FoE Green Jobs Summit

 FOE GREEN JOBS SUMMIT

This was a well-attended Zoom meeting, yesterday evening, with nearly 40, at maximum.  However, we were all of one mind.  It is urgent that we engage with the decision-makers and those who hold the purse strings.  We have to tell them what they have to do, I think, by discussing and voting on resolutions to send to the VIP bigwigs at the seven district councils and at WMCA HQ, 16 Summer Lane.  Hence:

Both Stuart Richardson and I made two important interventions that the Chair should have picked up on as an opportunity to help the authorities to make the right decisions.  Stuart wanted more and urgent help for the least well-off and everyone to move out of gas heating and cooking.  I wanted regional Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) extended from my age group to the middle-aged and young to end that discrimination and as the carrot and antidote to the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) charges.

In a question, I pointed out the idiocy of spending £120 billion of yet more greenhouse gases to simply allow a small minority to have the choice of either flying through the air in a plane or, flying through the air on land on High Scam 2 between four Big English Cities (and two of their airports), ONLY!

Further, in Dudley borough alone, six railway lines have been destroyed and a seventh is on the way because of Metro trams and VLR trams.  This railway destruction and High Scam 2 railway construction must STOP!

FROM KEVIN ANDERSON (Professor of energy and climate change - interested in translating the science of climate change into carbon budgets, policy goals and mitigation options.):

Is there any agreement - from even one person - that the urgency of the situation and the bleak prospects before the end of the century demands more sensible and appropriate action, like the above - immediately?

Tim Weller

HS2 AND METRO ARE SCAMS because ...

Roger Harrabin quote:

@RHarrabin

Oct 2021

"It is remarkable they are willing to spend £120 bn on HS2 while ignoring people's homes."

1. HS2 gives an increased choice of plane or train to travel between only Four Big Cities - London, Brum, Manchester and Leeds. Some trains may stop at Crewe, Toton and Sheffield.

2. Yet, for £120 billion on a dedicated line, you still have to maintain the present intercity service for all the towns and cities that HS2 is far too fast to stop at!

3. High Scam 2 gives such increased capacity for passengers between only four cities and two of their airports, that they get their own First Class train to zip through the air to arrive sooner than the plane! It eliminates overcrowding for them.

4. All other intercity passengers will get less overcrowding if the present service continues with the same number of carriages and frequency. But it is likely to be cut and/or more stops at new stations, to make for a poorer service overall.

5. That HS2 gives "improved connectivity for 25 towns and cities" is a lie. The correct figure is 4, with two of their airports and some trains may stop at Crewe, Toton and Sheffield.

6. That High Scam 2 addresses climate change by lessening the climate emergency is a fraudulent claim.  Spending £120 billion means £120 billion of finite resources stolen from future generations.  And, £120 billion of fossil fuels burnt to exacerbate the climate, ecological and nature emergency.

7. The capacity argument is also a fraudulent claim when everyone in the railway business - train enthusiasts, trade unions, employers and workers are still destroying some railway lines leaving others without passenger trains and stations and turning others into tramways.

8. Their whole emphasis is on light rail (LR) with trams taking over more roads and railways in Brum.  With Leeds and Bristol wanting to follow suit.

9. Trams are called "bus on rails" by UK Tram, the national tram promotion and lobby organisation that is in the same building as TfWM and WMCA, 16 Summer Lane.

Fraudulent Claims for Metro

• The Wednesbury, Brierley Hill Extension (WBHE) of Metro must be provided to make it possible for freight and passenger trains to be reinstated, on the same line, at a later date.  This is a LIE.

• This is done by "passive provision" that is the magical phrase to allow for the mainline railway through the Black Country to be completed - at an unknown date, well into the future.  But trams must go on it first!  MORE NONSENSE.

• Only by converting some buses and trains into Metro can motorists be enticed out of their cars and onto public transport, ie: swish, smart, super expensive Metro "bus on rails" trams!  MORE SELF-DELUSION.

