How would it work in real life.

LirW wrote: »

Train travel is indeed nice but it requires good infrastructure. This is not the case in Ireland unfortunately and a lot of train networks are very outdated. It's a crime that there is no inter-european high speed rail network that would allow us to travel between major cities in a matter of hours.

Also it does get significantly more difficult to refuse air travel if you have family scattered all over the place. If I want to see my mother, I can either get a plane, 4 hours and costs 1k for 4 of us if we get a good deal or a couple of days but taking the ferry to France, drive all the way down to Huelva, take the ferry to the canaries that only goes once a week and it costs me double for all 4 of us.
It's a weird time where flying is often the cheaper option. But I agree, this short distance city hopping for leisure is a big problem that has to stop.

They seem more concerned with building more roads. A 245 million motorway was announced yesterday for Co Mayo that shaves like 5 minutes off people's journeys. Do the people there not want better rail services?

Neyite

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

They seem more concerned with building more roads. A 245 million motorway was announced yesterday for Co Mayo that shaves like 5 minutes off people's journeys. Do the people there not want better rail services?

No point if it leaves you still miles from your destination with no transport connections onwards though which is common in rural areas.

Neyite wrote: »

No point if it leaves you still miles from your destination with no transport connections onwards though which is common in rural areas.

I know, but we need rail hubs all over the country really if we want to stop the dependence on cars

LirW

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I know, but we need rail hubs all over the country really if we want to stop the dependence on cars

Just imagine being able to get from Dublin to Sligo town in just over an hour. Or doing Wexford to Dublin in 45.
As it stands it would take me 3,5 hours one way to get from Wexford town to the capital. This isn't viable for commuters. It is beyond me why you wouldn't want to invest in a top public transport network that's affordable. As it stands I couldn't even safely walk or cycle over to the next village because the roads are bad, narrow, windy and everyone has to drive and drives fast.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

Neyite wrote: »

I've noticed that sewing and knitting is dying out.

Where a generation ago it was a way of making something new for yourself cheaper than anything you could buy, it's now something of a niche expensive hobby. And years ago it was a life skill you needed to know.

It's too expensive to make your own clothes now. I tried on a poorly-made jacket costing €60 in Next a few months ago and decided that I could make my own in a style and fabric I preferred. But the stuff I need to make it would cost over €200 AND some of those fixtures and snap buttons being shipped from China. If I were to charge for my time that it would take to make the bloody thing you are looking at three times that amount. It's mad.

There's a generation emerging that's never threaded a needle.

It's not that it's expensive to make your own clothes it's that it's just so cheap to buy them.

I'm still young enough to be considered a 'millennial' and I regularly mend, alter and make clothes/curtains etc because I learnt it from my mother and I genuinely enjoy it.

Some people think its difficult or that they need a sewing machine and don't want to learn how to do it. Sadly it is a dying skill along with many others, we won't know how to do anything for ourselves before long.

For clothes you can't beat a decent charity shop.

With the exception of some necessities all of my clothes are second hand and believe me you cannot tell. I have managed to convert many family and friends over to charity shop buys after they admired something I was wearing and I told them where I got it.

Amazing the quality items that are just discarded and can be picked up for a few quid.

One man's trash.........

We need more Fringegirls in the world

Neyite

Juniper Uneven Extinguisher wrote: »

It's not that it's expensive to make your own clothes it's that it's just so cheap to buy them.

I'm still young enough to be considered a 'millennial' and I regularly mend, alter and make clothes/curtains etc because I learnt it from my mother and I genuinely enjoy it.

Some people think its difficult or that they need a sewing machine and don't want to learn how to do it. Sadly it is a dying skill along with many others, we won't know how to do anything for ourselves before long.

For clothes you can't beat a decent charity shop.

With the exception of some necessities all of my clothes are second hand and believe me you cannot tell. I have managed to convert many family and friends over to charity shop buys after they admired something I was wearing and I told them where I got it.

Amazing the quality items that are just discarded and can be picked up for a few quid.

One man's trash.........

Sewing is fine if you like it and have a flair for it but the incentive for the vast majority to return back to making do, mending, re-purposing old clothes into new uses isn't there any more when you can go into Pennys or Next. But sewing can work out expensive and you do need some equipment and materials to get you going.

I read recently that in the 1920's flour and animal feed companies noticed that their sacks were getting used for children's clothing and other items as the cotton was good quality, so the flour companies started to put patterns on their cotton sacks so that children's clothes could be more colourful. How cool is that?

