High Scam 2, Metro and Sprint are NOT green; just ecocidal.

Thanks, Barry.  I entirely agree with you and you make the right points.

Like High Scam 2, Metro trams and the Sprint buses to come between Walsall, Brum and Solihull (as well as trams out to Solihull from Brum!), are called green transport because they will be electric.  But electricity that is largely made from finite fossil fuels and a small amount of renewable energy; as well as, large majority fossil fuel constructed nuclear power stations.  All three transport modes are greedy luxuries and vain projects that are entirely unnecessary and most unhelpful in reducing GHG and our fatal dependency on finite fossil fuels.

All those billions of cost in price and in weight of GHG emissions should be used to rebuild the bus and train network to get car commuters onto the (work) bus that would be free for all (not just my old crocks age group) and have priority at traffic lights in their dedicated bus lane, and red for all other vehicles crossing the bus lane.

High Scam 2 is promoted as increasing the number of railway services throughout the UK, with extra capacity.  This is misleading because the trains are only super fast between three cities and two of their airports, with some trains stopping at Crewe and East Midlands Parkway, the E arm terminal.  That E arm is now greatly shortened thanks to our sound, strong, unanswerable reasons!

FROM    https://www.hs2.org.uk/the-route/

"HS2 trains will run from London to the West Midlands, where they will rejoin the existing West Coast Main Line."  https://www.hs2.org.uk/the-route/

"HS2 will integrate with new lines and upgrades across Britain’s rail system to deliver faster travel to many towns and cities across Britain not directly on the HS2 route, including Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby.

"170 miles of new high-speed line is already under construction between Crewe and London, employing over 29,000 people. In total, the Government is planning over 260 miles of new high speed line across the country."

The only advantage is that it is employing over 29,000 people.  However, they should all be employed in getting the UK's energy inefficient buildings up to modern, very low GHG emitting standard by fitting solar PV on every roof for every building to be a mini power station, to provide its own electricity as much as possible.  We all have to reduce our manic love of travelling, urgently especially jetting around the world and bombing around all over the UK.  My wife and I have and can maintain it, since 2019.​

 MY CLUES FOR A CLUELESS, FLOUNDERING, WAYWARD G...

​Do read this over High Scam 2, if you're interested:​

 GARETH DENNIS: This articulate young man has go...

​

Thanks so much, Barry for writing that was so encouraging.  HS2, Metro and Sprint are NOT green; just ecocidal.

WHAT MUST BE DONE according to the Gospel of FoE

 Keep fossil fuels in the ground. We need to leave at least 80% of our coal, oil and gas deposits alone if we want to prevent warming above 1.5 degrees. The UK should stop all new licences for fossil fuel extraction including in the North Sea.

Switch to electric vehicles fast. Electric cars are much cleaner and over their lifetime comparable or even cheaper in cost than petrol or diesel cars. Following campaigns by Friends of the Earth and others, the UK government has set a date of 2030 by which all new cars should be low carbon. 

Be energy-efficient citizens. We need to reduce global energy use by around 50%. The government should provide householders with grants to fit insulation and low carbon electric eco-heating. A local authority area-by-area programme would be the most efficient and cost effective way of doing this. A Fair Heat Deal which promises to ensure that fitting eco-heating is no greater than replacing a gas boiler is needed.

Use renewables to power the world. The UK is leading the way in off-shore wind but only a third of our electricity comes from wind and solar. And we'll need much more electricity to power transport and heating as electric vehicles and eco-heating take-up increases.  In the UK we should be building 14GW of renewable energy every year - equal to installing around 10 wind turbines every day.

Change our diets. Meat production results in extremely high greenhouse gas emissions and is a major driver of deforestation and the destruction of nature. In the UK we need to halve the amount of meat we eat by 2030 to help reduce greenhouse emissions. Less but better meat production globally would allow a significant increase in the amount of forests. This would be a boon for biodiversity – and forests also take carbon out of the air.

Double the area of forests and restore habitats in the UK. Trees suck carbon dioxide out of the air. In the UK we don’t have enough of them. Doubling the area of forests in the UK and restoring peatlands and wetlands, such as saltmarsh, would help address climate change and support nature.

