A few years ago..

[cromwell]

Everybody in china was riding a push bike.
Now, they are all driving Mercs (OK, slight exaggeration!).

In a strange reversal of fortunes, now our own government are trying to get us out of our cars and onto push bikes (and "shared transport" whatever that is).
Junior transport minister Trudy Harrison, 45, told a sustainability conference (what's one of them??) that owning a car was "outdated '20th-century thinking" and the country should move to "shared mobility" to cut carbon emissions.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -says.html

Well when you create a sacred cow, in this case zero carbon, everything has to be sacrificed to it.
That petrol car in the drive is your freedom; jump in it and go where you like.
Enjoy it while you can, I suppose.
It does just seem to me though that we are drifting into some sort of Stalinism. Big state slogans and the media informing you what you should be doing and thinking.

If we are to meet zero carbon the lives of ordinary people are going to be massively affected. I don't think they quite realise how much.

[Suff]

The so called "freedom" and the pursuit of happiness has led to the point where we are talking species survival.

We cannot continue to grow, consume and emit carbon and expect the species to survive.

The whole problem is that we recognised it more than 100 years out and, guess what, nobody is really interested in paying to fix it.

Personally I'll be long dead before it goes for a Burton, my job is to educate my grandkids with "it is you that are screwed, your job to understand and fix it".

Most of them are pinball wizards when it comes to wanting to understand.

[Workingman]

She is typical of a member of the "relevant qualifications and experience not required" cabal. And she is, of course, a fully paid up member of the net-zero impossible dream.

It can never be achieved, but we can still do some practical things to mitigate the problem to give us time.

We knew of this train crash 50, 60 years ago and did nothing so, unfortunately, out lives are going to have to change. If we don't then nature will change them for us. I fear for today's little ones and those yet to be born.

[Suff]

Oh Net Zero can be achieved. But the constraints on our lives and the cost will be more than anyone cares to bear.

On the last 20 years technologies to generate, store and use clean energy have made massive moves. It has gone from impossible to move every energy use from FF to co2 neutral electricity and other fuels made by co2 neutral electricity; to just incredibly expensive and difficult.

In the next 30 years it will move to feasible and then the smart choice.

With 5 years of legislation and effort we could pull that back by 20 years.

But we won't.