraceful in the light of the climate, ecological, nature emergency they have declared.  Ten times more greenhouse gases to accelerate the runaway greenhouse effect!  This is ecocide.

Spending = fossil fuels burnt = greenhouse gases emitted = intensifying greenhouse effect = runaway greenhouse effect = turning earth into planet venus = THE END.

FOI answer:

"The total budget for the Transport Delivery Capital Programme in 2016/17 was
£39.6m. The total budgeted value of the same programme in 2020/21 was £277.2m. Full

details can be found in the WMCA Board Financial Monitoring Report (March 2021)
Appendix 5 pages 19-21 available on our website at:
https://governance.wmca.org.uk/documents/s5398/Report.pdf"

Therefore, he can claim that the devolution deals and the setting up of the CA in 2016 was responsible for the extra money but NOT his work as the representative, spokesperson or ambassador for the Combined Authority.  

Sevenfold increase in four years (tenfold in five years) is not due to inflation but the shocking, grossly extravagant, greenhouse gas emitting Metro trams - even more expensive to construct than the Maglev train projects in China, Japan and South Korea!  Each electric "bus on rails" tram is 12 times more expensive than one electric coach!  Construction of tram lines on roads and railways is 19 times per Km more expensive than rebuilding the Borders Railway in 2015 - £7 m/Km for the railway; £133 m/Km for the 1.7 Kms Eastside Metro extension!

Please read this that is important for your background information as to what has been going on.  I think there needs to be an independent public inquiry over what I have uncovered, here:

INSTITUTIONALLY INCOMPETENT

Our transport authority, over 70 years, has been institutionally incompetent.

In the 1950s they dismantled the electric tram network that needed updating but, instead replaced it with smelly, poisonous diesel buses.

In the 1960s, they continued to close and build on the railway network that had started in the pre-war years.  That decade saw Brum's principal mainline Victorian station demolished and replaced with an underground, smelly, poisonous, diesel railway station.  (There were fans to draw out some of the diesel smoke.)

The 1970s, saw Brum's second principal, mainline Victorian station of 8 platforms demolished and replaced with a station of only four platforms as Centro continued to support road building and motorways and the use of private cars that clogged up roads for buses.

The 1980s saw, in 1981, the start of rebuilding the tram network on the road and railway network.

The 1990s saw the announcement of 15 Metro lines over 200 Kms by the year 2000.

Yet, the year 2000 saw only one Metro line had opened.  This, on a mainline railway too, that also destroyed one and a quarter mainline stations and 4 or 5 Kms of double track railway lines!!

The year 2016, saw the extension of the tram on the railway line that closed Wolverhampton Low Level Station but, now the tram on the railway completely missed out Snow Hill Station to go straight passed it to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Underground Station In The Basement Of The John Lewis Store', instead!

In 2021, there is still not one passenger or freight train returned to even a single kilometre of mothballed, 106 Kms of railway lines.  And platform 4 at Snow Hill remains closed!

All this incompetence when every councillor supported the transport authority over the 70 years with the expansion of roads, motorways and buildings on about 100 Kms of railway lines.

And not a single electric bus until, perhaps, this year!

MORE INCOMPETENCE, BELOW:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2021 at 19:30, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Reasons for my saying, below, that the Metro trams have made public transport worse:

• Metro One, which opened in 1999, meant that the railway to Shrewsbury only has one route now, from Grand Central Shopping Centre because the mainline was converted to a tramline.  Hence, three or four Kms of double-track railway line to Shrewsbury was built on and Wolverhampton's second principal manline station was turned into a conference and events centre.
• The continuous rise in passenger numbers on the railways was unstoppable from the mid 90s up to Covid, in 2020.  25 years of rising numbers, at a time when the railway industry was continuing to destroy its infrastructure by turning its railways into roads, buildings and tram lines.
• The 2021 opening of the Metro extension to Edgbaston Village tram stop has led to a slower and worse public transport journey for those passengers wanting to leave their cars at home and use it.  All, except those who are in walking distance of where the tram terminates, have to now decide whether to wait up to 15 mins for a tram into the city centre.  Or, to have a much slower and longer journey, on the diversion, by staying on the bus into Colmore Row.
• Eleven different bus routes that used the Five Ways underpass, must now join the traffic jam and traffic lights, in order to go round the roundabout.  Previously, every bus along Hagley Road used the underpass into the city centre.
• Exactly 40 years of Metro tram expansion has led to about 100 Kms of Black Country and Brum railway lines being destroyed as congestion and pollution has steadily worsened.
• The number of Black Country railway lines destroyed by our politicians, the railway industry and transport experts is now in double figures.  Two make up the 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway!
• And, then they go and build climate worsening HS2 after all that lunacy and destruction!
• And, top priority is given to HS2's little sister, Metro with a £15 billion expansion programme of eight lines and 150 miles of underground and overground "bus on rails" trams.
• The 120 Kms Black Country Railway between Derby and Devon via Dudley remains ready built but unused, broken and wasted over 56 Kms - one of only two north-south lines between Brum city centre and the Welsh coast!