• Grossly extravagant trams are necessary to make for multi-modal public transport.  This is the silver bullet to make for a First Class service to deal with climate, congestion, air pollution and every other problem.  ANOTHER LIE.

• Multi-modal means an almighty mix up with more changes and delays between now three modes of public transport - bus, train and tram.

• Trams are further mixed up into light rail, very light rail and ultra light rail!

• Andy Burnham in Manchester complains about the high cost of bus fares.  Is this anything to do with his multi-modal mix-up mish mash of train, bus and astonishingly expensive tram construction that has taken over some buses and trains?

• In Brum, only Metro being allowed in Five Ways underpass and Broad Street means that every passenger for the city centre (apart from those living within walking distance of Edgbaston village tram stop) now has a longer, slower and more delayed journey - either by staying on the longer diversion for the bus or, by waiting and changing for the tram at Edgbaston.

HS2 and Metro are greedy, wealth flaunting and ecocidal.  Both divert finite resources from going into electric buses (phased in) and Fare-Free Public Transport (FFPT) extended from elders to the younger age groups, to end that discrimination against them and, as a carrot, inducement and reward for motorists avoiding the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) charge and leaving the car at home.

HS2 and Metro are grossly extravagant and unnecessary.

They are the epitomy of a greedy, all-consuming, squandering society.

Vital, finite resources for future generations are taken without a thought.

In the process, they deepen the runaway greenhouse effect to escalate ecocide.

TimWeller1@gmail.com 22 October 2021

I think that is just the ticket Tim, if you don't mind the pun. The other arguments about woodland destruction, cement use, the high energy use of high speed trains, and it being a toy for the rich can come in at some other time.

I was majoring on stuff no-one else has mentioned, as far as I know.   High Scam 2 for a small minority of train travellers, only who can ALL work, read and snooze on intercity trains and, so don't need anything faster.  Therefore, completely pointless £120 billion of greenhouse gas emissions to hasten the Sixth Mass Extinction episode in the short history of this planet!

"It is remarkable they are willing to spend £120 bn on HS2 while ignoring peoples homes."

 

roger harrabin

@RHarrabin

·

Oct 20

It is remarkable they are willing to spend £120 bn on HS2 while ignoring peoples homes.

BLOCKING THE M25 BY A RETD GP, Dr Bing Jones on Jeremy Vine, 14.10.21

WHY A GP IS BLOCKING THE ROAD TO STOP A NURSE FROM ATTENDING TO HER PATIENT

"The climate is the greatest calamity humankind has ever faced.  We are in real trouble here and the government is failing and the world is failing.  We are not bringing carbon emissions down.  Our government is failing to meet 80% of its own targets and the UN is telling us that instead of a 50% drop in emissions we are looking by 2030 to a rise in emissions, maybe 16%.  This is really dire, Jeremy and your audience needs to realise that we have a massive problem and we have a government that is failing.  The dire reality of our situation has to be faced.

"We need to try and get something done here, where we live.  Insulating is something that people can understand.  The climate emergency is enormous and frightening.  By insulating buildings, we reduce emissions by 15%.  We can create hundreds of thousands of really useful, proper jobs.  It is levelling up that is exactly what the government wants.  And the biggest thing is we can get millions of people out of fuel poverty.  It is a crime that 4 million children live in houses where their parents have to decide between food and fuel.  That is criminal.

VINE: You have been arrested several times, I understand.  Why, as a doctor, are you OK with sitting on a road blocking a nurse getting to her patient?

GP: We are really sorry for the disruption we cause.  But the world needs disrupting.  I am seeing this.  It is really difficult.  It is to do with relative risk.  We are asking people to miss a meal to help save the whole world from starving to death.

VINE: Letting the one nurse through makes no difference to climate change.  Why did you not let her through?

GP: It does make a difference to climate change.  I am here.  I am talking to your audience, Jeremy.  That is a really big achievement.  People need to know that the problem is enormous and we need to have a solution.  Boris needs to get on with this job and sort things out.

GP: The real risk to humanity is from normal business as usual.  We are not getting the carbon emissions down.  The recent Chatham House report in September has stated that we have only a 1 in 20 chance of meeting even the 2 C rise in temperature, let alone the 1.5 C rise.  We are in trouble and we need to have a long term view.

