Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
When I was a child, I never imagined my life as an adult would be
wake up, see video after video from people scared they will be "eradicated", feed my cat, hear about torture and suicide related to said eradication, head off to customers and pretend I'm an entirely different personality who lives in a world that revolves around fixing some trivial bullshit, and then get paid a fraction of what customers paid for my time.
The fuck kind of life is this?! This is what humans built?!
A driver was stuck in a traffic jam on the M25. Nothing was moving.
Suddenly, a man knocks on the window.
The driver rolls down the window and asks, "What's going on?"
"Terrorists have kidnapped all of our MP’s during a
sitting of parliament, and they're asking for a £100 million ransom.
Otherwise, they are going to douse them all in petrol and set them on
fire.
We are going from car to car collecting donations."
"How much is everyone giving, on average?" the driver asks.
The man replies, "Roughly a gallon."
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
My attempts at buying a 2nd hand car have been...
Whilst I had a car on Friday and Saturday, I drove over to Belgium where a second-hand car dealer had a Nissan Juke that I quite liked the look of; amongst other things, it was white and I like white cars! When I started it up, there was a distinct shuddering wobble from the engine. Thinking that this might be simply due to the fact that it hadn't been started lately, I turned it off and started it again - same wobble! Just to be absolutely sure I did it a third time exactly the same wobble. This made me suspect the engine mountings were worn out; a suspicion largely confirmed by the enormous amount of engine noise that was apparent when I drove it (amongst their other duties, the engine mountings make a major contribution to damping the noise of the engine itself).
That rather put me off the Nissan Juke but, on the way, back home I noticed another dealer on an industrial estate that runs parallel to the main road back towards Luxembourg. I stopped there and had a look round, but the weather was so appalling; it was blowing a gale, pissing down with rain and most of the cars were outside so I made a mental note to come back the next day in the hope that the weather would not be quite so inclement.
Returning the next day, I found a couple of cars that I was interested in so I went into the showroom found the salesman and asked him if he could show me these two cars. One was a Nissan and the other a Seat; they were both sort of VW Golf sized vehicles. Salesman hunted down the keys to the two cars I wanted to see and accompanied me to the parking lot out front. I pointed out to him the Nissan had a smashed front valance and fog light to which he responded “oh that's nothing; it’s just a bit of plastic”. When I mentioned that bit of plastic or not it made the car undrivable, he mumbled something that I didn't quite catch so I said to him OK let's forget the Nissan for the moment I'd like to drive the Seat, to which he replied “ah, we don't do test drives, you see all these cars are unregistered so they cannot be taken onto the public roads without trade plates and we don't have any trade plates” to which I replied “what????”, and he repeated what he had just said. I thought maybe I had misunderstood what he said the first time but there was no doubt whatever what he said the second time. There is absolutely no way in a million years that I would ever buy a second-hand car without having driven it so I simply turned on my heel, walked back to my car, got in and drove off without saying another word to the salesman.
Has anyone else had this sort of experience with a garage in Belgium or Luxembourg?
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Dr. Christian Brand from the University of Oxford, a contributor to The Climate Book, offers some positive ideas about the future of "active travel."
_____________________________
Focusing solely on electric vehicles and technology that is not proven at scale is actually slowing down the path to zero emissions — it diverts resources and political will away from other solutions. In reality, if we are to meet the decarbonization targets of the Paris Agreement by 2050, we also need to focus on the movement of people and goods — and look at introducing traffic reduction targets.
Only by curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible can we tackle the climate and air pollution crises — or so my colleague and friend Jillian Anable and I argue in a chapter of Greta Thunberg's recently published The Climate Book.
Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize because of its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure — such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves—and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles. One way to reduce transport emissions relatively quickly, and potentially globally, is to swap cars for cycling, e-biking and walking — active travel, as it is called.
