THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

Thank goodness your growths checked out, daz, here's hoping that things continue to improve. Enjoy your trip to LA and perhaps you can check out what folks over there do by way of prepping for earthquakes, whether they get sent government leaflets recommending various courses of actionetc.

I feel quite relaxed about burning the woody parts of that year's plants in the autumn because I am only releasing carbon which they have stored for months. The problems arise when you start tapping into carbon which has been stored for thousands of years (peat) or been concentrated for millions of years (oil and natural gas). A lot of it all at once tips natural systems. It they tip beyond a certain point, the conserquences could mean sea level rises covering most of the world's most densely populated areas.

Bye-bye London, the south east, eastern england. Manchester will probably be fine. At the seaside, but fine, but we won't all fit in there.

Cappella

Every action we take or decision we make on this fragile planet has a hidden cost.
Warmth is essential to human health and wellbeing. What the wood burning stoves are evil argument (which I do not wholly subscribe to) chooses to ignore is that no matter which source we choose to heat our homes will inevitably use finite resources; and will also inevitably release toxins, other pollutants and gases into the atmosphere.
Clean electricity Is produed in huge nuclear or coal fired power stations. There is as yet no safe or permanent way of disposing of nuclear waste, and coal pollutes whether the smoke goes up your own chimney or one convieniently out of your sight hundreds of miles away.
Natural gas is now piped hundreds of miles to this island and is serviced by fleets of vehicles, and a whole infrastructure heavily reliant on fossil fuels to move from place to place.
The release of gas by fracking has even more horrendous implications as yet either fully understood or realised
However, warmth is essential to human life. We cannot choose not to heat our homes. Choosing to freeze to death in severe winter weather in order to protect the planet would be ridiculous in the extreme.
So all can do is to make the best decisions we can, given our own circumstances whilst remaining very aware that every single decision we make has an environmental price tag attached.
After a lot of heart searching I have this week reluctantly had our living room wool carpet replaced with very heavy duty vinyl tiles. Given issues with plastic pollution this has been for me a very hard decision to make. However spillages as a result of MrOs health issues are now a daily occurrence; and although my decision can be viewed as morally reprehensible it was the only currently affordable and practical one I could make after seriously considering all options open. I have tried to mitigate the environmental damage by choosing tiles with a 30 year guarantee, but am aware that they will eventually wear out and be discarded by a future occupant of this house. I have cut up the carpet, and am using it to cover four huge compost bins, but am also aware that the dyes and chemicals used in its manufacture means that this is not an ideal answer.
The trouble is that there are no easy answers to anything really. Although I do have to say that taking anything that government says at face value is incredibly naive. Who rakes in the profits from the bigenergy companies is the question I would ask here? And how have these profits been affected by the people choosing to scavenge and process their own fuel rather than paying the exorbitant prices these companies can presently charge.
Every action has consequences, as no doubt our descendants will realise. But in the meantime we all have to live, and surely all we can do is do our best not to make life harder for future generations.
On which moral note I will go and put the kettle on, use a little unnecessary electricity and make a much needed cup of tea.

Cappella

Daz my apologies. I was so busy typing my manifesto forgot to say I am really pleased you are ok. Have a great time in the States too!

GreyQueen

Well said, Cappella.

All decisions affect someone, somewhere, in ways which we cannot see or know. Often, that someone is a non-human lifeform. I know animal lovers who effortlessly abandon their love of furry critters when said critters are mice or rats inside their own homes.I don't blame them, I'd be just the same.I very much doubt that there are enough woodstoves/ open fires out there to cause TPTB to have concerns about some of us escaping the matrix and achieving energy self-sufficiency.

However, there are real concerns about air quality in this country, and woodburners will be a minority contributor towards that, with vehicles being the majority contributor. If the amount of people dying prematurely because of air pollution were dying of an infectious disease, there would be global headlines and panic in the streets! Just because we cannot see folks dropping like flies around us, doesn't mean there isn't a severe and worsening problem.:(

Air quality in parts of my city is comparably-bad with London, according to air quality monitoring stations, and is reckoned to expose city centre residents like myself to the lung damage of a 10-a-day smoker. As a lifelong non-smoker, that p's me off. But what really gets my goat are the streets full of car after car containing only the driver. Some of these people will have geographic locations/ physical disabilities which mean a car is the only feasible way of them getting about their business. But not all of them.

