I've often wondered why we don't have as many eco-protestors blocking roads in the U.S. They aren't gluing themselves to the pavement or tossing soup on paintings. We certainly have climate activists pushing policies, but we don't have aggressive protests like that. At least not yet, knock on wood.
Remember 2020? I suppose it depends on where you live but here in the Pacific Northwest, blocking traffic became a favorite pass-time of certain radical groups.
I know why we don't have them down here: we're not activistically evolved enough. If anyone tries that on the road I travel every day, for instance, they may last five minutes but not more. People use this road to get from home to work and back again, and they are country people who have zero truck with progressivism.
I doubt that type of "climate action" would happen here in "Murica." Too many people have big vehicles seemingly made for plowing through crowds. 6 people can pick up a Fiat 500. The F-150, Chevy Suburban, Ford Expedition, and all those 6000 lb. vehicles that can be 100% deducted in the year of purchase if used for business, are ideal for moving people out of the way, and if things get dicey we can always "stand our ground" and shoot them.
Irina - again thanks for this. You are doing wonders for my workouts! I had exactly the same reaction - anger. I can already see the very people I know in my town who would love to have that little bit of power to control someone's life. All in the name of the better good. It will not stop with restricting our driving, it will end up something close to China's social credit system. I believe this initial step restricting our physical liberty is something worth fighting against in every sense of the word.
Great points all, Irina, and thanks for introducing me to Heather! I now how 3 Subtack subscriptions to give me more things to think about.
And yes, the elites would like nothing more than to limit our freedom of mobility, and there are several tips to the trident that they will employ if they get serious about it.
One is the elephant in the room being Carbon emissions, which they are busy tying to every single aspect of our existence.
Next will be "Public Health" concerns, be they from carbon or pathogens or totally invented nonsense.
Third will be the protection of "sensitive species", their habitats, and their migration patterns. I've seen this third tip deployed quite successfully here in the US, starting first with federally-controlled lands like our National Parks and Forests.
The elitists spot a human activity they don't like, find a friendly Federal Judge/jurisdiction, have a "Consent Decree" issued as a temporary injunction to stop said activity, and then tie it all up in court proceedings, environmental impact studies, public comment periods, etc., until their opposition runs out of money, time and/or patience.
I look for them to start utilizing this approach on non-public lands at any moment, because the drumbeat of Climate Alarm is now entering the "We need to double-triple our efforts or we're all doomed!!!" phase as of this writing.
Irina - Thanks for highlighting this issue. Please see the article below from Guardian and examine the language "....to tackle climate change" - this particular sentence appeals to 88 million people in the US who want to hear this and get triggered to go against Republicans. This is a Pavlovian, Stanley Milgram experiment....
"Hundreds of trees to be felled for Cambridge bus route to tackle climate change. Hundreds of trees in an orchard designated as a habitat of principal importance in England should be felled to build a new busway to tackle climate change, councillors in Cambridgeshire voted on Tuesday."
To my mind, the key issue of the day is the way of execution. And it is that of a police-state. The end.
As for the actual idea, history has shown that issues are complicated, that what everyone has dismissed for centuries are actually good ideas, under certain conditions or in certain locales, and that the established "good" principles are horrible in certain circumstances, ... and that it all hinges on nuances which are completely opaque to the mind as long as there is a black-and-white thinking amid social strife.
While it is right to argue be against top-down imposition, one should also know what to be FOR. And in my case, it is for an open-ended interaction with experienced and marginalised urbanists who were promoting the 15-minute principle for years or decades before their idea became hijacked by the totalitarians, urbanists like Wrath of Gnon and https://twitter.com/Qagggy/ .
I agree. It's one thing to have most necessities and conveniences within a 15-minute radius and be free to use them or use others that are farther away. It's quite another thing to be forced into living within a 15-minute radius of your home.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the methods of what you describe as "climate zombies" are using. I am also horrified at the prospect of losing 500 trees for the sake of an bus lane. But let's look at cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, it really doesn't have to be that way.