MANY THANKS, AGAIN!

Tim

On Thu, 17 Jun 2021 at 16:43, Mark Cardwell <mark.cardwell@trinitymirror.com> wrote:

Hi Tim,

Here's the piece - https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/west-midlands-combined-authority-turns-20839686

Thanks very much for your help on it and sorry I couldn't go into your points in further detail.

All the best,

Mark

--

Mark Cardwell

Local Democracy Reporter covering Birmingham City Council and West Midlands Combined Authority

Birmingham Live/BBC

Tel: 07930 752 886

Twitter: @mlrcardwell

I DO SO LOVE TRAMS!

Trams are also very, very popular with me for their smoothness and newness and their first-class nature of travel that does put them top of the class as regards public transport for able and disabled alike!  Give me trams and trains, anytime over the bus that throws me about.  But if that small prize of a 150 miles, underground and overground tram network is given up, it will then help to give us the much bigger prize of postponing ecocide.  Is that thinking something you can go along with?  Some inconvenience and restraint as a price well worth paying for LIFE!

£3.5 m for each tram - must be more, now!

 Hi David

Each tram is £2.5 m with the overhead wires; £3.5 m for the trams using onboard batteries!  Those figures go back two or three years, too.  They are made in Spain, I believe.

The steel tram lines have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.  When that had to be done for Metro One, four or five businesses on the A41 at Priestfield did so little business that they had to close for good, I understand.

The £15 billion to 2040 for the 150 miles of trams, the 8 lines and 380 tram stops would include the cost of the trams but, as with HS2 costs rising massively, the £15 billion is underpriced, I would guess and depends on how much is underground.

Last decade, at least four or five years ago, Sprint diesel buses running to and from Quinton were to be £12 m, if I remember correctly.  At that time, diesel double-decker buses were £250,000 each, I believe.  That was to be the first Sprint line.  Now, the first one is Walsall to Solihull via Brum city centre at, possibly £300m, including the electric buses.  Let me know if you find something out before me, please.

This newspaper report, below was 3 years ago when there was no mention of electric Sprint.  They were all very flash, diesel buses.

 Plans for a £279 million Sprint network have be...

 

I do love trams.  They glide along the rails and are so smooth and swish and really smart.  But, when we are facing the reality of finite fossil fuels and the uncomfortable reality of climate breakdown/instability/danger, I'm prepared to lose out on my love for trams in order to postpone ecocide.  Trams replacing only some buses and some trains are too high a price to pay, I think.  Leeds and Bristol are also wanting a tram network, I've read from UK Tram Ltd (HQ at TfWM/WMCA HQ!)

"A new heaven and a new earth" so please don't bother me with any nonsense about anthropogenic climate change

 Hi Jonathan

"A new heaven and a new earth" so please don't bother me with any nonsense about anthropogenic climate change

How should we/you respond to believers who maintain that there is nothing to worry about as regards our fast changing atmosphere because the Lord will return before humanity commits complete ecocide?

The Lord might know what He is doing but does humanity?

The small minority of true believers will be taken up to be with the Lord forever and everyone else will rightfully perish on the broad, fast road to destruction for refusing to repent and believe in the Lord.

Does this mean that the true believers can carry on regardless and live it up to their hearts' content because the whole world is in His Hands?  Leave it to the Lord and sit back and soak up the fossil fuel wealth and spend all the rest of the natural, finite capital resources, while the going is good - and to hell with tomorrow?

Dad

"Pandemic shows climate has never been treated as crisis, say scientists"

Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate scientists have written to EU leaders demanding they act immediately to avoid the worst impacts of the unfolding climate and ecological emergency.

The letter, which is being sent before a European council meeting starting on Friday, says the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that most leaders are able to act swiftly and decisively, but the same urgency had been missing in politicians’ response to the climate crisis.

“It is now clearer than ever that the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, neither from the politicians, media, business nor finance. And the longer we keep pretending that we are on a reliable path to lower emissions and that the actions required to avoid a climate disaster are available within today’s system … the more precious time we will lose,” it says.

The EU unveiled its green new deal proposal this year, aiming to transform the bloc from a high to a low-carbon economy without reducing prosperity and while improving people’s quality of life, through cleaner air and water, better health and a thriving natural world.

But the authors of the letter dismiss its target of net zero emissions by 2050 as dangerously unambitious. “Net zero emissions by 2050 for the EU – as well as for other financially fortunate parts of the world – equals surrender,” they say.

