My planet

Further regarding the BP disaster.

This link to a time lapse of the spill courtesy of NASA, and lets not forget, none of this would be possible without the help of BP and the ignorant, money greedy people running it.



Thanks BP, for fucking up my planet.

When the signs are right in front of you

Ever so often, there are disasters that make you sit up and pay attention. Disasters are always just that. A disaster.

Sometimes disasters cannot be avoided, while others can.

One of the biggest disasters to have occurred in recent times is the oil spil in the United States. I'm not going to go into the details, as it has been welled covered over the news and Internet. Hovewer, I came across this website today with images from the area affected by the oil.

http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/06/21/road-signs-of-rage-against-bp-oil-spill.html

The first image shows a sign with the writing "God help us all".

If there is a God. I think they are the only one who can help. But if there is a God, why would they when greedy bastards have their own agenda and care little about others.

From the outside, and I mean that by being in a country not the U.S. It would seem that those in responsible in the United States for the United States care little about it.

If they did, New Orleans would have been cleaned up by now. And I'd imagine this BP oil spill, as it has already been, will continue for quite some time.

People responsible aren't being that. And the only one left, since no one is taking the heat that will be left to fix it all is probably God.

While I'm not a religious person, I have belief. And I believe the sign in that first photograph is all there is since one one else is raising their hand.

I can only imagine the devastation of this disaster. The rest of the photos show peoples lives and businesses that have failed due to their livelihood relying on the fresh coast, now tainted with an inconvenient leak that no one is really stopping.

I may not be hearing or seeing the full story living all the way down in Australia. But what I have heard, read and seen is enough for me to be distraught with humanity and there isn't much that's happening that will restore that for me. Not in relation to this anyway.

Why enough isn't enough

As humans, we always want more. More is better. More is more. Less is crap. The person with more always wins. It's not a human condition, it's a social one. Society tells us that more is better. Bigger is better.

I see this all the time. Being an ex-motorcycle mechanic, I always take notice of automotive marketing blurbs.....

"Our new model is faster, lighter, handles better......"

The same goes for cars. "Our most powerful model yet"

You know, even if that were the case, and each year since an automotive manufacturer made their cars increased the engine power , the theory states we should all be driving super fast cars that weigh nothing.

With motorcycles, you hear it all the time, "We made a weight saving of 5kg." And they seem to do this each year, at the same time the swing arm is longer too. So how come the bike isn't tipping the scales at 45kg and producing 400 Horse Power?

I think a lot of it has to do with more bullshit. And I think it plays on the heart strings of modern humans who automatically think more is better. Even if you're not getting more. You'll pay for thinking it, and being able to tell your friends.

How far can this go? It goes far enough. Same as shops who have those great SALE! signs up, all the time. When isn't there a sale?

I'd like to have a sale one day where I put up signs that say "No SALE today! Try next door"

I think I'll probably get more attention because it's so different.

There is some light, and while the end of the tunnel is still a while away. I think a minority of people are starting to realise that less is better. More is excessive. I won't lie. I'm one of them. More was always better. Now less is. I want less. I want everyone else to have less.

Why does a house have to cost half a million dollars? Why not $20? Who decides that my land rates are lower or higher than the neighbour in the next suburb?

Why does my water cost more than your water?

How come I get taxed higher because I make more money? Even if you tax someone who makes more, at the same rate, you still end up with more money.

Is it just me or has the world gone mad?

I know what it is. It's greed. People always want more. Because more is more. More is better.

Well if more is better, I'm happier being worse off.

Alternatives

People often look at how much they consume. This is generally brought on not because of the environmental impacts but because of the impact on their hip pocket.

However, when I read an article that has been published on an online environmental website I enjoy reading both for the informative and stupid, wasteful ideas. I get worked up.

The article, here, is about oil consumption, specifically in the US. The question it asks is, where does oil go? Based on the graph the article displays shows that passenger transportation, freight and heating are the biggest factors in oil consumption. In fact, they account for over 70% of all oil consumption based on this information.

How can something so simple consume so much oil?

I posted a short answer in the comments section of the article which made me start to think, how hard is it?

The comment I made referred to passenger travel. Most people travel quite short distances. Since this accounts for the major part of the graph, I'd say walking or riding a bike would be beneficial. And I can relate because I do walk and I do ride. I understand there are times when you can't. You have a heavy load to bring home. Weekly grocery shopping is hard on a bike. Then again, I use to ride a motorcycle and didn't have a car or a license to drive one only a few years ago. I did my weekly shopping on my bike, everything fit in my backpack and it also made me buy wiser. Buy less, which meant that less was thrown out. If I ran out of something, the large and convenient shopping centre was easy to ride down to and pick up the items I need the most.

