Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

markjohnobrien
Posts: 1037
Joined: 4 Oct 2007, 8:15pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by markjohnobrien »

simonineaston wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 11:13am The day is fast approaching when it will be too late. Thus human-kind will have lived in three ages - the long, long time when they did not consider the notion of stewardship of their home planet and just took it for granted; the much shorter time when they knew what they had done & could have done something about it - and the time after that momentous & pivotal day, when it became too late to make a difference, regardless of what they did. As far as I'm able to tell, that awful day is Monday 12th of April, 2021. :lol:
Rather a doomster post.

I’m positive that human ingenuity and creativity will find a solution - as we always do.

And don’t anybody call me Dr Pangloss! I’m just optimistic.
Raleigh Randonneur 708 (Magura hydraulic brakes); Blue Raleigh Randonneur 708 dynamo; Pearson Compass 631 tourer; Dawes One Down 631 dynamo winter bike;Raleigh Travelogue 708 tourer dynamo; Kona Sutra; Trek 920 disc Sram Force.
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by Jdsk »

markjohnobrien wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 11:19am
simonineaston wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 11:13am The day is fast approaching when it will be too late. Thus human-kind will have lived in three ages - the long, long time when they did not consider the notion of stewardship of their home planet and just took it for granted; the much shorter time when they knew what they had done & could have done something about it - and the time after that momentous & pivotal day, when it became too late to make a difference, regardless of what they did. As far as I'm able to tell, that awful day is Monday 12th of April, 2021. :lol:
Rather a doomster post.

I’m positive that human ingenuity and creativity will find a solution - as we always do.

And don’t anybody call me Dr Pangloss! I’m just optimistic.
I'm not expecting "a solution". But we can make the future better or worse.

Jonathan
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by al_yrpal »

Psamathe wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 11:07am
al_yrpal wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 10:53am....
We are on the move to a house that is within yards of a small post office stores with a bus stop to the town, major supermarkets and hospital.....
Having a bus stop is no solution - you need buses as well! I live less than ½ mile from a bus stop and the couple of buses every day are timed to be totally useless. And they only take you to the city, not the nearest town/supermarket/GP/etc..

Ian
Well, in this case the buses are every 30 minutes and stop at all the places I have mentioned as well as the bus station in Taunton which means buses to everywhere. It all lies in where you choose to live. A similar aged friend of mine recently moved from his very nice 2 buses a day bungalow to a hideous modern estate with a bus stop that has many more buses into Exeter. As you get older you have to make compromises. In my days driving the charity bus I picked up many lonely cut off old folk out in the sticks with no means of transport. Personally I wouldnt wish to be one of them. If you are fit enough a bike can help.

Simon, we can do without even more doom! :(

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by mjr »

al_yrpal wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 10:53am Even with my two 56 litre panniers there is no way I could get a major shop into them, they are just too small. Put in a 2 litre container of milk some cans of dog food, Bananas, a bag of potatoes, some tins of tomatoes and a couple of bottles of wine, the weight of all that would be becoming a problem too. This 78 year old is reasonably fit and well able to cycle a few miles loaded up but I would say that 3/4 of my contemporaries over 60 wouldnt due to lack of puff, various ailments and poor balance etc. Then, there is the question of weather, cold, rain, snow and ice as well as hills of which we have plenty.
And those situations are where e-bikes, trailers and e-cargo bikes help. I literally cannot remember (and this one not due to the medications!) the last time I took a car to the supermarket. A farm box brings the backbone of the seasonal veg, then I buy other things when I'm passing a butchers or a village shop and put them in my saddlebag or basket, I buy stuff (including fresh fish) off the open markets and put them in my panniers, and once every few weeks, I collect a clicked top-up order of heavy/large goods (mostly tins, flour, cartons and bottles) from one of the big box stores 3 miles away using the trailer. It's not fast, but it's not that difficult.

Pre-covid, there was one or two weekly small supermarket shops to load the panniers with the big goods, combined with other trips, but as click-and-collect expanded and people started acting stupid in later lockdowns, it seemed like a good idea to switch. It's probably slightly saved time. I don't think it has saved money.

The rain was testing on three occasions over winter, but honestly not as often a problem as I thought. The trailer collections are worst for that because they are pre-booked and can only be varied within an hour window, whereas other trips can be varied a bit based on short-range forecasts.
I wont be using the bike to shop because its impractical.
I can see how it might be for your situation, but that is because of choices you've made (not to get an e-bike, where you move to) and, as you imply later, choices government has made (to allow huge estates with no services and difficult cycling).

