I thought it might be worth starting a thread for naming and/or possibly shaming bicycle facilities at your polling stations tomorrow.
Prizes for Bromptons taken into polling booths.
Extra prizes for Bromptons ridden into polling booths.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
VOTE BIKE
(107 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Points deduction for voting UKIP according to the sane and fact-based Telegraph;
I've got a railing outside my polling station, I'll just hand the bike to the Green election monitor if there is one.
Posted 9 years ago # -
None, as far as I know. In the past have leant my bike against the wall in the corridor to the Church Hall where the voting takes place.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Plenty railings in Balerno outside the polling station. School no longer polling station but all schools are closed for in service whether they are polling stations or not.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Plenty railings in Balerno outside the polling station. School no longer polling station but all schools are closed for in service whether they are polling stations or not.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Plenty railings in Balerno outside the polling station. School no longer polling station but all schools are closed for in service whether they are polling stations or not.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I vote at Roseburn Primary School, which has plenty of cycle railings. Also, a fair few of the children arrive on cycle, or on the backs of parents' cycles.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I had just read the UKIP's manifesto on cycling, which like all their policies, was written by an angry bloke shouting from a car - at cyclists this time, rather than immigrants.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Plenty railings in Balerno I notice?
Posted 9 years ago # -
VOTE BIKE by the Magnificent Octopus, on FlickrI hear there's more railings in Balerno than Currie.
Posted 9 years ago # -
If you want to vote for a pro-cycling, pro-active travel party, it has to be the Scottish Greens.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Thread creep and I apologise for such, but @crowriver, I looked at the Greens website on the back of your comment, and there was a totally non-cycling related comment that intrigued me
"Nuclear power is not a low carbon technology: the energy involved in mining, fuel fabrication, construction, transport and waste makes nuclear no ‘cleaner’ in carbon dioxide production than an efficient gas-powered station."
I would be interested in finding out what the supporting evidence is, and how they are framing the comparison, as this is contrary to what I understood...don't know if you (or anyone else) can shed any light?
Agree the Greens are coming across as the most pro active-travel party, although they aren't really up against any serious competition in that respect!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Obviously I've been taking Bromptons in to vote for years.
Once I left one with the cop at the door and he insisted on seeing how it worked.
Posted 9 years ago # -
re nuclear, I don't know if that particular question is covered but Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air has a lot of these nitty gritty calculations in it. The whole thing is available online in a magnificently old-fashioned page by page html format. http://www.withouthotair.com/
EDIT - question on concrete is tackled here http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_169.shtml
Posted 9 years ago # -
I would be interested in finding out what the supporting evidence is, and how they are framing the comparison, as this is contrary to what I understood...don't know if you (or anyone else) can shed any light?
To be frank, I have no idea what the source is for that claim.
One thing I noted with the link sallyhinch posted is it does not include nuclear decommissioning and waste storage as part of the life cycle of a nuclear plant. Also hasn't factored in diminishing levels of easy to mine uranium ore, thus CO2 emissions will rise from extraction. As for more 'efficient' nuclear like fast-breeder reactors, well look at how long it is taking to decommission Dounreay...
For me, the most compelling case against nuclear is summed up in two locations: Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'm one of those crazy greens who is pro-nuclear (energy, not weapons). Maybe because I got taken an a tour of a plant at an impressionable age (actually too young to be really allowed, which made it even cooler). When I did science projects it was always about how to store nuclear waste safely (well, until the one where we made a high temp superconductor for a science fair). Also influenced by reading too many books about Marie curie and all the other scientists behind the nuclear projects, also at impressionable age.
But anyway, I too would be interested to see that data.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Interestingly I ended up talking to Robin Harper (ex leader of the Greens) who indicated that he was in favour of Nuclear.
From the Chernobyl and Fukushima examples, I think Chernobyl has been surprising in that the total number of deaths from the accident have been much lower than was expected and the same with Fukushima, the effect of Radiation on health is actually likely to be very low.
