Suburban Chimp - Finance & Social Commentary

Isn’t it boring when you think about doing the right think and you can’t justify it because the world seems to be totally against you? OK, not the entire world, but just the train system in the UK in this case. My mother was looking to travel to Wales to visit some relative on short notice, (a funeral) and she was quoted over £140 for the trip. Now, if you book in advance you can get the tickets cheaper, but that’s not really the point is it? If we in the UK are actively trying to get people to take public transport instead of jumping in the car then we need to be trying a lot harder and making public transport cheaper. Put it in perspective, my mother can hire a car for about £60, stick a tank full of petrol in it for £40 and still have £40 left over. Not only that, the car is quicker. Two, to three hours instead of the four (there are a few changes on the train journey). Remind me again, what’s the incentive to take the train, if it is slow, expensive and no doubt over crowded. Now, let’s presume I want to travel to Wales with my mother. That’s double. The car hire costs do not double though, do they? Let us also just presume I decide to take my car. Service costs and wear and tear aside, a tank of gas for two from empty is £40, the train for two is pushing £300. Hardly good value. I could probably fly to New York for that. This just reeks of silliness and greediness.

I went to a company today, in the line of my day-to-day business and although this company can be considered fairly cynical environmentally and the things it sells are pretty much environmentally unfriendly I can’t blame them for selling what they sell as I am typing on one. (yes a computer). A couple of things impressed me, firstly in their reception they have a massive display promoting bargain composters for the garden, from just £8.00, a massive display and special deal on energy saving light-bulbs and a great deal of information on recycling services in the area. All of this was a council led scheme, but I was impressed with the initiative and wished my council did the same thing, I was also impressed that a big corporate allowed this in their reception. Well done on both accounts to these organisations.

I have written a few flippant articles lately and have wondered about some of the content of them in great depth. The article which caused the most anxiety and perhaps the most thought was the one related to ‘Peak Oil’. I found a web-page which offered a gloomy if not horrific outlook for the future which culminated with a list of things you could do to ‘prepare’ for the worst. If we are truly going to run out of oil in the future then the prospect of this can barely be thought about as nobody seems to have prepared for the worst, and a world without any oil surely will be reverting us to (I quote from a more intelligence source) a post industrial stone age. When you think about the fact that there will be no oil, and that oil is pretty much the driving force in all that we do, we are faced with a few facts, generally which can be summed up as we’re pretty much screwed, we do not pass go, we do not collect £200 and have absolutely no future what-so-ever.
When you think about the drive towards nuclear power, GM crops, the illegal war in Iraq in terms of an oil crisis then things start to make a little more sense. Whatever I write here today will have little effect on any outcome that may happen. I cannot ‘fix’, ‘solve’ or do anything to resolve the terrifying events that are going to unfold within the next 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 years. Yeah, there is uncertainty when this is actually going to happen, we just don’t know. I have even started to wonder whether the sceptics who dismiss climate change may be correct and all the measures about sustainability, recycling, clean power, is just a masquerade, masking the true underlying cause as to why we need to ‘do’ something. When you realise that governments continuously cynically lie, cheat and play a game of smoke and mirrors then you can be sure when they say that they are making changes to benefit the ‘environment’ then there is either money or something more important at stake. Personally, no matter how cynical you are (like governments) or whether you believe in peak oil or not, or climate change or not something certainly seems to be amiss with society in general. Where are we going? What is this odd obsession with celebrities and consumerism we have all embraced all about?
I like to think of the worst-case scenario. Worst case is the fruititon of all the things scientist say might happen. We know that the oil is running out at some point. Nobody seems concerned. The mainstream press do not seem to care. Honestly just think of what is going to happen when the oil runs out. Just think. I know it is becoming increasingly difficult to ‘think’ and ‘create’ but just try to imagine, the more open individuals out there can do this easily, I am not going to spell it out to you if you don’t really get the idea of a world without oil, there are no alternatives to fall back on. Now consider that climate change is actually a real thing, and what the implications are for this, Melted ice caps, a rise in the sea levels, countries (say goodbye to the Dutch) submerged under water, wild weather, storms, hurricanes, and more. Consider the ‘conveyor belt’ in the ocean. That’s another article, the long and the short of that is if it is impacted by climate change (which it will be) the UK and the northern hemisphere will be plunged into tundra. Of course we also have perpetually increasing population mass to content with also, which in itself is a challenge most horrid. Combine these events and this century certainly has a few ‘issues’ it will have to deal with, and I for one do not believe we are capable of resolving them. I know I sound like a lunatic, but the evidence is out there if you just look for it.
Ian Dury is unfortunately dead, but before he died he used to sing that he had reasons to be cheerful. If he were alive today I believe that he would think the same thing, and I also have reasons to be cheerful even considering the facts above. I believe my generation, and the next couple of generations are in for a hard time. Human existence is in for a torrid ride and there are some big questions that are going to need to be answered and things are never going to be quite the same again. I can foresee tens of millions of people around the globe dying of starvation, I can see the complete degrade of first world society, where capital cities become no go zones, plunged into violent darkness due to the lack of electricity across the entire world, I can see I time when shops won’t be filled with MP3 players and digital photo-frames as there won’t even be any food to be bought, I can see the breakdown of sanitation services and running water, and I’m not talking about poor African countries, I am talking about the ‘developed world’, the UK and the US and the whole of Europe which will implode without the glorious black oil. Where will we be then? And I say we still have reasons to be cheerful, and I mean it, because the world is a resilient entity, eventually it can heal itself from ‘climate change’ and humanity is equally resilient, and 95% of the people may die out, but if there is one characteristic that humans have it is one of survival. I believe that humans may also learn from their mistakes and we will not adopt a money led society again, we will take on board the lessons of living an economical lifestyle, with ‘eco’ values of recycling, of not wasting things and never taking anything for granted. That may not be in my lifetime, or your lifetime, but it could be in your children’s lifetime so I will continue to spout nonsense on my little eco blog, giving advice on how best to live our lives, whilst offering up some outlandish doom mongering in the process. Maybe the oil will last another few hundred years, maybe climate change is a tale to scare children, maybe nothing will happen at all and I should have just bought a nice 4×4 and be done with it. Ah well, time will tell.

