What will you be doing on March 29th?

[Tangled Metal]

Well as part of one of the last manufacturing industries to be doing well, automotive, I can tell you less trade will do for the UK industry. We're already in a slump that's unusual for the time of year. Some parts still doing well though it's not looking too good so far.

[mjr]

A voyage into the unknown.
Past all time and space.
Discover yourself.
Beam me up Scotty.

You cannot change the laws of physics

But the laws of economy.. It could be very good if less trade was done. Right now transport and importexport are so cheap and easy goods are made at A, stored at B, sold at C. GB could be self-sufficient

Isn't trying to make it more expensive by tying import/export up in red tape and tariffs doomed to failure as international trade simply happens with other countries that will do trade deals? Isn't the solution to make the economics reflect the physics by taxing transport to reflect the harm it does, as part of international agreements? But the UK is about to start withdrawing from its main international agreements and Chancellor Hammond has indicated we're going to become a tax haven, so it seems unlikely that this is a priority.

[PDQ Mobile]

"

and when i think of the anti-immigrant rhetoric from the right, well the left isn't much better i'm afraid. alright the left accepts that people have a right to settle here, but the right not to be exploited by landlords and employers isn't so important, and the plights of existing low skilled workers and flat renters go ignored. that's gotta be the most right wing thing i can think of... and it seems all this racism and xenophobia could have been avoided.

all these deeply conflicting ideologies seem to give each other excuses to survive.

It's not just immigration though, it's freedom of movement. All of Europe is there for you to go explore, live and work in. Meet interesting people etc.

[PDQ Mobile]

A voyage into the unknown.
Past all time and space.
Discover yourself.
Beam me up Scotty.

You cannot change the laws of physics

But the laws of economy.. It could be very good if less trade was done. Right now transport and importexport are so cheap and easy goods are made at A, stored at B, sold at C. GB could be self-sufficient

Isn't trying to make it more expensive by tying import/export up in red tape and tariffs doomed to failure as international trade simply happens with other countries that will do trade deals? Isn't the solution to make the economics reflect the physics by taxing transport to reflect the harm it does, as part of international agreements? But the UK is about to start withdrawing from its main international agreements and Chancellor Hammond has indicated we're going to become a tax haven, so it seems unlikely that this is a priority.

Star Trek was merely private but appreciated joke with Chris!


GB self sufficient in food would be something to aim for for sure.
Though given current agricultural policy and population not very likely.
But it's not going to happen under this Govt. They have no interest in such a concept.
They are interested in reducing taxes For the very rich.

We import, at the moment,a vast amount of foodstuffs from Europe. Some very basic and important.
I prefer to see that imported from our fellow partners with good reasonably strict environmental standards than from far flung places with produce of dubious origin.
And then there are the transport considerations.
How much better to import food from a relatively stable political entity than from Latin America?

[ChrisOntLancs]

i failed to explain what i wanted to explain in that post sorry, and i'm not going to try because i value human life too much haha

and loving the star trek jokes, i offered those up to warn people that it's all a bit 'blue sky thinking' for me before indulging me with something based in reality and you don't tell me to go up, grown ups are talking

i'm on the kelvin timeline now. they're better films, with better actors, and better resources all round... but they're just worse... much worse.

[Ben@Forest]

GB self sufficient in food would be something to aim for for sure.
Though given current agricultural policy and population not very likely.
But it's not going to happen under this Govt. They have no interest in such a concept.
They are interested in reducing taxes For the very rich.

We import, at the moment,a vast amount of foodstuffs from Europe. Some very basic and important.
I prefer to see that imported from our fellow partners with good reasonably strict environmental standards than from far flung places with produce of dubious origin.
And then there are the transport considerations.
How much better to import food from a relatively stable political entity than from Latin America?

We have no chance of being self-sufficient in food unless the population drops to between 15 and 30 million depending upon the way we farm and our diet etc. We also import 80% of our timber.

I have written this before but it's worth repeating - I once met an M&S buyer who said that for every campaigner campaigning about food miles there's another who's promoting Kenyan green beans which come from a long way away but are from a women's co-operative and supporting a primary school and so on. Also importing from a less stable political entity may help the country or region become more stable.

