Monday 1 February 2010

GOODBYE MOTOR CAR?

Are you in love with your car? Do you polish it and pamper it? Or do you just get in it every day and drive it to work or into town to do your shopping?

How long is it since you had to use a bus or train and sit next to some obnoxious Cretin?

Chances are if you live in the City you will be used to the latter but if you are from elsewhere, particularly in the countryside, you are probably heavily dependent on Motor Cars and if you are anything like me, you won’t have been on a bus for donkey’s years.

Motoring is just one more thing that unless you are Middle Class or better, you are going to have to wave goodbye to if the leaders of our society have anything to do with it, which of course they have.

Those of us with eyes to see must surely be aware that motoring is getting more expensive. We know that oil is getting harder to extract and that prices are creeping up little by little.
The problem is that it is no secret. People in power are also aware of the fact and because they have power they can begin the process of preserving fuel for themselves.

That process has already begun and it is being done under the pretence of helping the environment.
You will have noticed that the rich are driving bigger cars than ever and there are two reasons for that.  One is because they are getting richer and the other is because the hike in fuel prices doesn’t even register on their radar.

It’s not being hiked to hurt them; it’s being hiked to help them by removing the poorer Motorist from the equation and the poorer motorists are the majority.

So it’s about preparing for the inevitable and adapting our habits accordingly. Get used to it now so that it’s not so much of a shock when it happens.


There are a few things that you can do to keep motoring longer. I can point you in various directions as this blog develops. We are all different and I don’t imagine that some of you will be quite so keen as others to look at down scaling straight away but it might be worth trying a few ideas out now as I have.

Smartest thing to do right away is take a look at buying a super economical car now whilst they are reasonably cheap and whilst the Government are offering the £35 a year road tax incentive.
Such little motors as the Renault Clio 1.4 DCI can be bought for less than two grand and they will do a ridiculous 70mpg if you are light on the pedal.

There are other cars of a similar ilk (and oddly enough most are French!) so there is the easiest start on the road to weaning yourself off the standard motor car.

Realistically though I think that most of us will eventually have to go further down the road.

I will be honest. I drive a great big Mercedes Benz and I am madly in love with it. I don’t want to have to part with it but I am fairly certain that I will end up growing tomatoes in it.

I know I probably lost half my readers then but I am not blogging to champion abstinence. I am not a Monk who feels some need for penitence. I am just an ordinary British person who can see a bit further than his nose.

The reason I have the Merc is because I could see that if I didn’t get one now whilst I had a few bob in my pocket, I was going to lose a fairly brief window of opportunity.

I do however take all of this seriously. I have a little bit of land a couple of miles away from home where I keep a few chickens and also do a little veg gardening.

I don’t use the car unless I absolutely have to. I cycle there or walk, twice a day to feed and care for my animals and even if I am in a hurry I go on a 125 motorcycle. I don’t cheat. No weather so far has made me say “sod it” and go in the Merc.
It’s my little bit of self discipline, because I know that one day there will be no alternative.

8 comments:

  1. I'm deep green and no friend of cars, but I have to concede, that it has been my suspicion for some time, in fact ever since politicians jumped on the green band wagon, that the whole climate change issue is a ruse. And I put it down to Peak Oil and the very reason you state - hamstering away dwindling fuels for the rich and powerful.

    About 5 years or so ago, when we were blessed to see some auroras here in the southern UK, I have been following daily a graph on a page from the Lancs. University website, called aurora watch - www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iona/aurorawatch/rt_activity/ so that I wouldn't miss another oportunity. Over the last couple or so years I have noticed that there is an absolute flat-liner of a graph, i.e. no sunspot activity whatsoever. Now, there are scientific heretics who dare say that climate is related to what goes on on the sun (duh!), but whos voice is stifled. Any coincidence that we have had several cold summers and winters? Any coincidence that the Little Ice Age of around the 17th century happened at a time of very low sunspot activity?

    I should be pleased, as an environmentalist, that there are some environmental benefits from restricting fuel consumption, or so it would seem on the surface. But when politicians can simply switch on a global paradigm shift like a light switch, what else can they turn on or off at the flick of a switch? They have been preparing for a while now. "War on terror" and the police state are simply the brain wash department and enforcement agency of that sinister bunch.

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  2. I am glad you are following Judy. It's nice to have a 'Big Brainer' on board. I am no intellectual. I am just a person who chose to wake up. I think that becoming an enemy of the TV was the beginning for me.
    After a while of doing without the constant barrage of mind numbing adverts and the pallid propaganda that is churned out by the BBC I decided that I had to make some changes.
    I don't have all the answers but I have to slog away at it.
    Once you have opened your eyes you can't close them again and join the dumbed down throngs of sheep who will be watching tonight's episode of "I'm A Simpleton Get Me Out Of Here."

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  3. Thanks for the welcome. If you refered to *me* as a Big Brainer, I hope you won't be disapointed to hear that I am rather uneducated, at least in the academic sense. I just slaved my way through secondary school, which may, in fact, have contributed to a more independent way of thinking. Had I not been day-dreaming about playing in the woods, I would have been more brain washed.

    I came to some realisations a little late in life, but I now what you mean about waking up and not being able to close your eyes again. You can't unsee things. Not always pleasant living with the awareness, but I prefer what little control it gives me to the tepid bliss of the ignorant. Sheep to the slaughter, my friend.

    If people were to consider films and books like Soyent Gree, Bladerunner, Logan's Run, The Matrix and The Handmade's Tale as more realistic about what is happening or about to happen, than so-called reality TV they would be making a huge step forward. Thanks for speaking out.

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  4. The Matrix is the one that I identify with. I avoided mentioning it in the blog for fear of being labelled a fantasist.
    I think that is such a clever observation of how most people live.

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  5. I was an avid reader of science fiction when a teenager... SO many of the ideas I read in those books, by Asimov, Bradburt, Heinlein, et.al., have come to pass in one form or another!

    The surveillance regime of Orwell's 1984 with the 'Thought Police' is not too remote from 'Surveillance Britain' where 1/4 of the World's CCTV cameras are operating [to 'prevent terrorism', of course].

    Apart from 'terrorism', we are also to be afraid of everyone... all are potential muggers, burglars, identity thieves, paedophiles, kidnappers, drug dealers, addicts...

    The Matrix? Now that gets the Cat a'thinking...

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  6. Umm... sorry just noticed typo above!

    Meant Ray Bradbury... and his short story, later 'Bladerunner'... 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'

    'Wake up... Time to die...'

    People DO need to wake up.

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  7. People can either wake up (was that the red pill?) or continue to live in the Matrix until they pull the hose. That is about to happen.

    If you want to read another article to shake your world, check this out

    http://permaculturesendaverde.blogspot.com

    and look for the article "Understanding money is central to self-sufficincy" (sorry can't paste links here, and it is a long one with too many chances of mis-spelling). Also look for "The right to ignore the state by Herbert Spencer".

    SYLO

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  8. I think that the way forward is for people who can think for themselves is just to learn to live with 'The System' or in my case, work around it.
    I like to share ideas with everyone who wants to but I have given up on trying to change the System.
    The Powers that be have all the brain power, all the resources, limitless finances and far reaching connections.
    There is only one way for me to deal with 'The System' and it involves a dirty word!

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