tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1915349375497165982024-03-09T06:56:06.857-08:00Green (Living) ReviewIncorporating The HOMESTEADER, Forestry Review, Ethical Living Review, Parks & Open Spaces, and Allotment Garden & Smallholding ReviewUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-77477808086359831892024-03-09T06:55:00.000-08:002024-03-09T06:55:13.918-08:00 Recycling is not the answer<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOZEZXLoHNOEtIayEwbROGxj2IvbQKkzsnRa1Dg5dBURBz1rcHEpr-sGXFEVC0EY4O_HJRppxonM2UKyOTad8Fainl_qA_BY_Coo_PQuuPve2OEnjJU82Olp1rNhi0cgfOOUFfHEvW87JWmcgy4rCan8-0sGEbmQrxLJfCLm17t_HEyMJVD38ZZVZqRnuB" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOZEZXLoHNOEtIayEwbROGxj2IvbQKkzsnRa1Dg5dBURBz1rcHEpr-sGXFEVC0EY4O_HJRppxonM2UKyOTad8Fainl_qA_BY_Coo_PQuuPve2OEnjJU82Olp1rNhi0cgfOOUFfHEvW87JWmcgy4rCan8-0sGEbmQrxLJfCLm17t_HEyMJVD38ZZVZqRnuB" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">While the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Note: I wrote this originally in 2022) has been attacked from all sides for his comments on plastic recycling – and let me mention that I am no friend of his – he is, to a great extent, correct in what he said. Recycling is not the answer but it does not just go for plastic recycling but recycling in general as most so-called recycling is actually downcycling. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">When it comes to plastic recycling he has been more than correct because plastic cannot, unlike some metals and glass, be recycled infinitely and in many cases virgin polymer has to be added each and every time for strength. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Therefore we need to get away from single use plastics such as plastic bottles (PET), carrier bags, and the like. Plastics that have a much longer lifespan and are a different type should not, automatically, placed in the evil department, as long as they are not single use, such as take out cutlery, for instance. That stuff does belong in the evil department as no one reuses those. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand there are all too many things that are made from plastic that could be made from renewable sources and resources, such as wood. Bottles should, when it comes to bottles for sauces, drinks, and such like, once again, be made from glass and they should be returned to be cleaned and reused and it should not just apply, as it used to be, drinks bottles. Also sauce bottles, glass jars, etc., should go back to be reused. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Recycling of glass should only happen when the glass is actually beyond use, such as chipped or broken. Before that any glass containers, bottles and jars and what have you, should either be reused by the consumer in whose possession they are or they should go back to the place whence they came and be cleaned and refilled with new product. Adding a little deposit those jars would soon be returned the only problem is that we no longer have the infrastructure for such operations. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">When it comes to other things we must ensure that they are kept alive for as long as possible though that is, nowadays, a lot easier said than done as far too many products, even the likes of the more expensive “consumer” goods, TVs, radios, etc., and white goods, have been designed to be more or less non-repairable. Then again, even if they still would be we are lacking the menders to fix them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Clothes and footwear also are made in such a way that repair, unless one can do it oneself, is more expensive, and that is also the case with the goods mentioned in the previous paragraph, bar, maybe, white goods, to get them repaired than to buy new. Hence we have this waste problem. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">If something works, and can be kept working, regardless how old it is, it is better, environmentally, to keep it than to replace it with newer even if the newer is claimed to be better for the environment. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">© 2024</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-36242243540443664292024-02-28T07:21:00.000-08:002024-02-28T07:21:36.065-08:00The recycle economy and others<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3AxbO4mR13hzFPz-3BgNNIKmUzUgRUgelP7T0Or-FExx03J_20UUgUrumj4GJdJ2Wt_4k7uMgCcb7kZXZ9tC9IB5BDt25xCM2zcAOic2rwcpIfdRiORw0CZZTlDpfpr-sj12tLJgxWSLqTiE68l6qErzNwloD4PCF2NM9wYiPzHq9joKcr6hCogMa1qlf" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="717" data-original-width="720" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3AxbO4mR13hzFPz-3BgNNIKmUzUgRUgelP7T0Or-FExx03J_20UUgUrumj4GJdJ2Wt_4k7uMgCcb7kZXZ9tC9IB5BDt25xCM2zcAOic2rwcpIfdRiORw0CZZTlDpfpr-sj12tLJgxWSLqTiE68l6qErzNwloD4PCF2NM9wYiPzHq9joKcr6hCogMa1qlf=w320-h319" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">There are three forms of economies, the linear one, the recycling one and then the circular one. Currently we predominately have the first two only and more often than not it is the first one, namely that we take then make then consume and then “throw away” even though there is no such place as “away”. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then we have the so-called recycling economy where we take, make, consume, and then theoretically recycle to make new products, with some waste still remaining. I specifically like to stress the word theoretically because while the consumer may diligently separate his or her recyclables which are then collected those, however, quite frequently end up in the same place where the waste ends up, namely the landfill or the incinerator because not enough money can, at times, be made from the recyclables. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The circular economy everyone is talking about but unless industry seriously changes the way it operates this will remain but a pipe dream. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Also, recycling and circular economy, the later which is more likely never to come about, are but ways and means for us to keep consuming in the same way that so-called green products are. We must reduce our consumption and we must return, in some respects, back to the future in that we need to do things again like they were done in the past, such as glass containers which are then reused, bottles and jars with refundable deposits (not new, we had that once already), tin cans, and simple cardboard packaging. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Glass and metal can be infinitely be recycled into new products, though the former should only ever be recycled if it is beyond reuse and cardboard will simply compost, even in a domestic compost heap or composting bin. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">While glass and metal containers are heavier than plastic and thus weight as regards to transportation is an issue the benefits outweigh all the downsides as far fewer resources will be required and far less energy in manufacture. But we can guarantee that the plastic (packaging) lobby will find all manner of excuses of how bad it would be if we would do away with plastic packaging. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">If we have to have plastic packaging than the material really should be recycled in the home country rather than the recyclables shipped abroad where they are turned into pellets to be returned to turn into products or where we re-import new products made from them. Alternatively those products (packaging) should have a second use designed into it that would be automatically recognizable by the consumer. Think of Avon the way it used to have bottles that would become toys for kids afterwards. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">French and German mustard manufacturers to this day frequently fill their product, the mustard, into jars that are actual drinking glasses for reuse by the consumer and there was a time that some people would specifically buy particular brands of mustard just because they wanted those drinking glasses for reuse (and obviously they liked the mustard too). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Or the flour mills in the USA during the Depression era who, because the realized that mothers sewed clothes for their kids and others of their family and themselves, as well as textile items for the home such as bedding, from the white cotton bags printed them with patterns so they were even nicer for reuse, upcycling. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">We have been there before and it is not rocket science but where would the economy be if we would do that, eh? It would no longer grow the way it does now and even less so if we actually made products last and made the repairable again. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Proper design and a return to some of the ways of the past, including packaging designed with an obvious reuse would bring us a great deal further than any playing about with the way we do at the present time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">That is not to say that there was no waste in times past. There was, as we can see when we do some digging in certain places but we could advance by putting the old together with a new ideas and we would have, more or less, no waste of any kind left. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">When it comes to food waste there should be very little if people actually would learn to cook from scratch again and learn how to use and reuse leftover food. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But food waste reduction does not start with the consumer but well at the beginning of the chain and it is also not the farmer who is to blame but the buyers who reject some produce outright because it is not the right size or shape and then, also, such as when the farmer is contracted to a certain supermarket chain or other such entity, the farmer is not at liberty to pass on the rejected produce elsewhere but is forced to destroy the rejects. This must stop. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And any food waste that does occur, as some is unavoidable, must be returned to the soil by means of being composted, be that at home or in composting facilities. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Returning to ways of the past in the way products are produced, that is to say made once again to last and to be repairable, and then having the skilled workers again who can repair the things expertly when they are broken, at a price that is not several times higher than replacing, learning also once again to reuse and repurpose, together with ways of reclaiming all materials from anything that has come to the end of its life will really bring us a kind of circular economy, more of less. Whether, however, it will be entirely zero waste even then is rather questionable, but one can but aim for it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">© 2024</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-54737835248270294642024-02-27T04:19:00.000-08:002024-02-27T04:19:20.725-08:00The real reason they want independent farmers gone<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk5-NIHAV6Ix-5HyRQbhJKoWPVuBEnIjt_jlbUy_c308XXJlwa7lDziqdWz0UWXndSi8Yt4ilfeSgLyqeJNh-bpFPplQ3Q9Mpofb-5nglA4TY_cqlaEIdq-bmTzQsdWdU5oCYi4x3dgjnH_LcwoyiXVmFwdMdAAsKIT85zQ45pTFXWyPHk-0b6sVMiyLvw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhk5-NIHAV6Ix-5HyRQbhJKoWPVuBEnIjt_jlbUy_c308XXJlwa7lDziqdWz0UWXndSi8Yt4ilfeSgLyqeJNh-bpFPplQ3Q9Mpofb-5nglA4TY_cqlaEIdq-bmTzQsdWdU5oCYi4x3dgjnH_LcwoyiXVmFwdMdAAsKIT85zQ45pTFXWyPHk-0b6sVMiyLvw" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The reason they want to get rid of the small farmer is because the small farmer is the last free person on this planet. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Because everyone else has to depend on something else to make a living but a small farmer with a piece of land, some seed in their hands, their intelligence, the sun shining, a bit of water, can produce with no external dependence.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">That is why the independence of the small farmer is seen as such a threat by those who would like to control the last living system. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This, at least, is the way it is being approached by the western global elite and that is also why Russia, for instance, is such a thorn in their side. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There, in a reversal of the system of the Soviet Union, and associated states, of the collective farm has been reversed and smallholdings are being encouraged. This to such an extent even that some years ago the President signed a decree into law which gives every Russian citizens, and even some “just” residents, the right to between one and six hectare of land – depending on the region – to be held by them and their kin (or anyone else the owner might with to pass it on to) in perpetuity (though the land cannot be sold). In addition to that there are then grants (gifts) to the new landowner for the building of a home and also grants for farming tools and machines (small scale). The only obligation for the owners is to live on the land, and produce food for themselves and their families, with any surplus to be sold on the local market. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">According to sources about 80% of all fruit and vegetables on the Russian markets come from such small dachas, as does 40% of all meat and 20% of all grain. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">We have to remember that the products on the markets are the surplus produced by those small farms. That is to say produce that does not stay on the farm to feed the family or families living there, or as seed for the next year, neither does it account for produce and products that may have been bartered between such smallholdings or with people in the surrounding villages. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The small independent farmer can also supply people outside the big supply chain and that is just the reason why the global elite want the small independent farmer gone and want everything done by the large conglomerate industrial scale farms. It is all about controlling the food supply.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Environmentally though, it is those large farms that are actually bad for the environment as they are mono-cultures in general and, in contrast, the small independent farmers, especially the smallholdings, are actually beneficial as the methods are, generally, of a different approach than those of the large farms in that rarely mono-cultures are employed but they are mixed arable and livestock combined. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">While the powers that be always harp on about the environment and such instead of supporting small farmers and smallholdings they do the opposite.