VINE: Why is this bit of the law not important to you?

GP: The law is important to me.  Believe you me, I have tried absolutely everything.  I have written to MPs, I have lectured and published in the medical press.  I have stood outside Parliament.  I have done everything you could possibly imagine.  Where have we got?  We have got absolutely nowhere.  Even Prince Charles who does not agree with what we are doing says, "We have got nowhere."  He's been doing it for 40 years.  I've been doing it for 30 years.  And we have to do something different.  Insulate Britain is bringing the problem down to something that people can understand.  If we had warm homes; if you had heating bills of only 10% of what you've got now that would be real.  As would saving 8 to 10,000 people dying every year from the cold.  This is a crime.  People should not be dying in the sixth richest country in the world from the cold.

Follow my good example out of enlightened self interest!

CUT YOUR EARTHLY CAR MILEAGE TO JOIN THE BILLIONAIRES EXPLORING SPACE - they only travel the distance from Perth to Glasgow, after all (60 miles)!

I am very concerned about the Covid, climate, ecological, nature emergency and am doing this:-

At 73 yrs, I've had a fantastic lifetime of hillwalking all the big hills in the UK and Ireland.  It is well time for me to make a concession, a small prize lost to help win the much grander prize of leaving the state of the planet in a slightly better state, perhaps.

Since 2020 I have resolved to lead by example and to cut my total car mileage by 50% on my 2019 figure of 14,000 miles when I drove to Scotland six times to climb their hills.  In 2020, I travelled only once and drove 6,000 miles.  This year, I have done two trips, car camped on nearly all the nights and, so far have driven only 5,000 miles in my attempt to climb, in my lifetime, every single summit listed in the SMC's 'Munro's Tables'.

Last week, I came back from a fantastic 14 nights, with only two of them in a hotel and visited nine summits.  With my diesel car, driving at 60 to 65 mph on the motorways and dual carriageways, I achieved 85 mpg according to the car computer.  Therefore, my deadly greenhouse gas emissions were really low!

I went on fewer occasions but stayed longer and cut my carbon footprint.  I was cycling from my car base camp to the start of the hill on each of the nine days to take in a 'Graham' hill.  I had a great time in mixed weather and showed to the new generations of walkers what can be done.

In losing car mileage and cutting greenhouse gases, I have explored local/regional countryside and found some most wonderful walks in exploring areas I had never before dreamt of going to.  Again, parking up, cycling, then walking before returning to the bike to get to the car.  All this gained, instead of bombing off into Wales from Halesowen or to some far-flung corner of England to use up our precious finite fossil fuels with their deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

Will others follow my example?  Especially, those of my age in order to leave a planet in a better shape for the youngsters?  BE A GOOD ANCESTOR!

JOBS AT ANY PRICE leads to big national infrastructure spending

Rather than jobs at any price, do you agree that the wealthy must ensure through their taxes that everyone must have a basic living income to ensure a comfortable standard of living to guarantee decent shelter, food and clothing?

MORE DESTRUCTION OF RAILWAY LINES

Saturday 18 September 2021

Dear James Morris,

This is is absurd, scandalous and immoral spending for "bus on rails" trams, First Class Sprint buses, Second Class Platinum buses all on Hagley Road, with cars, trucks, vans and lorries! The authorities are escalating us to catastrophe with greenhouse gases led ecocide.

Never any consultation or the slightest whisper of even giving a nod towards following the correct democratic procedure for councillors to discuss, debate and vote on all this wasteful, stupid expenditure of taxpayers' money.

Derby to Devon via Dudley principal mainline railway continues to get destroyed with two further nibble sized sections being converted to "bus on rails" tramway! Incompetent idiocy is no exaggeration.

Building HS2, Metro and Sprint are NOT green jobs!

Is it really a green, ecologically sound job to be building a high speed railway line for a small minority of wealthy business people to travel between only four English cities and two of their airports?  Especially, when everyone else will still have to stick to the more mundane, ordinary, existing but, perfectly fast enough intercity service?

