On 22 Apr 2010 at 7:50pm Mother Earthy wrote:
To all you connoisseurs of Transition Town Lewes I highly recommend the latest 100 Monkeys over on Viva today. Even by her standards its a riot of idiotic dross.
On 22 Apr 2010 at 9:29pm elle wrote:
agreed, i cant find any use for it..
On 23 Apr 2010 at 7:23am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Is it as good as her pronouncement a couple of years ago on R4 that when we stop using oil etc "there will be lots of acoustic music as everyoine will have more time"? I nearly had to change my pants at that. It clearly hasn't dawned on her that we'll all be hewing wood, drawing water, digging the vegetable patch and looking after the horses.
I also chuckled when she put all her power tools on Freecycle because she'd given up using powered tools. I daresay when she needs a shelf put up, she'll get a man in to do it, and he'll use HIS power tools!
If I hadn't seen her in the flesh, I'd think she was someone taking the pee.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 9:38am DrTrickCyclist wrote:
She really is the jewel in the crown of Lewes daffiness.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 10:55am Ed Can Do wrote:
She's almost wilfully ignorant at times it seems. You'd thinnk someone so into their eco-tripe would have heard of hydrogen fuel cells for example which'll be powering everything in a few years once the Japanese get the hang of making them cheaply.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 11:47am Mother Earthy wrote:
But don't you know we won't need to fly as we'll be too busy eating the people's veg from that bit of the Phoenix Estate opposite Tesco!
On 23 Apr 2010 at 12:06pm DrTrickCyclist wrote:
Very true Ed Can Do. I don't often hear her trumpeting nuclear power or anything that might actually help anything. Its all some fantasy of medieval living: growing your own veg and playing with pretend money. That's TTL all over really. Still I think they may have found their very own Sarah Palin.
She had an absolute classic in the snow. Full of the usual self-congratulatory crap about how resilient the eco lifestyle is snuggled up in your house not polluting the atmosphere. Alas not word about all the little people who presumably kept her power going, took her bins and broke ice on the streets.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 12:15pm Off-Message wrote:
Leave it out you lot. This thread is bordering on the offensive. AC's got as much right to articulate her views as anyone else and ought not to be subjected to anonymous carping on here. Write to Viva Lewes if you don't like her contributions and stand up for your views publically as she is doing for hers. So far as I'm aware she doesn't hold public office and is not putting herself forward in that capacity.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 12:17pm Bobby Crush wrote:
I like the way her husband produces music for Car Companies adverts, double standards surely?!
On 23 Apr 2010 at 12:41pm DrTrickCyclist wrote:
@Off-message. There is a real point underlying all this which is that this sort of nonsense turns an important issue into a joke. I'm not sure that's so great.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 1:06pm Off-Message wrote:
That's just your view and in no way invalidates what I wrote. If what you say is correct, others will be well able to see that and will not need to avail themselves of the anonymous and unaccoutable criticism peddled on here.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 2:50pm 'ere be monsters wrote:
Off Message says................anonymously!!
On 23 Apr 2010 at 3:11pm Off-Message wrote:
You're missing the point 'EBM. We're on a level when debating on here anonymously. But when people are launching anonymous attacks against a known individual, that's different, especially when the latter, to my knowledge, isn't occupying or putting herself forward for public office You'll notice that I'm not attacking or defending the subject of this thread. If I wanted to do that I would write to the publication which was circulating her article. I just think it's unseemly to carry on in this way but perhaps I'm just being a bit old-fashioned?
On 23 Apr 2010 at 3:37pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
AC has undoubtedly got every right to pontificate from whatever organ she chooses. However, when it's done in public we have the right to take the
p!ss imo.
And we are expressing our views publicly.
On 23 Apr 2010 at 3:59pm Prick Stein wrote:
Anyone who puts themseles in the public eye, even on here is in my opinion fair game. If you don't like it don't do it. No one makes you!
On 23 Apr 2010 at 8:43pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Gosh, Prick, we're in agreement again. Most alarming!