"We consider it our right to be able to get from home to any destination we need in the fastest and most comfortable way we can afford." I agree. That's why I support the development of improved bus infrastructure and other modes of public transport, more bicycle infrastructure and more pedestrianized areas in my city of Glasgow. Because In a large city like Glasgow (by UK standards), owning a car should not be a pre-requisite for accessing quality education, healthcare, public transport, parks and green spaces, museums, supermarkets and whatever else you may need within a reasonable time frame.
The sad reality is the poorest people in my city have no other choice but to take several buses or trains to access the most basic of amenities. The most deprived areas in Glasgow also have some of the worst public and active transport links, but there are plenty of roads for cars passing through. Many of the people living in those areas can't exactly afford to purchase, fuel, insure and tax a car. Especially considering when a bus costs £1.50 and on-street parking anywhere near the city centre can set you back more than that for just a few hours. It is clear
The 15 minute city would not bring us back to "ancient" times at all, and It is certainly not about forcing people to surrender any right to movement and rendering them unable to explore and experience a city to it's fullest. People will still be able to get around the place, but let's give people without cars a chance to do the same. It's about forward thinking urban planning seeking to improve accessibility to a wide range of services for everyone, and recognising the inherent problems assoicated with dedicating so much public space to private motor vehicles. Viewing it as an attack on your personal freedom as a motorist is nonsense.
The 15 minute city is implausible the way you envisage it. Certainly I agree that improved city transportation networks, especially for those who don't drive, is highly desirable. There are many ways to improve on that, from the simple (bicycle paths & walking trails) to the moderate(rental E-bikes everywhere) to the complex ( Elon Musk style tunnels with mini-E-Bus vehicles). That's not the 15 min city.
The 15 min city concept really is eerily suggestive of the Great Reset goal of an impoverished, rent-only populace on the CBDC with UBI for likely about 1/2 the population. Since they obviously could care less about "useless eaters" and want severe population reduction, one can easily envision a Dystopian future where 15 min city areas become brutal ghettos where your UBI is barely enough for food, and law enforcement will be nil.
They will always hold it over your head that if you misbehave you will end up in the ghettos. With the UBI & CBDC they will have all the power and opportunity to achieve that. By then it will be too late to fight back. You can claim that you don't believe that will happen, like nobody believed what the covid "one week to flatten the curve" ended up becoming. If they have the power they likely will use it and they are NOT our friends. You need to be suspicious, be skeptical of every claim they make. They are devious and lie constantly. There is just too much at stake to be reckless with our rights and freedoms.
Neil Oliver: "...Our so-called leaders knowingly talked nonsense that destroyed lives and turned society upside down and inside out. The people responsible are wildly exposed and cannot convincingly deny any of it. Why I ask, would anyone trust them about anything else?....":
There is no conflict here: I also support a well developed public transport infrastructure because I have vivid memories of having to wait for 40 minutes at the bus stop at -10 in December so I can get to the university, 20 years ago. I couldn't afford a car. I moved by bus exclusively and that particular line was not a frequent one. Over the years, as the area I lived in got more densely populated, things changed, another bus line was added, and the first one became a lot more regular and frequent. Organic progress, if you will. But that's not the idea of the 15-minute cities as they are being conceived of now -- this idea involves forcing people into things they don't want to do and I'm very much not okay with that.
I can't speak to everywhere but in my corner of the world (Pacific NW) busses are essentially insane asylums on wheels. The busses in my small city are almost entirely empty as they cruise around all day -- guzzling diesel -- because no amount of virtue signaling, cajoling, guilt-tripping, or other propaganda, is going to cause a person, even one infected by apocalyptical-CO2-end-is-nigh hysteria, to willingly get locked in a box with dangerous crazy people. This presents a problem for leftists because if they exclude the drug addled homeless, that would be "inequitable", but if they don't, even leftists will choose their private vehicles -- it turns out that rational concern about getting stabbed today trumps hypothetical worry about future rising sea levels.
One aspect of these 15 minute cities that everyone seems to be ignoring -- or maybe it's obvious to everyone but me -- is they create perfect fiefdoms for elites to rule over. Folks have been focused on the effects on the population at large, but look at the opportunities it creates for the power-hungry elite.