I think one big question is how we offer better choices to people. Do motorised-shoppers have any suggestions what they think would make them stop sucking the exhaust pipes? In some years, "no, never, you'll have to prise my car keys from my cold dead hands" might be an even less realistic attitude to now, as it doesn't look like there's enough resources for a one-to-one electric-for-ICE car replacement.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by mjr »

Vorpal wrote: 9 Apr 2021, 9:12pmSouth of the A120, I expect that almost all villages have a shop within 20 minutes active travel. Outside of the towns, north of the A120, many villages are too small for a shop, and not very close to a village that is big enough for one. Or there is one, but it more like for bread, milk, nappies, & emergency meal, rather than a daily shop.
I'm not sure that we mean the same things by "daily shop" and also I am surprised that village shops in North Essex are so much worse than West Norfolk, <naked-gun>but that's not important right now.</naked-gun>
Anyway, people don't want to do daily shopping 20 minutes away. They want to do daily shopping 5 or 10 minutes away, or on their way home from work, and weekly shopping 20 minutes away. Maybe 30.
But we start somewhere. I don't think we can go directly from the current one hour neighbourhoods to 5 or 10 minutes and I think 20-minute neighbourhoods has a good feel, as it means that you can pop out for a 5 minute shop during your lunch hour, including spending 15 minutes eating your lunch somewhere nicer (once it's not so flipping cold!).
But honestly, my main point is that infrastructure, schools, service, shops, housing, etc. need to be looked at holistically. I don't know if there are any countries that do a good job of that, but the UK certainly does not. Norway is a little better, [...]
Amen to that. Maybe some more of our correspondents from abroad can tell us how it's currently working (or not) where they live? Whether active travel is a real part of planning and governing, or a rather inconsistently-applied ambition like in England.

I wondered if Denmark had some lessons, but https://colvilleandersen.medium.com/cop ... 69ebf16dc1 makes me wonder if they are not immune from planning farts and complacency either.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by al_yrpal »

I have had an E Bike for nearly 2 years I dont think it would help me on the shopping front. Change will be incremental not sudden. One promising development is the big growth in Convenience Shops which people we can walk or ride to. I believe that will continue. But these vast estates already built with no space for local shops are a problem. I do pick up eggs, veg and plants sometimes on my rides.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by mjr »

al_yrpal wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 1:43pm I have had an E Bike for nearly 2 years I dont think it would help me on the shopping front.
Sorry if I misinterpreted but I thought you were saying that carrying capacity in volume, weight and puff were the limitation? E-bikes seem like they help with all, or have I misunderstood something my e-riding friends have told me?
Change will be incremental not sudden. One promising development is the big growth in Convenience Shops which people we can walk or ride to. I believe that will continue. But these vast estates already built with no space for local shops are a problem. I do pick up eggs, veg and plants sometimes on my rides.
I agree with all that and well done doing what you can. I think the zoning/usage policies will have to change to enable an occasional detached house or outbuilding in those "Bryant Estates" to be converted to a shop or other service. We've seen enough go the other way!
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Vorpal
Moderator
Posts: 20700
Joined: 19 Jan 2009, 3:34pm
Location: Not there ;)

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by Vorpal »

mjr wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 12:40pm
I wondered if Denmark had some lessons, but https://colvilleandersen.medium.com/cop ... 69ebf16dc1 makes me wonder if they are not immune from planning farts and complacency either.
Denmark seems to have done better than many other countries in urban planning, but TBH, in rural areas, they aren't always very much better than the UK.

They tend to do a little better with bike routes between villages, but villages are generally further apart, and once you get there, there's often either no cycle parking, or only the wheel bender type, and bikes are leaning up against the buildings and what not. Many visitor attractions have relatively poor cycle access, and Danish ferry ports have little or no signposting for cyclists. The Norway end of the Larvik - Hirtshals ferry is 10X better than the Danish end. The Danish end has cycle path that just ends when you get to the car queuing & parking area. Absolutely no indication of what a cyclist should do. The Norwegian end has cycle path that goes right up to the port (although it is a a bit circuitous to avoid the motor traffic queues), and once you get there, there a sign for where cyclists should board. Both ends lack signs for disembarking cyclists, but it's a little harder to get muddled up getting off the ferry than on.

