The cost of Europe's switch to biomass

As with everything in modern life...Follow the money.

I feel sad seeing trees being cut down and forests razed. On a long enough timeline all resources will eventually regenerate. Oil and coal will be formed underground and trees will grow. Juggling the numbers so they look good on paper is all that’s really happening everywhere because unless we go backward to the way life was many years ago nothing will change substantially enough to make a difference.

It makes me laugh that plastic bags are so venomously banned, yet Councils require entire houses to be wrapped in heavy gauge plastic for almost all renovations and all whiteware etc is encased in huge amounts of styrofoam also machinery and parts, and we are encouraged by Sustainability Trusts to polythene the ground under houses to stop dampness rising. Pink Batts are wrapped in plastic. Glass is wrapped in plastic. Joinery is wrapped in plastic. Printers and consumables are plastic. Phones, chargers and cabling, plastic. Our gutters are made of plastic. Toys are made of plastic. Shoes and bags, plastic. The list is endless. Those plastic bags and straws that everyone feels so pious about ditching are the tiniest most laughable part of the problem.

The only way anything can change is to go native and ditch mod cons and technology. That is never going to happen. All the rest is just lip service to appease the preachers who themselves also use the same technology and whiteware and plumbing that all of us ordinary sinful mortals surround ourselves in and that contribute to this modern world of wasteful consumerism.

Personally, I would love to repair rather than guiltily throw away perfectly good items. Back in the year dot that I grew up in there were repairmen and we lived quite well with our repaired jugs and toasters and washing machines that lasted for dozens of years...no supermarkets and a local butcher and fishmonger who wrapped in paper and everyone who was willing could get a job to support a family where an unstressed mum stayed home and raised kids who were free to play outside without a plastic device attached to their arm and didn’t need to be put in a crèche for strangers to raise them from age 3 months. Where service was a priority, where we paid in cash from a banks with polite tellers and all those people who are unemployed now because 'progress' has removed the need for their jobs were still meaningfully employed instead of sitting around feeling worthless because they can’t attain the gadgets that are now deemed so necessary. Where we walked to a switch because Alexa wasn’t around to turn the lights on and off. Where you went home to rest not work and your boss wouldn't interrupt your dinner. Where cows were not vilified for farting and no one told you that having children was bad for the planet.

Reading that article made me think back to the simple life these people are craving for and feeling sad for the complicated world we now live in and its cost to the health and sanity of our young. The oncology wards have been expanded because cases are rising and on my last visit I was struck by a young man in his thirties who had come in for treatment. He was sitting on his bed surrounded by work papers and laptop, eyes looking stressed to the max and you could hear it in his voice. What are we doing to ourselves?

Batman

Gurezaemon

Eva888

elbrownos

Fred99