Environment crisis



Local councils don’t help. My journey to work involves being sat in queues whilst the bus lanes remain completely empty to service the 2 buses that come every hour.

And no, I can’t take the bus myself because there’s no stop near me or my workplace.
 
I work for the 'civil service'.

We've been wfh for nearly a year now. Performance has gone up. Sickness has actually gone down!

Yesterday they announced plans to have us back in the office blended working. 3 days a week in the office.

Whats the point? Putting people at risk, extra cars on the road. Extra pollution, stress.

It's just absolutely backwards.

Government should be setting an example.
But if the government sets a work from home example, they're setting the example of killings off jobs that rely on office trade to be viable. And then suddenly there's a ton of vacant office space in city centres that won't be cheap to convert to other uses.

Already a change to how the business operates has meant two part time workers who left last month aren't getting replaced as we will have less hours to man the shop. I say will have as we still have extra hours at the moment due to coronavius measures (I'm in Scotland). Once those measures are gone, so are the extra hours.
 
Local councils don’t help. My journey to work involves being sat in queues whilst the bus lanes remain completely empty to service the 2 buses that come every hour.

And no, I can’t take the bus myself because there’s no stop near me or my workplace.
The issue is so deep rooted it will take decades to resolve, unless the government steps in and funds public transport across the country.

Sprawling, low density suburbs, which is essentially all we've built for the last 50 years, make running bus services extremely difficult. They've got to go around the houses (literally) in order to pass by enough potential customers, but I'm doing so you're increasing journey times and making it twice as long as just driving.

Whole system needs changing from the top down as a matter of priority.
 
But if the government sets a work from home example, they're setting the example of killings off jobs that rely on office trade to be viable. And then suddenly there's a ton of vacant office space in city centres that won't be cheap to convert to other uses.

Already a change to how the business operates has meant two part time workers who left last month aren't getting replaced as we will have less hours to man the shop. I say will have as we still have extra hours at the moment due to coronavius measures (I'm in Scotland). Once those measures are gone, so are the extra hours.

Perfect - Get it converted into affordable living space, apartments etc.

Rather than the 3,4,5 bedroom new builds that are going up everywhere alongside the extra infrastructure they require.

I don't think saving coffee shops and sandwich shops is a good enough reason for me to be forced back into the office either.
 
Perfect - Get it converted into affordable living space, apartments etc.

Rather than the 3,4,5 bedroom new builds that are going up everywhere alongside the extra infrastructure they require.

I don't think saving coffee shops and sandwich shops is a good enough reason for me to be forced back into the office either.
Not just those but plenty of convenience shops need office trade. Including my own. For a while our sales dropped low enough that we weren't making a profit.
 
But if the government sets a work from home example, they're setting the example of killings off jobs that rely on office trade to be viable. And then suddenly there's a ton of vacant office space in city centres that won't be cheap to convert to other uses.

Already a change to how the business operates has meant two part time workers who left last month aren't getting replaced as we will have less hours to man the shop. I say will have as we still have extra hours at the moment due to coronavius measures (I'm in Scotland). Once those measures are gone, so are the extra hours.

That post in a nutshell epitomises the whole problem.

Worried about short term economic problems for town centres in the here and now when the real issues are we may not have any office trade in 150-200 years (Probably a lot less) because unless you are a complete scientific denialist it’s pretty much agreed we face an existential crisis with the climate.

As ever the issue is it’s too big to tackle. And we will worry about things like lunchtime trade rather then where we as a species will be in a few generations.

I don’t blame you, you need to earn a living, but we are worrying about tiny issues compared to the climates threat to our very existence
 
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That post in a nutshell epitomises the whole problem.

Worried about short term economic problems for town centres in the here and now when the real issues are we may not have any office trade in 150-200 years (Probably a lot less) because unless you are a complete scientific denialist it’s pretty much agreed we face an existential crisis with the climate.

