Short trips in the car this week, although I did have a longer journey in someone else’s vehicle. The week started with a bus trip to Truro, then on Tuesday I drove to Wadebridge to meet with two other people going to a networking event in Barnstaple. We all went there in the nice new Your Partnerships Mercedes Van. Wednesday was a very short drive to a meeting at Heartlands and a slightly longer drive to St Day for another meeting. In the pre-car days, I would have had to choose one meeting over the other, either walking to Heartlands or taking the bus to St Day. The timings would not allow both. On Thursday I went to another networking event at the Cornish Birds of Prey Centre, appropriately at Winnards Perch. On the way back I stopped off at the Shell garage to charge the car and dealt with emails on my phone while I waited to get a full charge.
Friday was online meetings only and one of those made me think. One of the attendees had been travelling extensively and moaned about the protesters blocking roads, arguing that they did more harm than good, and the police should lock them up. My first reaction was to agree, then I thought about the reports of the Queen being ‘irritated” by the lack of progress on climate change’ – “they talk, but don’t do”. That reminded me of the report by the International Energy Agency which said “…pledges by governments to date – even if fully achieved – fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 and give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.” Other reports have indicated that governments are nowhere near achieving those pledges. Perhaps drastic action is needed to ensure they do as well as talk.
The Queen by convention does not vote, which is perhaps why I thought of the suffragettes. It took a long time and a lot of campaigning for women to get the vote. That campaigning included people chaining themselves to railings, setting fire to the contents of letter boxes, burning the slogan “Votes for Women” into the grass of golf courses and in one case holding up transport, well actually the King’s horse at the Derby.
If our politicians did less talking and took more action then drastic action by Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain would not be needed.
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Electric driving 