Stop funding fossil fuels overseas. The UK and other wealthy countries have a long-track record of funding fossil fuels abroad. The G7 announced in 2021 that it would stop funding coal-plants but not that it would stop funding gas. Wealthy governments need to switch all their energy funding to renewable energy.  In addition they need to compensate poorer countries for the damage caused by climate change (so-called Loss and Damage) and provide the climate finance promised.  

Empower women. Gender equality, secondary education for all girls, and sexual and reproductive rights for women are fundamental human rights; absent in too many parts of the world. They are necessary so that women can fully contribute to tackling climate change  and adapting to it, including in politics, policy and lifestyle choices. 

Create an equal world. The 1 billion wealthiest people in the world consume most of the world’s resources. If we are to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all 8 billion people on our planet, we need to share our resources more fairly.

All these changes will lead to a better world. But they will only happen if people everywhere put more pressure on politicians, businesses and investors. We must also curtail the influence of the fossil fuel industry and others lobbying against action.

Scale down finite fossil fuels before its forced upon us, anyway

Gains in global renewable energy capacity from 2010 to 2020 have been outstripped by growth in fossil fuel use by a factor of three.

Scaling up renewables is not enough. We need to actively scale *down* fossil fuels. And right now none of our leaders have plans to do this.

Jason Hickel on Twitter

We have to get out of finite fossil fuels

I thought the idea of reducing our dependency, certainly addiction to finite fossil fuels, was to prepare for the rocketing energy price rises as shortages appear in the coming decades.

Therefore, all the things people like me are doing, living out and asking for are highly recommended!

SEVENFOLD INCREASE IN FOUR YEARS FOR ONLY TRANSPORT!

In only four years, your expenditure on only transport has gone up sevenfold.  This is shocking and disgraceful in the light of the climate emergency you have declared.  Seven 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.

Please come to your senses.

Life and death must never be the same again when its all over

Dear Ros and Cllr Chris - and everyone else who is interested

Every cloud has a silver lining; and, if you snooze you lose

You wrote, Ros, "When the time is right, we will look to resume our engagement with decision makers on the climate crisis and how we build a fairer, healthier and sustainable future for all."

I do think this is understandable.  However, I am so concerned at our society being up the creek without  a paddle ("to be in a serious quandary with little chance of a positive outcome").  Does our present predicament foreshadow when fossil fuels will be scarce and the climate emergency even more blindingly obvious?  Then, things will be ten times worse, won't they?  Therefore, we must work immediately towards that lower impact, fairer and more sustainable society where the rich help the poor, the strong help the weak and the advantaged help the disadvantaged.  And, where the old like me, give way, give preference to the young to enable them to thrive as we elders fade away and are gone.  We must continue to explain the uncomfortable realities of life and death, I think.  That does mean urgent engagement with everyone and especially decision makers.  And we are all decision makers, too of course.  We can each lead by example.

It seems, the virus crisis is making a small difference to the climate crisis and the reality of resource depletion, especially finite fossil fuels.  Highly dangerous greenhouse gases have dropped as air flights and movement by fossil fuels have lessened.  We are becoming more dependent on contact by phone and computer and on walking and cycling and, certainly no unnecessary travel now by public transport or, when it is all over, in cars.  Physical distancing still enables us to talk and to socialise at two metres when in the open air.

When the virus has eventually died out, we will all want to get back to how things were.  However, we must NOT, entirely.  I think that we must still restrain our use of fossil fuels and to minimise our dependency on them.  This is because we are fossil fuel junkies that is leading to climate catastrophe, Attenborough's "collapse of civilisations" and "extinction of much of the natural world" and "time is running out" warnings.  And he said that at COP 24 in December 2018, if I remember correctly.

Now is the time to live and campaign so that we permanently change our lifestyles to respond to the much greater climate emergency, the uncomfortable realities of resource depletion and unsustainable living and dying.

That wonderful Stourbridge Quaker and Green Party member, Joyce Millington, in the 1980s and 90s, was urging rationing of finite fossil fuels.  I think this is as urgent as ever when the virus has died out.  But our fast changing climates most definitely have not and are alive and well and changing for the worse, we are told.  I think we must have less social connectivity by hungry fossil fuels and more connectivity with nature and the uncomfortable realities of life.  Hence, these ideas:

 My ten point West Midlands plan for the new Gov...

 A5 flyer Feb 2020

But what do the rest of you think?  If we wake up, we may win!

Tim Weller

The Brexit brickwall = the tram rut = we Brits are going nowhere fast.