Is it really a green and an ecologically sound job to work on the second most expensive transport mode after HS2, when it simply results in, again only a small minority of people in Edgbaston within walking distance of the tram stop who do have a more direct and quicker service into the city centre itself?  Everyone on the 11 different bus routes either have a longer, slower route if they stay on the bus or, they get off and wait for the tram to take them on to Colmore Row on the edge of the city centre.

Is it really a green and an ecologically sound job to be building a First Class Sprint bus line from Walsall to Solihull?  Solihull that already has the basic transport modes of bus and train, plus the highly expensive, climate worsening HS2, Metro and the bus that thinks its a tram, Sprint.

Another bleak warning from the UN

RADIO 4 'TODAY' NEWS REPORT

"A UN report says major economies are planning to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels than would be consistent with meeting a key climate goal.

"Experts from the UN say the amount of fossil fuels that major economies including the UK are planning to extract this decade are incompatible with keeping global warming to safe levels.  It was agreed at the Paris Climate summit in 2015 that the average temperature worldwide should not be allowed to increase by more than 1.5 C.  With more on the UNEP report, here is Matt Magrath:

"This report says there is a huge and growing gap between the fossil fuel production plans of major countries and the limits that science says are necessary to keep the global rise in temperatures to safe levels.  According to the study, coal, oil and gas producers including the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia expect to extract around 110% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be compatible with the 1.5 Celsius temperature rise.  Coal production is likely to drop but gas will increase the most in the coming years.  The authors say these plans are simply incompatible with the Paris Climate Agreement.

"This report illustrates how far countries have to move to keep the key goal of 1.5 alive is to be realised."

A NASA climate scientist says it was indicative of a wider failure to go into what he called, 'climate emergency mode'.  "There is a comforting sense that if there are a bit more renewables, a bit more electric cars and all will be well.  We cannot keep saying it is an emergency or saying that it is an existential crisis and then continue to expand the very things causing the emergency in the first place that is just burning fossil fuels."

Three VIPs sound off

"They've been calling for it for quite a while", said Evan Davis this evening on 'PM', Radio 4.

"How dare you continue to look away. To think you are doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight." Thunberg

"Climate change and biodiversity loss represent a borderless crisis. The solutions to which have been argued about and postponed for far too long." Prince of Wales

"If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations, and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." Attenborough

The Gospel of Public Transport According to St Tim the Sinner!

Hi Lee and Cllr Waseem

I am really sorry to hear, Lee about your dreadful experiences and of what things are like on public transport.  Absolutely terrible!

The ultimate indignity, for skinny people like me who are more skeleton than fat and muscle, are the disgraceful hard plastic seats on Metro.  This, when the appearance is of a cushion to sink into, is a shock to my posterior.  £4 m for each "bus on rails" tram, too.  Compared with £350,000 for an electric bus!

In compensation, it should be entirely free for everyone and not just my age group.  No money is a lie when £106 billion is going into HS2 to only travel quicker between the Four Big Cities and two of their airports.  And, £15 billion into replacing some trains and buses with trams by 2040 is a scandal.

We have to stop destroying railway lines by turning them into tramways, housing/trading estates and roads - and, at the most enormous expense, too!

We have to stop turning roads into tramways at the most enormous expense.

We have to abandon yet more tram extensions, immediately.

Put passenger trains on the 106 Kms of mothballed or freight-only railway lines in the W Midlands that includes the wasted, partly unused Worcester to Derby railway.

We have to encourage working from home to free up transport corridors for essential office-based and other workers who must use roads and public transport.

We must have every encouragement for short-distance commuting.

You must work in an office as near as possible to your home, if you really cannot work from home.

Able-bodied, healthy workers need to use their bikes, as I did for the last 15 to 20 years of my social work career - for both commuting and on official council business.  I got 20p per mile by the time I retired at 65 in 2013 (but not for commuting by bike.  But why not, as your reward for using your own energy instead of deepening the climate emergency?)  I kept off busy main roads and took quieter, residential roads and cycle-walkways.  And I kept fitter.