Hmm, vague post alert but I forgot to keep the article I read, but I found it quite amusing so the gist of it is: Some boss from British Airways says that he fully supports the further runway expansion at Heathrow Airport, blah, blah, blah. In another report Santa Claus states that he is completely in favor of Christmas.

Regardless of whether we like it or not, (and I do not) the expansion at Heathrow Airport is going to happen, because as soon as something like this is raised by the government as an ‘option’ you can pretty much bet that that they have already decided that it is going to happen. I wonder if the Queen will have something to say when the Government want to build Terminal 15 and Runway 10 and they select The Long Walk leading up to Windsor Castle as the location, as it’s nice and straight and perfect for sticking jumbo jets down it.

At the moment I am fairly partial to chocolate ginger nut biscuits. They have become somewhat of a Sunday treat. Trouble is, I stuff them down my throat in about ten minutes and then all the biscuits are gone and I’m sad. It’s a classic case of over consuming, and the problem with Sunday where I live is that all the shops shut early so once the biscuits have been eaten I’m left without. I guess it’s my own fault for being too greedy and I have nobody else to blame. When I was young my mum told me not to stuff my face, but did I listen? Heck no. Anyway, what am I banging on about then, where is this leading to? Oh yeah, what are we going to do when the oil runs out?

A term that is bandied about frequently is ‘peak oil’. What does this mean? Basically peak oil is the point when maximum petroleum production is reached. After this point the production rate starts to decline and the price starts to rise if demand is not met.

Now, all these rather optimistic people who say that climate change is a myth and isn’t going to happen could have a point, because as we as a global audience stick our heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t going to happen, we also seem to be doing exactly the same thing with regards to how much oil is left. Any then what? No oil means no cars because nobody seems to be making much effort to find a replacement fuel, and no cars means a massive reduction in CO2 so that’s global warming ‘fixed’.

Back to Peak Oil, some pessimistic people say that we have already reached peak oil production (which would be bad), and the most optimistic people say that that we ‘could’ have another 100 years until we hit this point. The general consensus is that we will reach this point at about 2020 – 2030, but we don’t really know for sure. So, I ask again, what are we going to do when all the oil runs out?

For humanity it’s crunch time, and it’s going to be this century that is going to make or break us as a species, because if we do not start taking some responsibility for the environment and the way we live our lives and if we don’t put monetary gain second to social responsibility then we’re pretty much doomed. The oil is pretty much gone, but nobody seems to mind.

When it comes to the debate on GM crops there seems to be a lot of heated argument from both sides of the fence as to the merits and pitfalls of this particularly hot potato. Greenies aren’t keen on the idea (to say the least) due to the potentially damaging impact of gene transfer to native crops. To be honest, speaking for myself and other like me, we tend to just not like the idea of people tinkering around with our food as we are all a bit untrusting of governments and their lacky scientists to get things right. Generally when people start faffing about with things they stuff them up. There are numerous examples of this, but I can’t be bothered to think of any to list here.