Every Baron has his/her own little 15 minute city. You don't like the services in your "neighborhood", you better find a way to make the Baron happy enough to fix it for you. Everything you need or want fixed or changed, bribe.. uh, persuade the baron.
This will be like having HOAs on steroids. The opportunity for enrichment/graft for the ruler(s) of each fiefdom will be limitless -- well limited to the population, but presumably there are opportunities to move up to viscount, etc.
This really is neofeudalism, formalized, and required by law in all but name.
I expect something like that will be the future of "15 min cities". Except I would go further and predict the end result will be zones ruled over by a criminal gang and warlord. Likely lots of drug dealing to steal any UBI people get, so they can't even afford the pods provided by the Central Government, headquartered in Switzerland.
Just wait until they start trying to cut down the trees. Then the same protesting activists will turn to stop them from cutting them down. It is ironic that these are the “remainer” types who are convinced that people need “freedom of movement” in the supranational context!
I really don’t see this becoming a larger issue because it is ridiculous on its face- it is already unpopular in the silly university towns it is happening in. Try it in a place where blue collar people work and it will be undone right quick.
I like your perspective better than mine, a lot better. I do hope you're right. It makes sense that you are but so many things don't make sense when they should these days I've chosen to remain permanently suspicious.
15 minute cities are yet another Trojan Horse, although this time the enemy is hiding in plain sight. If we really could have everything within 15 minutes, no one would need to penalise car use outside their zone because no one would be travelling outside it. It's another attack on our freedoms and an attempt to wring evening more cash from us to waste on more meaningless 'public' (none) good. These people are evangelically evil. I'm reminded of a friend of mine from about 20yrs ago who is a town planner here in the UK. I talked to him about how much harder it was to move around in Nottingham (it's even worse today) and his completely matter of fact, holier than thou, self-righteous, groupthink response was devasting; 'but we don't want cars in cities'. I asked him 'who doesn't want cars?' because people clearly wanted to drive in the city as they had been for decades. His answer was 'we don't want them'. Since then urban planning has continued apace with the goal of removing our freedoms. The hypocrisy of these people is the thing that really irks me - they may not find the need to (car) travel beyond a boundary more than twice a week but they are content to drive to distant friends/relatives, or go on holiday etc etc etc Why stop at twice a week as being acceptable - what if I said... I think it's unacceptable for you to travel beyond the boundary at anytime. We know the answer.
Your articles are like drugs.... addictive and dangerous (for my stress levels)🤣
Just reading about this gave me the goosebumps. I passionately dislike the climate zombies and I can very easily see how drivers lose their patience when dealing with these sort of protests.
I've often wondered why we don't have as many eco-protestors blocking roads in the U.S. They aren't gluing themselves to the pavement or tossing soup on paintings. We certainly have climate activists pushing policies, but we don't have aggressive protests like that. At least not yet, knock on wood.
Trucks and SUVs with grill guards would put an end to that real quick.
As I think about it, a heavy Tesla car might do the trick as well, or an efficient honda civic
Remember 2020? I suppose it depends on where you live but here in the Pacific Northwest, blocking traffic became a favorite pass-time of certain radical groups.
Yes, there was a lot of that over the Black Lives Matter movement. But I'm not sure it happens much in the U.S. from climate activists.
I know why we don't have them down here: we're not activistically evolved enough. If anyone tries that on the road I travel every day, for instance, they may last five minutes but not more. People use this road to get from home to work and back again, and they are country people who have zero truck with progressivism.
I doubt that type of "climate action" would happen here in "Murica." Too many people have big vehicles seemingly made for plowing through crowds. 6 people can pick up a Fiat 500. The F-150, Chevy Suburban, Ford Expedition, and all those 6000 lb. vehicles that can be 100% deducted in the year of purchase if used for business, are ideal for moving people out of the way, and if things get dicey we can always "stand our ground" and shoot them.
Also, unlike the UK, the police is not being ordered to protect the activists, I believe. This is important.