As ever the issue is it’s too big to tackle. And we will worry about things like lunchtime trade rather then where we as a species will be in a few generations
Because economic concerns of people over the next 5 years will win or lose elections, so the focus is on that.

If change is more gradual things would be fine as new jobs open up to move into, but the pandemic has shown what short sharp changes can do to jobs.

I doubt a majority of people would vote for a manifesto that protects the long term environment but will likely put them into poverty for an unknown amount of time in the near future.
 
Because economic concerns of people over the next 5 years will win or lose elections, so the focus is on that.

If change is more gradual things would be fine as new jobs open up to move into, but the pandemic has shown what short sharp changes can do to jobs.

I doubt a majority of people would vote for a manifesto that protects the long term environment but will likely put them into poverty for an unknown amount of time in the near future.

You are of course right. Time for a new world order and full dictatorship. Otherwise we will plod along voting for tomorrow’s chip wrappers and wanting to take photos of our Starbucks for insta.
 
Local councils don’t help. My journey to work involves being sat in queues whilst the bus lanes remain completely empty to service the 2 buses that come every hour.

And no, I can’t take the bus myself because there’s no stop near me or my workplace.
Sc obsessed with traffic lights
That mass of them outside of b and q is crazy
Perfect - Get it converted into affordable living space, apartments etc.

Rather than the 3,4,5 bedroom new builds that are going up everywhere alongside the extra infrastructure they require.

I don't think saving coffee shops and sandwich shops is a good enough reason for me to be forced back into the office either.
All part of the service economy
 
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That’s not true, the world can easily sustain 10b humans, if we learn to live in a more environmental way.
Yes, but that 'environmental way' consists of hundreds of concessions on people's lifestyles, freedoms and opportunities. Putting quantity over quality of life is going to make life pretty miserable for a lot of people.
 
Because economic concerns of people over the next 5 years will win or lose elections, so the focus is on that.

If change is more gradual things would be fine as new jobs open up to move into, but the pandemic has shown what short sharp changes can do to jobs.

I doubt a majority of people would vote for a manifesto that protects the long term environment but will likely put them into poverty for an unknown amount of time in the near future.

Course they won’t and that’s why we are fucked. Governments and people will focus on the short term rather then the future of our children’s children.

Bonkers in the overall scheme of things and will be an absolute shitshow when the time comes but again, too big to tackle. We will be our own worst enemy
 
This is true but I don’t think we have a decade. I’m not optimistic that we will change quickly enough.

This is true but I don’t think we have a decade. I’m not optimistic that we will change quickly enough.
I read this recently, the author was a key figure in the Paris Agreement and it's a good summary of the situation IMO. Suggests that there is a doomsday scenario but it's not inevitable. Personally far from certain that we'll collectively make the right choices but it's clear that this will define our generation and we will be judged very poorly and have a lot of blood on our hands if we don't act. We need to approach it as we would a war, where we need to do not just what we think we can but what we absolutely must.

Of course it's hard as individuals but we can make choices at the ballot box, with how we spend our money to reverse endless consumerism and support the right businesses, and with what we eat, at the very least.
 
Yes, but that 'environmental way' consists of hundreds of concessions on people's lifestyles, freedoms and opportunities. Putting quantity over quality of life is going to make life pretty miserable for a lot of people.

Which is fine, but then we need to accept that as a species we are not leaving a future and that for the unlucky generation to be here when it goes wrong it will be quite an horrific end
 
Course they won’t and that’s why we are fucked. Governments and people will focus on the short term rather then the future of our children’s children.

Bonkers in the overall scheme of things and will be an absolute shitshow when the time comes but again, too big to tackle. We will be our own worst enemy
It's not really bonkers as it's expected. We're naturally built for self preservation of ourselves and our 'tribe' so policies that go against that is fighting nature. Add onto that the last 100 or so years of consumerism conditioning and protecting ourselves is now set as protecting a certain standard of living, not just simply being alive and not at risk of death.
 

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