Bobblehats

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I know, but we need rail hubs all over the country really if we want to stop the dependence on cars

:pac: come on this is Ireland not IRLand.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

Neyite wrote: »

I read recently[/URL] that in the 1920's flour and animal feed companies noticed that their sacks were getting used for children's clothing and other items as the cotton was good quality, so the flour companies started to put patterns on their cotton sacks so that children's clothes could be more colourful. How cool is that?

Now that's innovation!!

LirW

Juniper Uneven Extinguisher wrote: »

With the exception of some necessities all of my clothes are second hand and believe me you cannot tell. I have managed to convert many family and friends over to charity shop buys after they admired something I was wearing and I told them where I got it.

Amazing the quality items that are just discarded and can be picked up for a few quid.

One man's trash.........

I made the commitment of not buying new clothes (except underwear and socks) for at least a year. I turned to second hand shopping instead especially online. You wouldn't believe how many good clothes are being sold for peanuts, with a lot of them being almost new. I recently bought 2 pairs of Next jeans on eBay, worn once, for 20 euro including postage. That's an 80% saving compared to the normal retail price. Or a virtually new pair of Lewis jeans for 15 quid. Or my most flattering dress that I got for 15 euros and is from a popular Eastern European brand.
The fast fashion industry drains me with the endless flood of ill-fitting garbage quality garments. I don't want to feed into that.
I know it's about picking battles and this is mine.

Capt'n Midnight

stoneill wrote: »

Each country has to reduce population by 50%.
I know which group I'd start with.

Or bring it to the level it was at during the 1840's

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

The "right to repair" should be pushed for and in some quarters it is.

From 2021 in the EU

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_19_5889

What improvements have been proposed on reparability and durability of appliances?

In order to promote reparability, and therefore to increase the lifespan of appliances, several ecodesign measures aim at facilitating products repair by ensuring the availability of spare parts, in particular that:

spare parts are available over a long period of time after purchase, e.g.:

o 7 years minimum for refrigerating appliances (10 years for door gaskets);

o 10 years minimum for household washing-machines and household washer-dryers;

o 10 years minimum for household dishwashers (7 years for some parts for which access can be restricted to professional repairers);

o moreover, during that period, the manufacturer shall ensure the delivery of the spare parts within 15 working days.

spare parts can be replaced with the use of commonly available tools and without permanent damage to the appliance;

In order to enhance the repair market, manufacturers have to ensure the availability of repair and professional maintenance information for professional repairers.

Back in the day any electrical goods sold in Italy had to include a circuit diagram so this sort of thing isn't new.

Capt'n Midnight

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Travelling by train is so much nicer though, like loads of times when I lived in London I would take the train to Holyhead and then take the ferry, it's only 35 quid on the day from Euston. I could leave flat at 0830 and be back in me ma's at 1800 or so. If you take into account the stress and time involved going to airports etc it's not even that much different.
Unfortunately we're a bit more reliant on planes being an island, but I don't see why we need flights going to every corner of Europe and new routes being announced all the time. If you can fly to Paris or London or Madrid you can take trains anywhere really.

Trains are more relaxing but are usually stupid expensive. Off peak air fares beat rail over any sort of distance.

That £35 journey is now £49.00 (€52.59) But only because of the ferry. From Holyhead to Waterloo it's usually double that and more again to go to another station.

Ryanair can do it for €13.99 depending on when you can travel. If you don't mind getting a train to/from Gatwick

For goods trains and boats are more economic. But over long trips passengers need more than just minimum spacing of airline seats. All that dead weight for beds and cabins and promenades and adds up.

ancapailldorcha

Reyansh Scruffy Ufo wrote: »

The problem with smartphones is that manufacturers typically release a "must-have" upgrade every year. The lemmings are then driven bananas by the hype and believe that life is not worth living until get their hands on the newest model.

Never understood this. Considering replacing my 6-year old Kindle Fire as it's starting to get really sluggish. I've a 3-year old Moto G5 that still works fine. Couldn't care less about the OS.

Personally, I think any smartphone over a few hundred is an appalling waste of money but that's another topic.

nkl12xtw5goz70

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Never understood this. Considering replacing my 6-year old Kindle Fire as it's starting to get really sluggish. I've a 3-year old Moto G5 that still works fine. Couldn't care less about the OS.

Personally, I think any smartphone over a few hundred is an appalling waste of money but that's another topic.

Completely agree. When you consider what most people do with their phones (talking, texting, social media, etc.), it's hard to see how a €1,000 device does those things better than a €200 device.

I have an older Kindle, one of the black-and-white e-ink ones, which I find far more comfortable to read on. I fully intend to keep it until it stops working.

