to civilly ask you to use your cars less

[mosquitofeast]

My last thread was deleted because I was not being "civil" enough, I don't actually think it is a subject there is much room for civility in, but I will try!

My last post was to try and answer some questions about me. Here they are

I think I have answered these.

No I am not a strict vegetarian. I don't buy milk or dairy, but eat it in other peoples houses,

no I don't fly,

foodmiles, well, I take them into consideration, but they are not the only indicator of the environmental impact of food. Tomatoes grown in a heated greenhouse 2 miles away might have more environmental impact than tomatoes grown outside in Spain, and flown in.

I have 2 adopted children, 1 is an adult no longer living at home I currently have 3 foster children, but that is likely to change this week

Yes I have a pet, it came with one of the adopted children.

No I don't smoke

IMO the words ‘basically a vegan’ mean ‘I want the environmental credentials of being vegan but without actually having to do the work’

@TheIckabog

Also vegan? So you’re concerned about the environment so don’t eat meat but more than happy to eat an avocado that’s been flown half way around the world?

Oh do bore off

No he/she isn’t a vegan, but thinks supporting deforestation is okay if you don’t purchase the meat yourself. So that means journeys under 2 miles are okay if you don’t personally purchase the petrol/diesel.

@ForgotAboutThis

Individual people making excessive short journeys is not the thing that's going to reduce the planet to burning embers. Huge businesses and production plants are. I'm sure it makes you feel better to think you aren't contributing to the destruction of the planet. And we can all do little bits to help. But if you've got this much energy to spend berating and roaring about climate change, you'd be better off directing it elsewhere. As you said, we all live in a democracy, you can make change happen OP. You just have to try harder.

I do plenty. what in particular would you like me to do?

@SueEllenMishke In London its very common. MIL worked full time and had 4 kids, no car.

Not just talking about zone 1 & 2, zone 3 is very well connected too with buses and tube. Many houses don't have off street parking either.

@ZeldalovesLink spot on. Exactly what I meant about op being THAT kind of person.
Dh & I call them credit card hippies!

If you don't have a car you arrange your life around that. Accept jobs and choose houses in places that work for you, but, as I have said on the other thread, modern life assumes car use and people choose jobs, schools, houses on the assumption they can and will drive. There is a huge amount of infrastructure that will need to be put in place before you start banning car use.

Because they've got small children with them who can't walk that far yet.

Because you're on your way to somewhere else afterwards.

Because it's pissing it down with rain.

Because they're exhausted before they even started.

Honestly, can you really not understand why people might not want to or be able to fit in walking instead?

but again, you are forgetting, many people without cars do! in the rain! with small children! |Its just an attitude, thats all.

@mosquitofeast

You don't work full time do you? If you did you would understand why walking 160 minutes doing 2 x 2 mile trips a day isn't feasible on top of working full time. When I lived in London I was able to do nursery run and commute without a car, I can't manage that where I live now and our village's only bus route has recently been cut (it didn't fit around school hours before anyway) you can't say all full timers should manage it just because some do!

I'm moving to a town but the school is 2 miles away, I CANT spend 160 minutes a day walking on top of working 7.5 hours, you can call it cultural all you want but life is too short to struggle for time that much.

Not a chance in hell I'm getting on buses in the middle of a pandemic ta. Just no.

I'm far more bothered about the amount of facemasks ending up in the ocean. Why don't you ask nicely for people not to wear them instead OP.

@SueEllenMishke In London its very common. MIL worked full time and had 4 kids, no car.

Not just talking about zone 1 & 2, zone 3 is very well connected too with buses and tube. Many houses don't have off street parking either

London isn't representative of the whole country though is it? There are full time working parents outside of London too......

Trips less than 2 miles? 4 mile round trip? Ok occasions when I dont do this:
Going to tesco for a full shop. 0.5 miles. I drive. (I walk if just needing bread and milk tho)
Taking DS2 to football training. If I drive I can take him, leaving his brother at home, come home, then go pick him up again. If I walked it would be over 3 hrs leaving an 10 yr old on his own, or dragging him with me.
When I'm going on somewhere else afterwards - 2 miles to the butcher, another mile to the post office, then come back via school because I dont have time to drive home and walk to school. Average trip less than 2 miles. Not practical by foot.
More than 2 miles: when the bus makes me go 5 miles in the wrong direction to complete a triangle back to 3 miles from home. 5 mins in the car. 90 mins on the bus.
When DH doesnt need to leave at 10pm the night before to be in work by 9.30 - work made them prove public transport wasnt feasible before giving a car parking permit.

So, if you would kindly provide affordable public transport that goes where people want, when they want it, in a reasonable time, I would happily use it more. Until then, I'll keep on driving, cheers.

@GracieLouFreebushh

I think you just need to concentrate on what you can do and not involve yourself in other peoples life decisions. It really isn't any of your business. There will always be someone more extreme than you so there will be others who think you don't do enough, you've just drawn an arbitrary figure of 2 mile journeys.

no, this was the government statistics this morning. And because 2 miles is such a short distance, is is quite shocking. Traffic is everybody's business, really, it impacts on everybody every day.

Even if I was able to walk to the shops and carry back all of my shopping, I don't trust the nutters on the road to not kill me on the attempt.