Irina - again thanks for this. You are doing wonders for my workouts! I had exactly the same reaction - anger. I can already see the very people I know in my town who would love to have that little bit of power to control someone's life. All in the name of the better good. It will not stop with restricting our driving, it will end up something close to China's social credit system. I believe this initial step restricting our physical liberty is something worth fighting against in every sense of the word.
I agree. It is worth fighting for because if we give up the freedom of movement it would be so much easier to give up all our other freedoms.
Glad to hear about your workout! Always happy to help. :D
Amen
https://open.substack.com/pub/scottcampbell/p/canterbury-assailed?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Great points all, Irina, and thanks for introducing me to Heather! I now how 3 Subtack subscriptions to give me more things to think about.
And yes, the elites would like nothing more than to limit our freedom of mobility, and there are several tips to the trident that they will employ if they get serious about it.
One is the elephant in the room being Carbon emissions, which they are busy tying to every single aspect of our existence.
Next will be "Public Health" concerns, be they from carbon or pathogens or totally invented nonsense.
Third will be the protection of "sensitive species", their habitats, and their migration patterns. I've seen this third tip deployed quite successfully here in the US, starting first with federally-controlled lands like our National Parks and Forests.
The elitists spot a human activity they don't like, find a friendly Federal Judge/jurisdiction, have a "Consent Decree" issued as a temporary injunction to stop said activity, and then tie it all up in court proceedings, environmental impact studies, public comment periods, etc., until their opposition runs out of money, time and/or patience.
I look for them to start utilizing this approach on non-public lands at any moment, because the drumbeat of Climate Alarm is now entering the "We need to double-triple our efforts or we're all doomed!!!" phase as of this writing.
My pleasure! I only recently discovered Heather's Substack and I wish I'd discovered it earlier.
It's ridiculous how many tools there are at the disposal of our ruling elites to do whatever they want.
Irina - Thanks for highlighting this issue. Please see the article below from Guardian and examine the language "....to tackle climate change" - this particular sentence appeals to 88 million people in the US who want to hear this and get triggered to go against Republicans. This is a Pavlovian, Stanley Milgram experiment....
"Hundreds of trees to be felled for Cambridge bus route to tackle climate change. Hundreds of trees in an orchard designated as a habitat of principal importance in England should be felled to build a new busway to tackle climate change, councillors in Cambridgeshire voted on Tuesday."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/21/hundreds-trees-felled-cambridge-bus-route-tackle-climate-change#:~:text=of%20primary%20importance.-,Hundreds%20of%20trees%20to%20be%20felled%20for,route%20to%20tackle%20climate%20change&text=Hundreds%20of%20trees%20in%20an,in%20Cambridgeshire%20voted%20on%20Tuesday.
Yes, the wording says a lot. Thanks for sharing that report, Satish.
To my mind, the key issue of the day is the way of execution. And it is that of a police-state. The end.
As for the actual idea, history has shown that issues are complicated, that what everyone has dismissed for centuries are actually good ideas, under certain conditions or in certain locales, and that the established "good" principles are horrible in certain circumstances, ... and that it all hinges on nuances which are completely opaque to the mind as long as there is a black-and-white thinking amid social strife.
While it is right to argue be against top-down imposition, one should also know what to be FOR. And in my case, it is for an open-ended interaction with experienced and marginalised urbanists who were promoting the 15-minute principle for years or decades before their idea became hijacked by the totalitarians, urbanists like Wrath of Gnon and https://twitter.com/Qagggy/ .
I agree. It's one thing to have most necessities and conveniences within a 15-minute radius and be free to use them or use others that are farther away. It's quite another thing to be forced into living within a 15-minute radius of your home.
Now where have I heard something similar to "15-minute cities" before?
They sound terribly familiar. Hmmmm. Ah, here it is:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/map/warsaw-ghetto-1940
Notice carefully that those ghettos had walls with barbed wire on top.
"Polish official wants portions of wall that isolated Warsaw Ghetto in World War II protected as historical monuments" - Daily Wire
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/official-parts-warsaw-ghetto-wall-protected-monuments-article-1.3831339
And then, of course, we have the Berlin Wall, which isolated West Berlin.
