As people looked forward to lockdown ending there was talk of a ‘Green Recovery’. Is this actually a thing or just pie in the sky thinking from the Guardian Editorials?

I think Covid-19 has laid bare that becoming greener is going to affect and change certain areas of the economy and will cost jobs, but hopefully it could create other jobs (and more of them).

The Conservative government strategy seems to be a return to normal as soon as possible, with little change to what went before. Is people not being in the office actually an economically bad thing? We are still working, just from home. The section of the economy that depended on office worker trade can’t be that big surely? Perhaps it has more to do with the vested interests of the owners of the office buildings?

I think it will be driven by companies who traditionally have had expensive city centre properties. It seems some are embracing an increase in home working.

HS2 is still ploughing its way through the country creating a far reaching wake of destruction and devastation way beyond the actual path of the track, despite the downsides clearly outweighing any upsides in a changed world where more and more people will not have a daily commute.

Near me in Warwickshire, HS2 are crossing a big Polo Club. They’re building a tunnel underneath it apparently. Nearby, several ancient woodlands have been felled and cleared in nesting season too with the line going straight through. Acres of surrounding woodland acts countryside has been lost for access roads and Christ knows what else.

Weird how money and therefore influence can….influence… this indescribably moronic abomination.

Nobody gives a shit about ‘green’ really. It’s just another angle to make money with.

Humans are ******

Went the same way as 40 new hospitals and a glorious they need us more than we need them Brexit.

Pipe dream by certain journos, was never mentioned by the government. We will go back to normal ish, any green improvements will be economically driven due to recession, like Capita closing offices, they were struggling financially before all this.

You mean like the 28000 green jobs the SNP promised in 2010. 28k green jobs by 2020. Well here we are in 2020. Only 1700 jobs by 2018. UK windfarms are paid for by UK consumers but most manufacturing jobs are overseas.

when he was Finance Secretary nine years ago, published a document on how a “low carbon economic strategy” could benefit the country.

The document talked up offshore wind and said: “This sector alone offers the potential for 28,000 direct jobs and a further 20,000 jobs in related industries and £7.1 billion investment in Scotland by 2020.”

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-government-blasted-trade-unions-21531112

It’s been cancelled to save Pret

greentricky
Member

It’s been cancelled to save Pret

Too late, the only one I ever use has already gone 🙁

@irc

Windfarm economics is driven by (UK) Government subsidies. It’s not a worthwhile investment without them. Onshore wind subsidies have been much reduced over the past 10 years.

But, I agree a Scotland/UK first priority in the tendering process would be much better. It would need to be stringent though so it isn’t just friends of friends dormant companies winning contracts, e.g. PPE, Brexit No Deal Ferries etc.

I wasn’t thinking of solely direct green-related job creation, more like the cafe near the office closes but then one opens near to where people live (and work). Or 10s of sandwich lunch vans driving around the neighbourhoods is better then 100s of people commuting to the office by car.

There are people pitching sensible ideas but we would rather watch other countries do it and wonder why we lose competitive advantage over time
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/19/can-a-hydrogen-boom-fuel-a-green-recovery-for-britain

As soon as things get economically tough humans will revert to type and get their power from digging up hydrocarbons and burning them. As soon as Country B looks like they are gaining an economic advantage by digging up hydrocarbons and burning them, Country A will start doing the same.

The only way to truly tackle this is by co-operating, en masse, to agree on certain things that as a world we will not do.

Politics in the last five years has been dominated by people who want to destroy consensus to give their populations an easy out in the short term. I can’t see this improving.

Taking my worldview into account, I think ‘we’ are going to dig up and burn every fossil fuel and then worry about what to do next.

I think I might stop reading the Guardian. I have the app because it’s free, but more and more I’m just finding it’s full of empty, false hopes. Anyone can write an article espousing this or that (normally quite sensible ideas) but unless you have power or influence, then what’s the point? See also, the Labour Party.

I find the Guardian more full of hopeless doom-mongering and misery (most of which seems fairly justified). Funny how our interpretation differs!

@grum I think we see the same actually, I see plenty of what you mentioned too.

Ultimately anyone who thought that Covid would lead to a greener, better society was guilty of naive wishful thinking. It was pretty obvious that once the economy started to suffer big time then almost any government would be trying to remedy that in wahtever way was easiest.

@imnotverygood A progressive Government might see the opportunity to get 2 birds with 1 stone. A self-interested one wouldn’t.

