Rewilding Britian - increasing biodiversity

[British Red]

You need to look at the whole game Mary. There is an argument for example that wind turbines require more fossil fuels to make than they ever "pay back" in generation. The concrete used in hydroelectric dams is an environmental nightmare.

People living packed together in the battery farms that are cities are indeed the problem. Cities made sense when they existed to provide a work force for the shipyards, foundries and steel mills. We don't have them now. We are post industrial. Just as population had to move to create an industrial society, it has to move, change and reduce, now that we are post industrial.

It must no longer be about moving the food and fuel to the people, but distributing the people to where the fuel and food already is.

Trying to make old fashioned and outmoded societal structures work in the post industrial age is foolish in the extreme. Packing people together to staff factories that are no longer there is.....

 

[dewi]

Scotland is now producing 50% of it's energy requirements from renewables ……why isn't the rest of the country doing likewise ?

M

Thats an easy one to answer... Scotland's population is around 5m and just under 50% of the power consumed is provided by renewables.

The rest of the UK has 12 times the population, arguably has more commerical demands on power consumption than Scotland, and simply doesn't have room to allow for more renewable energy sources.

Unless of course the government is going to fund solar panels on the roof of every single household that is

 

[British Red]

The rest of the UK has 12 times the population, arguably has more commerical demands on power consumption than Scotland, and simply doesn't have room to allow for more renewable energy sources.

We can however create that room, by reducing population. In that respect Mary is correct, it is the right thing to do long term, to reduce the UK to Scotlands current population density.

 

[dewi]

We can however create that room, by reducing population. In that respect Mary is correct, it is the right thing to do long term, to reduce the UK to Scotlands current population density.

How do we reduce an increasing population though?

 

[British Red]

Reducing net immigration to zero perhaps? Not preventing immigration, just balanced with net emigration?

How about not providing financial incentives to have children that the country cannot support?

There are many ways. There is a perception that we must promote reproduction with no thought to sustainability.

In reality providing financial incentives to breed were only introduced after the world wars because of the large population reduction caused by war. They were never intended to be a carte blanche incentive to those who cannot support their own offspring to have large families that others must pay for.

Just as once drink driving was seen to be acceptable, but the world moves on, our societal patterns must change

 

[Toddy]

It's more than factory fodder though; it's very much more than that.

It's access. It's a wider community, it's an entire cultural shift, and it's not just a British phenomenon.
Development doesn't take place in rural idyll's for the most part, it needs the hothouse of like minded and entrepreneurial people. Urban life can be very, very good indeed, even if most folks on this forum would prefer a slightly more rural home.

If there's a fire, there's a fire engine and crew here in three minutes. If (and my Uncle did) someone had a heart attack there's an ambulance here in five and he was in hospital within twenty. I am five minutes walk from shops, doctors, dentists, library, schools, and it's less to the woods and rivers. I have reliable 75 something or other internet speed, I have cheap fuel, and a warm comfortable easily kept and cheap to run house, and it takes less than ten minutes, at the rush hour, to get onto the major motorway networks to get anywhere I choose.

I don't need to knacker my joints chopping firewood or hauling in buckets of coal or redding out fires every day in life to do it either.
Fun to do on occasion, but having done it day in day out, every single day in life for years on end, I admit central heating that I don't have to labour over is a very good thing and it's clean.

I personally would like more space, but many of my neighbours complain their gardens are too big. Each to their own on that one.

Renewable energy technology is improving just as the electronics that are so much part of modern life become even more and more efficient.

It's an on-going process. There is no stasis.

Self sufficiency isn't tenable for most. I would suggest that most really don't want it either. Only when industrialisation came in and factory production developed did it free most people from having very little choice in life. Even if factory work seems hellish to us, at the time it was seen as a huge improvement and people left the rural areas in their hundreds of thousands for the opportunities to earn money and live in towns and cities.