A quick google finds this http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903 fundamentally, Nuclear Power has been responsible for far loss CO2 emissions and prevented an average of over 1.8 million net deaths worldwide between 1971-2009
Although little comfort for those who have been effected by a Nuclear Accident.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I recall there used to be a "fact" that did the rounds that the amount of concrete and aluminium required to build a wind turbine meant it was carbon negative over its lifetime. (And therefore we should probably stick to coal?)
I think I've read enough/too much about Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, wherever to scare myself into ever being terribly comfortable with the notion of fission as some sort of force for good. We've come so close to tragedies on an unimaginable scale three or four times and that's three or four times too many. It should be a warning that we can probably never 100% control the huge forces within.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Snowy left this part of the Scottish Greens' statement on nuclear out: "It leaves toxic waste, which will remain a threat to humans for hundreds of years. The costs of cleaning up this waste, already nearly £100bn and rising, will fall to future generations. In addition, nuclear is still based on the supply of a finite fuel, so it’s neither clean nor renewable."
I studied nuclear physics at school, but in those days folk were not auditing CO2 emissions. Chernobyl happened while I was studying for my degree. I recall reading that it did not rain until the fall-out reached the UK, so Scotland, Wales, Cumbria etc. got large doses of radiation. Livestock from nearly 10,000 farms were not allowed to be moved or sold for years, in some cases decades: 369 farms were still operating under restrictions in 2009.
From the Chernobyl and Fukushima examples, I think Chernobyl has been surprising in that the total number of deaths from the accident have been much lower than was expected and the same with Fukushima, the effect of Radiation on health is actually likely to be very low.
Lower than expected? If there hadn't been an explosion and fire? Or not quite as devastating as immediately feared? Estimates of the deaths attributable to the disaster vary quite widely. 130,000 people had to be evacuated, radiation still 70 times safe levels in the exclusion zone.
As for Fukushima, we still don't know what the health effects may be once the radioactive contamination has worked its way up the food chain, concentrating as it goes.
It's far too early to be breezily confident of nuclear power's relative safety.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I was studying environmental chemistry when Chernobyl had its little hiccup. Didn't drink milk for a year afterwards.
Energy supply really ought to be the centre-piece of every party's policies. There are many interesting numbers of course and one of the ones that has always intrigued me is the energy consumption of the energy industry. In the eighties it was about one sixth of the total energy produced. It has increased ever since - not sure what it is now. The energy budget for nuclear - be it old school sixties style solid fueled reactors or the amazing thorium ones;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
hasn't ever been fully worked out, because we don't yet know what the full cycle is. In any case, it seems the main aim of the British reactors was plutonium production. The 'surplus' energy was a bonus.
Wind, wave, solar and ambient heat energy are all very well, but the real killer is agriculture. The hippiest of organic farmers still put diesel in their tractors. It's hard to imagine a battery-powered tractor, so I guess we should aim at hydrogen-powered ones, together with no-till farming which is also being intensively studied.
Nuclear power is odd in that any spills can be easily detected - you can spot a single atom of some radioisotopes. Coal fired power stations belch nickel tetracarbonyl which is about as carcinogenic as compounds come, but no one seems to worry about that as there's no convenient test for it.
I've been inside Sellafield and looked directly at the blue glowing core of a little known reactor in the central belt. The only similar feeling I've ever had was looking at St Peter's tomb in Rome. It's powerful stuff. The French get 80% of their electricity from nuclear. That's why they invaded Mali last year - they were worried about the uranium mines in neighbouring Niger.
The Greens are the only party that ever talk any sense on this subject. Reminds me - time to go and vote for them.
Posted 9 years ago # -
(reverting to OT) - Gillespie's primary has excellent bike racks (and cool scooter tree rack things) - but I was very disappointed not to be able to lock my bike to a UKIP sign…
Posted 9 years ago # -
Although the short term effects of Fukushima were upsetting and tragic for many locals the longer term outcome seems to show just how safe nuclear power is:
"It's worth noting here that the Daiichi reactors and cooling pools were not particularly safe as nuclear powerplants go: they were a very old, long outmoded design. They were hit by earthquakes and tsunamis wildly beyond what they were rated to withstand, in the second worst nuclear power disaster that has ever happened anywhere.