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When it comes to protection of the environment then it is more small independent (family) farms and smallholdings that we need and far fewer, if any, large corporate conglomerate industrial farms. Not just the results in Russia, but in many other countries, have shown that small (family) farms can better provide food security than the large ones, while, at the same time being able to benefit the environment. But that is just what the globalists do not seem to want. The food produced by independent farmers they are unable to control and control is what they are about. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The more or less ban on saving seeds and selling, bartering or giving away saved seeds, as well as the patents on seeds and plants must be seen in this context of control over the food system. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">2024 © Michael Smith </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-90119434274856469412023-12-31T06:46:00.000-08:002023-12-31T06:46:30.508-08:00People are still not getting reuse & recycling<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8EWvIXsLi8TXeQ2GMDS3_dDYEJfRcKgyoEKjtBqpz-bOlWKSVh7KHFgSoyV9519PoJLtcnPB-zuwZI2tWrXR2aTIsjp3OwdF8sv9OPw8NRQ324HqsYthidH4N33q9zlt6CN0bReMH-m26iJEMtUTYfzRT32t5pfAhpMS-zw-78ePJub6Jj1_fmJ2tsPI7" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1407" data-original-width="1125" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8EWvIXsLi8TXeQ2GMDS3_dDYEJfRcKgyoEKjtBqpz-bOlWKSVh7KHFgSoyV9519PoJLtcnPB-zuwZI2tWrXR2aTIsjp3OwdF8sv9OPw8NRQ324HqsYthidH4N33q9zlt6CN0bReMH-m26iJEMtUTYfzRT32t5pfAhpMS-zw-78ePJub6Jj1_fmJ2tsPI7" width="192" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">People are still not getting reuse & recycling despite the fact that either or even both are indicated clearly enough on the packaging, for instance.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A case in point I have come across the other day with an empty bottle of Nero Water (comes in an aluminium bottle) thrown into the trashcan. The bottle is clearly marked with “Refill me” and also with the recycling information. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There would have been a time, and I am of that generation for sure, where reuse (that was before recycling was called recycling and that easy as today) would have been so very obvious with so many packaging products. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today's generation seems to have need to be told that reuse is possible, or recycling, and how. Many packaging products, such a biscuit tins, and such, including this bottle in question, have instructions, more or less, how to reuse them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I really had to laugh when on biscuit tins it stated: “Can be reused for biscuits or cakes.” Erm, what precisely was in that tin? Biscuits. So why does someone have to be told that they could use it to put biscuits in it? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I sometimes really wonder what has happened to people in the last 40 years and especially to their minds. Somewhere along the line something went seriously wrong, for sure. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For us of the slightly older generations this came just naturally because, I would guess, we saw our parents and grandparents do it. Often packaging came also with an immediate reuse apparent, such as the glasses in which mustard and, for some time even, Nutella and similar products came in. They were obvious drinking glasses and were reused as such. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As for reuse of biscuit tins; they were reused for biscuits and almost everything else. Many a child wishing to steal a biscuit at grandma's from a tin that so obviously must have biscuits in it going by the picture on the lid was disappointed to find just buttons in there or other sewing gear. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For some reuse one does need some imagination but when the container, or whatever, already has a reuse, or recycling ability, indicated why then does that end up in a littler bin rather than being reused or recycled? Laziness, no doubt, is a main reason for this. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Then again we can even see this at environmental rallies when the recyclables are all in the general litter bins then content of which is not sorted but ends up in landfill. So much for protesting for the environment.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today's generation is not so much the last generation but very much a lost generation and one that has lost the plot. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">© 2023</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-41841295834052095102023-05-01T06:08:00.000-07:002023-05-01T06:08:18.041-07:00 Frugal Living is back<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ5QsQSKh2vMY6gUUDo7mPKpHx14yEwWaf3YtLKxST2k7ybMhbyaC6zwZPzHn2nM3xeZJjj5cm1v_jCpcLF3Jt7EkhYsyslM0EM-bjSzF2StGXEJX_PyKQK9x4MA1Mxn4oCPmV4k7832I5z5ue6Fy16yvFHXHX4R1gBdmDfpizfbnFAxLbrkLNmckdgA/s768/pics-storrington-int-and-ext-july-21-2-768x512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ5QsQSKh2vMY6gUUDo7mPKpHx14yEwWaf3YtLKxST2k7ybMhbyaC6zwZPzHn2nM3xeZJjj5cm1v_jCpcLF3Jt7EkhYsyslM0EM-bjSzF2StGXEJX_PyKQK9x4MA1Mxn4oCPmV4k7832I5z5ue6Fy16yvFHXHX4R1gBdmDfpizfbnFAxLbrkLNmckdgA/w320-h213/pics-storrington-int-and-ext-july-21-2-768x512.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For some of us, to be honest, it has never gone away regardless as to whether we may have the money to splurge somewhat or not. It is an ingrained way of life; to me at least. I grew up poor.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some very frugal people happen to be those of the old money in the UK, as I have encountered. Those of what we call the new money are a different breed and they seem to have no inclination often to conserve resources and to live a frugal lifestyle. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sometimes it is understandable for some of them have come into money through often hard work now owning their own small to medium size business as builders and such and who frequently have come for a poorer background and now they are trying to live on a higher plane. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But, often like most, they are only a paycheck, so to speak, away from falling down again but they refuse to see it and live the life of Riley, as they say in this country. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Among the “old money” folks, even some of the aristocracy, if one knows those people on a personal level, there is a kind of frugality that was common with everyone not so long ago. It is, probably, for that reason that many of them still have money. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Those that once were poor and have come into money, either by work opportunity and success, by inheritance or, like a couple, by winning the lottery, literally, seem to immediately go on spending sprees as if there is no tomorrow and in the early days of the lottery we used to hear some of the tales of someone having won tens of millions and then a number of years later finding themselves more or less penniless again. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">They, more than, despite of being poor were never taught proper frugality and thus as soon as they have money they run away spending, spending and spending, on things that have no long lasting value. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But, alas, I digressed, as usual.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Frugality now is back, I should guess, with the so-called “cost of living crisis”, a crisis that is totally of the governments own making but affects the people and those of the least income worst of all. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some, however, do not know, and have never really know, what it is and means to live frugally. One can see that especially by what they waste, the things that they toss out because, as far as they are concerned it is obsolete, the food they waste because they have no idea how to cook from and with leftovers, and so forth. And many of those who are doing that are just the people who do not actually have the money to waste. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">While frugal living to some of us is very much an ingrained way of life and living some will have to learn it and learn what it means to be and live frugally. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Making do is one part of that for sure and that means, as far as I am concerned, how things can be reused and upcycled, whatever this may be. The only problem that I have encountered with that mindset is that there are way too many things one comes across where the mind says “this may come in handy (some day)” and then one starts accumulating all those things and requires a barn to store them, and then finding the time to actually use those items, unless they are what could be classed as “spare parts” for something. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having grown up relatively poor but from a family where reuse and all that was a mindset I still today try to make things rather than having to buy them. If I can make something that I want or need, or reuse and refurbish something someone else has tossed out, then I will do so rather than spending money on buying it new.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The same goes for food, in a way, though different, obviously. I do not tend to order in or go out to eat – anyway to some degree an anathema among my People proper – but cook from scratch. That way I do know what is in the dish and also I know how to make use of leftovers, if there are any. The latter is something that, alas, many people, even and especially of the poorer in society, no longer seem to know how. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The new frugality is nowadays more found among those who do have some money to spare, in a similar way as it is and was always the case with those of the “old” money. Those that really should have that mindset do not, as yet, have acquired it and then wonder why they cannot make ends meet.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having said that, however, does not mean that it would help with paying many of the bills, especially with regards to energy, etc., as the “cost of living crisis”, as it is being called, is not their fault but, as said already, that of the respective governments. It is also not the fault of a country in the far east of Europe. Capitalism is the reason and nothing else. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">© 2023</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-80603092352553946822023-02-08T07:31:00.002-08:002023-02-08T07:31:35.620-08:00 London is in the midst of a cycling boom<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by
Michael Smith (Veshengro)</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5XaZVkYOrRVfiEz-SyvCbxonMDFdNfUScZgPpQ7cpiI9UpCOXrGK1zdDWq0ChfTFtK2j0v2XzS5edd2PJLgsEGKFgXlKEDk2u0zNPayQMIDfw0ntusH91b42DOa34D6Pw_ooBoKwSPwzmFGbeoR_Fov-5BvDF4D1Qaq6qs0jzCLPc_bc5xqJ7Q8vRsA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="507" data-original-width="585" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5XaZVkYOrRVfiEz-SyvCbxonMDFdNfUScZgPpQ7cpiI9UpCOXrGK1zdDWq0ChfTFtK2j0v2XzS5edd2PJLgsEGKFgXlKEDk2u0zNPayQMIDfw0ntusH91b42DOa34D6Pw_ooBoKwSPwzmFGbeoR_Fov-5BvDF4D1Qaq6qs0jzCLPc_bc5xqJ7Q8vRsA=w320-h277" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;">According
to a report by Transport for London (TfL) legions of Londoners have
embraced cycling during the pandemic.</span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It found
that bike journeys are up by a quarter compared to pre-pandemic
levels, with an 82 per cent rise observed at the weekends. Almost
800,000 journeys a day are now made by bike; TfL wants that figure to
be 1.3m by 2024.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The news
follows the publication of another TfL report a week before, which
found the number of cycling fatalities in London hit a record low in
2021.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">While I
have to admit that I have yet to full read the </span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s18165/csopp-20220713-item07b-cycling-action-plan-update-appx.pdf"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">report</span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">
to actually bring about a real uptake of cycling for the majority a
proper and safe cycling infrastructure has to be created and not just
in London.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is
more important even and especially in the suburbs and the areas
servicing, so to speak, London, but then again not only there but
this is applicable to all cities and towns in this country.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Also the
countryside needs such a cycling infrastructure in order for cycling
to become and be an alternative to the use of the motorcar and, when
it comes to the countryside, the villages and small towns, other
infrastructure too needs to be invested in, recreated and created, so
that shops and other facilities are within cycling range, including
schools.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a
sad state of affairs that, even in London, cycle lanes are, in the
main, a farce, as they are either part of the road itself without any
physical separation between cyclist and general traffic, like most of
them are on the European mainland in countries such as Germany,
Denmark, the Netherlands, etc., and that even those lanes that there
are are (1) not protected from cars parking on them and (2) that they
are often only very short before becoming a normal road again.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The talk
is there about getting more and more people to use the bicycle
instead of the car, especially for shorter journeys, but the
political will does not seem to be present to actually create the
right infrastructure for people, including and especially children
and the not so confident, to safely take up the bike and use it
regularly.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the
other hand there is also a problem with the attitude of many cyclists
in the UK, and I am saying that being a cyclist myself (I do not own
or use a car), in that many ride as if they are competing in the Tour
de France or such an event and behave abysmal, ignoring traffic
lights and zebra crossings, for instance.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Would it
not be for such people with such attitudes one could safely, as is
done in many countries, allow the dual use of the sidewalks for
pedestrians and cyclists.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I cannot
fathom why cyclists, much like drivers, in the UK have an aggressive
style of riding unlike people in countries where there is a real
cycling culture, be it the Netherlands, France or Germany, per
example. In a number of places in those countries I have encountered
the amicable sharing of sidewalks, albeit somewhat wider than most of