As many as 50% of car journeys are of less than five km and could easily be replaced by active travel. Electric bikes increase this range to 10 km or more. They have become more popular over the past few years as prices have come down. These bikes allow older people to cycle and help riders cycle in hilly areas. But they still provide physical activity. They could be the answer to our commuting problems.
In our own research, we have shown that people who walk, cycle or use e-bikes have lower carbon footprints from all their daily travel, including in cities where lots of people are already doing this. Strikingly, the carbon footprint for daily travel is up to 84% smaller for people who walk or cycle than for people who use other modes of transport. Emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.
_____________________________
FULL ARTICLE -- https://phys.org/news/2022-11-expert-comment-future-electric-fast.html
GET THE BOOK -- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709837/the-climate-book-by-greta-thunberg/
#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #Pollution #Bike #WarOnCars #BanCars
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Properly jaw-dropping moment this evening: an e-mail from my US publisher saying that "since it's a science book", they'll publish Blue Machine WITH METRIC UNITS. So I don't have to convert everything to foot pounds per square elephant. In YEARS of writing for the US, this is the first time I have ever had a hint that there is a world outside feet and inches. Progress! #Books #Metric #Science
Pressure from Downing St on the BBC to tow the fascist party line has been an open secret for as long as I can remember so these revelations are simply confirmation of what we all already knew!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Solidarity with all striking workers this week ✊
If you are inconvenienced by industrial action, remember to blame the bosses not the workers. If people had proper pay and working conditions there wouldn’t be a need to strike in the first place.
#strikes #strike #StrikingWorkers #EnoughIsEnough #IndustrialAction #TUC #Drawing #Illustration #TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
RT @Normanjam671
I was a drug abuser from the age of twelve when I started with solvents, until seven years ago.
I used every sort of drug imaginable during that period.
I never once scored drugs of an asylum seeker.
Suella Braverman is telling lies comparable to Trump to dehumanise refugees.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
@AuldFoggerty I live in Germany and there is a similar scheme here for deposits on plastic bottles and cans. If I drive 20 minutes down the road to the Netherlands they have their own scheme even though both countries are within the EU Single Market.
Now, whilst I would agree that having a single scheme would be beneficial, there is absolutely no problem in the two countries operating their own bottle return systems.
This action serves only one purpose: to undermine the Scottish Parliament.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
1776-1933 - major bank crisis every 10 years
1930s - FDR bank rules enacted
1930s-1980s - no major crisis
1980s - rules rolled back
1980s-2010 - major crisis every 10 years
2010 - Dodd-Frank rules enacted
2010-2018 - no major crisis
2018 - rules rolled back
2023 - crisis?
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
It’s wild that during Reagan’s presidency everyone watched the first generation of families that required two incomes to survive and we had to come up with terms for us kids left alone at home but Reagan isn’t seen as the guy that drove the death of the middle class in America to enrich the wealthy when he clearly accomplished that.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
The Prime Minister of Luxemburg has summed up the mess the UK finds itself in following Brexit.
"They were in with a load of opt-outs. Now they are out, and want a load of opt-ins".
Never has a country voluntarily screwed up it's own future so badly.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Any decent strong society is based on excellent publicly funded Universal Health Care. It is the rock on which everything else is built. Discuss.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
🎨 Gary Lineker sees red as ref misses off-the-ball incident - NationalWorld cartoon
Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak's attack on asylum seekers went unnoticed as the Match of the Day host was sent for an early bath...
#UK #News #Politics #GaryLineker #MatchOfTheDay #SuellaBraverman
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
For the removal of doubt, I would be as horrified and disgusted if ANY Government of the day deliberately set off to suborn the BBC output to their ideology. It is creeping fascism and must be called out by all decent people everywhere. Fantastic work by Gary Linker, hero of this parish.. In this case, the Tories clearly have an agenda that is the very antithesis of democracy, decency and the values of which we used to be justly proud. This creeping fascism must be stopped.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Ok now that Lineker and the BBC have sorted out their differences, can we talk about the Government’s new Immigration Bill which is reminiscent of the laws of 1930s Germany?
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