I now have 6 miles out of 8 miles on traffic-free cycle-walkways and towpaths into Brum city centre from Halesowen.  The other two miles are on residential roads.

IN SUMMARY

If you use the car you pay CAZ or ULEZ charge.

If you use bus, train, tram you pay nothing.

If you use e-bike or self-powered bike for work commuting you get paid and, paid more if the bike is 100% self powered, fossil free.

What do you think, Lee?!   AND WASEEM - please Sir?!

SO-OO-OO IMPORTANT! The mighty, 22 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walk Mudway!

Dear Judith, Harry and Michael - and copied to my own, much under-appreciated MP, James Morris.

Thanks so much for writing.  Lovely to hear from all three of you.

No hard manual labour required - just a persistent, polite, irregular email/phoning of the addresses I've given you; plus your own MPs and councillors - PLEASE!!

MUDWAY TO WALKWAY TRANSFORMED because:

1. 22 Kms in length, made up of two unused railway lines with a funny kink in the middle where they don't quite meet!
2. Mentioned in our current 'Walk' magazine.  Can you find the mention?!
3. Connects one city and one town via the delightful village of Wombourne in South Staffordshire.
4. Well used in Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire by all kinds of walkers and even some horse riders and cyclists.
5. NOT well used in Dudley borough because, in places, it is overgrown and muddy and waterlogged.
6. An unrecognised, forgotten, unappreciated, unloved cycle-walkway.
7. But all of it could be a business, commuter and leisure route for cycle commuters deserting their cars to respond to the climate emergency.  Like I have, literally, for decades!
8. Three nature reserves, with two in Dudley borough.
9. Two refreshment halts in two old Victorian railway stations.
10. One nationally important long-distance footpath, the Monarch's Way, uses part of it.
11. One Woodland Trust property, with car park, called Himley Plantation is next to the cycle-walkway.
12. One SSSI at Pensnett, Dudley for its nationally famous Great Crested Newts.
13. Baggeridge Country Park is nearby.
14. Recognised by the Ordnance Survey on their Explorer map as a major "traffic-free cycle route".
15. HS2, Metro and Sprint extensions all prove money is in great abundance and grows on the trees that don't get felled for HS2!

Very best wishes for any writing you can do to impress on the authorities how desperately needed it is for it to be finished with a wide, all-weather, free-draining surface.  Exactly like the upgrade in Woodgate Valley Country Park in west Brum, now transformed after decades of patient, intermittent requests - by me!

I think I was wrong when I said on Saturday ...

 ... we, the UK, are not engaged in any war at present apart from our provocative/aggressive Royal Navy sailing in the South China Sea and through the sea between China and Taiwan.  Hence:

IS THIS IN ORDER?

Is this latest killing by a Muslim extremist/jihadist/Islamist to do with revenge for our decades of W military interventions, the occupying of holy Muslim soil and, for funding and fueling and supporting Saudi Arabia's war (our friend and ally) killing Yemenis in our latest war?

Another throwback and blowback to Western presence of "hundreds of thousands of US soldiers" in Saudi Arabia in 1991 after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait?  (Jeremy Bowen on 'From Our Own Correspondent', Radio 4, 30th September 2021.  Worth listening to on BBC Sounds)

We are all at small risk from a tiny minority of Muslims who are incensed by UK military and foreign policy to fuel wars, like the one against Yemen in recent years.  It is essential, we are told, to ensure economic growth, to keep our war factories churning out weapons and ammunition and, to keep many in employment.

Admittedly, MPs must be more at risk from attack with their votes and speeches in favour of the arms trade, WMD renewal/expansion and funding and support for Middle East wars by our friends.

No economic health without ecological health

 

Andrew Simms

@AndrewSimms_uk

Much talk of the Treasury's use of 'economically illiterate' as a put-down to fend off green public investment calls. Wrong, but has it occurred to them they may be 'ecologically illiterate', & as economics is just 'made up' while ecology is real, that the latter matters more?