them we encounter in the UK, between pedestrians and cyclists, with
cyclists giving pedestrians priority.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;">© 2023</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-53305660848297455962022-11-11T12:15:00.002-08:002022-11-11T12:17:23.377-08:00The message of reuse is still not getting through<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJkNzb0dx1sMynS85q1ESKfaO_u7yAeP1BWYhMR_xxHsmwMdTJGfFPtJQ8u7wz7YRwVPPaVyC041bDPuvO2vmenXRh_0Nnp2mCb1xdlidEVSnHQo7wrT5MlSoCvaOzMnkcalYCG__kKsxtUfFiAeXZBpV6aXyV6XHUXSjvmVqXI6BdKRqyprs3WhMIcQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJkNzb0dx1sMynS85q1ESKfaO_u7yAeP1BWYhMR_xxHsmwMdTJGfFPtJQ8u7wz7YRwVPPaVyC041bDPuvO2vmenXRh_0Nnp2mCb1xdlidEVSnHQo7wrT5MlSoCvaOzMnkcalYCG__kKsxtUfFiAeXZBpV6aXyV6XHUXSjvmVqXI6BdKRqyprs3WhMIcQ=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I have written about this problem of how people do not seem to understand the principle of reuse many times already and that even if the message is printed large on the wrapper of the box. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Only the other day in my work (I am a groundsman in a municipal park in my general life) a plastic box from muffins that is intended to be reused as a storage box, sandwich box, box for storage of leftovers in the fridge, or whatever tickles your fancy, thrown into the bin. Nothing wrong with it and the label on it actually states “reusable”. Needless to say that I rescued said box and it will be reused/used.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The origin of the box, despite having removed the wrapper without thinking, has been located with a little research on the Internet and is from Island (no, not the country but the store) and from Choc Chip Muffins of their Brompton House range, and the message of reuse is relatively big printed on it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, it really would appear that some people, even when the reuse message, and even suggestions for reuse, are printed on the wrapper or the box itself, as is the case with some, unfortunately still do not get the message. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">When I was growing up, for some reason, the great majority of the people had a mindset that was looking for a reuse potential in most packaging, whether glass jars, tin cans, boxes of various kinds, and so on. Now the majority seem to have but one mindset, namely that of “toss out”. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But, as I have written before, this is by far the first, and I am sure also will not be the last, of such cases. There have been incidences where entire new picnic sets, with real cutlery, bought on the day from IKEA have been thrown, in the IKEA bag with the receipt even in the bag, into the bin. Well, they were dirty and what is one to do with dirty dishes but to thrown them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It totally beggars belief that, if not for the environment then for their own pocketbooks, such things should not be tossed out. As my dear old Grandpa always said, “we'll reuse the things because we have paid for them when we bought the things in them”. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">We did not have to be told that a container, in those days mostly metal, that had biscuits (cookies) in them could be reused as a cookie tin. It was obvious. And they were reused not just for cookies. Grandma had her sewing stuff in one, something else in another and yet something different in yet another. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Smaller glass jars of all kinds were reused for drinking vessels, especially for us clumsy kids, because glasses were expensive, as far as our parents and grandparents were concerned, for us to drop and break them. If we broke a “drinking” jar there always was another one. Larger glass jars, especially with screw tops, because storage jars. And so on and so forth. Today, it would appear, people need YouTube videos with instructions to, maybe, get the idea of how to reuse glass jars and other things. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For some reason, even without a message printed on the packaging, such as boxes, glass jars, etc., we knew, when I was a child, how to make use of those things that came with most of things that we bought in such a way, and that even included tin cans.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When it came to tin can our family used to make things from them for resale on the markets even and people indeed would buy them. And our family was not the only one and we can still find this in many other countries.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The mindset of those days and years seems to have disappeared, in Britain at least, somewhere in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the disposable economy, for lack of a better word, came into force. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Even though the message is repeated time and again the how to knowledge seems to be lacking today as it has disappeared, it would appear, through lack of use. Time to go back to the future. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">© 2022</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-37275377583145200742022-11-10T10:00:00.000-08:002022-11-10T10:00:07.710-08:00Continued disruption of seasonal weather is causing spring activities in autumn<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrmaVe0bI5XEPOPdM2PwGru2eoZZFdrz2B9NKgwsSMJJCma_OMvW5gsK20MaThQGEK9QR4X6sk_njgUWOdssnsMxezmCnbvQJqoUecgm2d95AtmJstpYDDDYrG3qc6MEebL4LbmlQDC13knXqHVG27lIbYXeCN6YVDqaRbNke4razDt4Jetjz2ubTI_w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrmaVe0bI5XEPOPdM2PwGru2eoZZFdrz2B9NKgwsSMJJCma_OMvW5gsK20MaThQGEK9QR4X6sk_njgUWOdssnsMxezmCnbvQJqoUecgm2d95AtmJstpYDDDYrG3qc6MEebL4LbmlQDC13knXqHVG27lIbYXeCN6YVDqaRbNke4razDt4Jetjz2ubTI_w=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Woodland Trust warns that continued disruption of seasonal weather may be causing confusion for wildlife.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">After a year which saw a ‘split spring’, heatwaves, droughts and a false autumn, the UK’s wildlife may be starting to confuse its seasonal activities as spring sightings are reported in October. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There have been reports of second flowering for horse chestnut trees, new leaves on species like ash, and plenty of active amphibians and butterflies, and the two former I can verify myself as a professional groundsman aside from a writer. Also at the Park for which I am responsible a bird cherry tree (more like a shrub as it keeps being coppiced) is again in flower and is sprouting new leaves.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We would normally expect butterflies and newts to be going into hibernation around now, and we would also not expect trees to regrow their leaves and flower or flower and then get new leaves, as in the case of prunus species, of which birch cherry is one. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Warmer weather in autumn can extend the growing periods for plants and allows more foraging time for animals, which in the short term gives them a chance to recover from the summer heatwaves and drought. And while we can expect, after heat and drought as we have been experiencing especially in the southern parts of the UK this summer with trees shedding their leaves as a protection mechanism, some new leaves forming prior to them being shed in autumn in some cases the trees are so confused that they seem to believe spring having arrived already. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Squirrels too, seeing that many females appear to be suckling, seem to have decided that either it is nowhere near autumn yet or that spring has arrived already, appear to have another litter. Not that there weren't enough of those gray menaces around already who, this year, have taken their toll on the trees in that this year they have done a lot more bark stripping that usual and even on species that they not normally strip. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, if extreme weather like we have had this summer becomes increasingly common, disruption to natural cycles may throw species out of sync. Butterflies, for example, rely on a period of dormancy during winter to save energy while food is scarce, and many plants require a spell of cold weather in winter to drive germination in spring.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It’s not just animals that struggle with rising autumn temperatures longer-term as tree’s rely on cold spells to help kill off and stall the spread of pests and diseases. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Alisha Anstee, Lead Policy Advocate for Tree Health and Invasive Species at Woodland Trust said, “Climate change is likely to lead to a multitude of challenges for our trees and woodlands. One area that is not exempt is the threats posed to trees by pests and diseases. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As our climate changes over time our trees are likely to be more stressed which means they will be more susceptible to the impacts of pests and diseases. Warmer temperatures will likely lead to more pests and diseases being able to thrive in the UK. These species may previously have been unable to survive in the cooler UK but an increase of up to 2 degrees could reverse this.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dr Lewthwaite continues, “A changing climate means changing seasons. We already know that spring is arriving an average of 8.4 days earlier each year, but not so much is known about autumn.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Whether we can lay all the blame at the door of climate change is a question but the truth is that the UK, at least the southern parts, have not been experiencing a proper set of seasons, as there used to be for some decades by now. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This year's events could be due, to some extent to the, and that already for some tens of years, wobbling, for lack of a better word, of the jet stream. One could almost assume it to be rather drunk. And in addition to that we seem to be having a serious La Niña pattern this summer. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, who, at least in the southern parts of the UK, can remember having even remotely have had a proper autumn and winter in the last couple of years. I doubt that anyone can. Snow has become – and, as far as I am concerned good that is too, as I do not like snow – restricted to a couple of days, maybe and the same is true for any real frost. I am old enough to remember real winters in this part of the country lasting for weeks and months. No wonder, therefore, that the natural world is confused because, unlike us humans, it takes them all much longer to adapt. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As far as tree pests and diseases are concerned we have seen the arrival of Horse Chestnut bleeding canker about a little over 20+ years ago and then the Horse Chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella), the latter being a pest that likes it a little on the mild side. For its larvae to be killed off it requires a good frost that reaches well into the leaf litter. One can but wonder whether the reason we have so many new tree diseases arriving on our shores, aside from bad biosecurity, is the fact that those pathogen actually thrive now in our much milder “seasons.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-54885856838073355262022-09-04T10:08:00.002-07:002022-09-04T10:15:08.617-07:00Autumn still to arrive say Forestry England experts<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEU3LhlDUO7nYnfKIdMShfA4A8K03xIYBJuymfPzPJbng7UJMSyrcKVc89fM9OesqQfbfcAJYAtMI1k0o8CeVm2b1V3RGBuBXaeXVqfIKF5l67RS33CxpfFk3tkh-Jm-n6QXb6xTKF4AxBAjiTcOeitBszZIxNvao4w3JC07uo7S-3RAdY557zj1Q_xw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEU3LhlDUO7nYnfKIdMShfA4A8K03xIYBJuymfPzPJbng7UJMSyrcKVc89fM9OesqQfbfcAJYAtMI1k0o8CeVm2b1V3RGBuBXaeXVqfIKF5l67RS33CxpfFk3tkh-Jm-n6QXb6xTKF4AxBAjiTcOeitBszZIxNvao4w3JC07uo7S-3RAdY557zj1Q_xw" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, marks the first day of autumn according to the meteorological calendar. And although we have already seen various signs that could be mistaken as autumn, such as leaf drop, Forestry England experts say autumn is still yet to arrive.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The very high temperatures experienced this summer, coupled with lots of sunshine and lack of rain means that some tree species such as leatherwood, hazel, witch alder and bladdernut are showing signs of stress, also known as ‘summer leaf drop’. However, Forestry England experts are reassuring visitors that we can still expect impressive displays of vibrant autumn hues this year</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Andrew Smith, Director at Forestry England’s National Arboretum at Westonbirt, Gloucestershire, explains:</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“Many factors contribute to when leaves will change colour and drop. Shallow soils and drought can cause stress to some tree species, triggering some leaves to change colour and drop early.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“This is known as ‘summer leaf drop’ where trees are reacting to their environment and adapting their growth accordingly. When it’s hot and dry, a tree realises it is losing too much water so drops some of its leaves.This can be mistaken as a ‘false autumn’ but typically only 20% of a tree’s leaves are lost which means there are still plenty left to put on a spectacular autumn show.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“If we continue to experience warm days in early autumn, along with spells of rain and cooler nights then we could still see a spectacular show of seasonal colour in our nation’s woodlands.”</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">It can be misleading, noticing leaves turning yellow and dropping everywhere, however Forestry England say it’s important not to confuse signs of stress in individual trees with the full arrival of autumn.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Andrew continued:</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“Here at Westonbirt, we are noticing signs of autumn earlier each year. We have recorded leaf colour change at the arboretum since 2010 and we are already seeing earlier colouration of leaves and later dates of full leaf fall. I like to think of autumn as a firework display that rolls on with different colours appearing over several weeks. Climate change means that display is now lasting longer.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“If we have some spells of rain in the coming weeks and continue to experience above average temperatures, the climate will be ideal for maintaining sugar levels. This means that the leaves will stay attached to trees for longer and will have time to develop their autumnal shades.