Why is it always can't or shouldn't?

We need water - we're an island surrounded by the stuff, where's the problem?

We need to heat our homes but we could use methods which require considerably less resources so why don't the energy companies use more of their mega profits to research these?

We rely on our vehicles because public transport is unreliable, over-crowded, dirty, horrendously expensive and, in rural areas, non-existent. Run a decent system with 'joined-up' thinking between those who own/run the track and those who own/run the rolling stock. Put your profits into updating the system, we'll love you for it and we'll get on the trains. Give thought to getting together with bus companies to provide a school service for every child who lives more than a 20 minute walk away (our local village Secondary school pays to hire 4 double deckers that do a pick-your-kids-up, bring-them-back-home, service; result? only a handful of cars doing the school run)

When we do need to use our cars, it's no good saying electric or gas power is the way to go when, in my area at least, I know of only 1 garage where I could get LPG. There's no point in my having a 'green' vehicle if I can't be sure that when I fetch up in Cornwall (assuming I made it that far), that I'll be able to find that garage that has LPG

Don't put thumping great signs outside my supermarket saying 'Re-use your old bags', when inside, if I buy fresh meat or fish you'll put it on a bit of clingfilm then wrap it in two plastic bags '... in case one leaks'. Either get better bags or maybe slightly bigger ones that, once I've taken out my meat or fish are at least big enough to do something with (other than as I do at present, and use 'em when I deal with the cat's litter tray). Don't wrap things like swede in thick, non-recyclable plastic, they're practically an offensive weapon, they don't need 'protection'. And ... when I put lose fruit and veg in my trolley, don't then gather it altogether and start stuffing into even more plastic bags on the assumption that I want/need them - there were bags where I picked them up, don't you think if I wanted a bag I'd have got one then? And give me an old-fashioned paper carrier bag, OK, so not so good in the wet as plastic, but oh, their uses - my parents and grandparents would store most of their homegrown produce in paper carriers, all neatly labelled and hung up in the shed.

So - why do wehave to reduce our consumption? Well, I'm guessing we don't really, it's just another opportunity for the faceless 'they' to pretend there's a shortage so that they can put their prices up even more.

 

I had to pay an extra tax when buying single sheets of glass.

This is supposedly to encourage me to buy double glazing to prevent global warming.

A. They are wrong about Global Warming. So why do I have to pay an extra tax to support their incorrect theories?

B. The sodding glass is for internal use and wouldn't make the blind bit of difference if it were double glazed or not. So why am I being taxed full stop?

 

One of the biggest problems we have, and one that is easy to overcome and has the potential for massive gains, is that we don't think of the bigger picture.

Consider this. Near me, there is a lot of industry. Industry generates a lot of heat, and if some of those plants don't get rid of that heat, they will blow up. So they cool it with water. The cold water is pumped around the parts of the plant that need cooling, then that water, now heated to steam, goes into a cooling tower where most of the heat goes straight up. Or given our proximity to the sea, some of the hot water is simply piped out to sea.

Entirely separate to that, our houses need heating, so while the works just a mile or two away are getting rid of surplus heat by sending it into the sky as steam, or out to sea, households are paying for energy to heat water to pump round their radiators.

Why not have system where local households can buy the surplus hot water from the works? That way we'd be using less fuel overall.

If that's not practical, then how about this. Every winter the council whines about how much they have to spend on gritting the roads (when they bother). What if the hot water from the work's cooling systems was pumped under the main roads? Heated roads, no need for gritting, savings in terms of energy and money again.

These are just a couple of examples. Not everyone has heavy industry on their doorstep, but there's usually lots of ways where the surplus or waste or byproduct of one thing could be used for another. It just doesn't happen though because everything is departmentalised so nobody works as a collective.

 

We still use plastic bag in the food stores but they are next to the paper bags BUT also stores are selling re-usable cloth bags. Somehow I've collect plenty cloth bags that I keep in my car to carry in when shopping. They say they have seen the plastic bags floating out in the ocean, not a good thing for fish.