Sleepy

Maybe it's because I'm of a generation raised on Star Trek: The Next Generation, news of NASA's space shuttle missions and the emergence of the World Wide Web but I grew up with a very optimistic view of the world's future. Maybe I was just young and naieve (highly likely tbh) but, over the past few years, I've become increasingly pessimistic about the future. The world might not "end" in my lifetime and my kids may even make it out unscathed until the end of their natural lives but I can't see any grandkids I may have living in anything like the level of comfort we in the Western world do today.

Our levels of consumption of natural resources are beyond unsustainable and as the wealth in capitalist countries has concentrated to a level not seen since the days of the feudal system, our capitalist societies couldn't have been better designed to prevent any meaningful attempt at reversing this.

Inventions that should have lead to the most educated population in human history (Television, media and the internet) have instead lead to "fake news", increases in the infection rates of diseases we had all but eliminated, vacuous obsession with "influencers" who do nothing but consume in as ostentatious a fashion as they can and populations that are electing celebrity politicians pushing policies that actually harm their own support base.

It's mind-boggling tbh. It's going to take societal change on a staggering level to prevent us from making our planet inhabitable (or inhospitable at the least) for the vast majority of the population. All the dystopian sci-fi of an elite few living in luxury beyond our wildest dreams whilst the vast majority live in the burned out shell of our current societies is looking more and more prescient to me.

Perhaps our inaction in relation to climate change will provide the solution by wiping out half our global population and a more sustainable system will develop amongst the survivors? Maybe some mutated strain of the influenza virus will emerge to cull our numbers? Or it could be as simple as the predicted "water wars" that'll do the trick?

IMHO, Western society in the latter half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st are going to be looked back at as a Utopian time to be alive. It's rampant consumerism will be directly responsible for many of the problems of the future.

A whole load of people need to go. 60/70/80%+. Simple as that.

The only question is who goes and who doesn't.

If the populations of China and India disappeared tomorrow it'd be a good start. Disarm/clean up man-made hazards like nuclear reactors and then leave nature to takes its course and leave those regions unpopulated.

Its going to happen one way or another, better you than me

fattymuatty

Juniper Uneven Extinguisher wrote: »

It's not that it's expensive to make your own clothes it's that it's just so cheap to buy them.

I'm still young enough to be considered a 'millennial' and I regularly mend, alter and make clothes/curtains etc because I learnt it from my mother and I genuinely enjoy it.

Some people think its difficult or that they need a sewing machine and don't want to learn how to do it. Sadly it is a dying skill along with many others, we won't know how to do anything for ourselves before long.

For clothes you can't beat a decent charity shop.

With the exception of some necessities all of my clothes are second hand and believe me you cannot tell. I have managed to convert many family and friends over to charity shop buys after they admired something I was wearing and I told them where I got it.

Amazing the quality items that are just discarded and can be picked up for a few quid.

One man's trash.........

It astonishes me the things I find in charity shops. The other week I got 2 zara dresses for my daughter both with 20e price tags still attached. A jumper for her again with price tags still on and a pair of new with tags diesel jeans for my son. They cost me 4e for all 4. Who is buying all this stuff and not even using it?

we try and buy second hand everything where we can, I haven't bought new technology in years. I have a 1400e laptop that I bought for 400e, it still has the warranty, when our phones die we buy second hand ones for 100s less than they retail for. I suppose if people stopped buying so much there wouldn't be as much for me to snap up second hand!

Having said that I do have an ecommerce business where I try my best to persuade people to buy. In my defence though everything I sell is biodegradable, made entirely by me with no ill effects to the environment and I make sure my packaging is eco friendly too.

beejee wrote: »

A whole load of people need to go. 60/70/80%+. Simple as that.

The only question is who goes and who doesn't.

If the populations of China and India disappeared tomorrow it'd be a good start. Disarm/clean up man-made hazards like nuclear reactors and then leave nature to takes its course and leave those regions unpopulated.

Its going to happen one way or another, better you than me

It would be better if we got rid of the populations of EU/USA as they are the largest consumers in the world!

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It would be better if we got rid of the populations of EU/USA as they are the largest consumers in the world!

No chance, not as long as I'm from here!

And you can bet your hole that's how theyre planning too.

So, again, it's going to happen one way or another and it'll be the best man that wins, not the most self-conscientious

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

It works in practice because the small percentage of the worlds's wealthy are serviced by the vast majority of low wage workers who create all these products at basically slave labour.

Its unsustainable.