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">“The length of display relies heavily on the weather throughout autumn. If it continues to be mild the leaves will have time for the build-up of chlorophyll to entirely fade and their dormant pigments to fully take over.”</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">To ensure that autumn is kept colourful for future generations and to increase the resilience of our nation’s forests in the fight against climate, Forestry England is working hard to plant lots of different species of trees in many woodlands which will fare well in the climate conditions predicted over the next decades. Sycamore, wild cherry, hornbeam, small-leaved lime, and oak to name a few should bring a riot of colour to our countryside for visitors to enjoy well into the future.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Source: Forestry England</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-30048791789409337992022-08-23T11:34:00.003-07:002022-08-23T11:34:59.190-07:00The climate lockdown cometh<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLG53hADHIGnE-4n-vLmt8QJhzxlb107k4F8nYsy81KIBubFxhTNbMdG9MV594iS3OGxaiNWem_Ncc3Fa-5I4wyXYVqlrycrEii6Jqy-5fhAfBCBfA8ld1i4POrEuUFVO6OkisZ37O6LG-CS_--uknhLje3ZV1USsWBjp_CcGn8Z3lyzL4Ydwv-HMgsg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="720" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLG53hADHIGnE-4n-vLmt8QJhzxlb107k4F8nYsy81KIBubFxhTNbMdG9MV594iS3OGxaiNWem_Ncc3Fa-5I4wyXYVqlrycrEii6Jqy-5fhAfBCBfA8ld1i4POrEuUFVO6OkisZ37O6LG-CS_--uknhLje3ZV1USsWBjp_CcGn8Z3lyzL4Ydwv-HMgsg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The British Chief Scientist overnight morphed from a virologist to a climatologist (maybe even a Scientologist, who knows – apologies, I do have a sarcastic streak).</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In his speech on Monday, November 8, 2021 at COP 26 in Glasgow he said, among others (paraphrased): “Climate change is more dangerous than the pandemic could ever be and therefore it is important that governments have to force people to change their behavior and make changes in their lives and that governments introduce restrictions (to people's freedoms).” </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What a while ago has been seen as figments of the minds of so-called conspiracy theorists appears to be now becoming reality. Whether it is being called a lockdown or not is not the issue. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I must say that I, and I am not alone in this, have seen this coming and, and hopefully I am wrong, the restriction of private motoring (as long as it is not by electric vehicle) as well as the restriction to private long distance journeys, especially by aircraft, and it could go as far, in my opinion, of government telling us, more or less what we can eat and what not, such as meat, could all be part of this. Currently they are doing this by persuasion, and other means of manipulations, but if that is not going to have the desired effect we can be certain that heavier guns are sure going to be brought to bear.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">None of this has been said, so far, but the very idea of forcing – the man's very words – people to make changes to their behavior and lives and the idea of restrictions mentioned is an indication that such things could be in the offing. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Presently it is all done more or less by what could be called nudging and making people feel guilty, for instance about eating meat, and this agenda is currently very heavily peddled in the media, from print and online “newspapers” and magazines, to radio and television. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has, however, already been rumored in certain quarters that some kind of “lockdowns” could be put in place where private (motor) vehicles may only be used by certain people at certain days. Anyone remember the restrictions during the so-called “oil crisis” when no one was permitted to drive on Sundays? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now we have ideas of that nature coming from the Greens in Germany, especially directly from the Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), and we are talking here about measures that a while ago were claimed to be fantasies of so-called conspiracy theorists. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What some of the so-called conspiracy theorists have been envisaging is not half as bad as what the governments are really planning, it would appear, and which has been ordered, more or less by bodies such as the UN and the WEF. The world government has arrived by the back door thanks to a certain virus claim. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Ultra Low Emission Zone of London instigated by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, which is now being extended to all of even Greater London, is just another one of those things. This impacts greatly on people who cannot afford new low emission vehicles or EVs and some will not even be able to get to their own homes without each and every time crossing into the ULE even if they have not gone into London directly. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What it boils down to, really, is that certain powers are trying there very best to make private motoring impossible for all but those that have enough money to buy an EV. This is something that I, together with others, have been foreseen years ago already. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The talk of climate change is an agenda. Yes, the climate is changing and it has done so since the Earth has been existing and that about ever 500 years or so, and man has very little influence on that. Our problem, as far as the environment is concerned is pollution but the tackling of this the powers-that-be have tried to avoid for ever and an day. Pollution we can sort, climate change we have adapt to. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Climate change has become a means by the governments, especially the world government by the UN and the WEF, of people control and is being pushed through for that very purpose, together with supposed pandemics. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is Climate Change real? Yes, it is. The climate is changing but we may be heading for peak heat and could be returning very soon to another mini ice age. That is the way the earth has been working ever since. In fact, we are due for another mini ice age and we may have, actually, averted it due to our activities. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the other hand CO2 is the food for plants and without it, and without sunlight plants, and especially crops, will die. They will too in droughts, as we have experienced recently, but are droughts really anything new? No, they are not and neither are the drying up of rivers such as the Rhine. In the early 1900s the Elbe river dried up to such an extent that people could cross over on foot in the river bed at Magdeburg. The Rhine was been almost non-navigable due to low water levels many times in history but this must not be mentioned as it does not fit the agenda. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bees, and other pollinators, for instance, are not dying because of climate change but because of the way we farm nowadays and have been for a while, throwing dangerous chemicals about. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We need adapt rather than trying to change the climate, or the weather, or both, especially not by means of so-called geoengineering. Being able to make it rain, for instance, is one thing and we can do that but we have no idea how to turn it off again. Trying to spray some aerosols in the sky to reduce sunlight also is not a great idea for sunlight is needed for plants to grow while, and we know that too, too much of it is not good also. Playing gods, on the other hand, is a bad idea altogether. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While reducing the use of combustion engines will reduce air pollution the wholesale use of electric vehicles will not make things better either. There we have the often hidden costs, whether in pollution or human misery and that very much so with regards to the mining and production of the materials needed for the batteries. Furthermore the electric supply change will not be able to handle all those vehicles being charged all the time. Thus, the ordinary punter will no longer be able to have and use his or her own car and thus be no longer able to get from A to B by his own means. I am not a driver and I do not own a car but I will defend anyone's right to own and use one, period.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our most urgent thing or things to do, aside from adapting to a changing climate, is to reduce pollution on all levels and get away from the throw-away society of today. And also, and especially, from products made cheaply in developing and Third World countries which are cheap only because workers are exploited and environmental, as well as health and safety rules either do not exist or are being broken. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Most important, probably, is that, aside from the products being again, more or less, all made “at home”, in our respective countries, bringing some industries back home, products be made, once again, in such a way that they can be (easily) repaired. Not only will it be better for the consumer but also and especially, for the world around us because fewer things will go into holes in the ground. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It will make products more expensive in purchasing, that is true, but it will all pay for itself in the long run, and that on many levels. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But, and here comes the big but, industry, corporations, are not interested in such a sustainable model because it reduces their profits because things that do not easily break and can be easily and even cheaply be repaired mean that they, the corporations, cannot sell us the same product over and over again simply because it is broken and cannot be repaired. In the realm of politics there is also no willpower to force industry to make such changes. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is an answer to it but that would require a complete change of our political system and landscape and would mean that most companies would be in public ownership or be co-operatives, as well as all utilities and such like. The system, or its predecessor, has been tried before and only failed because of pressure from the capitalist countries around them and especially from one particular quarter, one particular country, which thinks that it has to bring “democracy” and “free”-market capitalism to every country of the globe, if necessary by force of arms. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Politicians like to blame the ordinary people for the change in climate and believe that they, the politicians, have to force everyone to do the “right thing”, if necessary by means of sanctions.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">© 2022</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-6844940208607274342022-06-12T11:30:00.002-07:002022-06-12T11:32:47.379-07:00The bicycle is the slow death of the planet<p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFVRJu_XBoYbysINZMAwwu0dO_d3FUIE_6HuK0OgEm991OC7JUr6Bcm80qoewMpN-Qv-IBhdZBJMXczweT7UToJSNsPm6h9iy1SWv2f-GTa2UCg2B9WHFRmEIejVY_0H-PXtsi7nmHFXIPX7MLTr-YABoI8eZEt1gF494X4dEmHKFXa_wIJxS2wAridw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="585" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFVRJu_XBoYbysINZMAwwu0dO_d3FUIE_6HuK0OgEm991OC7JUr6Bcm80qoewMpN-Qv-IBhdZBJMXczweT7UToJSNsPm6h9iy1SWv2f-GTa2UCg2B9WHFRmEIejVY_0H-PXtsi7nmHFXIPX7MLTr-YABoI8eZEt1gF494X4dEmHKFXa_wIJxS2wAridw" width="277" /></a></div><p></p><p align="justify">A banker made the economists think this when he said, “A cyclist is a disaster for the country’s economy: he doesn’t buy cars and doesn’t borrow money to buy. He don't pay insurance policies Don't buy fuel, don't pay to have the car serviced and repairs needed. He doesn't use paid parking. Doesn't cause any major accidents. No need for multi-lane highways He is not getting obese</p> <p align="justify">Healthy people are not necessary or useful to the economy. They are not buying the medicine. They don't go to hospitals or doctors. They add nothing to the country's GDP.”</p> <p align="justify">“On the contrary, each new McDonald’s store creates at least 30 jobs – actually 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietitians and nutritionists – obviously as well as the people who work in the store itself.”</p> <p align="justify">Choose wisely: a bike or a McDonald's? It's something to think about.</p> <p align="justify">PS: walking is even worse. Pedestrians don't even buy a bicycle!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-21368741732136524452022-06-12T07:27:00.002-07:002022-06-12T07:30:30.359-07:00All we hear is planting trees<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7uWSf0PK6lGJ7WvBiKc0EnEZqsWjFpwC4R2i7jNam7c81FEKNAPZ3ktNY34mgXmjtDCdXQjUGORaconsYmh1wbGi-xtjibjPrlG00bBsoj8_aK8DrWDmVRsplK4WMwwCKwfqpe6iN2HqrzQP84kXoaTgsz0U1aglRPjvrla-AYlRBHEtpFGdZwKYs0g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7uWSf0PK6lGJ7WvBiKc0EnEZqsWjFpwC4R2i7jNam7c81FEKNAPZ3ktNY34mgXmjtDCdXQjUGORaconsYmh1wbGi-xtjibjPrlG00bBsoj8_aK8DrWDmVRsplK4WMwwCKwfqpe6iN2HqrzQP84kXoaTgsz0U1aglRPjvrla-AYlRBHEtpFGdZwKYs0g" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">All we keep hearing is that we should be planting trees to mitigate climate change but what first and foremost is needed is proper woodland management of the already existing woodlands, and not just of those in the UK.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Simply planting trees is going to do nothing. They will not just grow and thrive by themselves even though that seems to be the thinking of those who advocate planting more or less over management. </p> <p align="justify">I have, literally, had self-proclaimed experts who have just read the books that suit them and their beliefs tell me that woods do not need management and that Nature will do it all herself. Yes, I am sure we have all seen Nature's gardening.</p> <p align="justify">Natural regeneration in woodlands is something different to man-made woods, that is to say planted areas that are often plowed or such which then gives weeds, brambles and other such species a great chance to thrive and brambles especially, without the intervention of man, will soon take over, smothering the young trees, and I do not even want to talk about damage by animals, from small rodents, to squirrels and to larger animals, such as deer, in all sizes. </p> <p align="justify">Before, however, we advocate the planting of more and more trees, often species not suited for a particular area, because the people deciding to do so know no better but think that they do, we need to go and manage our existing woodlands properly once again and here especially renovate the overstood coppice woods and bring them back into management. The same goes for the many thousands, probably, of hectares of unmanaged woods up and down the country, and that is just in the UK. Then, and only then, should the planting of new trees at a large(r) scale come into consideration. </p> <p align="justify">However, those advocating the planting of more and more trees, more or less willy-nilly, are often of the misconception that just sticking those whips into the ground is enough and Nature will do the rest. Sorry, we have been here before only a paragraph or so back, I know, but just planting and forgetting does not work. </p> <p align="justify">It requires as much management, if not more, than managing old woodlands. In fact, the management of old woodlands is, to a great extent, easier and less labor intensive than the management of newly planted woodlands, as the trees are already established ones.