I also agree with Jenny, have always believed there are too too many people on this planet.

And what about cars, some believe in trading them in yearly, me I keep beyond 14 years as long as they cost little to keep.

Hate when they take down large building, where do they put the concrete and bent steel Why can't they just refurbish the older buildings.

Water---we have a well on our property, I avoid flushing only the urine for a few times just because to save the water. In Malibu, Calif. there is a resturant that has a sign over its toilet: if its yellow leave alone if its brown then flush.

Re-purposing things are always benificial to the environment and your pocket book.

 

I tend to go along with the massive populations being our main problem.
On the one hand governments wont let you die, but on the other they make a point about how much of a burden the ageing population is on the state.

As to energy, I agree we need new sources, oil will not last for ever, nor gas.
Wind farms are just for those that want to make a fast buck out of the system, they will never be a viable alternative.
Electric cars are another pityful example of something that dont work, being put across as "green" in order to sell a pig in a poke.

We need a proper alternative to oil, hydrogen could be the answer.

Oh, and water......I'm sure we dont need any more of that.

 

Here's something very interesting happening right on my doorstep (well, not literally on my doorstep, but here on Teesside).

Its still in its very early stages, barely even a proof of concept yet, but fuel from air all the same.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20003704
http://www.tntmagazine.com/news/world/energy-from-thin-air-british-engineers-create-petrol-from-air

 

What ever happen to the biofuel?

A long came higher wheat prices and then everything slow down.

 

I'm not sure that massive populations are a problem per se, (it's more their distribution around the planet itself) but .... I do agree in part, with pete's initial comment.

Y'see, my widowed Mother suffered mild demensia and had a number of strokes, eventually she became bedridden and could hardly speak, so with some help from professional Carers, it was down to me to look after her and to sort out her medication. Depending on what day it was (and in part, which combination of Warfarin she needed) she could take up to 10 different tablets per day.

She fell out of bed and broke her ankle. I was ill myself and couldn't go with her when the plaster came off, but they did give this bedridden patient a leaflet about how much walking to do and her GP arranged for a physiotherapist to visit her twice a week to '... help strengthen the ankle'. Here was a woman who, half the time couldn't understand what you said and could barely move, being given exercises she couldn't do to 'strengthen' a joint she'd never be able to use again.

Being bedridden she put on weight, so 'they' advised more exercise and gave her a diet sheet -with little or no thought to the fact that again she could only move her arms and because of the dementia half the time forgot how to chew.

On top of all this, her GP gave me a stern lecture because I hadn't bothered to return the bowel cancer screening kit he'd left and at the same time told me she was due her flu jab. Frankly flu (and by this time anything else) was the least of my worries.

I'm not saying people like my Mother shouldn't receive the medication they need, but she had hundreds (probably thousands) of £s of medication and treatment for conditions for which there was no cure, which made no difference to either her illness or quality of life. She was deeply unhappy, often clinically depressed, lonely, in pain and yet had her suffering prolonged for 5 years all in the name of 'we must do all we can'. And people wondered why I wasn't upset when she died?

 

Good morning Fidgetsmum,
what you have described here puts this crazy modern way of "caring" into perspective doesn't it. And I totally understand why you were not sorry to see her released from it all. What THEY are doing in hospitals nowadays, and what suffering they put patients through is so depressing and wrong surely?
We wouldn't be allowed to let our animals suffer in this way, so why do we allow humans to? I think that a revolutionary change in the way we manage this final phase of life is long overdue: it will come....
I wish you well Fidgetsmum,
Jenny

 

Anybody who's been to New York will probably have noticed they have a steam distribution system http://www.coned.com/history/steam.asp and perhaps wondered why there's no similar scheme in the UK.

And anybody who's seen Didcot power station's cooling towers must have wondered whether there was a more productive way of using that 'waste' heat? (which you don't notice any sign of whatsoever on the local car boot sale site on a chilly morning).