You can compare it to years ago all you want, but there's more traffic on the roads now, the cars are faster, bigger and the drivers are shite. Why would we walk places where its dangerous?

Plus you're no better op, you eat meat, you use cars, you use technology etc. Environmentalists are nearly always self righteous idiots to be honest. You're focusing on the little man, like the rest of the morons. We arent the problem. The big companies are. The ones cutting down the forests and not replacing them, not making their companies greener, governments like ours having shit targets they inevitably won't meet or will fudge the numbers to pretend they met it.

You're never going to save the planet. Get over that fact and move on with your life, or be forever pissed off and whiny. It's not going to happen.

I think you have an important message, OP. Have you thought about going onto PistonHeads or BikeChatForums? You’ll find a lot of people there who just use their motor vehicles for the sheer hell of it, burning excess fuel, to boot, by speeding. I’m sure they’d appreciate some advice. Let us know how it goes.

@mosquitofeast

Because they've got small children with them who can't walk that far yet.

Because you're on your way to somewhere else afterwards.

Because it's pissing it down with rain.

Because they're exhausted before they even started.

Honestly, can you really not understand why people might not want to or be able to fit in walking instead?

but again, you are forgetting, many people without cars do! in the rain! with small children! |Its just an attitude, thats all.

Been there, done that. Miserable as fuck.

One of the reasons I learned how to drive

@mosquitofeast am impressed you take all three foster children to multiple contact visits on public transport. That must take some time.

No. I fact I'm going to drive my car even more now. I'm also going to buy a patio heater and eat lots of barbecued meat as well. So, nurrrr.

Dh & I call them credit card hippies!

I’m adopting this!

I love it when people start threads like this. They’ve clearly never lived rurally. 8 miles to the nearest supermarket for us.

I’m lucky to have a short commute; I teach in the next village to where I live. Need to be there by 7.30 in the morning. Takes c35 mins to walk from our house to PIL house to drop toddler daughter off. Then takes c1h15mins to walk from there to my school according to Google maps. The first part would have to be done with a buggy and 60-90 school books in tow.

I’m all for helping the environment where possible (my car usage plummeted to once a week during mat leave), but sweeping statements about two mile journeys won’t get anyone on side.

@ZeldalovesLink

what? I drew a parallel between what we think of slave traders now, and what future generations will think of people who destroyed the environment in our time.

Which is the same as saying you think people who traded in human lives are on an equivalent moral footing to people who drive their cars for short journeys.

Don’t you think that slightly minimises the horrors of slavery? That you think buying and selling humans is an equivalent offence to driving short journeys?

If you don’t think those two things are the same you should apologise for comparing them.

I am comparing them because they are each a case of one ultra privileged class inflicting pain, misery, hunger and ultimately death on another group of people, in a society that accepts such behaviour now, but will view it with horror in the future.

If you can afford a car, and petrol, and are using that privilege to damage the world, then you are trading in human life. Maybe not intentionally, but certainly knowingly.

Anyway, I am just responding to your question. I have been asked to be civil, so I hope that is a civil answer.

I do a lot of short journeys in my car that are less than two miles. I don't feel bad about it either. I have to make a living at the end of the day.

The reason for it, is because I have to travel between clients, and a five minute car journey can take me over an hour on foot. There's no public transport here, and cycling isn't an option either, as I walk dogs for a living so I need to transport them safely and legally.

I'm self-employed and don't get paid my travel time. I have to be able to get between clients quickly, easily and safely. Last week I didn't have a car and walking everywhere added 2-3 hours on to my working day, and it meant I had to cancel/reschedule some clients as it was simply impossible for me to get everywhere on time.

Luckily I now have my car back and I can actually do my job!

Always bemused by people who believe themselves in a position to preach to others about how they should live or what they should do.

I marvel at the arrogance of thinking it's your job to correct the behaviour of others. Particularly when that behaviour is perfectly legal.

Where do you think this superiority comes from?

@ZeldalovesLink

Also vegan? So you’re concerned about the environment so don’t eat meat but more than happy to eat an avocado that’s been flown half way around the world?

Oh do bore off

OP isn’t vegan - for some reason, she isn’t bothered about that part of her carbon footprint. But I am also compelled to point out that a kg of lamb creates 46 times more carbon emissions than a kg of avocados imported from South America, so even if vegans subsisted entirely on I
imported avocados (we don’t) and even if meat eaters subsisted entirely on local, grass fed lamb (they don’t) veganism is still the environmentally superior option.

Fair enough. But wouldn’t it be even more environmentally superior to not eat any produce that’s been flown half way round the world? Cut down the need for air travel entirely. Surely eating produce grown in the UK, or if accessible to you, local farm shops stocking their own produce would be even better?

@SueEllenMishke

How do I get to work without a car? How do I visit family?

I think that lots of people have set up lives which rely on cars, and once you have set that up, you are sort of trapped. I think in future, with car ownership less widely available, people won't set up their lives like that.

@HugeAckmansWife

Upthread you said any journey of under 2 miles was unnecessary but that simply isn't true. Yes people do use their cars sometimes out if laziness but that really is a drop in the ocean of all the large scale industry pollution so people are not going to significantly inconvenience themselves to change what won't make an appreciable difference

no, I didn't I said lots of journeys of less than 2 miles was unnecessary. not all of them