There are those, like yourselves, who are in a comfortable enough position to buy and restore property and land. Most folks can't. It's not just a lifestyle choice, it's a financial reality as well as the comfort of modern life. Again, each to their own on that one.

cheers,
M

 

[British Red]

This is the problem Mary. In order to tackle climate change requires real hard work, making sustainable choices and real societal change. Refusing to do things because they are inconvenient or difficult is why we do not actually ever reduce emissions.

The reason self sufficiency is expensive is because of population pressure. Simple answer isn't it? Reduce population.

The idea that, for example, we can be serious about caring about our environment whilst still taking "pleasure flights" for holidays is so absurd as to qualify as "denial".

We either want to tackle emissions, or we want to be able to have cheap flights abroad.

There is no middle ground where we get both.

This really is about making tough choices. The days of thinking that tinkering on the peripherary is enough are behind us.

 

[santaman2000]

It's more than factory fodder though; it's very much more than that.

It's access. It's a wider community, it's an entire cultural shift, and it's not just a British phenomenon.
Development doesn't take place in rural idyll's for the most part, it needs the hothouse of like minded and entrepreneurial people. Urban life can be very, very good indeed, even if most folks on this forum would prefer a slightly more rural home.

If there's a fire, there's a fire engine and crew here in three minutes. If (and my Uncle did) someone had a heart attack there's an ambulance here in five and he was in hospital within twenty. I am five minutes walk from shops, doctors, dentists, library, schools, and it's less to the woods and rivers. I have reliable 75 something or other internet speed, I have cheap fuel, and a warm comfortable easily kept and cheap to run house, and it takes less than ten minutes, at the rush hour, to get onto the major motorway networks to get anywhere I choose.....

Agreed we all (or at least almost all) appreciate these things. That said, aren't these facts also part of the problem? Life has gotten easier and life span is longer. Largely because of those ambulances and medical advances, because of the motorways (making transport of needed goods easier) That only perpetuates the growing population.

 

[santaman2000]

......You can always tell who has those stoves round here though; we can smell them, and their walls where the flue's come out are dirty.....

I love that smell! Never noticed anything dirty about the chimney tops. Then again, we tend to only burn hardwoods whereas I believe (from previous threads) y'all bur pine as well?

 

[dewi]

Its hard to argue with what you're saying BR, as we can not sustain the current level of growth in population. Just the refuse created alone is getting out of control, hence the construction quite literally of a new hill just down the road from where I live. In less than a decade, they've piled so much refuse up, it has completely changed the landscape.

But how do you suggest societal change comes about?

All the current political states rely on cheap labour... and when that can not be found in the existing population, immigrants are needed to keep the wheels turning.

I completely agree when it comes to air travel, but more and more people using air travel each year with no sign of it reducing. How do you reduce something in a capitalist society when there is a demand for it?

And with self sufficiency, I tend to agree with M. On a larger scale, I don't think it would work. People have lost their connection to where food comes from and very few in society would stomach dressing a chicken as you have demonstrated just as one example. How do you reverse this disconnect if people are unwilling to entertain the idea?

 

[slowworm]

Scotland is now producing 50% of it's energy requirements from renewables

No it isn't. It's producing 50% of it's electricity needs from renewables, something very different. If the rest of the UK replaced electric cookers with coal burning stoves for example we'd increase the % of our electricity produced from renewables but that wouldn't be good.

 

[santaman2000]

No it isn't. It's producing 50% of it's electricity needs from renewables, something very different. If the rest of the UK replaced electric cookers with coal burning stoves for example we'd increase the % of our electricity produced from renewables but that wouldn't be good.

Or if they replaced the gasoline or diesel engines in automobiles with coal fired engines.

 

[Toddy]

No it isn't. It's producing 50% of it's electricity needs from renewables, something very different. ....

You are quite right; I ought to have been clearer.

Thing is though, electricity produced this way doesn't need to burn fossil fuels or bio fuels either…..and electricity powers a heck of a lot of modern life. I would quite happily not have gas central heating; it was in the house when we moved in. Again, that's an each to their own thing though. I know I certainly do not want to go back to gas lighting. I would quite happily only have electricity, and for the driving around that I do these days an electric car would do fine I reckon.

