Tar Sands coming to Utah

[Advent]

Originally Posted by Isard

Vet bills? I think they're going to come up about the same. Of course, somebody who takes good care of their horse/car will always pay less than the retard who just expects it to work for a decade...

Perhaps. But on the other hand, if people simply walked, or used even less costly transport (e.g bicycles), we wouldn't have this problem at all.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by iron_jones

I prefer my clothing cheap. In fact, my Jeans I'm wearing right now were probably made in a sweat shop. Is it right? No.
But people need to stretch a dollar, and so by wearing these jeans I'm not going to tell people to buy locally made clothing.

But you would sign a petition that urges lets say the government of Pakistan or Bangladesh to ban child slavery, to install regulations that improve conditions for workers?

But I use gasoline and oil, so I don't think I have a right in any way to protest the extraction of crude oil.

I think we have 2 different things here.
One is personal lifestyle. I use oil, you use oil, you buy cheap clothes, I probably also have some clothes from that source (it does not say so on the label). So I guess I should not demand of you not to use oil or to buy cheap clothes. But I think I still can point out that one should be aware of this and try to avoid it if possible, within ones own means.
The other however is industrial process. And I think here it is the same to sign petitions against child slavery or stand in for better working conditions - or to demand regulations or alternatives to dirty oil extraction. And I think these can and should and actually have to be done even by the people who use oil or buy clothes. In a way this is democracy - the people, the "consumers" are the ones who should be able to demand the industry, the producers or the acclaimed representatives of the people - the government - to change.
There used to be the concept that the people are the rulers. This is what demo-cracy means. That the people are the kings and can have demands. Even consumerism claims that the "customer is king". To twist this into making people powerless and passive consumers who are not allowed to demand anything as long as they consume is madness. Especially as the economic situation is made worse (to not a small part because of the actions of the (financial) industry) to a degree that the people are robbed of the only means of voting they are given in an economic sense - the "vote with the wallet". They often do not have the choice to buy anything but the cheapest stuff available. So what are the majority of people in this economy then if they can neither "vote with the wallet" and buy responsible products rather than cheap products, when they are not taken seriously if they go along the other route and demand change by political action? Are these still responsible, active, participating and ruling citizens or rather what people sometimes call "wage slaves" - robbed of any means to influence decisions in society?
This is what I oppose. I think I and other poor people who are unwilling to let the destruction continue are sick of being told that they are not allowed to criticize anything because either they should "vote with their [empty] wallets" or "first stop consuming before criticizing production".
You see the lengths we have been going to to get into the second category until we realized that this cannot work, that it is impossible to change this culture by trying to meddle through it with a clear conscience. There are only 2 options - walk away (which is next to impossible on the scale it would be needed to change society) - or demand change while oneself still is part of the system.

I do admire what you do. It seems you're going out of your way to make your life very inconvinient, though.

Oh really it is not like that usually. The food tastes good, we are living in a small community and cook for each other - the thing with the showers is a bit bad, but I hope we will be able to get around that a bit.
But yes of course there are inconveniences involved but that is one of my points - what is primary - my convenience or the forests that grow over the tar sands or the fish in the gulf of Mexico. Certainly convenience is nice to have and if there would be a way to have it all, I would not see a reason to not also desire convenience. But as it is now, both is not possible. Some things can be improved by being more efficient without much loss to convenience, others cannot.

And no, having horses and carridges is a terrible idea.
Lots of poop and I don't want to be on a horse when it's -45 degrees celcius.

Ah - the poop makes great fertilizer for community gardens and for -45°C maybe you'll need reindeer then - you could also grow a long white beard then to protect you from the cold of the wind :lol:

Originally Posted by Isard

Nobody does.

Yeah, very helpful comment

Originally Posted by Clarke

Are you sure cars cost a lot more, over the car's lifespan?

I'm pretty sure, yes. My sister has a horse and despite the initial costs (about 500€), occasional vet or blacksmiths visits and access to a pasture with enough grass (plus some hay in winter) I doubt it needs a lot. A used car costs a couple of 1000 €€, then there are taxes, insurance - another 1000€ a year, then there are repairs, new tires and oil, replacement parts and of course gasoline at about $10 a gallon... And this is not calculating the nonmonetary costs like the impact car manufacturing and resource allocation has on humans and nonhumans in the parts of the world that provide resources and cheap labour. Or the costs involved in keeping the oil flowing, like wars, military presence,... - if you calculate ALL the costs - including those paid by others - of a personal car, it is a crazy thing.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Ah - the poop makes great fertilizer for community gardens and for -45°C maybe you'll need reindeer then

How many "community gardens" are we talking about here?

I'm pretty sure, yes. My sister has a horse and despite the initial costs (about 500€), occasional vet or blacksmiths visits and access to a pasture with enough grass (plus some hay in winter) I doubt it needs a lot.

BEVAT has some figures. IMO, that adds up to a lot, but I'm not sure what the corresponding figures are for a car.

[Aquaplant]

Electrically powered transportation and houses built in energy efficient manner, so that relatively small amount of electricity (or some other form of non-fossil based thermal energy) could keep them warm.

Problem solved, now you can all stop arguing about it.

[auroraglacialis]

Re community gardens - well the more the better - this will then give you also some good food for yourself and save money. Or even better - do pasture rotation with horses, chicken and grassland, that way, one does not need to fertilize the pastures and gets some additional eggs. I doubt that organic fertilizer from grazing animals is something the world has too much of - Replace some of that mineral fertilizer with it.

Re the BEVAT figures - honestly I think these are mad. It seems a bit like that brochure is set out to scare people away from getting a horse. I could ask my sister, but I think a lot of these costs are happening mostly if you live e.g. in a city and have to rent and buy everything. If you have lets say a 2 acre lot somewhere, you can easily feed the horse with that, if you live in an area with rainfall, you can collect rainwater for watering, if you know a blacksmith, he can put on the shoes in exchange for taking part in the sunday barbecue - or ideally if the horse does not need to go on long distances or on hard surfaces, you may not even need shoes (barefoot horses yay).
Some of the costs are very optional like transport in a trailer with a truck (!) or fees for competitions. Others are investments for a lifetime and for several people (e.g. shelter, fences - these can be used for several decades and also for several horseowners at the same time. I think my sister pays something like 100€ a month for pasture and stable use plus some money so that someone cares for the horse and extra money for winter food (maybe about 500€ for a winter) and some vet/blacksmith costs once a year, maybe another 100€. A car here is about 100€ in insurance a month plus gasoline and repairs.
So they are not different by an order of magnitude, but a horse would probably be a bit cheaper - and of course it is carbon neutral - and of course it is a living being that you can like and care for as well.
Oh and if you find some little girls - you instantly have free personnel to care for the horse and clean it and all that.