</p> <p align="justify">So, let us first of all, concentrate on the proper management of our existing woodlands and restore them to working, worked and productive woodlands before we run amok planting trees everywhere, often the wrong trees in the wrong places and forgetting about them. And many of the so-called tree planting schemes do end up as “stick in and forget” operations and that does no good at all. </p> <p align="justify">Our woods all were once worked for products and the wildlife, nevertheless or maybe actually because of it, thrived. Very little debris was left laying around on the woodland floor, most of it ended up as firewood, and that which was no good for that use was burned on site, but still we had creepy crawlies, insects, and everything else in profusion. Could it be actually that the modern practices, and especially the use of harvesters, have caused us the problems that we are told our woodlands have? Combined, I should think, with the lack of proper management of most of the smaller and difficult accessible woods as far as heavy machines are concerned. </p> <p align="justify">In addition to that the bottom fell out of the market for home-produced smaller scale wooden products because capitalism made it thus. Instead of home-produced wooden utensils for kitchen, etc., and woven baskets, cheaper imports were sourced from Asian countries and much of it was then also replaced, as far as basket ware, for instance, is concerned, by plastic, once again cheap from Asian countries. But at what cost to the environments, our woods and the woodland workers? </p> <p align="justify">We need to go back to the future, so to speak. In other words we need to get back to managing our woods the way we once used to, though not necessarily only by use of axe, billhook and handsaw. </p> <p align="justify">© 2022</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-83100832726285646442022-06-04T04:48:00.002-07:002022-06-04T04:50:34.845-07:00World Bicycle Day<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG4u321zh9_sCTfZqc1S5e54eLnve4Ie_30AEoF5LDGi8y2fzcG02sA_m9WZmCIYAk-SY7UnUECj3dQTsZFUF8qs2J4wpQMASF8uEHo1eG0TjigrbW4giYuSEvmgdButEyyzKH9CLEKdZpJsgVHz30Z8Cp5X0qMdk9nU9x4EZtGB-DIGjCeteLBCJ63g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="940" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjG4u321zh9_sCTfZqc1S5e54eLnve4Ie_30AEoF5LDGi8y2fzcG02sA_m9WZmCIYAk-SY7UnUECj3dQTsZFUF8qs2J4wpQMASF8uEHo1eG0TjigrbW4giYuSEvmgdButEyyzKH9CLEKdZpJsgVHz30Z8Cp5X0qMdk9nU9x4EZtGB-DIGjCeteLBCJ63g" width="286" /></a></div><p></p><p align="justify">June 3 is World Bicycle Day, or better to say was, as it is past and very few people, myself included, seem to have been aware of it. But as it is annually we can be better prepared for next year and celebrate it in our own ways. </p> <p align="justify">It is nice to see that the humble bicycle has got a world day nowadays and it is a shame that it has not been well publicized – or so, at least, it appears to me. </p> <p align="justify">In April 2018, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 3 as World Bicycle Day. The resolution for World Bicycle Day recognizes “the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transport.”</p> <p align="justify">Despite the fact that it has been declared several years ago now knowledge of the fact seems to be very thin on the ground. OK, the Day is only four years old so far but, nevertheless. </p> <p align="justify">Had it not been for a Facebook post from Radio Havana Cuba I would have been blissfully unaware of this World Day honoring the humble two wheeler and it is for that reason that I use Radio Havana's picture in this post about it. </p> <p align="justify">When it comes to environmentally friendly travel the humble bicycle can hardly be beaten and, aside from obviously the danger of an accident, the health benefits of cycling are legion. It is also the best “toy” any child can ever be given. </p> <p align="justify">How do I stand as far as e-bikes are concerned in this equation, some may ask. While the e-bike is being hyped by many environmental writers – and I once did so as well – I have to say that, in my opinion, the standard, the simplest bicycle, will beat the e-bike hands down and that especially as to cost and maintenance. </p> <p align="justify">The upfront cost of an e-bike is so much higher than that of an ordinary bicycle and every three to five years a new battery will be needed – as I have found out – and there is no guarantee that the new battery actually is as good as the original first one, as I have experienced. Therefore, all I can say, is let us stick with the old-fashioned bicycle, even though riding an e-bike is so much easier. </p> <p align="justify">The old-fashioned bicycle beats the e-bike hands down especially in the maintenance and cost department. Most maintenance of an ordinary bicycle can be carried out by the use with even a minimum of skills and does not require a shop and mechanic to do it. No motor and such. However, what when the motor of an e-bike is having problems? OK, let's leave it then and just consider the benefits of the bicycle in general and especially in view of the World Day many of us missed to celebrate. </p> <p align="justify">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-54250266803264375182022-05-15T07:13:00.002-07:002022-05-15T07:16:53.520-07:00Fostering a reuse and repair culture<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7C2cuiFjHjWv6c8L1sVJKWM5mRrmCbR1R4v4sJ0spnbEgNt22_aiCVdB28deJsBFGw2HTRR6oZ2Y0UfHjEuYn5tw0lDaNEJVD3sLFH3vHo37MIEaz0XFQeWtPHAArREOpE8244f2WkMOwaKJeoKg9SZIc6oDPlZr5vSFwRd2v6qTfbgGpdmamjHmKlA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="328" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7C2cuiFjHjWv6c8L1sVJKWM5mRrmCbR1R4v4sJ0spnbEgNt22_aiCVdB28deJsBFGw2HTRR6oZ2Y0UfHjEuYn5tw0lDaNEJVD3sLFH3vHo37MIEaz0XFQeWtPHAArREOpE8244f2WkMOwaKJeoKg9SZIc6oDPlZr5vSFwRd2v6qTfbgGpdmamjHmKlA" width="197" /></a></div><p></p><p align="justify">The talk is frequently, at the present moment in time at least, about (establishing) a circular economy but such an economy requires much more than just recycling which, more often than not, has become a scam. </p> <p align="justify">It requires first and foremost an approach to reuse, and before that already to refuse, especially when it comes to packaging. Then we need to return to repair and that means that products will first of all be made repairable again, and that is down to industry. </p> <p align="justify">However, all too often all that the idea of a circular economy seems to entail, when one hears the talk, is that things are made and at the end of their lives – and no one seems to think about extending their lives through repairability – they get recycled, as they call it. That is not the way to go. </p> <p align="justify">Learning, once again, reuse, as our parents, grandparents and their parents practiced, in that, when it came to much of the packaging, which in their days was mostly glass, tin and paper/card, it was put to use again rather than thrown.</p> <p align="justify">Glass jar are the prime example here. They were used to store all manner of things and they actually were used as drinking vessels, something that has become fashionable today only that today's drinking jars are purpose made for that job. They weren't in the “old” days. Ordinary glass jar were being used for that purpose and I am sure that the term “let's have a jar” comes from that practice. Working class men, going to the pub, had to provide their own vessels; tankards were only for those patrons who were wealthy enough to be able to afford them. </p> <p align="justify">But I digressed a little. But, we do must take a leaf, or better quite a number of them, out of the book of our ancestors and their ancestors to get some normality into the world again on the level of waste and waste management. </p> <p align="justify">Also, as mentioned already, we must get back to having products that are made to last and which, should anything go wrong with them, can be repaired. In order for that to word we also need the repairmen and -women back, so to speak, for very few are there today who, for instance, can repair a boot or show properly especially when it comes to stitching and sewing seams in leather. Fixing, say, a leather midsole back top the upper is a job few can do today as, as I was told, they don't have a machine for that. It does not, however, require a machine but two bent needles and some waxed thread and, obviously, the skill to actually use those said needles and thread in the proper way. </p> <p align="justify">Not so long ago everywhere there were repairmen and -women for all manner of things and in the German Democratic Republic, often referred to as East Germany, there as a true repair economy in operation with business cooperatives and state-owned enterprises doing nothing but repair. They repaired bed linen, clothes, shoes, electrical goods, bicycles, and everything else we could but think of. </p> <p align="justify">But then again products were made in such a way that they could be repaired and not only by trained professionals; many things could be fixed by anyone a little handy with some tools. But that is just not in the interest of the corporations who want to sell us the same thing over and over again and therefore they design a very short lifespan into the products nowadays.</p> <p align="justify">When it comes to fashion and the fashion industry they are a rather large culprit because clothes are made cheaply – yes, the majority want cheap clothes because they want to change style and whatever every five minutes – by more or less slave labor and definitely child labor in China and countries of the Third World (yes, I am still using that term) to a very low standard more often than not that they don't last more than a few months to a year. </p> <p align="justify">Fine for children who outgrow their clothes quickly but then again in time gone by hand-me-downs were worn by kids. Often passed from one to the other and then further afield even. If those came not from their own older siblings then from older children from family and friends, or the jumble sale. And those clothes also were mended and patched when they got torn. But hey, what about street cred and peer pressures and all that? Some years ago it had to be Adidas, then Lacoste, Fila, Nike, and I have no idea what it is now. Do kids, or even adults, really have to follow the dictates of the fashion industry. </p> <p align="justify">We could go on and on and on about this with many more examples of how things were before the corporations introduced and designed obsolescence into each and every product. Therefore industry must be forced by politics – and us, the consumers – to abandon this practice and return to the production of repairable goods, if we are ever to get anywhere. </p> <p align="justify">This requires action, however, from governments but most importantly from us, the consumers, for we hold the purse strings, literally. If we decide not to buy from those who do not produce according to what we want to buy then they will have to change or go out of business. We are, literally, their masters through our purchasing power and purchasing habits. </p> <p align="justify">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-6375694760045815152022-04-17T07:21:00.002-07:002022-04-17T07:24:06.737-07:00Cheap electric cars cost at least 21000 €<p>by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizLEJpqv0u7KegxOlmTM2OKjDRfaFBouWF0Y2K_BHdfSRO7q6NJXbHg3pmZTYjecFWRIbjYGH6iB8tm_Crk13SZyb-HmN_i1N-2hq60DJZ98l5GvYyPABcD3Q6wuIgLxdWtqsz1TVKLfkdWv4bJx1-xnFhy6SylnvmzH87BTd-Daf1uXiEWjhTxwNOdg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="1000" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizLEJpqv0u7KegxOlmTM2OKjDRfaFBouWF0Y2K_BHdfSRO7q6NJXbHg3pmZTYjecFWRIbjYGH6iB8tm_Crk13SZyb-HmN_i1N-2hq60DJZ98l5GvYyPABcD3Q6wuIgLxdWtqsz1TVKLfkdWv4bJx1-xnFhy6SylnvmzH87BTd-Daf1uXiEWjhTxwNOdg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Cheap electric cars cost at least 21000 €. If you can afford it, you will get 6,000 € back from the German state. If you cannot afford an electric car, however, you still have to pay for bus and train or fuel. For those who cannot afford an expensive electric car, there is no € 6000 for sustainable mobility.</div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">This policy is designed to protect the climate, or so they say. But it is socially unjust. Because who benefits from it is obvious: 48 percent of households with the lowest income in Germany do not have a car. This means that the wealthy in particular benefit from the e-car premium. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Those on low incomes will have to continue to pay for public transport travel or have to walk or bike or have to pay for fuel for the “ordinary” car. Considering, however, that “ordinary” cars are to be phased out from production and then from use in the not too distant future where does that leave the poorer in society? It leaves them out of pocket while the richer ones have pocketed (pardon the pun) the premium. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Half of the households with the highest incomes have two, three or more cars. Because you can afford electric cars, this means that you can get the purchase premium two, three times or even more. Thus, a sum equal to an average annual salary quickly comes together. Is that fair?</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">It is especially low-wage earners (e.g. employees in the retail trade or parcel delivery companies) who are dependent on mobility in everyday life. Because you can not work in the home office. It is they who “keep the store running”.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">In addition to the initial purchase cost there is the issue that the battery has a limited lifespan and if the case of e-bike batteries is anything to go by then they last probably five years or thereabouts. Replacement cost of a battery, again judging from those of e-bikes, will amount to at least one third of the cost of the car itself. And I do not even want to talk about the environmental costs of the batteries, which are huge, both to the planet and the often child slaves who are digging up the materials. