Crash Watcher: Major chance Europeans will starve after 2030

[Snail]

UE:

Your take on it. So we can get to know a bit about you.Where are you coming from?

+1

I don't agree with everything or how it's said sometimes.

But I can see why certain views are held within the peak-oil/environment context: UE's or J2M's and others too.

This is from someone who thinks Political Correctness is a good thing, and someone who got very angry on a similar past thread: this forum is rather refreshing in its honest frankness.

[Little John]

Looks like the pruning has come to a halt for now, helpfully removing the posts which set this off but not UE's, J2M and Mr Cook's responses and attacks (despite original posts being on topic and not 'religious rants' and the responses being the opposite). Small wonder UE thinks he can challenge me to meet his 'standard of debate' -- all opposition is simply deleted.

Look SNC, you are going to need to engage in mature debate here. That means if you are going to make an accusations of racism against someone, you are going to have to do better than to rely on hackneyed, cheap and unsubstantiated extrapolations of what people have actually said. That kind of debating tactic might work on other forums, but not on here. There are some very sharp minds on here and they will spot that kind of nonsense in a second.

As for UE, I have been on this forum for a year or two now and he has never given me the impression of being a racist. He is certainly, though, as he freely admits himself, an extremist of sorts But, then, so am I, of sorts. I guess I am saying that the kinds of arguments that take place on here often do not break down into simple black and white stereotypical dichotomies that can then be simplistically extrapolated. Engage folks here on the actual arguments put forward, vehemenetly by all means if necessary, and you wont go far wrong.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Engage folks here on the actual arguments put forward, vehemenetly by all means if necessary, and you wont go far wrong.

M: Ah. I'd like to have an argument, please.
R: Certainly sir. Have you been here before?
M: No, I haven't, this is my first time.
R: I see. Well, do you want to have just one argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?
M: Well, what is the cost?
R: Well, It's one pound for a five minute argument, but only eight pounds for a course of ten.
M: Well, I think it would be best if I perhaps started off with just the one and then see how it goes.
R: Fine. Well, I'll see who's free at the moment.
Pause
R: Mr. DeBakey's free, but he's a little bit conciliatory.
Ahh yes, Try Mr. Barnard; room 12.
M: Thank you.

(Walks down the hall. Opens door.)

Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
M: Well, I was told outside that...
Q: Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
M: What?
Q: Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, maloderous, pervert!!!
M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!!
Q: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
Q: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.
M: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry.
Q: Not at all.
M: Thank You.
(Under his breath) Stupid git!!

[biffvernon]

The transition movement preach optimism, and don't really look at die-off .

That's not true of me or quite a few others in the Transition Movement that I know. An opposite position is probably more representative but preaching pessimism is accompanied by a a desire to make the best of what is possible.

[emordnilap]

I have, misguidedly, voted for green party representatives before now. Never again, which is an odd phrase when you think about it.

The real trouble was (in addition to my naivety) there were no alternative candidates.

[adam2]

The transition movement certainly has its merits, but IMHO takes an unduly optimistic view of the future.

They tend to assume that everyone will be nice to each other, respect the property of others, and live a more localised and more sustainable life.
In this they may be right but it seems a bit unwise to count on it.

To an awful lot of people, the transition movement has come to mean anything that they personly like, and not much to do with the original idea.

I was involved in a couple of unofficial meetings on the subject in the West country. Among the points disscussed were
House prices, and the need to support these.
But also the high price paid by youngsters for housing and the need for some form of grant or subsidy to help.
Solar power, and the desireability of this on new industrial buildings a long way away, but the need to prevent it being used in nice places.
Wind turbines and the need to put these somwhere else, preferably hidden in a valley without much wind.
Road widening essiential owing to more and larger vehicles.
Public transport, but no busses down OUR road please.
The risks of the transition movement attracting "long haired hippy types with things tied onto bicycles" Rather than nice people who drive the Range Rover to the farmers market to buy an organic apple, and why is there not enough parking at the farmers market ?
The "unsustainable" price of road fuel and heating oil, and what will the transition movement do to reduce prices ?

So a large proprtion of those attending no doubt felt a bit green but actually opposed most green or transition actions.

I hate to think what the reaction would be if a newcomer started growing vegetables instead of roses, or kept chickens, or put up a PV module, or ran a small and non intrusive local business. Or rode a cycle "with things tied onto it" Did a well known member of PS convey a greenhouse frame on a cycle trailer !

[biffvernon]

Methinks Adam2 and J2M have been to the wrong meetings!

[Little John]

The transition movement certainly has its merits, but IMHO takes an unduly optimistic view of the future.

They tend to assume that everyone will be nice to each other, respect the property of others, and live a more localised and more sustainable life.
In this they may be right but it seems a bit unwise to count on it.

