What Planet Are We On? podcasts

Discussion on living for a better and more responsible future
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lancashire lass
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What Planet Are We On? podcasts

Post by lancashire lass »

Found this on the BBC New - initially about ways to tackle climate change. The link takes you to the series if interested, and a link to a full list of 100 solutions suggested in the series

I have to confess I have already read about most of the suggestions mentioned in the article so not new, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to go over them again if thinking about making changes and if there are any new ideas. As already mentioned before, changing habits, behaviour and choosing sustainable products are what most people can achieve but some are policies aimed at businesses (and governments) or require expenditure (even with grants, some of the ideas of generating your own electricity and insulating cladding can still be too expensive for the average person)

Although the Covid crisis has made some people rethink about how they lived before the pandemic, I can't help feel so many more however, cannot wait to get back to "normal" as soon as possible. I thought this clip Coronavirus: What has Covid done for climate crisis? was worth watching how the drop in emissions during lockdowns was the lowest ever recorded but why it won't make that much of an impact in the climate change crisis when things return to "normal".
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

Post by Gwenoakes »

I am gobsmacked at that, I really am and am now beginning to feel there is no hope whatsoever, no matter what we do.
Or.............am I understanding it all wrong?
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

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I've had a look at the links. The way I understand it is that's it's leading towards The Great Reset. We are heading towards globalisation. It will be on the agenda at the next meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, scheduled for April.

A lot of it is aimed at big businesses, and how they can play a part, after they have decimated most of the small businesses. The BBC are complicit in this, as are most of mainstream media.

This jumped out at me......Connect to your heart: “Most people are people of good intention, but we can’t be derailed by fear. Reconnect to our belief in the goodness of people when we feel discouraged. If we can connect with the heart – we can heal it – and care for our world and for everyone around us.” .......A lot of people are derailed by fear at this very moment, all brought about by the media..... 'Care for everyone around us', .....piling on the guilt if we don't comply. Psychological blackmail.

And this...Spreading a positive message rather than scaremongering......
Everything is up for debate, we live in a democracy. You can't silence those people who have a different opinion.

This really annoys me........Educate women and girls to help reduce population....
No, educate men, inform them that they have to pay for the upkeep of any children they bring into the world.

And this...Make more car lanes into bike lanes..... They are starting to remove bike lanes because the cities are clogged up with cars stuck in traffic jams for longer, spewing out emissions.

And this...Don’t leave it up to federal governments to solve it, all human beings need to be on board.... Yes, but the Government don't want to listen to all human beings. We the ordinary people are treated like plebs. They bark their orders and expect us to jump. I have tried communicating with my MP, waste of time, he won't listen.

This smacks of Big Brother, getting everyone inline, signing them up to join the army for the greater good.

ilona
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Mo
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

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I think the bike lanes fiasco was the fault of central government telling councils that they should do something and do it quickly or the cash would be taken back. So it was neither planned properly nor sold to the public. Motorists are very vocal when they think their right to go where they like whenever they like is threatened.
Problem at the moment is that using public transport is dodgy too. In normal times I would think that putting public tranport options in place FIRST then making life difficult for drivers would be reasonable.
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lancashire lass
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

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Meanqueen wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:15 Spreading a positive message rather than scaremongering......
Everything is up for debate, we live in a democracy. You can't silence those people who have a different opinion.
Hmmm, democracy isn't always what is cracked up to be - it presumes everyone who has an opinion is making an honest contribution to a debate but there are some people who deliberately make claims which are unsubstantiated. Those listening are persuaded to make decisions that are not necessarily based on fact. With regards to spreading a positive message - isn't it better to have hope rather than fear and accept a coming doom?
Meanqueen wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:15 Educate women and girls to help reduce population....
No, educate men, inform them that they have to pay for the upkeep of any children they bring into the world.
Women in western countries have benefited from education - they are no longer dependent on men, can take control of their bodies and make decisions for themselves. Sadly, some countries see their women as property and deny them the same rights and opportunities as men. Of course, it takes time for a population to accept changes particularly if based on religion and culture, but the point is, where women have been elevated in society, it is a known fact that population growth has fallen in those countries. It is better for individuals to make educated choices rather than enforce decisions - China's one child policy was a disaster.
Meanqueen wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:15 Make more car lanes into bike lanes..... They are starting to remove bike lanes because the cities are clogged up with cars stuck in traffic jams for longer, spewing out emissions.
Mo wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:54 I think the bike lanes fiasco was the fault of central government telling councils that they should do something and do it quickly or the cash would be taken back. So it was neither planned properly nor sold to the public. Motorists are very vocal when they think their right to go where they like whenever they like is threatened.
Problem at the moment is that using public transport is dodgy too. In normal times I would think that putting public transport options in place FIRST then making life difficult for drivers would be reasonable.
I would agree that bike lanes have not been well thought out but the intentions are meant to make it safer for cyclists who are at risk of injury when sharing lanes with motor vehicles. Fewer people driving cars means reducing emissions (not just carbon dioxide but other harmful ones too - even electric cars contribute to pollution such as the particles from tyres entering the water system that are taken up by marine animals, not to mention the mining of minerals necessary for their manufacture which damage the ecology) I think also the idea is to encourage people to exercise more to curb obesity and reduce risk of dying young.