Recycling is the next huge push that's needed, and processing that recycling effectively and efficiently with no pollution must be an aim.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Business-Industry/Energy/Energy-sources/19185

M

 

[British Red]

I completely agree when it comes to air travel, but more and more people using air travel each year with no sign of it reducing. How do you reduce something in a capitalist society when there is a demand for it?

And with self sufficiency, I tend to agree with M. On a larger scale, I don't think it would work. People have lost their connection to where food comes from and very few in society would stomach dressing a chicken as you have demonstrated just as one example. How do you reverse this disconnect if people are unwilling to entertain the idea?

Self sufficiency brings many things into bold relief. How many kids will you have when you have to feed them from your land? Will you have more kids and feed each one less? Will you expect each child to be able to marry, have lots of kids and live on a a third of your land?

Or will you expect your neighbour who practiced self control to feed your children?

Perhaps some people you have never met will turn up and you will say that your children will need to give up some of their land to feed the strangers who come from a land where there are less people?

These are the choices we face.

 

[British Red]

. I would quite happily not have gas central heating; it was in the house when we moved in.

M

Brilliant - so, when are you taking it out? Horrible polluting stuff burning fossil fuels...will it go in 2016?

 

[Goatboy]

Its hard to argue with what you're saying BR, as we can not sustain the current level of growth in population. Just the refuse created alone is getting out of control, hence the construction quite literally of a new hill just down the road from where I live. In less than a decade, they've piled so much refuse up, it has completely changed the landscape.

But how do you suggest societal change comes about?

All the current political states rely on cheap labour... and when that can not be found in the existing population, immigrants are needed to keep the wheels turning.

I completely agree when it comes to air travel, but more and more people using air travel each year with no sign of it reducing. How do you reduce something in a capitalist society when there is a demand for it?

And with self sufficiency, I tend to agree with M. On a larger scale, I don't think it would work. People have lost their connection to where food comes from and very few in society would stomach dressing a chicken as you have demonstrated just as one example. How do you reverse this disconnect if people are unwilling to entertain the idea?

Hmm, start spouting about population control and folk quickly label you as a fascist I've found. I have ideas about who should be encouraged or discouraged from breeding but I keep them firmly to myself. I also include myself in the shouldn't breed pile though and so have made a concious effort not to pollute the gene-pool by not becoming a father. This does come with downsides as a few relationships haven't survived my not wanting to propagate the species viewpoints and it would be unfair to force that on someone else. In the end it has to be a personal choice as to whether or not to have kids as as soon as governments becomes involved it gets murky and dark very quickly. Look at China and their one child policy, which for cultural reasons a huge amount of which are male offspring who vastly outnumber the amount of females. Now even if they're prepared to leave China there aren't a huge amount of surplus females kicking around the globe as human kind seem to be pigeon like in their natural offspring numbers. So what happens? There will shortly be millions of single Chinese men with no chance of getting a wife/partner unless they take up polygamy and/or homosexuality en masse.
Strangely the vast amount of my peers haven't bred either, I don't know if it's some generational hangup about the cold war, divorce rates or just all being environmentally aware. but I do know that governments shouldn't get involved in saying who should and who shouldn't. I had a friend briefly when I was younger who was a German POW who'd stayed here after the war. Met him when I started out in forestry, he was an older chap walking his dog (and Alsatian believe it or not) past my office. I got to know him and he eventually started to talk about his time in the lead up and during the war. He openly admitted that he'd been a Nazi (he deeply regretted it) and that he's been swept along in it all. He said that some of the first doubts he had in his beliefs were when he learned of the Lebensborn and later met some of the first products of this and the Hitler youth. Said that it frightened him very much as to where a governments meddling with the order of things would lead.
So I think that the only encouragement as to population control should be education and becoming neutral on the whole breeding thing. Most parties still actively promote and pander to "family units" and give tax incentives for folk to breed, heck it's expensive enough being single in this world why not encourage single non resource consuming childless folk a little more into the mix?
(I'm also available for children's parties by the way!)

 

[British Red]

Most parties still actively promote and pander to "family units" and give tax incentives for folk to breed, heck it's expensive enough being single in this world why not encourage single non resource consuming childless folk a little more into the mix?
(I'm also available for children's parties by the way!)