To an awful lot of people, the transition movement has come to mean anything that they personly like, and not much to do with the original idea.

I was involved in a couple of unofficial meetings on the subject in the West country. Among the points disscussed were
House prices, and the need to support these.
But also the high price paid by youngsters for housing and the need for some form of grant or subsidy to help.
Solar power, and the desireability of this on new industrial buildings a long way away, but the need to prevent it being used in nice places.
Wind turbines and the need to put these somwhere else, preferably hidden in a valley without much wind.
Road widening essiential owing to more and larger vehicles.
Public transport, but no busses down OUR road please.
The risks of the transition movement attracting "long haired hippy types with things tied onto bicycles" Rather than nice people who drive the Range Rover to the farmers market to buy an organic apple, and why is there not enough parking at the farmers market ?
The "unsustainable" price of road fuel and heating oil, and what will the transition movement do to reduce prices ?

So a large proprtion of those attending no doubt felt a bit green but actually opposed most green or transition actions.

I hate to think what the reaction would be if a newcomer started growing vegetables instead of roses, or kept chickens, or put up a PV module, or ran a small and non intrusive local business. Or rode a cycle "with things tied onto it" Did a well known member of PS convey a greenhouse frame on a cycle trailer !

I agree Adam. However, I would argue the point further. Do you remember "The Good Life" comedy series back in the seventies? Tom and Barbara were the mavericks and Margo and Jerry were the "sophisticated", middle class, status-conscious materialists.

Well, it's gone full circle. Tom and Barbara are the new Margo and Jerry. The majority of transition-movement types I have met, when you push them hard on what they really believe, seem to me to be in it as little more than a means of declaring their tribal membership of the new "sophisticated" middle-class. Paradoxically, this declaration is often accompanied by spending large amounts of money on material expressions of the new "sophistication" such as high-tech, so-called "green" vehicles or expensive solar-arrays on their roofs (heavily subsidised, by the way, by poorer bill payers who have a compulsory levy on their bills to subsidise such solar-arrays but who cannot afford to pay the extra money required to top-up the subsidy and so benefit from a solar-array themselves). As it turns out, as well, the new Margo and Jerry are every bit as pathetically smug as the old ones. In other words, same melody, different lyrics. Same shit, different day.

Given that "money", in our economic and political system, is the FIAT imposition of the abstract representation of all resource consumption, both actual and/or potential, if you want to see truly low-resource-footprint living, at least relative to the average level of consumption in this country, go onto any economically deprived housing estate and take a look at a family scraping by on the minimum wage.

Not quite so sexy, though, is it.

[JohnB]

I've been stuck in the middle of a Transition group breaking up due to conflict between those who can see TS about to HTF, and those who want a greenwashy sort of life. It wasn't pleasant. The people on one side of the argument didn't appear to understand or accept the seriousness of the problem, and the ones on the other side understood the problems, but not how Transition is supposed to work, and chose to destroy it rather than try to get it on track in a way that may have worked. I was in the middle trying to do my bit to nudge it in the right direction as quickly as people would accept.

[jonny2mad]

Ive been to a few transition meetings, met rob hopkins heinberg etc, I think heinberg to a degree gets it but doesnt want to depress people.

I'm pretty much like a dark cloud that comes into a room in human form in person I'm actually really nice, most people like me in person .

I'm ok in transition meetings as long as they don't ask for questions or worse ask what I feels going to happen .

The problem is I can be quite eloquent, so you have this sunny meeting of lovely people talking about jam and bikes, and its like a dark storm has invaded their meeting, and they all leave feeling like next week they will have to eat aunt rose .

Really if I go to another transition meeting I should wear a black cape to add to the effect

[jonny2mad]

Transition people generally don’t prep for collapse, they think either its somehow immoral or you couldn’t do it, or that your being pessimistic, and if you are just optimistic things will work out .

[Little John]

Transition people generally don’t prep for collapse, they think either its somehow immoral or you couldn’t do it, or that your being pessimistic, and if you are just optimistic things will work out .

The reason many of them don't do so is because this was never the reason for them belonging to the transition movement in the first place, despite the false-consciousness narrative they may tell themselves and others. The real reasons many of them choose to belong to the transition movement are those outlined in my previous post.

[jonny2mad]

Transition people generally don’t prep for collapse, they think either its somehow immoral or you couldn’t do it, or that your being pessimistic, and if you are just optimistic things will work out .

The reason many of them don't do so is because this was never the reason that many to them chose to belong to such a "movement". The real reasons many of them choose to do so are those outlined in my previous post.

yup

[extractorfan]

I'm just not good in groups. It doesn't bode well for me in future. I'll have to be a leader or I'll get hung....or worse.

I couldn't abide attending a transition group the way they are being described, although I would probably be ok attending the WI and talking about Jam.

[peaceful_life]

Censored debate, isn't that an oxymoron.