Eccentric game changer - changing a mainline railway into a tramway!

Mayor of the West Midlands and chair of the WMCA Andy Street, said:

The Wednesbury to Brierley Hill Metro extension will be a game-changer for the Black Country as it will help to boost public transport whilst providing much-needed links to the existing rail and bus networks.

There are already links to the bus network with large bus stations at Dudley and at Merry Hill on the route of the tramway.  And, a forgotten link to the nearby, half-used railway!

The existing bus route is to be duplicated by a tramway that also uses the Derby to Devon via Dudley principal mainline railway that gets destroyed in the process!!

All for half a billion pounds (£500 m) for only 10 Kms!!

Scotland rebuilt a railway of 50 Kms for only £350 m in September 2015.

The foolish authorities even built a link between the nearby mainline railway at the Waterfront and the bus station at Merry Hill.  But, they forgot to extend it, only 400 metres further, from the Waterfront car park, to the principal mainline railway between Worcester and Derby - and, to finish the railway with passenger trains, too!

“An elevated monorail was officially opened at the Merry Hill Centre on June 1st 1991, costing £22,000,000 to build." 

"The monorail was broken up in 1996 and sold to a shopping centre in Queensland, Australia."  (Google search)

CORBYN GOES TO COP 26 for his own four events

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to come to Scotland to hold an “alternative Cop26”.

Corbyn, through his Peace and Justice Project,  will hold four events, three in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, between November 8 and November 11.

Among the events is a “climate justice cabaret”, bringing together musicians and artists, as well as a panel with trade union leaders and two in conversation-style events.

Code red for humanity

The Islington MP said he would look to “raise up the voices of others” during the tour.

The climate emergency is a ‘code red for humanity’, is a critical warning.

We need radical and rapid change to our dangerously broken and destructive political and economic system.

Our future is being stolen from under us by a coalition of big polluters and big banks, propped up by weak politicians too scared to take them on.

I can’t wait to be in Scotland during Cop26 to add my voice – and more importantly raise up the voices of others – to propose radical and rapid change.”

Linked crises

Corbyn added:

That change must be environmental but also social and economic. Our crises of inequality, climate, Covid-19 and democracy are all linked.

The climate is a class issue at home and an international justice for the world. Those who have done the least harm suffer the most and the first.

That’s why the demands of workers and the global south need to be at the centre of our campaign for climate justice.

Our events will raise their demands through talks and discussions as well as music and art from hugely talented performers.

My 2nd resolution to Left Unity

Dear friends and comrades

Is there room on the agenda for Sat 16 Oct to talk about this suggestion, perhaps?

RESOLUTION AGAINST greedy, unnecessary, vanity projects but, the funds used instead, to pay for levelling up by raising the attractiveness of public transport.  Especially, for those with mobility issues who must have the most help and top priority, every time.

That this branch of Birmingham and W Midlands Left Unity condemns the proposed Brum to Leeds E arm extension of HS2 and the extension to Manchester from Birmingham.

We are united in wanting it stopped along with all other extensions of W Midland Metro and Sprint buses that are horrifically expensive to further boost greenhouse gas emissions; make for a First Class and Second Class public transport provision; and, worsen public transport by introducing more changes and delays between train, three kinds of tram, Sprint buses and Platinum buses.

This is called multi-modal transport by Mayor Andy Street but means, in fact, a multi-modal mix up mish mash that results in a slower public transport journey as now seen on Hagley Road, Five Ways underpass and Broad Street in Birmingham.

We resolve that Andy's £15 billion to 2040 for Metro tram extensions in the W Midlands must go, instead to extend the region's Fare-Free Public Transport to the young and middle-aged to end that discrimination against them and, as the antidote and carrot to the stick of Brum's Clean Air Zone charges.

END

I think that we have everything to gain in publicity and in getting noticed by the media if Mike feels able to pump out our resolutions to all and sundry!  Persistence and patience will eventually pay off in giving us a higher profile and more attention.  It may take years, though!

Could this go on the agenda for a week on Saturday, please, Mike?

Tim