The Brexit brickwall = the tram rut = we Brits are going nowhere fast.  As well as by tram, train, bus or car!

"The link between Brexit and the increase in fossil fuel use" comes from the billions already spent over these last three years of referendum and, all the to-ing and fro-ing with meetings galore and documents.  The more we spend the more we use up our fossil fuel reserves. At the same time, as we burn them up, we tighten the grip of the runaway greenhouse effect to cause the collapse of the planet's life support systems.  We are all druggies addicted to fossil fuels. They have given us unheard of comfort and wealth but also a nasty and deadly downside that will continue to roll out this century, methinks.

With the over £60,000 per metre extension to Grand Central, the annual passenger journey figures have gone up to over 6 million.  This is still well short of what they said in the 1990s, in order to get the money out of government. Putting the trains back on the same 20 Kms mainline railway would have cost about £3,000 to £4,000 per metre in the 1990s.  Probably, less than that. And, of course, there would now be no need for the expensive Metro extension to Wolverhampton railway station. The nation has more money than sense. And every penny we spend tightens the screw on future devastating consequences for all life on earth from human climate change.

I was trying to be clever in making use of Donald Tusk's statement about "I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it safely".  I was comparing it with all those in Transport HQ, since 1981, giving top priority to trams rather than reinstating trains and stations. In addition, our councillors and officers are not at all bothered about their colleagues, in our district councils, giving planning permission for roads, but mainly buildings, obliterating 100 Kms of urban railway lines in the Black Country and Brum.  However, there is still 106 Kms that survive as freight only and mothballed, double track lines. All this destruction of transport infrastructure and refusal to countenance the return of commuter and regional trains on the 106 Kms, as railway passenger numbers have more than doubled since the mid 1990s with overcrowding on our commuter trains and longer traffic jams on our roads. Only trams are allowed.  Installing trams and tram stops is working out at about ten times more expensive per Km than simply rebuilding the stations and putting the commuter/regional trains back!!

We cannot afford to go on wasting, or misusing, perfectly good railway infrastructure, in my opinion.

Do you want our railway lines for trams or trains, Kevin?  You once said, so correctly, "We have to pay twice to get the trains back!"

Do read these writings of mine to understand what has been going so wrong:

THE TRAGEDY OF TRAMS WRECKING OUR RAILWAY NETWORK

FAKE NEWS, MISLEADING STATEMENTS AND LIES

Transport costs per kilometre

TUSK'S QUOTE:

"We will not gamble with peace or put a sell by date on reconciliation.  (Self: The Troubles in N Ireland may restart with any difficulty between or, distancing of, N Ireland from the Republic)  This is why we insist on the backstop. I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it (out) safely.  The EU 27 is not making any new offer. Let me recall that the December European Council decided that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation." The European Council President, Donald Tusk.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/feb/06/brexit-latest-news-developments-pmqs-theresa-may-faces-further-backlash-after-backstop-comments-in-belfast-speech-politics-live

All the best

THIS MUST BE THE ULTIMATE ABSURDITY TO RIVAL BREXIT!

Dear Brad - and copied to people who can confirm, correct or deny the accuracy of what I have written here.

You are brilliant at not being so high and mighty that you cannot reply.  You have the common decency and courtesy to engage and to engage honestly, too.  THANK YOU!  Everyone of my local politicians and officers could learn a thing or two from your fine example.

However, I still don't think it has dawned on you that the mainline railway, almost adjacent to the Waterfront, will be wasted, unused, possibly for the rest of time.  A railway "of national strategic significance" being used as a shuttle "bus on rails" tram line to 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station', aka New St Sta. This is a most terrible waste of transport infrastructure that has already had millions of pounds spent on it and will now remain wasted, possibly for an eternity!  You will never be connected to the NE and the SW of England by fast, regional and even intercity trains.  Instead, you are being sold a pup - when you could have a mature, grown up dog!  Instead of the tram line at double the expense per kilometre of the M6 Toll when it opened in December 2003, you could have passenger trains from all parts of the country coming to Merry Hill - as used to be the case, of course.  They came to the station in Brierley Hill, itself because your site was Merry Hill Farmhouse and farmlands and the northern part was Round Oak Steelworks - either side of Level Street.  This was the case from around 1850 in the midst of the ultimately catastrophic, climate changing Industrial Revolution.  Even then, apparently, some scientists were warning of the terrible consequences of burning fossil fuels!