Since I picked up less items, and I did it locally, I didn't have to purchase things from far away. Since then I've become even more conscious of freight and buy from local farmers. There's no double (or triple) handling of goods. They're not frozen (6 months ago) for my freshness. I pay less for it, and they haven't been freighted around the world or from interstate. If something is out of season, too bad. I just have to wait. Instead of buying imported pineapple or strawberries.

So, I've covered oil consumption for passenger travel. I've covered oil consumption for freight. What about heat. It's a comfort, sure. But is it necessary?

I'm going to say yes. Heating is important. It gets cold in some parts of the world. And while it doesn't snow where I live. It does get to -1°C. 2 weeks into Winter and I'm waking up to 3°C mornings. I turn on the heater only when it is ultimately necessary. Otherwise, and more usually I dress for the occasion. There was once a time when dressing for the occasion, hot or cold meant I wore shorts and a t-shirt. The shorts got a bit longer but usually never past my knees. My winter apparel consisted of long shorts and a t-shirt. Now, as I get older, I still don't turn the heater on unless the house is freezing. But with my place it is never that cold because of the aspect on the block of land. While it's an old house and has inefficient insulation, it goes okay for Winter. Summer is a stinker. It gets hot.

Though for heating, using electricity, oil or gas, which all ends up consuming some form of fossil fuel, I try and keep it to a minimum by putting on a jumper and some jeans or pants. I stay warm, and I haven't turned on a power consuming heater.

Wow. Three simple things I can, and do and I've consumed 70% less oil. I wonder what would happen if everyone did that?

On the move

Retirement is something everyone wants. Who wants to work? No one. Why do we work? Money. We all need it in todays society. It's rare in built up areas to be able to head down the grocery shop and say "I'll clean the floors if you give me some eggs, carrots, potatoes and onions."

When I look at people who live off the grid or on the land, away from it all, there's a level of comfort that I can see. You can grow your own fruit and veg. You can have your own chickens for eggs and meat for the special occasions.

But what about the life of a vagabond? My wife and I like the idea of retiring and hitting the road for the rest of our lives. We like the idea of a motor home or something like that. Though I like VW Kombis. She likes the fully kitted out caravans that I wish not to tow.

What can you do with regards to food when it comes to a life on the road?

I thought long about this and only came up with one thing. Money.

The vehicle needs maintenance, fuel, servicing, unscheduled breakdowns, and there's no where really to grow anything you want of substantial significance that you could live off. You'll have to pay for food too.

Paying for it isn't so much the problem as much as more and more people these days talk about never retiring because their pension won't support them once they stop receiving a regular income from fulltime work. That is, if there is a pension when they retire, and by "they" I mean "me".

While you can live quite frugally, and I know I have had to in the past. I do believe it would be quite difficult at times.

Watching the River Cottage series, the main guy starts off living on the road, but that soon changes and the "cottage" turns in to a full blown farm/restaurant thing with a full production farm that comes with beef, milk, chicken, eggs, fruit and veg. Sure it cost more than a van, but this is where I can see obvious signs of self sufficiency. On the road, I just can't see that and I'm curious how it works.

How does life on the road differ to life on the land?

Possesive posessions

Over the last few years I have been thinking about all that I have accumulated. And when you start to think about how much junk you have, you start to realise that more than half of it is useless.

When I sat down to really think about it, I reckon 99% of what I own is a burden. One I could do without.

Why are we so insistent on having all these things? Why can't we just ignore the Jones' and make our own lives happier by leaving all that crap behind and making do with what we need instead of over indulging on what we want.

I'm not going to preach and then lie. I have a life that's filled with unnecessary crap. I have a couple of laptops, when I only need one. I have a desktop PC, when I don't even need one at all. I have a TV that's too big, a fridge that's too big and if I look around at everything else. There are only two or three important things for me. My wife, my house and my guitar.

Sure, you need a fridge. And entertainment is nice. But we don't really need them. They're just conveniences. Our stove is broken, but rather than buy a new one, we just use an old burner that does the job.

I write this post because we all live a life of excess. I do it, you do it. Why?

We work. Why? To pay for these things. What if you lived off the land, you land? You wouldn't need so much work. You could get by with a few dollars, and the rest of your time you work your land. You'd have to in order to survive.

And that's really my point. The responsibility for survival has changed. No longer do you have to grow your own food or hunt it. You just buy it. You don't have to build your own dwelling. You buy a house, or pay to have one made for you.

How can a meagre lifestyle be lived in a society so full it's exploding?

Do you become an outcast? Hop in your car and drive around in the sticks?

You would have to, because if you stopped working you won't be able to afford your mortgage, rent, bills, rates, land tax, etc.

Because of this, you would be stamped as a hobo, a tramp, a bum. Why?

Because society has a preconceived image of what the ideal life should be like?

My wife and I love the idea of retiring, selling everything we have, buying a mobile home of some description and living somewhere new each day.

How will this be possible? We gotta work hard to build up savings to be able to live off them comfortably when we're not building that savings fund. With our only hope being that it lasts until we die.