There’s a downturn anyway, people have seen new ways of working (with a downturn in road traffic), new ways of holidaying (with a downturn in air travel), new ways of shopping (with deliveries from local suppliers). Why not encourage the good bits?

Instead we have https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53942542

What’s the agenda there? If people are as productive, if not more productive working from home then why the push to get back to the office?

I don’t take the Guardian any more. I’d been a loyal reader since I was at school but it’s just too down on everything these days, without offering any alternatives.

The thing is, right, is we can each do more/less individually. If we buy less unneccesary stuff, try to buy less stuff made in countries that pollute or have shocking human rights records, eat less meat and dairy, drive a bit less, maybe walk or cycle more for utility than just for fun. We won’t get what we need from a right wing government so we have to drive it ourselves.

It is bizarre. Employers have an actual legal duty to apply all reasonable measures to protect their employees. They have absolutely no legal duty to provide a stream of customers for Pret. If your staff have shown they can work remotely, you force them back and kill a couple of them you’d have a tough time showing you’d complied with the law when you’ve demonstrated a practicable alternative existed. The government know this and the HSE are going around assessing businesses CV19 plans using this way of thinking.

So I would conclude that the government is either really stupid, or is trying to stir up controversy and resentment between worker groups. The narrative of the noble care workers, white van drivers and supermarket delivery people keeping Britain going while a lazy professional and managerial class lounge about at home is politically useful.

The thing is, right, is we can each do more/less individually.

Individual efforts may not be enough, encouraging and enabling others to do the same is the way forward.

The thing is, right, is we can each do more/less individually. If we buy less unneccesary stuff, try to buy less stuff made in countries that pollute or have shocking human rights records, eat less meat and dairy, drive a bit less, maybe walk or cycle more for utility than just for fun. We won’t get what we need from a right wing government so we have to drive it ourselves.

Yes, of course we can. The problem is, people, in general, won’t. And they especially won’t whilst their personal finances are hanging on a knife edge and their instincts are to get back to doing what they were doing as fast as possible. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it is very much a thing.

Douglas Ross (scottish conservatives) wants the M8 opened up to 3 lanes, there’s the tories green revolution for scotland in a nutshell.

Tories want more roads

He should stick to running around a field blowing a whistle

Douglas Ross (scottish conservatives) wants the M8 opened up to 3 lanes, there’s the tories green revolution for scotland in a nutshell.

Every campaign to reopen roads closed in Edinburgh for physical distancing is fronted by a Tory. It’s an easy to take, populist stance.

Perhaps they should introduce some kind of tram system in Edinburgh instead? 😛

So I would conclude that the government is either really stupid, or is trying to stir up controversy and resentment between worker groups.

Have you just noticed? Everyone working in a public service job could tell you this. Where do you think the narrative for greedy doctors, lazy nurses, workshy teachers, double jobbing fire service, incompetent council workers comes from? Its annual around pay negotiation time.

Just now it’s everyone not helping the money men by being cooperative and droning into work to buy packaged goods keep the money heading to low tax profits.

As people looked forward to lockdown ending there was talk of a ‘Green Recovery’. Is this actually a thing or just pie in the sky thinking from the Guardian Editorials?

Link?

I don’t take the Guardian any more. I’d been a loyal reader since I was at school but it’s just too down on everything these days, without offering any alternatives.

When did a newspaper ever offer ‘alternatives’ to reports of pollution and climate-change? Not a rhetorical question…

*

Ultimately anyone who thought that Covid would lead to a greener, better society was guilty of naive wishful thinking.

Once the damage to the economy from lockdown became apparent, it’s fairly obvious that all effort goes to bailing out the ship and no one had 5 minutes to wonder about whether a new mast might be a nice idea.

I have to say, I have some sympathy for the Government on this one.

NB I love the Guardian, my most read online paper.

I do hope the city centre for office workers is dead but this does have a huge support network alongside it that will suffer.

Many shops are there to service office worker needs, without office workers the vast majority will close – they support something but need custom to survive and thrive.

I suspect those who have weathered this well might look to buy up office space when it is cheap as I’m sure things will come around again and then the long game will make money.

In the meantime, the UK government is trying to save what they can, spend as little as they can (on anything but their projects – HS2 – why???) and try to get things stimulated and going again…all the while trying to admit that for the vast majority of companies and those who can, that working from home isn’t that great – when clearly it is (not for everyone but certainly a huge volume).