I certainly haven't found any evidence of the sort of joined up thinking I'm talking about. The Netherlands seems to do a bit better, in that all of these things are considered when they build new housing, and they've done some interesting studies on food access, but I don't have a good idea how they implement improvements.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by thirdcrank »

Habits change quickly and not all the predictions are right. AIUI, the pandemic has changed shopping habits in that there's been the move to online shopping a lot of the big players have been investing in, and also a return to the weekly shop, especially when shopping = endless queuing. Nobody has much idea how things will go after lockdown. Some of the recent trend towards convenience stores has been driven by people shopping from work eg during a lunchbreak. If working from home becomes permanent, then a lot of convenience shops in town centres may go down the tubes.

Town planners tend to be even "further behind the curve" than the executives of major supermarkets.
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by al_yrpal »

In the West Country there are plenty of Spar Convenience stores in villages and Tesco Express and One Stop are very active putting in new stores. With the number of small shops going broke and making more premises available in small towns I expect the availability of Convenience Stores to improve. Our local ones are moderately busy throughout the day you often have to queue waiting for a green light. The queues of cars and vans at Macdonalds at about 10am are amazing! :lol:

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
atlas_shrugged
Posts: 534
Joined: 8 Nov 2016, 7:50pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by atlas_shrugged »

How far away is the nearest Amazon locker from those that have to use a car to do their shopping? In our village we have lost our shop, post office and probably the pub will soon go. But we have a brand new Amazon locker next to the station.

I am not suggesting that Amazon provides food shopping yet. I am just curious if the compulsive car shoppers have a nearby Amazon locker that could also have a neighbouring food locker.

Local shops have been driven out of business by punishing business rates and council red tape and the supermarkets. The local food locker may be able to restore some locality for food shopping.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by mjr »

thirdcrank wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 2:13pm Habits change quickly and not all the predictions are right. AIUI, the pandemic has changed shopping habits in that there's been the move to online shopping a lot of the big players have been investing in, and also a return to the weekly shop, especially when shopping = endless queuing.
The data I have seen agrees with a big move to online, but it says there has been a move away from the weekly shop, with people more likely to buy smaller amounts more often when they notice there is not a queue.

I suspect the problems during the first lockdown broke most people out of the habit and now few want to go queue up in packed shops once a week any more.
Nobody has much idea how things will go after lockdown. Some of the recent trend towards convenience stores has been driven by people shopping from work eg during a lunchbreak. If working from home becomes permanent, then a lot of convenience shops in town centres may go down the tubes.
Only in those town centres without enough residents any more. I think places with more mixed centres like Norwich, Cambridge and Bristol are robust enough to cope, but maybe the junk food shops that relied on particular office complexes will go: maybe not a bad thing for the obesity epidemic? It will probably be those in business districts that used to be deserted after 5pm which will feel the pain worst.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by mjr »

atlas_shrugged wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 2:31pm How far away is the nearest Amazon locker from those that have to use a car to do their shopping?
My nearest ones are in the nearby town (5 miles) and the service area on the dual carriageway that is a nasty journey by bike (4 miles by A roads, 6 by back roads). There is a set of inPost/Hermes lockers 2 miles away, though.
Local shops have been driven out of business by punishing business rates and council red tape and the supermarkets. The local food locker may be able to restore some locality for food shopping.
Existing local food box delivery services may be another interesting channel.

I suspect business rates will need reform to stop almost all shops moving online and even then giving the big boxes an advantage over local sellers, but I am not sure how.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Jdsk
Posts: 24636
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by Jdsk »

mjr wrote: 12 Apr 2021, 2:45pmI suspect business rates will need reform to stop almost all shops moving online and even then giving the big boxes an advantage over local sellers, but I am not sure how.
Paul Johnson: "Abolishing business rates is not the answer to the high street’s problems":
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13132

(That title does not mean that he doesn't see the need for changes.)

Jonathan
atlas_shrugged
Posts: 534
Joined: 8 Nov 2016, 7:50pm

Re: Obesity epidemic and our addiction to oil

Post by atlas_shrugged »

In our area we have organic food box delivery that is quite busy. If they were able to deliver to shared food lockers this would save their costs massively. This would probably need support from an innovative council.

I guess at present only the oligarchy companies such as Amazon are able to get the appropriate planning permission and investment for lockers and this would be beyond the resources of a small local organic food company.
Post Reply