That's the dark side of it all. Either way to look at it, you need money. Whether it's a little or a lot. Even the motor home will need maintenance, fuel, parts, and so on. It's going to have to be paid for somehow.

And after all that's said and done, while I have harped on about this subject in a different guise once before.... you need some cash to free yourself from this current lifestyle.

One of my friends father retired and escaped the rat race to live in the country side. He bought a place and now lives off his savings. When they get low, he goes into town and cleans windows for shop owners. Does the odd weeding for people with large properties and gets by. I guess there's always a way to do things to get by. My wife and I recently sat down to enjoy a few episodes of The River Cottage. And it's inspirational to see how someone can drop it all and go follow their passion and to see if it can be done.

Most of the people I follow in other blogs have done just that. And I'm using their thankfulness to share their experiences as a learning tool to get me started on the right path. One day I'll be able to turn around and wonder not how I accumulated all this crap, but where did it all go? Hopefully to someone else who needs it more than me. And I can set myself free from the artificial umbilical cord society grafts to you from your first breath to your last.

The expense of it all

I wanted to start by asking, "Is it just me, or...." but that sounded too cliché. Though I want to ask the question. Is it just me, or is everything bloody expensive?

Sometimes when you look at something you can determine the price. If someone asks you how much a 2L bottle of milk is, you know it's about $3.00. I'm talking Australian dollars here. If someone asks you how much a medium sized car is? You can bet that it's going to be about $25,000 to $35,000.

Then there are times when you see the price of something you know, love and may have even owned at one time in your life which you look at and safely assume the price will be, say $60. Maybe $90 if you're pushing it, with inflation and all that. Only to see the price sitting at $290. A price which makes you stand back and think "Oh shit, scrap that idea"

I had an idea. It turns out I can't afford it.

I'll give you the background of it first. My nephew is obsessed with video games. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when my brother died, my sister in law spoilt him with whatever he wanted. Until then, his video gaming addiction was non-existant.

Between his Playstation, Game Boy, and a host of other small consoles and hand held gaming units, the poor boy is transfixed on the stuff.

When I identified this, I decided that I will never buy him anything related to video games. Last year he received a Playstation Portable for Christmas, and he asked me if I could get a memory stick for it. I said no.

The presents I have been buying him are LEGO. Meccano. Puzzles and so on. Meccano he didn't like. And he told me straight out why, "It's tool hard having to put together something with nuts and bolts."

I was dumfounded. Too hard? I remember building massive Meccano sets when I was half his age, and I was upset that I didn't have enough parts to engineer certain objects I wanted to make.

Anyway, so I figured if I'm going to buy him something he loves, it might as well be LEGO. He loves it so much I find him in his room building whatever his imagination lets him build rather than playing that stupid video game machine.

I have been keeping my promise to myself about never buying him video game material of any kind. And latest idea to have some fun together with him was to buy a slot car race track set.

This is where I'm getting right onto my topic for the day. I decided I'll start on Ebay and a few local hobby shops that have websites. My jaw slung open and I looked at the price of some of these sets. The basic set, which came with two cars, two controllers, a power pack and enough track to make a circle.... Not a figure 8 or anything exciting like that.... a circle. $90

Larger tracks were starting from about $285 and worked their way up to the $500 mark.

I recall getting a figure 8 track with two cars and two controllers for something like $20 when I was a kid. My brother and I played it each day after dinner. It was amazing. And while $20 back then was still a lot of money, I assumed that same track, which is still made today would have been around $100. Not so. Try $285.00

WHAT?

Now, before I go on. I want to say that I do spend a great deal of money on the LEGO I have bought my nephew, that we spent hours and some times days putting together. These aren't small sets. They're those big bastards for young adults like me who haven't finished growing up.

These kits retail from $70 and work their way up to nearly $200. Despite this, I knew LEGO and the like were always pricey. I know because I use to pester my family to buy me LEGO and I never got it because it was unaffordable for us. But that was okay, because the slot car track was just as fun, and much cheaper, and much more entertaining.

When I started to think about the cost of this slot car track, I started to wonder about everything else that's not cheap anymore. Or more specifically, things where I thought were cheap, but are really not that affordable at all.

I know it's all about inflation and relevance to income in the country you're in. Like when people from the UK say how cheap everything is here in Australia or in the US. Maybe so, but try living there or here, and see if it's really that cheap. It isn't.

Nothing is cheap any more. Bargains are rare. Everything is always on sale, despite being over inflated in price to begin with. An example of this is a certain large music shop in Australia. I know for a fact their prices are higher than retail because I use the same suppliers for my music school and the suppliers give me their price, retail price and this music shops price, then they tell me I can sell it for anything from RRP to Music Shop X's price.

While this is great for profit margins, it's still a rip off.

I wonder if the same is true for slot car track sets?

I have no doubt it's not only just for slot cars. I believe everything is over inflated. And it's spoiling the fun I could have with my nephew.