All this to try and convince the voters that things are returning to normal and everything is getting back to ok. Which is fine as a way of trying to give the population a sense of ‘control’, but really a change is coming and it needs adopted and adapted to.

Once the damage to the economy from lockdown became apparent, it’s fairly obvious that all effort goes to bailing out the ship and no one had 5 minutes to wonder about whether a new mast might be a nice idea.

So the ship floats but you’re going nowhere because the old mast broke as soon as you used it again? (A storing up problems for later analogy there)

Perhaps if we didn’t have a top SpAd with a policy of specifically looking to hire nut jobs and sack or oust anyone remotely competent, there might have been the intelligence and competence left to deal with such a complex issue. This has affected all countries too. So we will have something to compare against and how good the Government response is will be easy to see.

@Malvern Rider

Link?

E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/24/climate-biodiversity-crises-government-green-recovery-coronavirus

See the other thread . He’s dead there will be no recovery .

Every campaign to reopen roads closed in Edinburgh for physical distancing is fronted by a Tory. It’s an easy to take, populist stance.

In East Craigs it’s a Lib Dem

thanks D Mort.

The article is summarised in the heading:

If the government plots a green recovery from coronavirus, the benefits are endless. If it doesn’t, we’re screwed

What do you think the Tories will do?

As an article, it says exactly what someone upthread said the Guardian no longer offers. ie it’s an optimistic and encouraging call at this ‘ideal time’ to change our course and to do things differently following the small respite earned by lockdownish (to think and act on greener terms)

So is there any indication that the UK government is thinking in those terms? The short answer is “possibly”. Beyond the standard waffle from the prime minister (“We owe it to future generations to ‘build back better’ and base our recovery on solid foundations, including a fairer, greener and more resilient global economy”), there have been much stronger declarations of intent from both the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury, with specific talk of a “green industrial revolution” to create tens of thousands of new jobs.

Even the Department for Transport has been getting in on the act, announcing plans for 2,500 electric charging points along motorways and A-roads by 2030, as well as a £250m active travel fund to support the development of pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements and cycle- and bus-only corridors – a down-payment, apparently, on a much bigger programme under consideration.

But all this is very small beer indeed compared with the plans of the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to spend up to £27bn over the next five years to expand Britain’s road network – locking us into decades of carbon-intensive car dependency at precisely the time when every company in the country is developing post-coronavirus work and travel planning, specifically to reduce car use and commuting, doubling down on more flexible, tech-enabled ways of working.

So just flip it, Rishi! Transport is the UK’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Hang on to that scale of ambition by making the £27bn available to our cities and towns to invest in cycle lanes, better pedestrian facilities and improved public transport – as cities such as Bristol and London are already starting to do.

Broadly agree with Porritt. Pie in the sky? Yes – if we continue to head the shortsighted way most often chosen. No – if the will is there to make this government work for us. To promote and implement sustainable cultural milestones, changes, infra, policies. To commit to cutting emissions/pollution.

But ‘us’ is sharply divided thanks to decades of lies and spin designed to discredit the science and dissolve the urgency. So the pie remains aloft until we (as a culture and electorate) make a move on it. Right now I’d be surprised if polls wouldn’t say ‘meh’ on the most environmentally damaging policy. Trumpism is en vogue. The economy is heading south and crisis capitalism is about to shift properly into gear. Am generally an optimist. But optimistic for UK cultural reform in the next decade…? No comment, what do you reckon? What are we actively doing?

Well, if the cited report is actually representative (The Guardian again)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/23/uk-public-supports-green-recovery-from-coronavirus-crisis

Perhaps there is a will to change

@imnotverygood

In East Craigs it’s a Lib Dem

We have Lib Dem and Tory separately for the nearest closed road.

Tory campaign “Open the road immediately!”. Lib Dem, a more nuanced request to look at re-opening the road and possible options to allow people to still physically distance. An exact parody of the wider political approaches, e.g. the return to offices

Another example from the Conservatives “COVID-secure” (slightly OT I know). What’s going to happen when people in COVID-Secure workplaces start catching the virus? No workplace can be “secure” in terms of virus transmission unless people are in haz-mat suits.

What’s going to happen when people in COVID-Secure workplaces start catching the virus?

Well as very few are returning to (office) work, not going to be a big problem.

With factories etc we know what happens, it spreads like wildfire to everyone forcing the place to shut down and the whole staff to go into isolation.