From observation, eavesdropping and professional interactions at work (I deal with parking issues) others are such special snowflakes that they can't ride a bike or a bus with the plebs and have to bring their car right into the city centre even when they live 2-3 miles away in the burbs and are on a bus route/ within easy cycling distance.

Perhaps we can all look to ourselves and see what little changes we can make to lessen our own personal carbon footprint, such as forgoing a journey by car in favour of walking or cycling, or making something last instead of buying a new version because we can afford to do so and fancy a change?

fuddle

I'd also like to add that 'our' constant need for stuff is also at the forefront of giving our planet and it's atmosphere a kick. I lived in Teesside for the year before I moved to the South. I was only a handful of miles from the industrial heart of the North which actually spreads for miles with one plant after another, at least one involving radiation at some level. My BiL carries a radiation card. ICI produced for years there, still do in many respects. Strangely enough I never foraged that year.

I look around my home and although it's hardly fancy it's filled with stuff out of the factory - wood stains, man made fibres, plastics, wrought iron manipulated into shape, woods that have been mechanically processed from spindles to door frames, light bulbs, paints, UPVC door and glazing, fridge freezer with its gases. And I'm a conscious consumer!

[Deleted User]

The only way we can individually stop hurting the planet is to stop living and that's NOT an option. It's in our own interests to make of the life and resources that we find as good a job as we can under the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Good husbandry and good stewardship should be a given and education is the way to help humanity achieve both of those. Choice is a double edged sword as people have different views on what is and isn't acceptable behaviour don't they? Eyes need to be fully opened to the consequences of every action we take from what we chose to eat, if we all ate soya and veg instead of meat emissions from animals would lessen because they wouldn't be farmed for meat BUT people would probably increase emissions from their diet, to how we keep ourselves warm. We chose to heat our home by only using our stove and have learned to cope with the house being cooler than most would find comfortable by adding layers and staying active but I see people come to answer doors in the depths of winter in strappy tops and shorts so their homes must be very well heated it's all abut choices. We chose to only take our car out when we have several things to do locally or when we do a long distance trip to see family other wise we both walk, we both have bus passes that we use to do journeys that are too far to walk and I have a senior rail card for those times when I have to use the trains, I know people who drive from here to the local shops some 200yards away, who drive their children to the school which is in the next road and less than 1/4 of a mile and then pick them up again in the car in the evening. We all have brains but so few of us actually use them to think with and never make that link between what happens globally and our own every action at home.

ivyleaf

Great to hear your good news daz. Enjoy your trip

daz378

thanks for encouraging words .....yes GQ will ask our kid about their preparedness for earthquakes and fires which have come quite close to them in the past applied to my local credit union going to save up in the future straight from payroll so wont miss it but also wanted to borrow a few hundred as back up for my upcoming hols still waiting for membership pin number after 2 weeks filled form in to borrow and said website could not be reached ah.... not the slick operation of their commercial counterparts but il let them off they do help the community

GreyQueen

daz378 wrote: »

thanks for encouraging words .....yes GQ will ask our kid about their preparedness for earthquakes and fires which have come quite close to them in the past applied to my local credit union going to save up in the future straight from payroll so wont miss it but also wanted to borrow a few hundred as back up for my upcoming hols still waiting for membership pin number after 2 weeks filled form in to borrow and said website could not be reached ah.... not the slick operation of their commercial counterparts but il let them off they do help the community

At least you're not one of the recently-left-the-TSB-in-disgust customers who've been contacted by the companies with whom they have DDs to be told that they are deceased according to the TSB. Your credit union hasn't killed you off, at least.:rotfl:

mardatha

We have to keep ourselves and our families warm, whatever the govt of the day decrees is bad or good. Personally there is no sodding way I'm going to sit up on this moor freezing my assets off while the whole of China, Russia & India burn more coal than the 7th circle of hell. And the govt can like it or lump it