Socialists never change.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the methods of what you describe as "climate zombies" are using. I am also horrified at the prospect of losing 500 trees for the sake of an bus lane. But let's look at cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, it really doesn't have to be that way.
"We consider it our right to be able to get from home to any destination we need in the fastest and most comfortable way we can afford." I agree. That's why I support the development of improved bus infrastructure and other modes of public transport, more bicycle infrastructure and more pedestrianized areas in my city of Glasgow. Because In a large city like Glasgow (by UK standards), owning a car should not be a pre-requisite for accessing quality education, healthcare, public transport, parks and green spaces, museums, supermarkets and whatever else you may need within a reasonable time frame.
The sad reality is the poorest people in my city have no other choice but to take several buses or trains to access the most basic of amenities. The most deprived areas in Glasgow also have some of the worst public and active transport links, but there are plenty of roads for cars passing through. Many of the people living in those areas can't exactly afford to purchase, fuel, insure and tax a car. Especially considering when a bus costs £1.50 and on-street parking anywhere near the city centre can set you back more than that for just a few hours. It is clear
The 15 minute city would not bring us back to "ancient" times at all, and It is certainly not about forcing people to surrender any right to movement and rendering them unable to explore and experience a city to it's fullest. People will still be able to get around the place, but let's give people without cars a chance to do the same. It's about forward thinking urban planning seeking to improve accessibility to a wide range of services for everyone, and recognising the inherent problems assoicated with dedicating so much public space to private motor vehicles. Viewing it as an attack on your personal freedom as a motorist is nonsense.
The 15 minute city is implausible the way you envisage it. Certainly I agree that improved city transportation networks, especially for those who don't drive, is highly desirable. There are many ways to improve on that, from the simple (bicycle paths & walking trails) to the moderate(rental E-bikes everywhere) to the complex ( Elon Musk style tunnels with mini-E-Bus vehicles). That's not the 15 min city.
The 15 min city concept really is eerily suggestive of the Great Reset goal of an impoverished, rent-only populace on the CBDC with UBI for likely about 1/2 the population. Since they obviously could care less about "useless eaters" and want severe population reduction, one can easily envision a Dystopian future where 15 min city areas become brutal ghettos where your UBI is barely enough for food, and law enforcement will be nil.
They will always hold it over your head that if you misbehave you will end up in the ghettos. With the UBI & CBDC they will have all the power and opportunity to achieve that. By then it will be too late to fight back. You can claim that you don't believe that will happen, like nobody believed what the covid "one week to flatten the curve" ended up becoming. If they have the power they likely will use it and they are NOT our friends. You need to be suspicious, be skeptical of every claim they make. They are devious and lie constantly. There is just too much at stake to be reckless with our rights and freedoms.
Neil Oliver: "...Our so-called leaders knowingly talked nonsense that destroyed lives and turned society upside down and inside out. The people responsible are wildly exposed and cannot convincingly deny any of it. Why I ask, would anyone trust them about anything else?....":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thWpDzKYuj0
Who watches the watchers? Who guards the guards? | Neil Oliver:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv8LI2q9KtQ&t=1s
There is no conflict here: I also support a well developed public transport infrastructure because I have vivid memories of having to wait for 40 minutes at the bus stop at -10 in December so I can get to the university, 20 years ago. I couldn't afford a car. I moved by bus exclusively and that particular line was not a frequent one. Over the years, as the area I lived in got more densely populated, things changed, another bus line was added, and the first one became a lot more regular and frequent. Organic progress, if you will. But that's not the idea of the 15-minute cities as they are being conceived of now -- this idea involves forcing people into things they don't want to do and I'm very much not okay with that.