On 24 Apr 2010 at 9:25am pragmatist wrote:
Some of what she says is nonsense but not all. We will have replacement technologies which will enable long distance flight. We are currently on the cusp of a dramatic change in battery technology. The buzz word(s) are "carbon nano-tubes". Hydrogen fuel cells are not actually that good. Everyone who promotes hydrogen power will tell you that its cheap because you can extract hydrogen from water, but what they don't tell you is that extracting hydrogen from water is not economically viable with current technology. You get less energy out of the process than you put in. All the hydrogen that is currently produced for hydrogen fuel cells is extracted from fossil fuels.
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We have indeed built our society on shifting sand. We are heavily reliant on hydro-carbons extracted from fossil fuels. Not just for power but plastics, just look around the room you're sitting in and work out how many things in it exist only because of the availability of cheap plastic moulded components.
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Despite technological advances we cannot prevent the inevitable. We are like Canute trying to order the tide to retreat. Humanity will eventually face three major problems. Probably within this century. The first is the increasing rarity of cheap hydro-carbons, the second is climate change and the third is an unsustainable increase in population. At least one of the three will impact upon our world with disastrous consequences in the near future, and there's probably nothing we can do about it. No amount of ethical shopping or recycling is going to prevent starving millions migrating to where the wealth is in order to escape famine. Its all doom and gloom, but this is the world we've made for ourselves. I agree with James Lovelock on this. Humanity is too stupid to save itself.
On 24 Apr 2010 at 9:54am Clifford wrote:
Haven't you chosen the wrong name Pragmatist? It should be Fatalist. Do you think humanity has got this far by being stupid?
On 24 Apr 2010 at 4:36pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
It may only be disastrous for humans though. Something else may come along later. After all, the wiping out of the dinosaurs wasn't the end of the world (except for dinosaurs) and it led to a huge evolutionary leap.
I suppose extinction is evolution at it's most drastic, really.
On 24 Apr 2010 at 4:48pm pragmatist wrote:
"Do you think humanity has got this far by being stupid?"
I'm not sure what you mean by "got this far". Are we on a journey to some ultimate destination?
If you mean, "have we advanced technologically so far through being stupid?". Well perhaps we have got so far despite our stupidity. But are we as species faring any better than, for example, the basking shark which spends its entire lifetime just swimming around with its mouth wide open filtering plankton and has few predators to speak. Its not so long ago that the prospect of mutually assured thermonuclear destruction was a very real possibility. Carl Sagan famously described the situation as like "two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline(sic). One with three matches, the other with five." Wasn't that stupid? Wasn't the mass slaughter of the 1st World War stupid?
Humanity is ultimately doomed because we can't escape from the ultimate fate of a cold dark Universe. The question is are we likely to bring about our doom sooner through our own actions. Well no not in terms of extinction like the dinosaurs, just some very tough times indeed which will involve the unfortunate death of vast numbers of people through famine disease, war etc.
Am I fatalistic to this notion? Well I just can't see how we can escape the inevitable consequences of the factors I outlined earlier, if you can I'd be interested to hear it. I believe in the power of technology to deliver and stave off the consequences of our growing population and consumption of resources, but the world is finite and I don't see us terra-forming and colonising Mars any time soon. There must come a point when demands outstrip supply. Our ability to feed the human population will reach crisis. Resources will become so valuable that people will kill their neighbour for a loaf of bread or a gallon of petrol. Never forget that society is only four square meals away from anarchy.
Is it reasonable to expect people to give up the benefits and luxuries we've come to expect from our post-industrial society and the desire to breed in order for the next generation, or the generations that come after, to have a more secure future. No. People are selfish. Those who have no children have no investment in the future and we simply will not elect officials who's policies involve the significant changes to our lifestyle that might have a chance of preventing an upcoming global catastrophe (i.e. drastic population limits and complete switch to nuclear power or renewables and massive investment in technology). No multilateral consensus on these issues could ever be achieved. Saving energy and recycling is good, it saves money, but it won't save the planet. (And by planet I don't mean Earth per se, but mankind's comfortable existence on it).
On 24 Apr 2010 at 5:29pm Winterbourne Wanderer wrote:
It's not all that pragmatic writing such an off-puttingly long post.
On 24 Apr 2010 at 6:27pm Clifford wrote:
Cheer up Fatalist. Our destiny is the universe. You sound like you have a very bad digestion.