They add that the target is based on a carbon budget that gives only a 50% chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the figure set out in the 2015 Paris agreement.

“That is just a statistical flip of a coin, which doesn’t even include some of the key factors such as the global aspect of equity, most tipping points and feedback loops, as well as already built in additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution. So in reality it is much less than a 50% chance.”

The letter also argues that the climate and ecological emergency can only be addressed by tackling the underlying “social and racial injustices and oppression that have laid the foundations of our modern world”.

It says the EU, with its political and economic clout, has a moral obligation to lead the fight to create a fair and more sustainable world.

“We understand and know very well that the world is complicated and that what we are asking for may not be easy. The changes necessary to safeguard humanity may seem very unrealistic. But it is much more unrealistic to believe that our society would be able to survive the global heating we’re heading for, as well as other disastrous ecological consequences of today’s business as usual.”

Thunberg and the other signatories – including the scientists Michael Mann and Johan Rockström – call on EU leaders to immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction and end subsidies. They say the EU must advocate to make ecocide an international crime and establish annual, binding carbon budgets.

Matthew Taylor, Guardian, 16 July 2020

Get level with nature

If we can give everyone a basic income to provide food, shelter, clothing and a life free of disease, the present state of quiet roads, cleaner air and less economic activity would be quite appealing to me!  Green or eco socialism.  Equality from fair shares for all.  Levelling out = levelling down for the rich and levelling up for the poor = sustainable or eco socialism.

Lockdown is meaning a slow down of greenhouse gases and, hence, ecocide.  But many are suffering.  Even more so with resource depletion and a stir crazy climate.  But we have to spend less and get green, ecological growth to reverse ecocide.

Using God as a fire extinguisher

USING GOD AS A FIRE EXTINGUISHER - for emergency use only

Christianity is not an insurance policy against death and misfortune.  In fact, it’s the exact opposite, for the sun rises on the righteous and the unrighteous; the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  When Les, Christ-like, God fearing, what you see is what you get, the genuine article, Les Hardwick loses his beloved wife so prematurely, it does destroy my faith in a loving and just God.  It also shook his faith, from what he told me.  God cannot possibly be a God of love, justice and who is able to protect His own.  Les should have been the very last person whom the Lord should have allowed to lose his wife in 2000.

Therefore, as I see it, we have 
           the problem of Christians suffering.  Indicating a God who does not care, even about His own people.

           the problem of the Bible - favouritism for one tribe, only, for one set of peoples, only.  God promised that their ancestors would bless the rest of humanity but the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, the children of Abraham, have most certainly not been a blessing to everyone else.  In fact, they have been at each others throats and the Christians have, for centuries, been somewhat domineering around the world - to put it mildly.  This, contrary to what their founder flatly rejected in one of the three temptations in the wilderness of Judea.
          the problem of human ecocide - very short-lived human species when compared with very long-lived dinosaurs.
          the problem of human intolerance of each other and their inability to live in peace one with the other.
the problem of the vast majority of the best Christians - the Bible believing, born again ones - being quite content with having employment in the arms industry, the armed forces and voting for the war parties. Coercion, force and aggression is acceptable for the most virtuous, sanctified and holy of people.
the problem of abortion and voluntary euthanasia being more evil than killing the born in time of war.
          the problem of human stupidity - especially over foreign, military, transport, economic and energy policy - not much left after than list. But, actually, we humans are homo sapiens - "wise man" - so we can't be that stupid!
          the problem of the infinite, immensities of space, of nothingness yet the existence of earth created by the human construct of ‘God’.
          the problem of how God came about, if He was not thought up by humans.

          the problem of religion being pre-scientific.  It was, quite naturally, an outcome of humans needing to keep in with Nature - the sun, wind and rain, for their very survival and comfort.  Not surprisingly, it developed and grew as humans grew in size and in dominance of all other livings things on earth.  Now, an over dominance that is likely to be our own undoing.

Pointing the finger but ...

… three are pointing back at ourselves!

The problem, as I see it, as that we always see ourselves as so virtuous, so very angelic, so very right. We always see ourselves as God’s gift to humanity, as our way of life as being so good and our political system so perfect it must be forced on the pagans in their darkness and unbelief.

Our culture, based for many centuries on the Bible and Judeo/Christian values must prevail throughout the world.  It alone is true and every other faith and way of doing things is plain false or, at least, less than the best.

And, then, when the Lord says go into all the world to make disciples of every nation, this gives us further reason to get every other tribe and nation to renounce/repent of their false faith and their incorrect way of doing things and to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ and democracy and education for girls.

Knowing this, it is hardly surprising that the Christians see Islam as another false faith and regard godless Communism as also evil - both to be defeated by a belief that the ends justify the means.  Therefore, as that born again believer, GW Bush said when President in 2001, in the wake of 9/11, the righteous West must conduct "a crusade" against the forces of darkness that is all things Muslim and Islamic.