Exactly so sir. Providing financial incentives to breed, indeed not financially punishing those who make a socially responsible choice, to support those who cannot control their animal instincts, does seem to be a great place to start.

No-one is saying "choose who can breed", but "pay for the children you choose to have that the world does not need" does seem reasonable.

 

[slowworm]

You are quite right; I ought to have been clearer.

Thing is though, electricity produced this way doesn't need to burn fossil fuels or bio fuels either…..and electricity powers a heck of a lot of modern life. I would quite happily not have gas central heating; it was in the house when we moved in. Again, that's an each to their own thing though. I know I certainly do not want to go back to gas lighting. I would quite happily only have electricity, and for the driving around that I do these days an electric car would do fine I reckon.

Renewables do burn gas, biogas (from stuff thrown to landfill) produces half the UKs renewables IIRC. That'll be included in your 50%. Electricity does power much of modern life, stuff made abroad using large amounts of coal! Wind turbines also depend a fair bit on diesel to provide the backup to make it viable on the national grid; etc, etc.

 

[Toddy]

At present they do, as part of the use of the waste industry. It's still less than 10% of the total and is as efficient a use of the 'greenhouse' gas methane as we have just now.

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00490694.pdf

Again, the technology improves all the time and the filters and such like on the power stations too improve all the time

M

 

[dewi]

Hmm, start spouting about population control and folk quickly label you as a fascist I've found. I have ideas about who should be encouraged or discouraged from breeding but I keep them firmly to myself. I also include myself in the shouldn't breed pile though and so have made a concious effort not to pollute the gene-pool by not becoming a father. This does come with downsides as a few relationships haven't survived my not wanting to propagate the species viewpoints and it would be unfair to force that on someone else. In the end it has to be a personal choice as to whether or not to have kids as as soon as governments becomes involved it gets murky and dark very quickly. Look at China and their one child policy, which for cultural reasons a huge amount of which are male offspring who vastly outnumber the amount of females. Now even if they're prepared to leave China there aren't a huge amount of surplus females kicking around the globe as human kind seem to be pigeon like in their natural offspring numbers. So what happens? There will shortly be millions of single Chinese men with no chance of getting a wife/partner unless they take up polygamy and/or homosexuality en masse.
Strangely the vast amount of my peers haven't bred either, I don't know if it's some generational hangup about the cold war, divorce rates or just all being environmentally aware. but I do know that governments shouldn't get involved in saying who should and who shouldn't. I had a friend briefly when I was younger who was a German POW who'd stayed here after the war. Met him when I started out in forestry, he was an older chap walking his dog (and Alsatian believe it or not) past my office. I got to know him and he eventually started to talk about his time in the lead up and during the war. He openly admitted that he'd been a Nazi (he deeply regretted it) and that he's been swept along in it all. He said that some of the first doubts he had in his beliefs were when he learned of the Lebensborn and later met some of the first products of this and the Hitler youth. Said that it frightened him very much as to where a governments meddling with the order of things would lead.
So I think that the only encouragement as to population control should be education and becoming neutral on the whole breeding thing. Most parties still actively promote and pander to "family units" and give tax incentives for folk to breed, heck it's expensive enough being single in this world why not encourage single non resource consuming childless folk a little more into the mix?
(I'm also available for children's parties by the way!)

I'm not advocating population control... it was BR honest it was!

At the same time though, we can't sustain the levels of increase from the past decade and a half... its not going to work in the long run.

Completely agree governments shouldn't be promoting people to have children if they can't afford to have them, but at the same time wages have been allowed to stagnate to such a degree, without the government assistance there would have been a generation of Brits with no kids at all... while those coming in from abroad who naturally work together in their own communities would have bred as they have done. Its not quite as straight forward as the government giving handouts to those who breed... the system is far more complex and has more to do with propping up capitalism.

Without government intervention or policy change though, I don't see how the population will ever decrease on this island... inevitably we'll get to bursting point, but what happens then is anyones guess.