I should know where all the services are as I have owned the site for a very long time and have built and removed certain structures, laid new water supply and the electricity supply is currently overhead. I was at the bottom of a 3 metre trench in the summer fixing the drainage on the septic tank, quite scary without proper props holding the sides. I'm now getting a bit too old for too much heavy manual stuff. It is strange to have to pile a single storey oak garage when the main house is OK to use normal strip footings, obviously down to the location of certain trees. I understand the new electricity supply will need to cross the lane to a new pole then be trenched underground rather than pole to house which seems much simpler.
I was involved in the condition survey and advising on remedial works to two bridges in Loudwater. We had to employ a firm to take a core out of the bridge. The topographic survey was fine and I arrived with a senior colleague to point out the gas main in actuality and on the plans... and to remind them not to core on that side of the bridge. Then we left. Two hours later a call came into the office... gas to the estate was restored over 24 hours later. How the crew didn't blow up themselves, both bridges and half the estate with it remains a mystery.
This is worth a read. http://news.sky.com/story/governmen...from-unhappy-car-makers-over-customs-11041724
Every cloud has a silver lining Frenchie - this prehistorical gas guzzling industry has no future anyway (or shouldn't have). We need more buses, more trains, more bicycles not these things. Germany has some of the most inadequate public transport in Europe - it was all run down in the past to support their poxy car industry - if this industry (the real rulers of Germany) went downhill then Germany would be forced to readjust its economy and produce something usefull, which would be the best thing for Europe. Anything which forces the price of driving up is ok. with me.
Somehow I guessed that you would think along those lines. Somehow though I doubt that most of these manufacturers will have enough work for all of the thousands they employ making bicycles.
You cannot justify any industry by only saying that it creates jobs Frenchie - going along those lines you could also say that the weapons industry produces jobs. War produces jobs - millions of them. Work, or rather human activity, is always there in some form or other, waiting to be done - it is the job of a state to make sure that the work which is done within its realm is productive, not destructive.
I think we are back on familiar ground here cologne when I ask how you would change the existing means of employment and transport in a short period. If you say it would not be a short period as time is needed to remodel things, what period would you aim for?
We're talking, first and foremost, about the concept of a post growth economy. To face up to the fact that you cannot solve the problems which have been created by technology by adding more technology to it eg. electric cars etc. That is a techno fix solution - like telling a chain smoker that he should carry on because in a few years there will a cure for lung cancer. We never pose the question that there might just be too much trade in the World, too much production, too much transporting of goods here and there, too much tourism etc. Everything we do we do too much of. We do not need increased wealth - we need to share the existing wealth around more evenly. We also need to go back to doing things by hand more often. You can say 'increased trade creates more jobs', but does it ? Look at how port cities were affected by containerization - no more dockers, just computerized cranes - ships crews (now shrunk to 15 for a 16,000 TEU ship) which no longer stimulate port life as was once the case, because they come and go in a few hours. How many workers did a car factory, or an oil refinery employ in the 50s compared to now, with the aid of robots ? We need to be recreating more unskilled and semi skilled work and sharing the work around more. Maybe we need more people to build one car (if you insist on having them) by more traditional methods - and then the customer must be prepared to pay more for his right to destroy my environment.
In addition I would ask if you have ever looked from an aeroplane (before you say anything, I don't use them anymore) down upon a large city like London and noticed what percentage of the area of the city is taken up by cars or car parks - a spaceman would come to the conclusion that the car was the dominant life force - with humans springing here and there to avoid them. Imagine London without cars (I would still allow electric buses and ambulances etc.) - the way street life could develop, and how many jobs could actually spring up through these means. What a difference a simple step such as this could make to the quality of life there. Every time a city declares a car free day it is associated with a rise in spending in that area - which stimulates jobs of a different kind.
Much of what you say I can agree to as I am quite happy to live a fairly simple life. But I am not sure just how simple it is. We would not be having this conversation if we didn't both have computers, and my wife wouldn't be improving her education by watching TV, all of which probably came from the far east. My wood burner that I keep fueled by my labour came from Spain, and the runner beans I grew came from English seed. My car comes from France, although I wouldn't be surprised if half of it was made elsewhere, but then without it I couldn't get out of the village. No buses or trains anywhere near, but I do only use the car when required as my contribution to saving the planet. Life has changed. The small town nearest to me had three bakers, and three butchers when I first came here. Today it has just the one baker. I am sad about that, but it happened because people had the choice of shopping locally, or jumping into the car for ten minutes and going to the large supermarket where they had a much larger selection of things to buy. Having gone down this road you cannot say that cars are to be taken away, electrical goods cannot be bought, and the local butchers and bakers must re-open. It is how you go about getting this transition from where we are today to your vision that interests me.
My only defence is that my computer is an old one Frenchie It also allows me to work a lot from home - which helps a bit. I don't have a car (we borrow an electric one from the car sharing scheme in Engelskirchen, according to need). But my runner bean seeds were local ones ! I guess the solution is to start small, either with yourself or with the small area where you live - there are a lot of good ideas in the transition towns network: local currencies, local exchange centres for skills and crafts, ways of creating self sufficiency in as many ways as possible, using local talents to their utmost, lessening the dependence on globally driven systems of finance and fuel as much as possible, encouraging crop rotation as much as possible, laying hedges etc. etc. Encouraging local free public transport, more cycle paths, the list goes on. They are small measures which any town can take - the key is to think globally but act locally.