First, it was thoroughly nasty Nazism that came out of a democratic and Christian nation; then Communism that came out of a totalitarian and oppressive loving nation; now, it is vicious Islam that speaks of violence and of killing as many unbelievers as they have time for (or, so we mistakenly think!).

Yet, what is our track record like when it comes to being ever onward Christian soldiers marching as to war and, far too often, actually to war?  Absolutely abysmal … !

Humanity is such a disgrace on the face of this poor planet that the sooner the ecocide madness we are indulging in is concluded the better!  The planet will go merrily on its way without the burden of 7 billion people all fighting each other for supremacy and domination of the other, for the remaining resources, water and fertile land.

Inertia, apathy, in denial ...

... and carry on regardless with your fingers crossed!

"Humankind is having a negative impact on almost every aspect of the earth's environment and is heading towards catastrophe unless urgent action is taken. The Global Environment Outlook has been compiled by hundreds of scientists from around the world. It concludes we are living way beyond our environmental means and if this continues the survival of humankind could be in doubt." Radio 4, 6pm News, 25 October 2007

Has anyone done anything like my quality of life improvements, below to acknowledge the above realities?

1. Driving a smaller car than you could afford or, limiting yourself to one car per couple or family or, making the motor last longer by repair rather than replacing.
2. Reducing your hypermobility when it comes to both work and holidays. My holidays are in a 12 year old car that doubles up as my superb hotel on wheels. When it's my five star hotel it is zero fossil fuel use 'cos the central heating comes from my layers of clothing and down filled sleeping bag!
3. For work, when I thought for so long that, as an essential car user, I could not possibly do without the motor, I have proved that my HPV (human powered vehicle) is just as good, with little or no loss of productivity - and 20p/mile danger money, on official council council business, from all you cycle blind drivers!
4. Banning the tumble drier and using the fresh air or the warmth of the house.
5. Giving up the dish washer for manual washing up - that I have now returned to!
6. Walking or cycling short distances instead of jumping in the carbon polluter.
7. Only boiling the water needed at any one time.
8. Reducing the time when the shower is burning up the energy and the planet's wealth.
9. Spending less - especially at Christmas!
10. Forgoing electric heating, for gas; forget the plane and use the train.
11. Condoms to cut your family size and to cut catastrophic climate change, instead of blaming immigration! 3m growth in UK population with zero migration or, 10m growth with immigration over 25 years, said the statisticians this week. Source: Evan Davis on 'Today', 26 Oct 2007
12. Back all that up by refusing to vote for the political parties that still peddle their live it up now and pay later economics; and, that so love engaging in war fighting on foreign (was Communist but is now Muslim) soil.

Here, we have eleven 'do something' actions; and, one occasional vote (or abstention) to change the politicians and to be part of the solution. Best not to wait for the politicians to act but, to be your own politician and to act yourself!

From alpha to omega for the meaning of life!

Live more simply so that future generations - and poorer nations - can simply live!

Live so that others may live (all religious faiths and political parties could try non-violence as an alternative to their present aggression).

Try leaving the planet in as good a heart as when you were born into it.

Retrench your lifestyle to postpone ecocide!

Economic and population growth means ecological disaster is, in effect, what the UN report, at the top, has stated this week.

The fool has said in his heart ...

... there is no over-consumption, no over-population and no runaway greenhouse effect! There is widespread complacency, scepticism, even denial over all three!

• The scientific evidence can't possibly be right! We've lived like this for 250 years burning up our finite fossil fuels and, in the process, our quality of life and our length of life have both improved. We have flourished, thanks to fossil fuel exploitation!
• 2,500 scientists from 130 countries on the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change are plain wrong! I know best, so there!
• They can't possibly be right when their reports over the years have consistently maintained their conclusion that the major warming is due to human consumption and, hence, emissions of 200 greenhouse gases.
• It stands to reason, its obvious, that natural variations over the years in the world's climates and much solar activity are to blame for ice shelves disintegrating, glaciers retreating, and the many extreme weather events and disturbed weather patterns.
• What I think is right, so there! The scientists have got it wrong! I know best!

In fact, it is highly unlikely that, in the history of the earth, has it ever before seen such an enormous increase in greenhouse gases over such a very short time, relative to the geological time scale. It seems reasonable, therefore to assume that this will have a negative effect on life support systems. We sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Over habitation makes the planet uninhabitable.

We all live in the rich West so unsustainably; the more extravagantly you live, the more you are taking an unfair share of the earth's resources. Hence, we are all fools - and worse; we are stealing from the rest of the planet's population and our own descendants! Fools and thieves, no less!