It's always been telling that the first of the 3 R's is "Reduce." The left and anti-energy activists (but I repeat myself) are always about Less.
https://twitter.com/TimothySandefur/status/1637122973240025088
I can't speak to everywhere but in my corner of the world (Pacific NW) busses are essentially insane asylums on wheels. The busses in my small city are almost entirely empty as they cruise around all day -- guzzling diesel -- because no amount of virtue signaling, cajoling, guilt-tripping, or other propaganda, is going to cause a person, even one infected by apocalyptical-CO2-end-is-nigh hysteria, to willingly get locked in a box with dangerous crazy people. This presents a problem for leftists because if they exclude the drug addled homeless, that would be "inequitable", but if they don't, even leftists will choose their private vehicles -- it turns out that rational concern about getting stabbed today trumps hypothetical worry about future rising sea levels.
This is tragic and horrible at the same time. Very sorry to hear about it.
One aspect of these 15 minute cities that everyone seems to be ignoring -- or maybe it's obvious to everyone but me -- is they create perfect fiefdoms for elites to rule over. Folks have been focused on the effects on the population at large, but look at the opportunities it creates for the power-hungry elite.
Every Baron has his/her own little 15 minute city. You don't like the services in your "neighborhood", you better find a way to make the Baron happy enough to fix it for you. Everything you need or want fixed or changed, bribe.. uh, persuade the baron.
This will be like having HOAs on steroids. The opportunity for enrichment/graft for the ruler(s) of each fiefdom will be limitless -- well limited to the population, but presumably there are opportunities to move up to viscount, etc.
This really is neofeudalism, formalized, and required by law in all but name.
I expect something like that will be the future of "15 min cities". Except I would go further and predict the end result will be zones ruled over by a criminal gang and warlord. Likely lots of drug dealing to steal any UBI people get, so they can't even afford the pods provided by the Central Government, headquartered in Switzerland.
You just described Chicago. Baron=Alderman and the corruption and graft opportunities are legendary.
How many grocery stores does Chicago have in poor neighborhoods? Not very many... but you can find McDonalds everywhere and hey, food is food.
Just wait until they start trying to cut down the trees. Then the same protesting activists will turn to stop them from cutting them down. It is ironic that these are the “remainer” types who are convinced that people need “freedom of movement” in the supranational context!
I really don’t see this becoming a larger issue because it is ridiculous on its face- it is already unpopular in the silly university towns it is happening in. Try it in a place where blue collar people work and it will be undone right quick.
I like your perspective better than mine, a lot better. I do hope you're right. It makes sense that you are but so many things don't make sense when they should these days I've chosen to remain permanently suspicious.
Vigilance is always a good strategy!
Irina, Your background in energy and psychology is absolutely essential to understand this weird mass behavior. Best, Satish
15 minute cities are yet another Trojan Horse, although this time the enemy is hiding in plain sight. If we really could have everything within 15 minutes, no one would need to penalise car use outside their zone because no one would be travelling outside it. It's another attack on our freedoms and an attempt to wring evening more cash from us to waste on more meaningless 'public' (none) good. These people are evangelically evil. I'm reminded of a friend of mine from about 20yrs ago who is a town planner here in the UK. I talked to him about how much harder it was to move around in Nottingham (it's even worse today) and his completely matter of fact, holier than thou, self-righteous, groupthink response was devasting; 'but we don't want cars in cities'. I asked him 'who doesn't want cars?' because people clearly wanted to drive in the city as they had been for decades. His answer was 'we don't want them'. Since then urban planning has continued apace with the goal of removing our freedoms. The hypocrisy of these people is the thing that really irks me - they may not find the need to (car) travel beyond a boundary more than twice a week but they are content to drive to distant friends/relatives, or go on holiday etc etc etc Why stop at twice a week as being acceptable - what if I said... I think it's unacceptable for you to travel beyond the boundary at anytime. We know the answer.
Your articles are like drugs.... addictive and dangerous (for my stress levels)🤣
"We don't want them" sounds so reasonable, logical, and clear-headed.
Frustration and stress, I like to say, are like flatulence -- better out than in. :)
Just reading about this gave me the goosebumps. I passionately dislike the climate zombies and I can very easily see how drivers lose their patience when dealing with these sort of protests.
I can relate. Trying to communicate with people like that must be like staring into the abyss and not feeling it stare back at you.