[bovlomov]

I have written this before but it's worth repeating - I once met an M&S buyer who said that for every campaigner campaigning about food miles there's another who's promoting Kenyan green beans which come from a long way away but are from a women's co-operative and supporting a primary school and so on. Also importing from a less stable political entity may help the country or region become more stable.

It's not just the development angle. Kenyan veg - even allowing for airmiles - might have a smaller carbon footprint than north European greenhouse veg.

[pwa]

I have written this before but it's worth repeating - I once met an M&S buyer who said that for every campaigner campaigning about food miles there's another who's promoting Kenyan green beans which come from a long way away but are from a women's co-operative and supporting a primary school and so on. Also importing from a less stable political entity may help the country or region become more stable.

It's not just the development angle. Kenyan veg - even allowing for airmiles - might have a smaller carbon footprint than north European greenhouse veg.

If you are primarily motivated by concern for the long term environment of this planet, buy local and buy what is in season. Getting your veg from Africa or any other remote location is madness.

[Ben@Forest]

If you are primarily motivated by concern for the long term environment of this planet, buy local and buy what is in season. Getting your veg from Africa or any other remote location is madness.

True, but if you (we) were primarily motivated by concern for the long term environment of this planet we would be trying to reduce our population growth (and our population) which simply isn't happening. And it's not necessarily procreation but also being determined to live as long as possible.

[meic]

And it's not necessarily procreation but also being determined to live as long as possible.

However if living longer also means procreating later then the population growth will be lessened exponentially.

[pwa]

If you are primarily motivated by concern for the long term environment of this planet, buy local and buy what is in season. Getting your veg from Africa or any other remote location is madness.

True, but if you (we) were primarily motivated by concern for the long term environment of this planet we would be trying to reduce our population growth (and our population) which simply isn't happening. And it's not necessarily procreation but also being determined to live as long as possible.

With most problems it makes sense to do the easy things first. Buying local produce is easy for a lot of us. Not having ten kids is a choice that most of us make anyway, and I do think more should be done to encourage couples to keep procreation to a reasonable level. And we need to put some real thought into how an aging population can thrive without increasing the number of young, working age people significantly. That is a conundrum. But buying local is something we can do today.

[Ben@Forest]

And it's not necessarily procreation but also being determined to live as long as possible.

However if living longer also means procreating later then the population growth will be lessened exponentially.

But the longer you live the more resources you consume. So if you had two kids in your 20s and died in your late 60s you consumed less than 70 years worth of resources. If you had two kids in your late 30s and died in your late 80s you consumed nearly 90 years worth of resources, some of which are finite. Living longer is a problem.

[meic]

But the longer you live the more resources you consume

But not as much as with 2 children or 4 grandchildren.
A couple who breed at 16 are consuming twice as much as the couple who breed at 32 for the 16 years between. Of course if the same family habitually breed at 16 compared to a family who habitually breed at 32 the increase will not be just double but doubling exponentially.

[old_windbag]

my rule of thumb is that a new generation arrives every 25-30yrs. So if we lived to 70 as around 60 yrs ago then we'd have typically 2-3 generations living in parallel. So grandparents, parents, children and quite often we'd be born with some grandparents having shuffled off their mortal coil. Impatient.

Now life expectancy is getting close to 90 so we will see 3-4 generations in parallel, not so good, population boom. One side of things is that if we do live longer we should have a longer physically fit working life to sustain us later in life( reducing need for the young to fund us ). So raising pension age in proportion to life expectancy and encouraging healthy lifestyles. If we used to live to 75, retired at 65 then that was 15% retirement time so if we live to 90 on average we'd retire at 76. But men would retire earlier having shorter life expectancy!

[PDQ Mobile]

I have written this before but it's worth repeating - I once met an M&S buyer who said that for every campaigner campaigning about food miles there's another who's promoting Kenyan green beans which come from a long way away but are from a women's co-operative and supporting a primary school and so on. Also importing from a less stable political entity may help the country or region become more stable.

It's not just the development angle. Kenyan veg - even allowing for airmiles - might have a smaller carbon footprint than north European greenhouse veg.

To both of the above;
i.e, politicsl stability is enhanced by food coops.

And (more relavent to food debate) that carbon foodprint of flown in beans from Kenya is similar to greenhouse grown food stuffs from N Europe.


Is there any evidence that either is true?