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Anyone who wants fewer people to drive a car must therefore not promote the purchase of a car, but must make buses and trains cheaper. Only in this way can we protect the climate in the long term. Not only that but our towns and cities must be made also walkable and a proper cycling infrastructure must be created, and that not just in towns and cities but also in the rural areas. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The rural areas must, once again, also have stores within reach of the people without them having to resort to using the car and which can be reached by bicycle or on foot. Even in the Unites States and such large places it ones was thus that there were general stores within reach of people, and those stores were not just in the nearest towns. They were, in fact, at road junctions serving a number of homes and farms around, at times being a farmstead also. In addition to that mobile stores plied their trade to the rural homes and farms. In a way we need to go back to the future to really change things for the better. Electric vehicles of whatever kind are not the answer. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-19763910331041416692022-03-10T11:09:00.002-08:002022-03-10T11:11:06.494-08:00How bicycles transformed our world<p align="justify"><strong>...and could do so again, maybe</strong></p> <p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTU0PCAspsQ-y1x_fWSMKKhGluIe0tM31wlJ3z8EEiswsmui5QoRHVzJctYFYLbmwnx-GjPeXLlMmmhMl1ARPeVv9c4wfW3i811ipamn9o3y7Z1UtVfYEnwRCYP2jhaKCZ3nczEZAUW72XDQRo7LjlesOzFWkKEyzJegFHs_XHgH5B1mWr9-PNWi6fCA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="1000" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTU0PCAspsQ-y1x_fWSMKKhGluIe0tM31wlJ3z8EEiswsmui5QoRHVzJctYFYLbmwnx-GjPeXLlMmmhMl1ARPeVv9c4wfW3i811ipamn9o3y7Z1UtVfYEnwRCYP2jhaKCZ3nczEZAUW72XDQRo7LjlesOzFWkKEyzJegFHs_XHgH5B1mWr9-PNWi6fCA" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">The Corona virus pandemic has sparked a two-wheeled transport boom in many parts of the globe. But this isn't the first time bicycles have been the hottest machines on the market.</span></div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">If history doesn't quite repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. With demand for bicycles soaring, and nations preparing to spend billions to redesign their cities with a new focus on cycling and walking, it's worth remembering how the advent of the bicycle in the late 19th century transformed societies the world over.</p> <p align="justify">It was then a hugely disruptive technology, easily the equivalent of the smartphone today. For a few heady years in the 1890s, the bicycle was the ultimate “must-have” swift, affordable, stylish transportation that could whisk you anywhere you cared to go, anytime you liked, for free. And it enabled the poorer in society to cover ranges – if the could afford a bicycle – that previously was only accessible to those with a horse and who could ride.</p> <p align="justify">Almost anyone could learn to ride, and almost everyone did. The sultan of Zanzibar took up cycling. So did the Czar of Russia. The Emir of Kabul bought bicycles for his entire harem. </p> <p align="justify">But it was the middle and working classes around the globe that truly made the bicycle their own. For the first time in history, the masses were mobile, able to come and go as they pleased. No more need for expensive horses and carriages. The “people's nag,” as the bicycle became known as, was not only lightweight, affordable, and easy to maintain, it was also the fastest thing on the roads.</p> <p align="justify">The person generally credited with inventing the modern bicycle was an Englishman named John Kemp Starley. His uncle, James Starley, had developed the penny-farthing in the 1870s. Suspecting that there might be greater demand for bicycles if they weren't so scary and dangerous to ride, in 1885 the 30-year-old inventor began experimenting in his Coventry workshop with a chain-driven bicycle featuring two much smaller wheels. After testing several prototypes, he came up with the Rover safety bicycle, a 45-pound machine that more or less resembles what today we think of as a bicycle.</p> <p align="justify">When first displayed at a bicycle show in 1886, Starley's invention was regarded as a curiosity. But two years later, when it was paired with the newly invented pneumatic tire – which not only cushioned the ride but also made the new safety bicycle about 30 percent faster – the result was magic.</p> <p align="justify">Bicycle makers around the world scrambled to offer their own versions, and hundreds of new companies sprang up to meet demand. At the Stanley Bicycle Show in London in 1895, some 200 bicycle makers exhibited 3,000 models.</p> <p align="justify">The insatiable demand for bicycles spawned other industries – ball bearings, wire for spokes, steel tubing, precision toolmaking – that would shape the manufacturing world long after the bicycle was relegated to the toy department, at least in the United States, though it should have never headed that way. </p> <p align="justify">With a bicycle anything seemed possible, and ordinary people set off on extraordinary journeys. In the summer of 1890, for instance, a young lieutenant in the Russian army pedaled from St. Petersburg to London, averaging 70 miles a day. In September 1894, 24-year-old Annie Londonderry set out from Chicago with a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver to become the first woman to cycle around the world. Just under a year later she arrived back in Chicago and collected a $10,000 prize.</p> <p align="justify">In Australia, itinerant shearers routinely rode hundreds of miles across the waterless outback looking for work. They set out on these trips as though they were rides in the park, recalled newspaper correspondent C.E.W. Bean in his book On The Wool Track.</p> <p align="justify">In the American West, during the summer of 1897, the U.S. Army's 25th Regiment – an African-American unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers – made an extraordinary 1,900- mile trek from Fort Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri, to demonstrate the usefulness of bicycles to the military. Carrying full kit and carbines and riding over rough, muddy tracks, the Buffalo Soldiers averaged nearly 50 miles a day – twice as fast as a cavalry unit, and at a third the cost.</p> <p align="justify">If we are really serious about carbon reduction and all that then the humble bicycle needs to be brought back into use on a big scale. Forget the e-Bikes, though, and especially the electric cars. </p> <p align="justify">When we look to rural India the bicycle is still the main means of transportation as long as it is not all too heavy haulage, though at times you wonder what they are thinking when you see what they load on their bicycles, and what some tow behind. The same goes for many parts of Africa. </p> <p align="justify">But, in order for the bicycle have a real revival, which it must have, we need the proper infrastructure to go with it, not just some tinkering at the edges or a slight change in the highway code, as was done recently in Britain. That does not go anywhere far enough. In fact, it does not really help at all. </p> <p align="justify">If the governments are truly honest about encouraging people to change their behavior as to travel and try to encourage walking and especially the use of the bicycle for short to medium distances at least then the proper infrastructure has to be created and put in place and those must include proper cycle paths. Cycle paths, not lanes that form part of the normal road, like those in many countries on the European mainland and which are, while along the roads, not part of them but, basically, part of the sidewalks. </p> <p align="justify">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-86844156755751516262022-02-17T05:56:00.002-08:002022-02-17T05:58:42.986-08:00The benefits of growing up<p align="justify">No, not that kind of growing up but gardening vertically</p> <p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEir9qMt2O0TxtfzPVZDrmzkWQtBEGL7I1L43JdHSiYzMwZ9Mchll3-2Q45RAOFPMK0rJgpbKOYpAH6ls1Kqd_URXewb6gXcKa0KuqT9L5DGeXJOTczomwAxs41J-uZ3ZFUFLahSlHgH1fnPL9yYYg3He3mtK74ZgKKlNmcB3PKL9eB0-wmlDSyU-WO6Bg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEir9qMt2O0TxtfzPVZDrmzkWQtBEGL7I1L43JdHSiYzMwZ9Mchll3-2Q45RAOFPMK0rJgpbKOYpAH6ls1Kqd_URXewb6gXcKa0KuqT9L5DGeXJOTczomwAxs41J-uZ3ZFUFLahSlHgH1fnPL9yYYg3He3mtK74ZgKKlNmcB3PKL9eB0-wmlDSyU-WO6Bg=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><p align="justify">If you have ever considered growing your garden vertically then do it. If haven't then why not give it a try. Not only can it absolutely stunning visually, but it also provides many benefits as well.</p> <p align="justify">You are able to grow more in less space and thus maximize limited space and especially if you live in town, gardening vertically can provide you a nice and useful privacy screen even though mostly only during the growing season. </p> <p align="justify">It increases accessibility as it is so much easier to harvest your yield, as long as you do not put it up that high – or let the plants grow that tall – that the produce is way too far up. Have done that with beans and know. </p> <p align="justify">It keeps your crop up and off the ground, so it provides great pest prevention and prevents ground rot and it also provides proper air flow to keep diseases, fungi, and powder mildew down which results in healthier plants and can – I did say can – provide a higher crop yield.</p> <p align="justify">Theoretically it also gives the plants more sun exposure. I do theoretically because it all depends also in growing this way from which direction most of your property gets the sun.</p> <p align="justify">Gardening in this way also makes for cleaner and more visually appealing crops because they are not in the dirt, and are able to grow to their true shape with no flat sides or discoloration from sitting in the soil. </p> <p align="justify">And growing vertical is not just trellises and such, as far as I am concerned, but hanging baskets too can be successfully employed in this and I have started growing strawberries in hanging baskets with the result that they are not attacked by slugs – they can't get to them – and not even by birds. </p> <p align="justify">Swiss Chard, for instance, with its more often than not multi-colored foliage looks quite stunning in hanging baskets and if they are hung by, or near, the door you only have to step out to harvest. Same goes for herbs and spices. </p> <p align="justify">Window boxes, and not only used at the windows but fixed to fences, etc., also provide a good growing space. And here you can also improvise, reuse and upcycle for the window box does not have to be a window box nor does it have to be a box at all, or not have been one originally. Thinking out of the box here helps to save money. Also, as far as trellises and other “risers” go, upcycling is very much the way to go. </p> <p align="justify">Any plant that climbs, theoretically, such as cucumbers and other squashes, bean and peas, and those that can be trained to grow that way, should be led up – no, not the garden path – trellises and other such structures. </p> <p align="justify">In Spanish villages one can often observe entire walls of houses with plant pots fixed to them full of all kinds of flowering plants, predominately though geraniums. The same can, however, also be done with edible plants and flowers. And why not mix your pots with crops with pots with flowering plants. Again though, as far as the crops are concerned, do not put them up too high. </p> <p align="justify">I do two things in my approach to gardening. Where I can I use containers, tubs and others, on the ground or, as I am now going over to, seated on old pallets to keep them somewhat off the ground, and I grow upwards, so to speak, in hanging baskets, trellises and wall-“containers” – and that here means anything from pots in holders to window boxes screwed to the wall and the like. </p> <p align="justify">If you, like me, grow beans in a large container, and do not – though I do – have access to bean poles then go the old Victorian kitchen garden way and use one pole in the middle with strings attached that are used for the bean runners to grow up on. (See picture) The Edwardians and Victorians actually, the rich houses, had for their kitchen gardens when growing beans, a special cast iron pole with attachments for the strings but something like that can easily be created by means of upcycling (as in the photo) or by using a wooden pole and attaching the strings. A number of screw in eye hooks could be used to which to attach the strings to the pole. </p> <p align="justify">There are many ways to gardening vertically and this can even be employed if you use the garden itself with raised beds and the like. It gives you additional space and, again, keeps many of the crops off the ground keeping them cleaner and healthier. </p> <p align="justify">For much more information that I could possibly give you in an article check out <u><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mark.r.smith.37">Mark Ridsdill Smith</a></u> (no relation) and his Vertical Veg operation at <u><a href="https://www.facebook.com/verticalveg">Vertical Veg</a></u> and in the group that goes with it, V<u><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/191628431016122/">ertical Veg Community</a></u> on Facebook.</p> <p align="justify">© 2022 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-70199865234165919572022-02-11T10:06:00.002-08:002022-02-11T10:08:20.510-08:00America stocks logs<p align="justify">Red-hot firewood price fueled by energy crisis</p> <p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTsK0ytV43OtsTtfCkNaJ-0ExKL9NR1gf04M2AiT8Yo4h6D2wM-ZhkHhgXHYU2qsAgMaqdZ9I5UlroevJzevPDllazO94CqAE77hBVQihys4XOQvgQSdoUEOXysxVcalUgUH3mj-XsufOZeFHoXCXNYp9b8ZRs-5AN2LyC8RnMSMzk7ybyVYaG_reDZg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="450" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTsK0ytV43OtsTtfCkNaJ-0ExKL9NR1gf04M2AiT8Yo4h6D2wM-ZhkHhgXHYU2qsAgMaqdZ9I5UlroevJzevPDllazO94CqAE77hBVQihys4XOQvgQSdoUEOXysxVcalUgUH3mj-XsufOZeFHoXCXNYp9b8ZRs-5AN2LyC8RnMSMzk7ybyVYaG_reDZg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Americans are turning to firewood in their droves after oil and gas prices rocketed in recent months, with around 1.7MN homes expected to rely on it as their source of heating.</div></span><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Stove vendors are reporting huge jumps in sales, while firewood itself is selling at up to 33% more than last year.</p> <p align="justify">Around 8% of American households are expected to rely on this “rudimentary” fuel as a main or secondary heating source through winter.