Maybe I see quite a few of these things when I go to town. We have electric car charging points appearing in the strangest of places. Free to use, unlike £10 for half an hour charge I witnessed in the UK. Electric buses have just about replaced all the petrol or diesel ones. Cycle tracks are everywhere, and one town even accepts old Francs as a form of local currency. I don't have any as I traded mine in for Euros. The problems are that the charging points are not signed in the way that a service station is for the motorist, and on my infrequent trips to the UK an electric car would not get me as far as Dieppe. More could be done, but the town only has a population of 6,000, a lot of them too old to want bicycles, so no schemes to pick up a bike are operated. The local farmers are not interested in laying hedges, much to my anger sometimes as they hack away with their flailing machines my carefully prepared barriers to keep out the deer. We do help each others out in the village with shopping trips for those to old to drive, but having grappled with rural bus services in England I know there is no way a bus service could operate out here. Yes I agree there are lots we can do, but I cannot see in my lifetime a return to life without the material things that people want, even if they only think they want them.
I doesn't make any sense to be telling people to reign back on their spending - to give up this, or that, or anything else, and, for a Political Party, it would be suicide. This is why the Greens concentrate on alternative energy - you can sell the idea, it creates jobs etc. It helps the illusion that we can go on consuming as before, just using different technology. We need to avoid criticism - because if people feel criticized then they are automatically against you. The need is to expand community - because community is a very important aspect in assessing living standards. And it is 'community' which is so often being lost in our individualist World. Can neighbours be said to have a high standard of living (whatever their income) if they don't know each other ? Take one very simple example - we have ten houses, ten gardens, and every household has a certain tool. There is no pooling or sharing of resources. They are all doing their own thing. In contrast, sharing can be fun - it can bring communities together, which, automatically, raises the living standards of all of them.
I have followed your discussion with interest, but fear you have both missed the essential point. Almost everybody thinks that capitalism is the most effective (perhaps only) way to increase standards of living, to which everybody aspires. However, capitalism is designed to maximise consumption-a d quite simply this will destroy the planet. There is no escape fromn this. Because it doesn't appear to be happening to enough people in countries who control the worlds economy it will continue. We have the knowledge that this is happening but not the will, courage, whatever to do anything about it.
I don't think it's a case of missing the essential point Bodbo. Before you can say Capitalism raises living standards you have to define what living standards are - I want to redefine them. We know that everything is interrelated - we have eg. factory farming, gene manipulated products, and monoculture because the system wants to keep food prices low. If food prices rose to the levels of say 1900 (50% of income) then 'spending power' would collapse in other areas. Needless to say I do not believe that Capitalism raises living standards better than any other system (other than for the upper 30%). Of course I believe in the necessity of collective ownership of the means of production (for social and environmental reasons) - but from below. Owned by the commune itself - not by the state. The problem is that Communism has become a discredited word without it ever having been tried - the word means ownership by the commune, not by the State, as in the USSR - that was Statism.
I accept what you say-I was speaking 'for most people' in the assumptions regarding living standards. I assume you agree that capitalism is about maximising consumption and its consequences. Interesting that you define communism correctly-it would help if more people did so. It would help if more people tried it ( our son has been setting up such a community in an abandoned, now recovering village in Northern Portugal. It seems to have worked well enough for 2-4 years). Communism is a bit like Christianity. Gets a bad press because unfortunately most ' Christians' don't practice what Christ preached. I know because sadly I am one of them! Sorry, bit off the point there. It would help if we returned at least to a system where the ownership of energy sources-and water-was 'community/nationality owned. We have solar panels. Why ? Not just because they are a good idea but because the 'community' in this case the govt. incentivised it. The potential is enormous, but now they have changed direction. Barmy!
In the chat I had with my neighbour today I had an insight into how the French are viewing what is going on in the UK. It is difficult to get much from the press as they really have just lost interest. He asked me what the plan was, and I couldn't really tell him as I don't know. He was an environmental research scientist, and has worked around the world. He spent several years in the UK at universities on projects funded by the EU alongside others from many countries. His belief is that this work will be lost to the UK, and said that if he was still working he wouldn't be taking up any posts in the UK. He was quite sad about it as he thought that some of the best research had come out of the country. Free movement of scientists is essential, and anything to stop that just will not work.
Brexit is an ill thought out idea by the Millionaire right wing element of our country that has enjoyed the fruits of being a member of the EU with it's single market and Freedom to travel. They lied throughout the campaign and will keep on lying because greed is more important to them than the livelihood of the masses...When you take a closer look at what leaving the EU means you will find there are no benefits whatsoever for the ordinary working classes but there are massis of negatives...Actually just 27% voted for brexit but 73% never whether they voted or didn't bother so how can they keep saying "The Country " voted to leave ? No they never at all, A small minority voted to leave and i bet the majority did not have a clue what leaving would entail as on the voting pamphlet nothing was explained either way.... We are all noticing everything rising in price and the pound decreasing in value and we are nowhere near leaving the EU so can you imagine if we do go it on our own ? Every country will do deals with the EU first as it will be cheaper to do so and they will be doing deals with 27 other countries and there is no way We little britain can ever match the EU when it comes to trade by a long way....Brexit is bad for the country...
I would add another reason for the 'Leave' push. It cannot be ignored that the 'right wing' press had a big say in trying to persuade people. This reall puzzles me as it must have been obvious to the 'thinkers ' in their cabals that actually nobody had the faintest idea what it would mean. EXCEPT influence! The more the EU exercised influence in the UK way of life the less the owners-editors of the right wing press could bend the UK govt. to their way of thinking-designed purely to benefit THEM!
Another thing that my French neighbour said to me today that I think to be true. The EU is not just about money, in fact if you look at all of what they are doing it is more about people. Cooperation on health with medicines, standards for all the things we like or take for granted. Water cleanliness, power supplies, safe equipment we use around the house, food hygiene,research, the list goes on. These are the things that seem to be more important to a civilized way of life in French eyes. Of course with some organization all countries of the Union can benefit and in the process save money by not replicating what others are doing. For some reason the UK has never managed to think about such things, only money.