Anyway, pro GM peeps population, how GM crops are cheaper, saving the consumer a bunch of cash, and how they are completely harmless. Also, apparently GM is the only way to feed people in developing nations so we just ‘have’ to go down that route. I do not have any figures on this, but I am presuming we in the UK do not export a whole bunch of crops to hungry people in Africa so I’m not sure it’s a valid reason to support GM in the UK. With regards to cost, perhaps GM is cheaper than standard crops, but what I find funny is that if I go shopping at one of the local farms in my area that it is much cheaper than buying at the supermarket. Other benefits are that I get to eat locally produced food and it’s fresh and seasonal. I live in the country so I guess it’s a heck of a lot easier for me to do that, and I don’t presume that city folk have the same flexibility when it comes to sourcing locally produced food. I read an article that said that by banning GM it will mean the end of cheap food. Does that mean that the majority of the food we eat is already GM? If not, how is it the end of cheap food? To address the point that GM crops are harmless, to be honest I would guess that they probably are. There lies the crux of the problem though- it’s currently a guess and people do not know for sure what the long term impact is, if any. Personally I prefer organic, but you sure do pay a premium for that. Of course, the solution to that is to grow your own, (space permitting) and Suburban Chimp have devoted a section of the portal to gardening and home produce for the big garden, smaller garden and city dweller. Those with flats with no garden and no space to grow should speak to their local council about allotments if interested in ‘growing your own’ as many councils have schemes for just this situation.

Back to the point- to summarise, why do we need GM crops? We don’t. Why do we want GM crops? We don’t. Why are GM crops being forced on us? To make people money. Simple.

Bandwagon jumper or eco-evangelist Tory, David Cameron, (you decide) has announced a new idea, initiative, what have you, to (if the Conservatives came to power) encourage home-owners to make their own energy and sell it back to the energy companies.
All good in theory, but industry experts say that we are at least decades away from this in the UK, although apparently other European countries seem to manage this. Basically the cost of providing the equipment to allow home owners to do this is expensive and the return on investment takes many years so we in the UK do not really have the stomach for it, where as in many European countries the individual attitude is different and they routinely recycle and have a better grasp on environmental issues.
What I would like to see is the current government and any superseding government take the initiative and come up with a solution to make, solar power, wind power more economically viable for Joe Public, who can’t at the moment afford a couple of thousand pounds to stick a wind turbine in their back garden. Frankly in the UK many of the population struggle to do any recycling at all, let alone can comprehend generating their own energy unless there was a seriously good incentive for them to do so and frankly with so many people struggling to pay rent/mortgages/council tax it’s a big leap of faith to presume we’ll all be able to rush out to buy a windmill, whether we would like to or not.

A presumably satirical article to rile environmentalists raises some interesting pointers about how environmentalists want it all, but are basically deluded. I got bored of reading it, but I thing the crux of the argument is that people should take precedence over the environment and if we need to build billions of houses so be it and if we need to use GM technology to feed everyone, crack on with it.

What I think the article doesn’t address is that there aren’t enough resources to last out already so adding an expediential amount of people to the already over inflated population isn’t really the best way to go.

Technology will solve a lot of problems, but ultimately believing that nuclear energy offers a short to solution to anything is silly and saying that animals are better off with humans around because we maybe able to blast meteorites out of the sky and save the planet is really quite inexplicable when we think about all the species that have been driven to extinction by the human race and the impact we have on the planet right now.

Personally right now I believe the future is pretty bleak, but it doesn’t matter because hedonistic tendencies to live now, pay later will ultimately prove to be our undoing. Ultimately if you drive your car with the revs in the red all the time, don’t get it serviced regularly and generally treat it with disrespect the engine will blow up and you’ll need to get it fixed. Unfortunately when the earth is in need of repair, there won’t be a mechanic around with the right parts to be able to fix it and they’ll need to order them from the manufacturer and we could be in for a long wait.

Mustn’t grumble about the news that Coca Cola are slimming down their iconic glass coke bottle by 20% to reduce waste. Obviously this has a big impact on the environment, and probably saves Coca Cola some money too, which is a double bonus. My question is why do so many companies have so much packaging all of the time, why don’t they follow Coca Cola’s lead and do the same, helping the environment, reducing their long-term packaging costs and getting good press in the process?

To be fair, I prefer a nice smoothie to soda as I’m a health freak, but that aside, we need to see more multinational companies take a lead so well done to CC for this at least.

Talks are in place to ratify a replacement to the Kyoto Agreement which is set to expire in 2012. So far, Kyoto for the most part has proven to be a load of hot air, with big players such as Australia and the US refusing to sign up to the agreement at all. Australia have now stepped in line, but it’s hard to believe that the Bush administration will ever sign up to Kyoto, so we await with baited breath to see if the American electorate push for a president who is forward thinking but lets be honest there is very little hope of that, so we sit here in Europe trying to reduce our little (in comparison) carbon footprints, whilst the US charge about with their size fifteens trampling all the pretty flowers…