The problem with current urban bike lanes is that most are merely an 18 inch wide track on an existing road which doesn't make them safer for cyclists (in terms of breathing in car fumes as well as risk of collision, often next to curbs where the drain covers are located - nothing worse as a driver to be confronted by a cyclist suddenly swerving into the road to avoid a pothole!) Dedicated cycle lane networks off roads would offer a safer alternate.

Public transport - before cars, it used to be the only way to travel (bar taxis) so people used to live closer to their place of employment but these days, cars and road networks have made it easier to travel further which has resulted in the decline of bus and train services. I agree with Mo that putting public transport options in place first would be better but you still need to encourage people to use them before making it difficult for drivers. The biggest problem is the financing of public transport - if there's no money available, then it makes it more difficult to put into place. Secondly, the price of tickets should be reduced - why would anyone pay a fortune to sit in a stuffy bus (or more often, stand because there aren't enough seats) when it is more comfortable to sit in a car and have your own "in-house" entertainment without having to tolerate other people's music or chatter.

Park and ride schemes do give options to reducing town traffic - the tram service I use when I want to go into Nottingham is brilliant, much cheaper, quicker with big parking facilities on outskirts and is well used to the point of being too popular now ... the service I use has a tram every 7-10 minutes but with only 2-3 carriages, quickly gets full by the time it reaches the train station and city. It is financed by charging employers for parking spaces in the city (Workplace Parking Levy) - unfortunately, not just the city centre but within the city boundaries which isn't fair if you have no other way to get to work. And more often, that is simply charged to the car user (and also with added tax)
Meanqueen wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:15 Don’t leave it up to federal governments to solve it, all human beings need to be on board.... Yes, but the Government don't want to listen to all human beings. We the ordinary people are treated like plebs. They bark their orders and expect us to jump. I have tried communicating with my MP, waste of time, he won't listen.
Governments are formed by elections (in a democratic society) and have a manifesto which people vote on. Unfortunately, people concentrate on the big issue at the time, such as Brexit, rather than the other minor issues on the manifesto. However, if a government agrees to legally binding international treaties, they have a duty to fulfil their promise. Whether they reach the targets they set out is another matter - it's one thing to say they'll plant goodness how many trees, it's another to reach it.

As for including all human beings, it is the only way forward to achieve the same goal. There's only one planet so if everyone are not on board with the same purpose, the problem will only get worse. Some countries exceed their carbon emissions much more than others, yet it is those with the least emissions that are most at risk. And it is a global problem - heatwaves, storms and so on are on the increase which affect everyone and cause damage, deaths and misery.
Meanqueen wrote: 27 Dec 2020, 22:15 This smacks of Big Brother, getting everyone inline, signing them up to join the army for the greater good.
is that such a bad thing? If everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet, surely that is better than chaos?
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Mo
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

Post by Mo »

Nothing to disagree with there LL.
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Meanqueen
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Re: What Planet Are We On? podcasts

Post by Meanqueen »

You really shouldn't have wasted your time on that lengthy reply, LL, and I shouldn't have bothered to write that post, knowing that it was going to get rubbished by you. I live in hope that someone somewhere will start searching the internet to discover what is really going on. There are other places where I can have meaningful discussions.

ilona
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