</p> <p align="justify">I know that when it comes to the environment and emissions there are many who will now state how bad this situation is but the truth is that the only emissions, as far as CO2 is concerned, is the carbon that the tree sequestered throughout its life. No more. So, theoretically, burning wood is carbon neutral. Alas, depending on how dry the wood is, there are nano-particles in the smoke to be considered, I know. </p> <p align="justify">On the other hand when we see this increase in firewood sales, in the US and probably elsewhere, we have to ask where the wood is coming from and how sustainably it has been grown, harvested and whether it comes from a sustainable operation in that the woods are maintained in a rotation. </p> <p align="justify">We saw in Britain some years back that the firewood being sold came from almost untraceable operations abroad in the main, and from as far afield as Belarus. Very little was actually homegrown and harvested. Sustainable this definitely was not but imports were cheaper, as far as the sellers were concerned, than homegrown. No wonder our woods and our woodland workers and owners cannot make any money in that field. </p> <p align="justify">Importing firewood logs from abroad is not sustainable, neither in the short nor the long run, but then again, as far as the UK is concerned, it makes the laws for homegrown wood fuel more and more difficult, all in attempt to make it impossible for people to heat their homes from sources outside the control of the big corporations and the state. In fact, the UK is not far off banning all wood-burning stoves altogether. They keep talking about net zero but wood fuel is – basically – net zero. </p> <p align="justify">© 2022</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-21526997167894366372022-01-11T10:50:00.002-08:002022-01-11T10:55:46.797-08:00We need to stop buying unnecessary stuff<p style="text-align: left;">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiLu4kn9Vs_fcSyip9f6ttO8y2ngkfzqexqP3cYitMtWqjvYptcyK3Id9ymAem70T0niTYNZUtb6J0OJKWtEozZS1VlHWfxinaC-5XzdjEYUen_Vo0m-Q_n7W9a5cL7uXfaqGYLYJ5k9tc//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="564" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiLu4kn9Vs_fcSyip9f6ttO8y2ngkfzqexqP3cYitMtWqjvYptcyK3Id9ymAem70T0niTYNZUtb6J0OJKWtEozZS1VlHWfxinaC-5XzdjEYUen_Vo0m-Q_n7W9a5cL7uXfaqGYLYJ5k9tc//" width="241" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our ridiculous addiction to acquiring more possessions is stuffing up the planet, so it’s time to call in the experts</div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Some time ago a person who was an early adopter of environmental concerns wanted a new kitchen. He asked an expert he knew from his work in woodland conservation what wood his new kitchen should be built with. He was startled to get a sharp response: “If you really care, then don't come to me asking which wood to use; ask yourself if you really need a new kitchen.”</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">A point well made but one that very few people take to heart and act upon and it does not just go for a kitchen. It equally well goes for the cellphone, the car, or whatever. We may want something because everyone else does want this new one but we, at least if we are truly concerned about our environmental impact, as to whether we really need it, or whether it is just a want and not a need. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">People often have difficulties to differentiate between wants and needs, and this goes for all ages. While children may express a want as a need they more often actually know that they just want this new toy or whatever else simply because it is new (to them) or because Johnny down the street has one, in that they say “I want” and often add “because...” Many adults do not seem to see that the need they perceive is actually just the same a want and that they do not really need the thing they want. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">While we all have to buy things for (daily) consumption, from food, to toiletries and other things, and those are real needs, more often than not, many of the things we tend to buy we do not really need but we want them. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Does one really need a new smartphone – I hasten to add I don't own one – while the old one is not even that old and works perfectly well and does all the things we use it for well? No, but many want a new one just because of the advertising promises about the new bells and whistles on the new one. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">This goes for a great many things in that we always need to ask ourselves the question as to whether we really need a new one, whatever it may be, or whether it is a want and whether, if we would be honest with ourselves and everyone else, we could not actually be using the thing that we have and are using. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">If it ain't broke, don't fix it, is an old adage, though one from, as we would say here, across the pond, but it is,m nevertheless, a good one. Which also means if it does not need to be fixed then we could continue to use it. And, well, if it is broke we should then ask ourselves could we fix it or could it be fixed, rather than tossed and a new one bought. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">There are also other occasions, and I certainly, wherever possible, try to do that, when it is a case I can buy that but I can also make that, from scrap wood or whatever other material around, including by means of upcycling “waste”. It may take some skills and a great deal more effort to make it yourself but aside from the satisfaction of being able to say “I made that” you may have prevented a great deal of carbon emissions and also stopped something going to landfill. If I can make something I am not going to buy it and there have been many, many occasions when I have employed that adage of mine. It may not be exactly as the thing in the catalog, so to speak, but it fulfills the very same purpose. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;">© 2022</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-60666311878967924742021-12-04T10:08:00.003-08:002021-12-04T10:12:14.400-08:00Rom Polska Stirring Wood, the ideal tool for the minimalist kitchen<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRiqOOR_vT-B3SC7Z7a1sDV4IJGUcUe3p0R3lKae97BPMpeiNnJD7XOqHQ3lO_9P1rI2BICEzUYMAFQ3108QbuuXWoSCm66NU-oUtm6-0x3k4pwxCTyTu04LCwVFZjq2dN6jHsCdoMvqUc//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="1000" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRiqOOR_vT-B3SC7Z7a1sDV4IJGUcUe3p0R3lKae97BPMpeiNnJD7XOqHQ3lO_9P1rI2BICEzUYMAFQ3108QbuuXWoSCm66NU-oUtm6-0x3k4pwxCTyTu04LCwVFZjq2dN6jHsCdoMvqUc//" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">The Rom Polska Stirring Wood, you could call it a stirring spatula if you would so wish but it is not really a spatula, but what I am using is the literal translation of the word, is the ideal tool for the minimalist kitchen when one might not want so many tools.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">It replaces a great number of others as it is equally at home stirring the porridge as to doing the stir fry, and many other stirring jobs in between and, hand carved from local (local to area of the maker) woods and priced between £10 and £15 on cash sales in person, or £15 to £20 for online sales as postage is included in the latter, it does not break the bank either. </p> <p align="justify">Properly treated, which means not, and here especially not, putting it into the dishwasher it will last for many, many years to come. In fact, as this product, like the majority of products I produce, is left untreated and thus the natural antibacterial action of the wood can work washing will rarely if ever be required. All that is needed, really, is to wipe the working end down after use and allow to air dry with the working end up. </p> <p align="justify">Available from Wood, Leather & Recycled via the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Wood-Leather-Recycled-624997567572638/" target="_blank">Facebook Page</a>. </p> <p align="justify">© 2021</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-71326792890394580272021-12-03T10:43:00.002-08:002021-12-03T10:44:49.873-08:00Make your holiday gifts handmade or secondhand this year<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rSHmaNYadZ3CqYrbmf7VyiyNlkMBv_e9tpTs5iHj_dMq5duv4waR7OhOQyFU92fHOouDK5fFY-xYVKarYwcwS-t7cd3vcteOlWLyjqXNgsM1SwCIvaR76vcPgNwhgKuIJaKIf3qZ-Uwy//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3rSHmaNYadZ3CqYrbmf7VyiyNlkMBv_e9tpTs5iHj_dMq5duv4waR7OhOQyFU92fHOouDK5fFY-xYVKarYwcwS-t7cd3vcteOlWLyjqXNgsM1SwCIvaR76vcPgNwhgKuIJaKIf3qZ-Uwy//" width="241" /></a></div><br /><span style="text-align: left;">And not just this year and not just for the gift-giving holidays but also for other gift-giving occasions.</span><p></p> <p align="justify">When it comes to the handmade then it is a very nice touch when the gift is handmade by the giver but not everyone has the time nor the tools and the skills to make the gift they might like to gift to someone themselves. That is were makers come into the equation. </p> <p align="justify">OK, you say, he would say that. He is a spoon carver after all and tries to sell his wares. Yes, that is true as well but whenever someone can I would say hand make your own gifts for people. Handmade is such a personal touch that nothing else can convey. </p> <p align="justify">But where making the gifts yourself is not an option then consider buying handmade from a maker, ideally a local one or one as local as possible.</p> <p align="justify">When it come to the other suggestion, namely that of secondhand, many people will balk at this option as they see it as cheapskate but maybe we should rename secondhand in this case to “preloved”, though that may not always be the case if the item(s) come from a secondhand store such as a so-called charity shop. But we would not balk at giving someone an antique. Is that not a secondhand item as well?</p> <p align="justify">When I was a child secondhand gift often featured in the gifts that we received and they were no less valued by us than would have been newly bought ones. Often those gifts were exactly what we had hoped for – the giver being aware, no doubt, what we longed for – and had chose wisely, often actually giving us something of their own “collections”, as in my case when, as a sex-year-old I had ogled a small old pocket knife my uncle had in his collection. This was my New Year gift from him and I still have it to this very day. </p> <p align="justify">Clothes were, generally, anyway secondhand in the form of hand-me-downs, or from other people, and they also were gifted on various occasions and events instead of new bought stuff. It is also, financially, much more practical for children to receive hand-me-downs, even in the form of holiday gifts, as they tend to grow out of them at a rapid rate. </p> <p align="justify">Obviously, giving handmade and secondhand gifts rate also high on the environmental level as handmade and secondhand have, especially if the handmade has been made by the giver or purchased from a local maker, a much lower environmental footprint (I do no use the term carbon footprint as it does not cover all bases) because the transport and production costs and impacts are much lower than newly made from virgin materials and shipped from halfway across the globe. </p> <p align="justify">I can't remember how many times, as a small boy, I got my favorite wooden tractor gifted back to me after it had been repaired. It was my favorite toy and it was at least as good getting it back repaired, better probably, than getting a new one or a new toy. I played so much with it that its wheels came off on occasions and needed, basically, glueing back on but I could not do that myself at that young age; later I was able to do it and then, later still, got handed down to little cousin of mine. So, getting a favorite toy, or other favorite item, repaired for the recipient rather than a new gift might also be something worth considering. </p> <p align="justify">© 2021</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-69080365877739842412021-11-13T08:42:00.002-08:002021-11-13T08:45:14.071-08:00Why I have now, more or less, turned against e-bikes<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyaTCxD6hyphenhyphenmwb4Mu3gvd_Ts5ONJmwXbMW0PjnXBEQq_Zid8BeGpWjtSOwc43fVjPWIQS_XHX_MxuHByZjMDjL4cIRAXz04h8k1iz5cyYfLIbvx1on9Tan5eCEux6qxJ_6MZroQ9MMg5pN2//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyaTCxD6hyphenhyphenmwb4Mu3gvd_Ts5ONJmwXbMW0PjnXBEQq_Zid8BeGpWjtSOwc43fVjPWIQS_XHX_MxuHByZjMDjL4cIRAXz04h8k1iz5cyYfLIbvx1on9Tan5eCEux6qxJ_6MZroQ9MMg5pN2//" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">A couple of years ago I got a G-tech e-bike for review and, as I explained in my previous article I have been very happy with it, until now, where I find it almost an impossibility to get hold of a new battery (the original no longer is holding its charge properly and is about to expire). Then there is the fact that, if one would be able to get a new battery it amounts to about a third of the price of a new bike, a price for which one can get a fairly good ordinary Dutch bike, for instance.</span></div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">But the costs of a new battery (and the problem I am experiencing getting a new one) is but one reason, and the difficulties often experienced in maintenance, even simple tasks, such as repairing a puncture in the wheel that has the motor, another.</p> <p align="justify">In the meantime I have been able to get a replacement battery for the MKI version of the Gtech bike but I am now on my second replacement battery from Gtech; the first one went back because it just was worse in holding charge than the original, six-years-old one that was not longer working properly as to charge and even the second one, after initially performing well as to range no longer is doing so and the range is diminishing by every new charge, it would appear.