I don't think you get it, Brad.  No shuttle tram but a grown up regional and even national service on the full 120 Kms.  You would be able to get about that more easily in your car when driving through the Midlands.  Some motorists will use the mainline railway to allow you to have a more pleasant drive on motorways with fewer vehicles!

Anyway, it doesn't matter that you cannot see the grand scheme that could be yours!  You must settle for very much less than the best, as TfWM/WMCA also want.  You are in good company.

14 March 2019  

I wrote all that yesterday morning.  I have woken up today and feel that I must add this.  To be blunt, you are facilitating the permanent destruction of the UK's only/last mothballed mainline railway over 120 Kms between Worcester and Derby.  The northern and southern sections are in use but the most important section is YOUR section, in the middle through the Black Country and that bypasses "one of the worst railway congestion bottlenecks in the UK", viz: 'Grand Central Shopping Centre and Diesel Perfumed Basement Station' aka New St Sta.  The intention of the 'experts' is for a railway "of national strategic significance" to be used as a shuttle "bus on rails" tram line to 'Grand Central'. This is a most terrible waste of transport infrastructure that has already had millions of pounds spent on it and will now remain wasted, until humanity is passed over in favour of other life forms!  Millions of pounds was spent in recent years for the flyovers and tunnels over the forgotten 56 Kms to allow new dual carriageways and motorways to be built.  But the idiots forgot to go on to the next step - the rather vital trains and stations!

Your Waterfront Mainline Railway station must be connected to the shops by electric buses or by electric, driverless, elevated monorail. NOT the railway "of national strategic significance" used as a piddling little shuttle tram line. The current intention is as shocking as the chaos of our government's Brexit. It was the stupid transport planners and small minded politicians who allowed an excellent top model, Swiss monorail from Von Roll to be built and opened in, I think, 1990. Yet, the foolish, ignorant, authorities failed to connect the last 400 metres, from Waterfront monorail station, to the nationally important railway at Round Oak. Even then, the much needed commuter/regional trains and stations should have gone back - in 1990! Round Oak is almost adjacent to the Waterfront that you own.

I think, Brad that only you and your company can knock some sense into the heads of the public sector top officials, politicians and 'experts'. It is your national duty to do so. Seriously!

Very best wishes

Sleep walking into a nightmare scenario

I think we are heading for an almighty big crash.  Because Nature/planet earth/life support systems have never before seen such rapid and comprehensive changes on the surface of the planet as us humans have wrought in the last 250 years.  I am thinking of how, in 350 years, we are burning up the earth's fossil fuels that took 350 million years to form.  That is bound to make an unfortunate difference for life on earth.

We have nothing to make us change our behaviours.  The scientists and technologists will be able to come up with something as equally comprehensive and versatile as oil, gas and coal.  Therefore, hoorah!  We can carry on with over-consumption, over-population and living it up for today.  Fantastic.  We can carry on wasting the earth's resources.  We don't have to bother about anything because the government will always ensure that the lights will never go out.  We don't need to worry our little heads when necessity is the mother of invention and our intelligence and reasoning will see us through whatever is thrown at us.

Actually, a shrug of the shoulders response is no longer adequate.

"Jesus wants to save Christians" - book review

"JESUS WANTS TO SAVE CHRISTIANS" - FROM BEING EXILED by Rob Bell

To be like Jesus is a tall order but not so impossible if Rob Bell could have been a little more outspoken about us all renouncing the attacks, the occupations, the aggressions, the sheer violence of our descendants and, now, ourselves - on other nations.  The Church in exile is the church wrapped in the devil's arms of violence; it should be noted for its non-violence.

Jesus wants to save Christians to be more like Him in the way He renounced empire building in His first temptation.  Rob omits to remind his readers that the Christian West has been at the forefront of taking and taking over countries to be all their own - called colonialism.  Now the religious, God fearing, USA is the largest empire on earth.  The Church in exile is the church in unholy empire of being on the take; of being in domination.  Not quite what Jesus intended!

"Man shall not live by bread alone".  Yet, the Church has done just that in grabbing what and who it can while the going was good.  Not just land and fossil fuels but slaves to make us rich beyond what humanity has ever seen before.  We are now turning, transforming, the stones of rare minerals and a host of other finite resources to live it up to bring today's comfort and riches.  But bread for the poor and future generations is overlooked, ignored, forgotten.  Including the stones of fossil fuels and all finite raw materials.

