thought for the day... again... capitalism? dying? dead?

[Ed209]

me too

but it wouldn't surprise me. No-one is using any transport of any kind. Nobody is using any electricity or gas (well, maybe some camping stoves)....

compared to a town the size of Brighton (which it is), I'd have thought, overall, there'd be much less power being used

[Ed209]

of course, but you said people at glastonbury weren't making journeys or using electricity. Unless people teleport there and then spend the weekend cooking a sausage on their stove, that's a total joke.

[Ed209]

I wonder how many of them switch off there central heating systems....

I wonder how many don't go buying cups of tea... Don't buy hot food... It's not beyond you is it to workout energy is still being consumed...

Add In the damage of setting the whole thing up and getting international stars there and I reckon it's vastly higher than a normal week...

[eFestivals]

I have never taken part in the survey or the study that has reached that conclusion. I would be interested for a link or where I can get a copy

You could do a study of yourself and realise that you don't need a link.

Do you eat more food at a fest? Nope.

Does the food you erat a fest comer with more or less packaging than the food you eat at home? Less, cos although you might use a paper plate, the food comes in commercial sized packaging and not the packaging for individuals that you'd buy at a supermarket.

Do you use more gas and electric at a fest? Nope - probably none at all.

Etc.

[Ed209]

You could do a study of yourself and realise that you don't need a link.

Do you eat more food at a fest? Nope.

Does the food you erat a fest comer with more or less packaging than the food you eat at home? Less, cos although you might use a paper plate, the food comes in commercial sized packaging and not the packaging for individuals that you'd buy at a supermarket.

Do you use more gas and electric at a fest? Nope - probably none at all.

Etc.

[Ed209]

I would guess that a kind of centralised catering (which is what there is at festivals) would be more energy efficient than 175,000 people using their own cookers at home.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Ed209

[Ed209]

what are efficient miles?

thousands of people get there by public transport. Many people don't travel long distances and their car, or van, or minibus will have as many people as can fit

Edited October 12, 2011 by Ed209

[eFestivals]

I tend to eat lots a festivals...

Granted it would be some what less

None at all ? Someone has to cook the food at some point you wally

Yep - but cooking for one or three is far less efficient than cooking for tens, hundreds or thousands.

The wally is the person who never realised.

[eFestivals]

Neil you are only looking at personal consumption only and ignoring all the other factors which is some what silly...

Nope. In 'normal' life there's much greater things which a person accesses, for just them (rather than shared across many thousands of people).

[fred quimby]

You could do a study of yourself and realise that you don't need a link.

Do you eat more food at a fest? Nope.

Does the food you erat a fest comer with more or less packaging than the food you eat at home? Less, cos although you might use a paper plate, the food comes in commercial sized packaging and not the packaging for individuals that you'd buy at a supermarket.

Do you use more gas and electric at a fest? Nope - probably none at all.

Etc.

[Ed209]

and what are the large majority of these bands on tour to do...? plug their latest release so that you can go to iTunes when you get home and buy it ...

Edited October 12, 2011 by Ed209

[Ed209]

double post

Edited October 12, 2011 by Ed209

[fred quimby]

It seems like there's two conversations going on here, one that recognises the true state of the world and the other that only recognises the state in the UK.

The 'teetering' I'm talking about humanity being on the edge of is the teetering caused by the inter-dependence of trade, which certainly hasn't existed since we crawled from the oceans - it's 40 years old at most. Sure, life has always been difficult for individuals since the dawn of time but individuals used to be able to have an individual approach to try and get around any difficulties - that option is now gone. Either we all manage to carry on, or we all fall into the shit. And it only takes the removal of a brick or two from the wall of life for the whole thing to come tumbling down for everyone in the western world (and many beyond too).

As for food, that's a weird one. We've had a growth in food production that's out-stripped the growth in the world's population for the last 50 years, and yet despite starting from the position of enough food being produced to feed everyone in the world (so there's been a growing surplus since). Meanwhile, we (people in the west) have sat by, thinking of ourselves as 'civilised', and been happy to watch millions die because those people are outside 'the system' that puts food on our own plates. Sure, we've made token efforts to satisfy our guilt and then thought "I can't do anything more" as we go shopping for a new TV, but we've ultimately sat back and watched them die.

The UK today is able to produce food for 70% of the population. That means that 30% of us in this country depend for our lives on 'the system'. That's you and me in that 30% ... you're kidding yourself if you really think you'd be one of the lucky ones, cos after all, some are going to be the unlucky.

And guess what happens if 'the system' breaks down? The rest of the world will sit back and watch us die no different to how we've sat back and watched others die. None of us are too special to realistically think we'd be the ones outside that scenario, but some are too special to think realistically.

And if the population grows too fast so that some have to die .... why are you thinking it won't be us that suffers? What have we got to offer (say) Kenya so that it keeps sending us food if/when its own population is starving? Right now we're able to swap beads for food no different to how we swapped beads for slaves in days gone by (and Kenya might even allow its people to starve for those beads as things stand right now), but one day they'll wake up and go "hang on, we hold the cards here". In a world that's short of food the only thing worth more than food are the guns that can secure food - and it's guns we're swapping for food while not able to afford the guns for ourselves; we're setting up our own certain deaths somewhere down the line.

[sifi]

Given that Glasto is an alternative to a holiday for most people, it's a lot less environmentally friendly than say flying off to visit Nazareth for a long weekend.

[Ed209]

if you want

maybe we can thank Steve Jobs for that...?

Edited October 12, 2011 by Ed209

[Ed209]

there is indeed

[fred quimby]

maybe we can thank Steve Jobs for that...?