Have you just noticed? Everyone working in a public service job could tell you this. Where do you think the narrative for greedy doctors, lazy nurses, workshy teachers, double jobbing fire service, incompetent council workers comes from? Its annual around pay negotiation time.

Just now it’s everyone not helping the money men by being cooperative and droning into work to buy packaged goods keep the money heading to low tax profits.

A million times this.

Everyone encouraged to have a grievance against everyone else creates insularity and pettiness. Traditional right wing values, in other words.

As people looked forward to lockdown ending there was talk of a ‘Green Recovery’. Is this actually a thing or just pie in the sky thinking from the Guardian Editorials?

I think Covid-19 has laid bare that becoming greener is going to affect and change certain areas of the economy and will cost jobs, but hopefully it could create other jobs (and more of them).

The Conservative government strategy seems to be a return to normal as soon as possible, with little change to what went before. Is people not being in the office actually an economically bad thing? We are still working, just from home. The section of the economy that depended on office worker trade can’t be that big surely? Perhaps it has more to do with the vested interests of the owners of the office buildings?

Yeah it’s a thing, it’s happening, but it’s not an all or nothing thing that makes for an easy headline.

Even the most ardent Socialist has to accept that the economy is important, even just WFH has a huge knock on effect to peoples livelihoods, yeah places like Pret, the thousands that employ and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on those employees spending money.

I see parallels with Credit Crunch, when the banks fell there was an opportunity to ‘re-balance’ or change our economy, an idea we’d give up the consumer lead economy, live with less ‘stuff’, we’d focus work towards ‘real’ things like manufacturing, construction and agriculture. We’d work less, for less money. Accept a 50% reduction in house prices and all the pain that came with it, maybe even go back to a single-income families being the norm etc.

It sounds good, sort of like the 70s when we were kids, only it would be Mum OR Dad in work, walking to school instead of driving, Holidays at the sea side, a (glass) bottle of Pop would be a treat etc.

The only problem is that, when it came to it, few people actually want that, Humans are by nature greedy and competitive, if the average Brit’s next door neighbour quits his Job to be a House Husband, sells his car and starts growing his own veg, they’ll laugh at his behind his back and live for the day their new leased Audi arrives so they can show it off.

People will, readily and willingly, spend 3 hours a day commuting to have more money. They can dress it up with words like ‘need’ and ‘have to’, but the truth is, people will give up 3 hours a day, that’s STWers too, to make more money. That’s 15 hours a week, 780 hours a year, or about a month a year, sat in the car/bus/train whatever.

The Government, and it doesn’t really matter which colour team they are, doesn’t have a total control of the economy, surprisingly little actually. The people with the most power are consumers and employees. If you want a “Green Recovery” it has to come from the people – if you’re prepared to take that job that’s closer to home, or work less hours, or find a job that allows WFH than you might have accept less money, and more than just the figures on the bank balance accept the reduction in ‘stuff’ you can buy.

Saying that, the ‘good news’.

Whilst it won’t be an immediate and total change, more of a evolutionary change, the direction and speed of change has taken a big leap.

It’s been buried in the headlines of late, but some large employers are either extending WFH for years into the future, or offering it as a option on a permanent basis, this will reduce commuting pollution, and in time, reduce car production (cars will often take more energy to make than they’ll use in their entire lifetimes) and help towards a housing problem and maybe decades from now, we actually start to shrink cities.

High Street retail that has been in decline for decades has taken another big hit, it will cost jobs, but the high street is a Church for the religion of excessive consumption, people tend to do less impulse buying online and there’s not a huge difference in headcount between online and physical retailers, let’s just hope Amazon doesn’t continue to grow so much.

It won’t be all good news, the dreaded efficiency word has started to creep in, those 3 hour a day commuters will start to think that they could make a little more money by working some of those lost hours, why not, they’re still ahead? Also employers are starting to look at ‘flexible working hours’ again, sounds great, but it’s a two-way street, few people work flat out 9-5, how do you fancy not being paid for that 11am to 2pm lull in work because you’re not needed?

Even the most ardent Socialist has to accept that the economy is important, even just WFH has a huge knock on effect to peoples livelihoods, yeah places like Pret, the thousands that employ and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on those employees spending money.

The proportion of our economy that is based on selling stuff that is not remotely essential to people that don’t actually need that stuff is frightening. I’m not talking about going to live in the woods or anything, but the amount of spend most people could remove without suffering any deleterious consequences is staggering.

Except for bike stuff. Obvs.