Is this not what Jesus also wants to save Christians from in order to be more like the Man God who rejected what we never, ever reject?

Rob - You have more to include in the next edition, please!

DO SOLAR and be a humanitarian, a philanthropist!

I've had a short chat this evening with Mike, my father in law.  He's against investing in solar panels because it takes far too long to get the investment back.  Certainly, that is true for him at 86 but I see solar renewables as avoiding fossil fuels that are finite and limited and, all enhance the natural greenhouse effect.  Why think only of putting your money where it will make the most money in the shortest possible time?  Can we not think of future generations and their energy needs?  Can we not think of slowing the exhaustion of non-renewable resources?  Of slowing climate change.  How about investing in solar for humanitarian reasons?  Not for self advancement but to play one's own very small part but, essential part, in improving the prospects for humanity.  Do it for others!

As you said Becky (Roseff), every single roof should have solar panels.  New builds should have them on the roof pitch that is south facing.  I will now make enquiries over the feasibility of E/W facing pitches having solar.  Both those pitches get the sun for half the day each if they are not shaded by trees or higher buildings.  Will any company do it for me?  I will see.

Necessity is the mother of invention

One member of the group at my 60th birthday weekend (photos opposite), came up with this saying to explain that we have nothing to worry about over our limited reserves of fossil fuels. Science and technology will come to our rescue as oil, gas and coal finally become too expensive to be worth exploiting. There will be hydrogen and nuclear to save us. But, hydrogen has to be made and that uses energy. Nuclear fission uses finite resources, too so cannot be the ultimate solution - unless, after all these decades of trying, nuclear fusion is perfected.

It seems that oil is more important as a chemical building block for our five hundred everyday objects around the home and office and in town and country. It is needed for even carpets! I don't think we should be burning, very wastefully, the oil - or gas, for that matter - to turn into electricity. For every $100 barrel of oil that is turned into electricity, two barrels go up the chimney of the power station! Even oil man and Texan, George W Bush admits that Western societies are addicted to oil but does nothing to even slow the rising and prodigious burning of the stuff. The President might well have said, "We need oil to survive as a nation, just like fish need water for their survival."

Our one off, never to be repeated, geological inheritance that took 300 million years to form is being foolishly blown in the Western and Christian and white man's thoughtless dash to blow the lot in just 300 years! What is the matter with the white races with their many centuries of the Judeo-Christian traditions and beliefs at their heart that see them as the peak of creation with the right to exploit this inheritance? This bonanza has gone to our heads and we've been unable to cope with this cornucopia of riches. These nations, alone, are responsible. Now, many other countries are wanting to do the same to even more quickly exhaust the remaining reserves!

The double whammy is that as we all burn the oil and gas and burn down the tropical rain forests, we also screw up, good and proper the climates of the world - to nicely further worsen our long term prospects! And, then, there are going to be 50% more of us on this tiny planet to do yet more of this stupid burning and consuming. The lot of us are the horror species not the human species on this earth, I think!

And, to think that the discovery of first coal (in about 1750) and then oil, followed by gas is an invention! Not even we humans in our arrogance and supreme intelligence can invent something so versatile, invaluable and precious as oil, gas and coal. How can we humans invent more oil when it took Nature 300 million years? Yet, on that evening, I alone was appalled by the complacency that was shown in using that saying to lull everyone into a false sense of security over our prodigality and greed in running through the black gold in the twinkling of an eye - relative to the geological time scale.

Our misguided faith in science and technology to bale us out of our folly and our reliance on the 'solution' of economic expansion from a diminishing capital resource base is like the 'Any Questions' questioner who said, "Our behaviour is like the smoker who keeps smoking confident in the knowledge there will be a cure for cancer - to allow him to keep smoking!"

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.

10-10-20 Vision for green eyes!

I aim for 10/10/20 - no more than 10 units of elecy/day on average over the year for the four of us adults; at least 10 miles/litre for my diesel car (12 year old Astra); and, absolute max of 20C for the rooms we sit in. We all switch the gas heating off at 20C and, then no more fossil fuels until 16C is reached in our well insulated, middle of a block of four, home!

Can anyone else achieve that?