[eFestivals]

I'd be interested in a link to where we get the answer from. I see your points above but that is only part of the story surely. We have to look at the energy use setting up and taking down the festival, while we are still all at home, using up all the stuff you talk about. Then there are all the extras people take and how much energy that takes, plus to recycle. I'm sure it doesn't add up. Not that this will stop me going and having a good time, but it's something I have seen on this site before with no proof.

As for the packaging, I do wonder how many people bring their own food and don't use it.

too many varibiles I know but you do mention (more than once) it so just wondering where you get it from, or are you just assuming?

I'll try and find the link when I have a minute (this arvo at earliest)

But what you've missed from within there is that while there's energy & resources used by the set-up and take-down, if those people weren't doing that work they'd be doing something else instead which is unlikely to use any less energy or resources (as the major part of such things is people's labour and not energy or resources) and might well use significantly more.

Stuff like this shouldn't be considered on an "it's an extra thing" basis, but on the reality that it's a replacement thing. If punters and workers weren't doing festivals they'd be doing something else instead - and just about anything aside from a walk (that you haven't driven somewhere to have) has a significant resource and energy impact.

[eFestivals]

Plus all the energy used in cleaning up ?

manpower isn't "energy" in the way we've been using the term in this discussion so far. The 'fuelling' of that person will be done anyway, so putting a person to work once 'fuelled' has no energy impact.

Outside of that, the waste created is around the same as would be created at home, and that needs clearing up too.

Once the 'replacement' use of energy is factored out of things, sitting in a field not driving (fuel, and the need to replace the car is lessened), and not using gas and electric as you would at home (for instance, no computer use) are big pluses.

Against that of course is the travelling to the fest, but that's more efficient travelling than the average travelling (a greater incidence of more than one person per vehicle, and greater use of public transport), and is a replacement to the work travelling people would be doing instead.

I'm not trying to say that the energy used by festivals is necessarily justifiable, but I am saying that the energy used is over-stated when put against the replacement use that would happen instead.

Edited October 13, 2011 by eFestivals

[worm]

manpower isn't "energy" in the way we've been using the term in this discussion so far. The 'fuelling' of that person will be done anyway, so putting a person to work once 'fuelled' has no energy impact.

[worm]

The point you were agreeing with recognised "The science is there, just not the investment to turn it into industry.".

And so 'your point' is that the things we know we need to achieve are already outside of what we're able to manage to do, while the possibility of achieving them gets harder because our access to the things we need for those achievements is getting more difficult (less efficient) and not easier. The investments needed are becoming ever-greater, and so the possibility of achievements for those things are becoming further away.

[Purple Monkey]

Isn't this discussion slightly irrelevant? There will always be consumption of any material in the transfer of energy of any sort.

The discussion is about sustainability.

Under this system, the one based on growth for growths sake - sustainability is impossible. Mathematically, completely impossible. Cancer either gets destroyed by an opposing force or it wipes out the host.

Attacking festivals or bands for their level of consumption is tantamount to madness. They are part of the current economic system and so they would of course abide by the laws of that system. Everything that a festival requires is governed by the restrictions within the economic model. What is being used is not being replaced, because designs, products, machinery, the actual building blocks and tools we use to make things are all compromised and built for wasteful purposes only. Built-in obsolescence permeates everything.

Of course, if the world was actually worth living in in the first place we wouldn't need such drastic forms of escapism like Glastonbury at all, would we? Maybe we wouldn't need half the vices and distractions we have now if the world itself was capable of making all the people on it even just mildly content with what they had?

Every time people get bogged down in these minor details, just take a step back, zoom out a little bit further and see the real problem.

I try not to get frustrated (but I do, I know I do, I can't help it sometimes) when discussing these ideas because they require a form of brain training. Like a fat person weened on Pizzas suddenly hitting the gym, their muscles and body are not going to adapt quickly enough to run a mile on a treadmill, and they will give up. Same goes for the brain, it's a muscle, and when discussing massive ideas, expecting people who have lived on a diet of bullshit, X-Factor, lies and religious doctrine (and I count money in that), they are simply going to be ill-equipped with thinking on the same level as a well-trained academic. It's not their fault, really, it's this fucking system at work again, which seems to have no guiding intelligence and now resembles a runaway freight train - only there's no track left now.

Edited October 13, 2011 by Purple Monkey

[eFestivals]

'We' are able to do it, 'we' just lack the will. And my point is and was that there will be a conflict over science and technology rather than natural resources. The resources are there in poor parts of the world, but the science and technology is not. We don't seem to want to part with it because of capitalism, but that machine is crumbling.

Not true. We can do some, not all - and everything we might do would be at the expense of something else.

For example, they'd be fuck all point in investing in a hugely expensive fusion plant (which would make today's nuke power look incredibly cheap in comparison) - if/when the technology actually works - if the resulting cost meant that we couldn't afford any of the electrical items to utilise the power it produced.

[eFestivals]

Isn't this discussion slightly irrelevant? There will always be consumption of any material in the transfer of energy of any sort.

The discussion is about sustainability.

Under this system, the one based on growth for growths sake - sustainability is impossible. Mathematically, completely impossible. Cancer either gets destroyed by an opposing force or it wipes out the host.

Attacking festivals or bands for their level of consumption is tantamount to madness. They are part of the current economic system and so they would of course abide by the laws of that system. Everything that a festival requires is governed by the restrictions within the economic model. What is being used is not being replaced, because designs, products, machinery, the actual building blocks and tools we use to make things are all compromised and built for wasteful purposes only. Built-in obsolescence permeates everything.

Of course, if the world was actually worth living in in the first place we wouldn't need drastic forms of escapism like Glastonbury at all.

Every time people get bogged down in these minor details, just take a step back, zoom out a little bit further and see the real problem.

Great post.

[worm]

You could do a study of yourself and realise that you don't need a link.

Edited October 13, 2011 by worm