And as a result ... absolutely nobody's health has been or will be measurably harmed. That's a pretty impressive safety performance.
We stand by our original headline: Fukushima was a triumph for nuclear power, not a disaster. If there's one lesson to learn from it, it's that nuclear power is very safe indeed."
Far more damage was done by the earthquake and tidal wave than will ever happen through the radiation leak.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"The French get 80% of their electricity from nuclear. That's why they invaded Mali last year - they were worried about the uranium mines in neighbouring Niger."
Okay. now you're on my turf. This really isn't true. it might be part of a factor, but not more than that. The French intervene in Francophone Africa regularly and have had 'boots on the ground' and more since the 1960s. Their relationship with their ex-colonies - what they call their pre-carre - profoundly different to UK. What was different about Mali was really that it was so multi-lateral and not just French. That shift's been coming since the St Malo agreement in 1998, and is part of a response to their role in the rwandan genocide, amongst other changes.
was looking for a map i use in lectures, and found this link instead, which seems pretty reliable : http://imperialglobalexeter.com/2014/02/25/prelude-to-intervention-french-wars-in-africa-part-i/
this image is one of the ones i was looking for: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2tSbr3F21jY/UEsAieghyLI/AAAAAAAAKvw/R_FrNJwC-0I/s1600/francafrique2.jpg
I have another photocopied map of interventions up to the 80s.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Terrible thing to do, but I won't be voting today. None of my prospective MEP's have bothered to engage with me during the campaign. I've had no info through the door except from UKIP who certainly won't be getting a vote, so I'm just not going to engage with them by giving my vote. I'll be writing to each of them to tell them why too.
For me, political parties aren't like football clubs, you don't pick one and support it for ever. As far as I'm concerned each vote is a clean slate and I vote based on the messages I hear at that time (and mostly on local issues), and if your not going to try and woo me, then you can forget my support...
Posted 9 years ago # -
but I was very disappointed not to be able to lock my bike to a UKIP sign…
Will see what I can find later on at same place.
While we're on the subject of nuclear ("it's pronounced nuke-u-lar"), let's not forget our own back yard; The mess the MoD made (and denied making) at Dalgetty Bay. And then the small matter of those 8 expensive cold war toys tied up alongside at Rosyth, quietly rusting, which no-one is quite sure what to do with them - http://goo.gl/maps/lPMBQ.
Scotland's first "commercial" nuclear plant, the now defunct Chapelcross, was a front for plutonium production for the UK atomic weapons programme (rather like Calder Hall, the world's first "commercial" station). They later added tritium procduction to their "peaceful" credentials. The electricity was a nice bonus, but we would have been happy to dig and burn coal back then too. The site might be cleared by 2095, but by clear they really mean "shifted the problem elsewhere".
Posted 9 years ago # -
I've had stuff from all the major parties. Wonder why you haven't?
Forgot to take a pic of my bike and the 3 yo's outside the polling station!
Posted 9 years ago # -
@SRD
Indeed, gross over simplification. I'm reasonably familiar with the politics of 'francafrique', but I'd be interested to know to what degree you think the largely unspoken dependance of France on Niger;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21318043
affected their decision on Mali. The USA and their client state had their own reasons for getting involved, but it looked pretty blatant to me that Paris was bricking it about their electricity.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I didn't get a UKIP leaflet. I got Labour, Green and Lib Dem I think. And got one with David Cameron and some woman's face on the front. Didn't look further to see what it was before it hit the recycling bin. It may have ended up being used to light a bonfire...
Posted 9 years ago # -
Our tory one got mixed in with pizza delivery leaflets, so it got recycled. I do regret this as I was quite hungry last night and there was nothing in the fridge.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Roland Marchal's briefing (available free here) which has quite a good discussion of the French reasons for intervening doesn't mention it.
Marchal cites Smith's LRB piece . I notice that at least on correspondent mentions it. however, Stephen Ellis, who knows the terrain very well, doesn't.
Posted 9 years ago #
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