protest

[william#]

about 10 years ago in the uk there were loads of road protesting - who can forget swampy . there were loads of tree and woodland camps to give oposition to the bull dozers - just struck me if we started it all up again we could have some great places to practice bushcraft -lol
did anyone ever go to any of these camps ?

 

[Tadpole]

about 10 years ago in the uk there were loads of road protesting - who can forget swampy . there were loads of tree and woodland camps to give oposition to the bull dozers - just struck me if we started it all up again we could have some great places to practice bushcraft -lol
did anyone ever go to any of these camps ?

I sent several weeks at the Batheastern (Solsbury hill) protest camp, and sadly the camps that the protesters used were nothing that I would want to be associated with, the filth and mess they left, glass, tins unburied rubbish and excrement just piled everywhere you walked, with the really young kids at least you could see where they had gone, the disposable nappies were just left where they were removed.
The worst bit of pollution was the crap, rubbish and car/van fall offs, dumped in the water-meadows that they used for drinking water and claimed, at least on the TV, to be one of the things they wanted to protect.
They squatted on the land and a house belonged to Worley lodge and despite it being four or more miles away it was wrecked it in short order,
On the near hills and high ground there was not a tree left standing, most being burnt in drug fuelled bonhomie, and the wild partying on Giro days.
Despite their claim to be eco-warriors they did more damage to that wood, than a full squad of weekend warriors, a C2 and a belly full of bounty day beer.

 

[Spacemonkey]

Agreed. I lived in Newbury when the great unwashed descended. That is one town that desperately needed a ring road. Congestion in town was utterly ridiculous. The pollution caused by all the vehicles sat in town in the stationaru traffic and bottle necked up in all directions far, far, far outweighed a few trees that could be re planted elsewhere. And how many of these Swampy scroungers actually lived in Newbury? And don't get me started on the mess they make in the name of preservation...

Anyway, this was in response to Mrs T's agressive road building policy of the 80's that eventually bowed down to the protestors and got cancelled. Maybe that's another reason why we are so congested now...?

 

[Tony]

I'll move this to other chatter; don't let it deteriorate guys

 

[TallMikeM]

Anyway, this was in response to Mrs T's agressive road building policy of the 80's that eventually bowed down to the protestors and got cancelled. Maybe that's another reason why we are so congested now...?

I thought it was people in cars that caused congestion.

 

[gregorach]

There's actually a very good argument that it's roads that cause congestion - it's an example of Jevons paradox. The more convienient it is to drive, the more people drive, leading to greater congestion. It's also been found that increasing average speeds on a section of road only increases throughput up to a certain point, after which it collapses - because you can't get cars off the high-speed section fast enough.

As for the protestors... How come most anti-road protestors drive around in vans, huh? Really shonky, old, polluting, badly maintained vans at that. Me, I oppose road building and traffic growth, but I least I have the decency to practice what I preach by not owning or driving a private vehicle...

And yes, their camps are usually terrible. Goddamn hippies! (No offence to any hippies, I am one myself really - but so many give the impression that it's short for "hypocrite").

 

[Abbe Osram]

Evolution is a ongoing process, the oil peak will force us humans and our civilization back into the game. With that, all the fuss who is right and who is wrong will stop. There is a place beyond right and wrong, lets meet up there.

Cheers
Abbe

 

[Great Pebble]

Oh I dunno.... Some current estimates have the Siberian oil reserve as being at least as large as the Gulf ever was, maybe larger.
It's rawer crude, so more difficult to refine and it'll be a lot harder to extract...
But it'll be there.

Even if it weren't, we'd develop something else to keep the cars (and everything else) running.

 

[fa11en ange1]

The problem will oil shortage is not one of fuel or power, there are already plenty of alternatives that can be implemented in a short timeframe - e.g. biofuel, hydrogen fuel cells. The main problem when fuel runs out will be in replacing other hydrocarbon products of the refining process, such as plastics.

 

[hobbitboy]

I visited one of the protest camps up on stanton moor against the quarrying there, i was appalled at the conditon at which it had be deserted, so much crap left lying around, i was genuinely disgusted that people protesting against the destruction of the woods would make such a mess, let alone leave it like that!

 

[mark a.]

What we should get is turn the tables on them. Here's what to do:

- Get a load of the upper and middle class to squat in their filthy caravans and VW Campers for a week
- Act really politely, and be really quiet
- Instead of drugs, take the occasional multivitamin
- Leave the caravans spotlessly clean and tidy

They won't know what hit them. Vive la revolution!

