CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
@gembo, "Also shows the symmetry of the original new town design by James Craig."
I think that photo is actually showing Newington, as the fire was on the south western side of the hill. We couldn't see it from the other side at all, just some red glow and smoke behind Salisbury Crags.
I have it on good authority from the ranger service that winter is particularly risky for gorse fires, as the vegetation is very dry.
Good apocalyptic pics on the Beeb website, including one atmospheric bicycle:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-47379622
XR Rig Rebellion: Protest the Scottish Oil Club - link is to CCE topic but essentially: this Friday outside NMS from 17:00-21:00: a ceilidh/protest.
“
In other sectors, greenhouse gas emissions have fallen sharply. But transport emissions in the UK have declined by only 2% since 1990. The government’s legally binding target is an 80% cut by 2050, though even this, the science now tells us, is hopelessly inadequate. Transport, mostly because of our obsession with the private car, is now the major factor driving us towards climate breakdown, in this and many other nations.
“
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/cars-killing-us-driving-environment-phase-out
“Whether you agree with climate change theory or not, encouraging children to leave their studies to join a protest which fits with the absolutist world view of the people in charge at the City Chambers is the deliberate politicisation of school years”
Councillor Cameron Rose is definitely a climate change denier; is Cllr Maclellan another?
Does this count as climate change denial (despite the later rebuttal when asked directly):?
Al Gore said that about me as well as a youngster though, didn't he. Yet New York hasn't fallen into the sea
https://twitter.com/CllrNickCook/status/1102974579851575296
Also, the onus seems to be on the developing nations to fix the problem
One SNP councillor admitted as such with undisguised glee.
No reputable newspaper should be publishing semi-anonymous allegations about what someone said.
The Scottish Conservatives are just wreckers. They're not in favour of anything.
"Whether you agree with climate change theory or not
you'll be rule 2'd along with the rest of us and it'll be worse for your kids", is surely what it ought to have read.
Scottish Oil Club Dinner Occupied
“
Despite increasingly powerful scientific warnings of potential climate breakdown, despite transport now being Scotland's largest source of climate emissions, and despite the public health disaster of sedentary lifestyles, the Scottish Government predicts that by 2037, under its present policies ...
* car trips will rise 25%, from 1.8bn to 2.3bn
“
http://www.spokes.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/pall-at-95.pdf
https://twitter.com/bethsawin/status/1107673983724470281
This thread on twitter by Elizabeth Sawin is worth reading.
"What is it deep in western/eurocentric culture that allows the idea of unlimited growth to make sense, even against the evidence of our own experience?"
"I think it goes deeper than, 'vested' interests with a lot to lose. I think it goes beyond, "the fossil fuel industry is the most powerful industry in the history of humanity.'
What else would a culture have to reject, if it rejected the idea of unlimited growth? What else would it have to acknowledge, and what would be threatened by that acknowledgement?"
& additional commentary by Dr Genevieve Guenther (@doctorvive):
"the conditions for our current systems—economic, energy-circulating, cultural—are historical. They are relatively new, as far as Eurocentric western culture is concerned (although they have deep roots), and they are subject to historical change."
What else would a culture have to reject, if it rejected the idea of unlimited growth?
Human mortality. Infinite economic growth is the collective expression of our delusion of immortality.
From dust ye came and to dust ye shall return. A finite quantity of dust.
From same thread
“
Even so, can we go deeper? Back to 'and what causes that?' What leads a culture/society to believe it can grow forever, when it knows it lives on a planet, has in fact seen and photographed that planet suspended in the darkness of space, singular, unitary, bounded?
“
It all starts with the assumption that ‘human’ is the most important thing and that the world (Earth/Universe?) was ‘made’ for humans and intended to be used by them (well the “them” who got themselves in charge - agriculturalists, industrialists, politicians, dictators etc.)
After that, considerations of when/whether things will run out (at least for those who already have more than enough) are hard to bother about.
Add in a political system where the future is considered in years (at most) rather than decades and where people are expected (for the sake of GDP and the wellbeing of large companies) to buy what they have just seen on telly/Facebook and the chance of analysing ‘why’, AND getting anyone to pay attention, is small.
So far the argument has been won by those who persuade the most people that ‘more of the same’ is better than the/any alternative.
The fact that this won’t be possible ‘for ever’ and (perhaps) will come to an end well within the lifetime of most people now alive, is not believed or at least so much not wanted that any sort of rational reality is ignored.
Most people will only consider an ‘alternative’ they think is better than what they have now.
Too many are willing to believe all sorts of promises dangled before them and have no desire to check ‘the facts’.
Well most of the things ‘threatened’ 25 years ago never happened, so wots the problem?
Just get some water from the Arctic before it melts.
See, technological solutions to everything.
After that we’re bound to discover a new planet with free water.
That’s what humans are FOR - to dream.
"England to run short of water"
I very much doubt that, since all of England is on water meters and all they need to do is ramp the price up until demand meets supply again.
“all they need to do is ramp the price up until demand meets supply again”
But that would penalise the hard pressed tap turners.
The otherwise law abiding water users might be forced to bypass the meters.
Infinite economic growth is the collective expression of our delusion of immortality
So mote it be, Brother Iwrats..
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem !
“If the risk from wildfires, flooding, storms or hail is increasing then the only sustainable option we have is to adjust our risk prices accordingly. In the long run it might become a social issue,” he said after Munich Re published a report into climate change’s impact on wildfires. “Affordability is so critical [because] some people on low and average incomes in some regions will no longer be able to buy insurance.”
[...]
“The sector is concerned that continuing global increases in temperature could make it increasingly difficult to offer the affordable financial protection that people deserve, and that modern society requires to function properly,” he said.
Reading a primer on systems thinking (for fun. Don't judge me.) and it's all so relevant. This applies to so many of our forum concerns...
"The best way to deduce the system's purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves. [...] If a government proclaims its interest in protecting the environment but allocates little money or effort towards that goal, environmental protection is not, in fact, the government's purpose. Purposes are deduced from behaviour, not from rhetoric or stated goals."
I mean, we know this, but it's nice to see it stated with such clarity. (in Meadows, Thinking in Systems)
@unhurt
This is a useful restatement the scientific method which prizes observation and skepticism above all else.
My current hypothesis is that any government whose observable priority was making human life sustainable would not retain power in a democratic system.
The best way to deduce the system's purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves.
So... what can one deduce about CCE?
Robert
“So... what can one deduce about CCE?”
Interesting question, though I suspect hard to “observe” due to randomness.
Purposes are deduced from behaviour, not from rhetoric or stated goals.
Ravenscraig site plan 'worth £360m to economy'
The overall cost of the roads scheme is more than £200m.
“My current hypothesis is that any government whose observable priority was making human life sustainable would not retain power in a democratic system.”
I know what you mean, but I’m not sure it’s true.
When Govs say they want to/are doing stuff but are in reality not, surely it would be just as easy to do better stuff without actually asking/telling the electorate??
It’s part of the problem with ‘cycle infrastructure’.
There are plenty of places where officials (with and without knowledge of politicians) did things and (often) found people liked them so did more.
Doesn’t seem possible in UK.
I'm still musing on the former colleague who did an office job in Telford in order to be able to spend their holidays in Dubai.
Each to their own but that's volunteering for Hell in my books.
Ravenscraig site plan 'worth £360m to economy'
The overall cost of the roads scheme is more than £200m.
What about government funding a railway into Ravenscraig and developers paying for the roads themselves?
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