</p> <p align="justify">The other, probably main reason, however, is the battery – no, not the financial costs of obtaining a new one – for the environmental and human impact the mining of the necessary metals and minerals require for the making of those batteries has. Cobalt, an important component, is being mined in the Congo, often by children, many of them kept as slaves, and lithium mining in South America equally so aside from the fact that the waste of those mining operations, with lithium very much in the forefront, poisons the environment and people. Furthermore at the end of its life the battery falls under hazardous waste and has to be treated almost like nuclear waste. </p> <p align="justify">The same goes, as far as the battery is concerned, though there would be other issues as well, for (other) electric vehicles, be they scooters and bikes of the motorbike kind, cars, vans, and more. While there maybe no pollution, often referred to as (CO2) emissions those vehicles, and especially those batteries, are not environmentally friendly. Rather the opposite. Aside from that there is also the electrical energy required for charging all those batteries. Instead of the vehicle having and exhaust the chimneys of the electricity generating plants become the exhaust for all of them. </p> <p align="justify">While it is, as far as e-bikes are concerned, generally reckoned that the battery will last, properly maintained and such, around three years holding full charge, I have heard of batteries failing after only a year or a little more. Not very good when one considers that those batteries seem to be all around the 300 GBP mark and more. As I said earlier, for that amount of money one can purchase a good quality Dutch bicycle, or a Danish one, if you like; a bicycle that will last almost for ever as long as it is reasonably looked after and is easy to maintain. </p> <p align="justify">Yes, going up inclines with such an “ordinary” bicycle, especially with no gears or but the traditional three, requires a great deal more muscle power (the easier option is pushing it up said inclines; hence the term push bike in English colloquialism) than an e-bike (virtually no muscle power needed in that case) but you get more exercise that way and you have no range restriction and do not need to recharge a battery afterwards bar your own batteries, maybe. </p> <p align="justify">The environmental costs of the manufacture of an ordinary bicycle are also while not zero a great deal lower than an e-bike when taking into account the battery and the proper disposal of the hazardous waste which the battery becomes after the end of its life, but the use of an ordinary bicycle is, if you do not consider the food the rider needs, has a very low to almost zero environmental cost and impact and no emissions. </p> <p align="justify">An e-bike, in the other hands, does have emissions even though not not via an exhaust on the bike it is through the charging of the battery which causes emissions at the power generating plant rather, and while all that is still much lower that the impact of an electric car or van it still is there. </p> <p align="justify">Back to basics is more often than not the better approach and that one more than one level. </p> <p align="justify">© 2021</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-58954608674711376362021-10-28T11:22:00.003-07:002021-10-28T11:24:25.081-07:00The municipal recycling sham<p align="justify">...or maybe we should call it the municipal recycling shame</p> <p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowp6LTDCEjLaqDNNh3gsTDTraVoG2Dq5Mj4-17pcmImzuXaRuKfptkG8vlR8mTXAAo3vKQQObsI_KgoIjPqNw0GlpV7Xsc49CzxDlYGMyAUJ4Cv1WDt53ho2SjFVS5GMY9p5sJ7UgP1IF//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="535" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowp6LTDCEjLaqDNNh3gsTDTraVoG2Dq5Mj4-17pcmImzuXaRuKfptkG8vlR8mTXAAo3vKQQObsI_KgoIjPqNw0GlpV7Xsc49CzxDlYGMyAUJ4Cv1WDt53ho2SjFVS5GMY9p5sJ7UgP1IF//" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Many of us, households and businesses alike, nicely separate our recyclables for collection, to the extent even of removing labels and washing tin cans and glass jars, but do those recyclables really go for recycling?</span></div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">My observations are leading me to believe that in a great many cases it is all but a sham because general waste trucks often collect also the recyclables from clearly marked bins and add it to their contents, destined for the landfill, and also the recycling trucks have been seen, rather regularly, dumping their content at landfill sites. </p> <p align="justify">While we, as consumers, whether that be households or businesses, are trying to do our part the municipalities and their contractors, where contractors are being used, just put the stuff with the general waste that ends up in landfill. </p> <p align="justify">This is not how it is supposed to work and neither, but that is not really the story here, should our recyclables go into containers to be shipped to places such as Mexico, many of which have no recycling infrastructure, and, as in the cases recorded in Mexico, being carted from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast where the contents then was literally tipped into the sea. Is it any wonder we have the large plastic garbage patches in the oceans? </p> <p align="justify">The problem the industrialized nations are currently faced with concerning waste for recycling is that many developing nations such as China, Vietnam, India and others have shut their ports to imports of our waste for reprocessing. And, as most of those nations, the industrialized developed ones, are not prepared to do the dirty work in their own countries the stuff either gets shipped to other countries where it is just dumped, often into the sea. </p> <p align="justify">When it comes to plastic recyclables, be it bottles or others, we are, whether this is the UK or any other country, wasting a valuable resource by sending the stuff to somewhere to be reprocessed, or destroyed (dumped) rather than having our own national facilities where such materials are reprocessed back into polymers for the plastics industry.</p> <p align="justify">When it comes to glass, even when collected by recycling trucks and, actually, sent to recycling it is not recycling but downcycling because no one can tell me that from the mixed glass – because nowadays all the stuff that we may have separated by color is tossed into one vat – new bottles or jars or whatever are being made. The truth is that this glass gets ground down to make road aggregate. In other words it is being made into almost nothing more than sand. </p> <p align="justify">While, as indicated above, aside from the fact that we should, actually, get rid of plastic bottles and other plastic packaging as much as possible, plastic waste should be recycled at home and unbroken glass bottles and even jars should be returned to whence the came to be sterilized and then reused. Only glass which has been broken should ever go to recycling and, then again, the recycling should be done properly and at home. With “at home” is meant in the home country and not in our individual homes, obviously. </p> <p align="justify">When it comes to drinks bottles, glass ones, be it lemonade, beer, wine, or whatever else, they should come, to give a financial incentive for the bottles to go back into the reuse stream, with a small deposit that is refundable upon return, the way things once were. It is not rocket science, even though the governments, in the UK especially, try to pretend. It does not need to have pilot projects and studies as to whether it would work. We had this system, and many other countries did too, and it worked and works. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. </p> <p align="justify">Alas in the UK and the USA everything is geared towards profit for some, even in this field, and hence they want the recyclable for nothing and then try to sell the stuff to reprocessors. If, however, there is not enough money to be made from the sale of the “raw material” then they rather have it go into landfill than for recycling. This way the demand from the reprocessors increases as then will the price. We can safely file that under greenwash than actual concern for reducing and recycling waste. </p> <p align="justify">© 2021</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-74864427556900405582021-10-16T11:09:00.002-07:002021-10-16T11:11:12.213-07:00The repair economy<p align="justify">by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p> <p align="justify">I know this may sound a little strange and I am not talking about repairing the economy, for we need to change it not repair it, because it is not broken; it was designed that way.</p> <p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLQe4BcqCI3bgULi4z1qdh1T4y8v3hxRLhK55t4akIrR8SUtgyv00WexomWmnkktZ27ufOgaY63VCnrxzOnvLnB59GxF9-19eP_dTtTsig-J2QRmXYV-XV1mOzxrIMvGQfnFBhEhxpY0r//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="648" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLQe4BcqCI3bgULi4z1qdh1T4y8v3hxRLhK55t4akIrR8SUtgyv00WexomWmnkktZ27ufOgaY63VCnrxzOnvLnB59GxF9-19eP_dTtTsig-J2QRmXYV-XV1mOzxrIMvGQfnFBhEhxpY0r//" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p align="justify">The repair economy is something that we once, actually, had in the form of little workshops that were geared to repairing this and that, from shoes and clothes to radios, TVs, bicycles, and much more. </p> <p align="justify">In the German Democratic Republic, that some people called and still insist in calling East Germany, or communist East Germany even, literally a whole sector of the economy was geared to repair. Not because things broke down easily for lack of quality – rather the opposite, things were designed to last – but because things were repairable and repair was a great deal cheaper than buying new. It was thus also, though repair shops and such were no officially counted as part of the economy, in other countries, including Britain, the USA, and elsewhere. </p> <p align="justify">Nowadays, however, most of those repair shops – at least in the UK – are no longer with the exception of the high street shoe repair places who can just about glue a heel or a sole on but that is about all. Ask them to resew an upper to a leather midsole and they are utterly confused and lost (“I don't have a machine for that,” I was told). </p> <p align="justify">But you will very rarely, if indeed, find the little shop where there will be a guy sitting there with a soldering iron fixing electrical goods, because most of those goods today either cannot be repaired, as they have been designed not to be repairable, or it is more expensive to have them repaired than to buy the same product new again. When a spare part for a computer printer, for instance, costs itself more than a new printer then we really have to question on what principle the economy is working. That is how we register economic growth. Oh, but I am digressing. </p> <p align="justify">We must get back, though, to products that are made to last, that can be repaired and to the repair economy, the small and not so small businesses that specialize in repair. In addition to that we need the small makers back as well, but that is a different story. </p> <p align="justify">But the way this is being promoted by some at the present, much like the so-called circular economy, is not going to deliver the real needs of this kind of economy because all too often the need for products that are made to truly last in the way they were once made is still not properly part of the equation. We must rethink our approach on many level and travel back to the future, so to speak. </p> <p align="justify">We are still, in most talk about any kind of economy, fixated way too much on growth. Growth, the way our economy promoted it, an infinite one, is simply not possible on a finite Planet. Even the majority of proponent of a so-called “green economy” still keep incessantly talking about growth, about growing the economy. </p> <p align="justify">By now we have exhausted and almost exhausted our non-renewable resources, and not just coal, oil and gas, but also metals, though the latter we can reclaim by proper recycling processes, and we are now hell for leather doing the same for rare earth and rare earth metals, be it cobalt, lithium and others for the batteries and other components for cellphones, e-vehicles, etc. and the extraction of at least cobalt and lithium causes environmental and human disasters. </p> <p align="justify">We need to make a serious u-turn and we must make it now and return to the ways of old combined with the knowledge and technology that we have today to produce again in a sustainable way making things that last and that can be repaired, either by simple DIY-tinkering by user or, well, tinkerer, or in small workshops dedicated to undertake such repairs. The latter then creating a repair service economy or sector of the economy. Like with less waste production though using glass bottles and jars, for instance, and having refundable deposits on such containers or though collection of recyclables, only they were not called that then, by the rag-and-bone man, we have been there before and we must go there again. </p> <p align="justify">© 2021 </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191534937549716598.post-19496799929219305382021-09-28T10:39:00.002-07:002021-09-28T10:41:00.943-07:00Corona Max Forged Branch & Stem Pruner – Product Review<p align="justify">Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)</p><p align="justify"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OSlpiX0z5c6sDCm4plkWoK5snL48QFbI_exnCCVagWyzxZTn2jJSpKofzWAmeH87GU-AnvfEB7GbfJhfjWZpArB8objZJrxHK3oUmMDFGFZxiZO9r-vM4FJBjQcbUjh5iprnRvOSc_Ib//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7OSlpiX0z5c6sDCm4plkWoK5snL48QFbI_exnCCVagWyzxZTn2jJSpKofzWAmeH87GU-AnvfEB7GbfJhfjWZpArB8objZJrxHK3oUmMDFGFZxiZO9r-vM4FJBjQcbUjh5iprnRvOSc_Ib//" width="240" /></a></div><p></p> <p align="justify">I know that this review comes rather late but better late than never, as they say. </p> <p align="justify">The Corona Max Forged ClassicCUT Pruner is crafted from forged steel for the professional or demanding gardener. Its strength and durability means everyday use isn't a problem. If you need to get the job done day in and day out, you can depend on this pruner.</p> <p align="justify">Professional-grade tool with resharpenable, replaceable high-carbon steel blades</p> <p align="justify">High-precision pivot bolt and locking nut keep blade and hook aligned</p> <p align="justify">Fully-forged steel construction through to tips, for maximum strength and lasting sharpness</p> <p align="justify">Non-slip grips for greater control and comfort</p> <p align="justify">Lifetime warranty</p> <p align="justify">Cuts up to 1.25cm</p> <p align="justify">For smaller hands</p> <p align="justify">Product code: BP3130BB</p> <p align="justify">Packaging is great as only cardboard, though with a plastic window, and thus, more or less, fully recyclable. In fact remove plastic and throw rest onto compost heap.</p> <p align="justify">Blades are extremely sharp, and I do mean the extremely. Alas, the edge of the review sample did have a serious burr on the outside of the cutting blade which means that the final polishing was not done well. This burr, had I not discovered it and removed it, could have caused damage to the cutting edge. </p> <p align="justify">This is a pruner designed for somewhat smaller hands and it does feel a little strange, at first, to someone with larger hands. However, it really cuts extremely well and the catch, very different to many on the market today, is extremely positive and you know it is locked when it is. </p> <p align="justify">Those pruners are extremely well constructed and the blade comes very sharp, right from the box. Alas, the sample from the Garden Press Event 2020, supplied by Burgon & Ball, as already mentioned, had a serious burr on the cutting edge that could have caused damage to the blade. Nothing, however, that a little steeling did not solve. I sincerely hope that that, however, was just an exception and it is not also the case with other blades. Someone not spotting it might have damaged the blade. In other words could we improve quality control at factory end please. Extremely sharp the blade was, nevertheless, despite the burr (now rectified). </p> <p align="justify">The criticism as to the quality control regarding the burr aside this is an extremely well made pair of pruners and I really like it and it has, by now, become my favorite pair of secateurs to take into the garden.</p> <p align="justify">© 2021</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com