 

[Great Pebble]

Agreed Angel,

But there really isn't a shortage, or any particularly imminent danger of one.

Adds:- The thing about environmentalism is that it has become an industry in it's own right. It's inextricably linked in it's current visible form with other political issues which have little or nothing to do with the enviornment (directly). It has a face, a fashion and a culture and none of them are particularly appealing to the average Mr. & Mrs. 2.3 Kids.

 

[gregorach]

The problem will oil shortage is not one of fuel or power, there are already plenty of alternatives that can be implemented in a short timeframe - e.g. biofuel, hydrogen fuel cells. The main problem when fuel runs out will be in replacing other hydrocarbon products of the refining process, such as plastics.

Well, I don't really want to get into the whole peak oil debate here, but I have done some work looking at the potential of biofuels, and it's really not good. We simply don't have enough land to produce the insanely huge quantities of fuel we currently use. The best we feasibly could do in the UK from domestic biodiesel production is about 2% of current requirements. The current EU drive to introduce 5% biodiesel into all EU diesel supplies will be met by palm oil (a very energy-inefficient crop) grown on ground cleared by burning the Indonesian rainforest.

Hydrogen fuel cells are not currently a viable large-scale technology, and even if they were, the production, distribution and storage of hydrogen is a huge, and possibly insoluble problem. We don't have that much spare electricity now, and we're slated to lose 10% of current generating capacity within the next 4 years. Compressed hygroden has a nasty habit of leaking through its containers - it's a very, very small molecule. Plus the current fuel cells require very rare and expensive catalysts like platinum. I seriously doubt that there's enough platinum in the world to make enough fuel cells to run our current vehicle fleet.

 

[redflex]

I am up for using bio-fuels,

So lets make a start by getting rid of all that ancient woodland and rain forest and plant some good bio-mass species instead

I have seen them already making good start with this in Asia, next thing they will shipping it round to us in those lovely big clean green tankers.

Seriously I think the only way forward is backwards sometmes. have you seen how much energy it takes to refine bio-mass?

Not sure what the answer is but sure we not found it yet.

 

[TallMikeM]

Seriously I think the only way forward is backwards sometmes. have you seen how much energy it takes to refine bio-mass?

Not sure what the answer is but sure we not found it yet.

I take it you'd be more in favour of a transport system with a bit more horsepower in it then?
Well, if you ever run for PM on that platform you'll have my vote (even if I don't knwo a thing about them)

 

[hobbitboy]

Not sure what the answer is but sure we not found it yet.

Somebody's gonna souggest it soon enough so it may as well be me.....

Nuclear??

Now before I get shot down in a hail of well meaning abuse, I'm not saying it is the only way, merely saying that it has potential (check out james Lovelocks work)
Now which is worse another Chernobyl or the side effects of global warming/sea level rise?
I honestly don't know, but i think this may have got sidetracked from the original point of the thread...sorry.

 

[redflex]

Threads on a forum are like the world they evolve,

But sometimes we have to nudge them back on track,


So you said nuclear well I think we will see the likes of swampy re-emerging from his swamps by the side of a proposed new nuclear power station.

We will sure see nuclear and as sure as night follows day the protesters will follow each new station.

I think they areadly gather

 

[Great Pebble]

You're right, the protestors appear wherever the word "nuclear" is mentioned.

We still have the power stations, the weapons systems and the research/development sites. Each with it's own little camp full of unwashed humanity.

They're largely harmless and even somewhat amusing, if they ever become anything else, at least where the UK and nuclear facilities is concerned... They'll disappear. (That's not a "men-in-black" paranoia thing, the laws of this country are more than adequate to assure that any "protest" which could potentially threaten security, or indeed commerce, can be broken up by whatever means required).

It stuns me that while so many people are capable of protesting about the development of power stations (of whatever type), promote recycling and "environmentaly friendly" products very few are capable or willing to make the most planet friendly lifestyle choice of all..... Making do with a heck of a lot less..... If you don't demand it, it won't get made, we wont need the "power" to manufacture or transport it and you won't need to recycle or reuse nearly as much either.

The fate of the planet lies not with governments, not with the globalists, not with the megacorporations. It lies with me and thee.

 

[TallMikeM]

The fate of the planet lies not with governments, not with the globalists, not with the megacorporations. It lies with me and thee.

never will a truer word be spoken. But people want everything spoonfed to them, whether it's food, entertainment or "stuff". I've even had someone say that it's his right to own stuff, I must've missed that one when I last read the European Convention on Human rights .

 

[Spacemonkey]

I'll move this to other chatter; don't let it deteriorate guys

As if we would...