Any time there is vast inequality there is war. It's inevitable. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The last bit isn’t true at all. I mean except for Spartacus the Roman Empire had no wars caused by poverty and except for one attempted peasant revolution people accepted their lot in the Middle Ages.

As for the solution to the present system - I’m pretty sure we can significantly reduce plastic use without much harm, we can easily reduce the importation of unnessary foods without much reduction in living standards, meat could be made in labs and the solution to the carbon crisis is technologically available right now.

Just needs a political will.

beejee wrote: »

A whole load of people need to go. 60/70/80%+. Simple as that.

The only question is who goes and who doesn't.

If the populations of China and India disappeared tomorrow it'd be a good start. Disarm/clean up man-made hazards like nuclear reactors and then leave nature to takes its course and leave those regions unpopulated.

Its going to happen one way or another, better you than me

Who is going to get rid of all the billions in China and India? You volunteering? The Irish army might lose against the Chinese though.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Valid problems and all will have to be addrerssed in time.

Regarding the travel - I'm talking more for short distances. I'm travelling from Berlin to Amsterdam middle of next month and Deutche Bahn want 75 euro, whereas Easyjet want 88. And that's before I add the suitcase (contains paint, not an option as hand luggage). Same for other destinations in the same distance, such as Copenhagen, Prague or Munich.

Short term flights will be one of the first things to go: if it's less than 400-500 odd miles, there'll be a lot of empahsis on land-based travel. It's just a case of being a bit more organised and a bit less demanding. (As I said, this will be trickier for Ireland, being an island)

The EU needs to create a Eurobond market to facilitate this. Unfortunately Germany has a fear of debt which tends to influence the ECB.

I too agree that trains are much better than planes. I hate airports. I rocked up to a rural train station outside Bremen 5 minutes before departure, going to Berlin. The layover in Hamburg was 15 minutes so getting to Berlin took in total 3 hrs 20. It’s also much more relaxed. No security. No gates. No waiting. No checking or snarling Ryanair staff. Germany has no barrierr in train stations.

These trains need to run all across Europe.

biko

Just ban planes for rich and poor alike.
Irish people can holiday in Cork, no need to go to the sun in Spain.

biko wrote: »

Just ban planes for rich and poor alike.
Irish people can holiday in Cork, no need to go to the sun in Spain.

Aviation isn’t a huge problem in terms of overall emissions. If there’s a ban it needs high speed rail first (and exemptions for islands). Can’t be stick and no carrot.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Who is going to get rid of all the billions in China and India? You volunteering? The Irish army might lose against the Chinese though.

Inevitability, that's who. Not necessarily the Chinese or Indians, even though they're they're the closest to a disease-creating hotbed already.

Plastic straws to paper? Keeping your old e-reader for an extra year or two? Carbon credits? Electric cars? Walking around with a placard... Nobody in their right mind can actually expect that to achieve anything even remotely close to the changes needed. It's laughably inadequate, like asking someone to stick a finger in the titanics hole to stop it sinking

Drastic depopulation is going to happen, whether naturally, purposefully, or more likely a combination. And the ones that cop on first will be better for it.

beejee wrote: »

Inevitability, that's who. Not necessarily the Chinese or Indians, even though they're they're the closest to a disease-creating hotbed already.

China is going to be rich and technologically savvy enough to survive I’m sure.

Plastic straws to paper? Keeping your old e-reader for an extra year or two? Carbon credits? Electric cars? Walking around with a placard... Nobody in their right mind can actually expect that to achieve anything even remotely close to the changes needed. It's laughably inadequate, like asking someone to stick a finger in the titanics hole to stop it sinking

That’s true although it doesn’t really explain why the Chinese are done for.

Drastic depopulation is going to happen, whether naturally, purposefully, or more likely a combination. And the ones that cop on first will be better for it.

Maybe the Chinese will be taking out the Europeans?

This kind of crazy catastrophism isn’t going to help much. However the problem is solvable - just needs money.

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Never understood this. Considering replacing my 6-year old Kindle Fire as it's starting to get really sluggish. I've a 3-year old Moto G5 that still works fine. Couldn't care less about the OS.

Personally, I think any smartphone over a few hundred is an appalling waste of money but that's another topic.

A smartphone isn’t a huge carbon cost in terms of use. Ignoring externalities (like the cost of data centres if you stream) the carbon cost of a years worth of charging a device is less than baking a cake. Heating the house, cooling the fridge, drying clothes, and cooking are the biggest costs in a house, followed maybe by the TV a long way back.

Modern lights and devices are trivial in comparison.