The 'Insulate your home' schemes were a government employment and get rich quick scheme for the employers. They were not done to benefit the home owners. If they wanted to help home owners they would have lowered the cost of insulation so we could buy it and install it, but they didn't. They could have discounted £500 worth of insulation down to £250, but they didn't. Instead it was WE WILL insulate your house for £1500, the government has applied a discount of £500 so it's cheap. Woohoo! They're still doing it now too.
@Woodgreen why are you sad? We've all had a good run, haven't we?
In a way it comes back to wildlife documentaries. The snow leopard is filmed gazing ahead, sniffing the air, looking into a staggering beautiful landscape. But she doesn't think "What a staggeringly beautiful landscape." She is a machine in some respects. We have such riches, we humans, inside our brains. And as you point out, we squander them. Given Eden, we convert it into Hell.
I still don't understand why people expect the government , ie the taxpayer , to pay to insulate their house. Most sensible people did it years ago. Fuel and heating has always been expensive, insulate your house, cut the bills. Why don't people take responsibilty for their own lives? I've got a 1950's house. I paid for double glazing and the insulation in the roof. I have thermal lined curtains. I bought a new more efficient boiler. Do all these people crying out for more of the taxpayers money need the taxpayer to wipe their noses for them as well?
I still don't understand why people expect the government , ie the taxpayer , to pay to insulate their house.
Because they live in social housing. Or often they rent and the landlord refuses to insulate the property as they don't pay the energy bills. Rental prices are cripplingly high and profits could easily be taxed based on the EPC of the property. Better EPC = less tax = incentive for landlords to insulate.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
@Fire, I don't use the word 'machine' in a derogatory way, but trying to say how sad it is that given our abilities, that enable us to do more than live, reproduce (or not) and die, we have done all that you say and brought the planet to the point it's at now.
Forget "preaching", I suspect future generations will be mystified that leaders didn't launch a joint miltary-style global operation in 1990 to avoid the obvious crisis coming at us - ban flying, a full and immediate moratorium on all space exploration, enforced marine protection, full scale adaptation of domestic housing. The leaders might have thought "the poor darlings might not like being told what to do and don't want David Attenborough to be 'preachy'", but said screw that.
If you have a fireball heading towards you on a straight trajectory at 1000 miles an hour, you wouldn't be worrying about choosing an appropriate tone of voice.
Without space exploration and the associated technology that might allow us to see it coming and just maybe deflect it, a fireball (large meteorite) could well be what sends us extinct.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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If they wanted to help home owners they would have lowered the cost of insulation so we could buy it and install it, but they didn't.
They could have discounted £500 worth of insulation down to £250, but they didn't.
Instead it was WE WILL insulate your house for £1500, the government has applied a discount of £500 so it's cheap. Woohoo!
They're still doing it now too.
But she doesn't think "What a staggeringly beautiful landscape." She is a machine in some respects.
We have such riches, we humans, inside our brains. And as you point out, we squander them. Given Eden, we convert it into Hell.
But where there's life, there's hope.
Also most of the technology I relied on during my career, came about directly as a result of the Space Programme.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border