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JohnBusby

Listed below are comments made by JohnBusby between Tuesday, 11th November 2008 and Thursday, 27th August 2009.

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The PM Glass Box. 6:09pm on 27 Aug 2009 How can you discuss an international currency without reference to the restored local currencies in Totnes, Lewes and soon Brixton? Lewes's Mayor has just launched £5, %10 and £21 notes to augment the successful launch of the Lewes Pound a year ago.

The antidote to failing globalisation is the international Transition Towns movement, started in Kinsale and Totnes and now all over the world, even as far as Waiheke Island off Auckland.

As peak oil bites and transport costs soar, macroeconomies need to shrink into local microeconomies. The supermarket carparks will empty, a trend anticipated by Tesco as it opens its Express stores in town centres.

With the coming demise of aircraft and motor manufacturing the government needs to stimulate local initiatives for self-sufficiency in energy, food and local services as enshrined in the Transition Towns movement.

Big has failed - give small a chance!
What did you think of The One Show? Guest: Kirsty Young 7:46pm on 01 Jun 2009 The village initiative you described tonight is alive and well as the Transition Towns movement, founder Rob Hopkins.

Why not feature Totnes, Lewes and Brixton, then Lampeter? Also Waiheke Island off Auckland?

See Transition Lavenham for a recent initiative in Suffolk.
Thursday, 15 January, 2009 7:46pm on 15 Jan 2009 The debate in the Commons was unreal - there was no discussion as to the availability of jet fuel to fuel the envisaged air traffic expansion. In 2050 carbon emissions will meet an 80% reduction target without any action by any agency as fossill fuel depletion will achieve it and alleviate climate change.

Around 7% of a barrel of oil produces jet fuel. The progressive introduction of more efficient aircraft would require a doubling of jet fuel supplies to allow a three-fold expansion in air traffic. Global crude oil production passed its peak in 2006 according to BP's Statistical Review 2008, so a doubling of oil production is an impossibility.

The greatest effect is the cancelling of aircraft orders which is already happening and the parking of redundant aircraft at Basingstoke has also occurred.

A Heathrow Terminal 6 will be a Marie Celeste crewed by the ghosts of the displaced Sipson residents without a pilot.
Too much dissent for an election? 4:42pm on 14 Jan 2009 The problem with the runway and climate change is that the passing of a global crude oil production peak in 2006, recorded in BP's Statistical Review, has been ignored. Indeed BP's chief economist has gone to great lengths to deny that that it will ever happen.

There is also a reluctance to accept that coal is running out fast, at least the best grades. There is less dissent about the peaking of gas and once Russia's internal demand exceeds its dwindling production, the valve to Europe will be permanently closed in ten years or so. Uranium production is stagnant and the lights will soon be going out in France as it depends too much on nuclear and imported electricity from others with gas!

So a change of lifestyle and our economic course is needed and neither the greens nor the main parties are able to produce policies to cope with fossil fuel depletion. Climate change will be alleviated by the run down of fuels, not by any action or new technology.

The Post will have to give way to emails as there will be no fuel for the red vans.

I fear that reality will dawn too late, even though orders for aircraft are being cancelled and 26 modern aircraft are parked at Basingstoke. If the runways are built they will provide convenient parking place for the rest!

I have been trying to get this over since the fuel protests in 2000- I suppose it's too unpleasant a medicine to be taken!!
Heathrow and the beat of 2009 11:42pm on 12 Jan 2009 Around 7% barrel of oil is refined to jet fuel. The proportion can be increased by changing the profile of a refinery, but that would be at the expense of petrol and diesel.

Taking into account the phased introduction of more efficient aircraft, the White Paper envisaged air traffic expansion would require global crude oil production to double, whereas in fact it passed its peak in 2006 according to BP's Statistical Review.

The state of the industry reflects this as aircraft orders are cancelled and redundant aircraft are parked at Basingstoke as airlines are bankrupted by jet fuel prices.

The economic justification is based on the use of Heathrow by City financial institutions which are now in paralysis. Air traffic including freight is down by 10%.

If the runways at Heathrow and Stansted are built they will be simply provide parking lots for more redundant aircraft. Gordon Brown cannot come to terms with the job losses at Broughton wing factory, caused by EU soft loans to AirBus, to which Britain contributed, building a facility not needed to meet the market requirement unsupported by adequate fuel supplies. He believes that the jobs will be saved if he builds the runways, but they wont be.

Destroying a whole community for no good reason will be a damning legacy for Gordon Brown.

I have submitted the above to Harriet Harman and Hilary Benn. I hope they can get this over to Gordon Brown.
Can Britain afford fusion? 2:18pm on 29 Dec 2008 Fusion is an "illusion". It needs tritum which is made from lithium in a fission reactor. It has only a short half-life and to make sufficient for a commercial application would be impractical and would need lots of fission reactors to feed the fusion reactor.

(It must be remembered that Pile 1 at Windscale caught fire when making tritium.)

Fast breeders are equally impractical as the "doubling" time of 15 to 20 years to replace the plutionium fuel and with the need for more reprocessing plants to separate that gained from the depleted uranium "blanket", breeders like fusion will ever remain a mirage.

In the meantime the uranium gleaned from ever-decreasingly low grade deposits is running down fast. No wonder the scientists "harrumpf" when confronted with the reality of wind generation!
"Tough love" in benefits overhaul 4:05pm on 10 Dec 2008 Northern Rock came up today and its re-possessions. On the welfare side there is a shortage of council accommodation and those dis-possessed will be homeless and councils will have to fork out for B&B. Why not pass the repossessions to the local council, which could then simply rent them to the occupants? This would give a breathing space to the occupants, who would have a much better chance of getting a job if they lost theirs.

This would add to the public housing stock and save money for the local councils (who are skint anyway) and will be hard pressed to provide housing benefits. Some have money from previous council house sales, which could be used to acquire the re-possessed objects.

Surely Northern Rock should act in positive way rather than destroy people's lives?
Council housing: Should Right-to-Buy be scrapped? 7:14pm on 25 Nov 2008 As sent already to Today and PM
>To: Today/PM
>From: John Busby

19 October 2008

Subject: Northern Rock

Having now acquired a de-mutualised building society, the state should now “mutualise” it by paying off all the non-depositor creditors, relieving it of its bad borrowing, so that it can revert to being a proper building society with just domestic deposits.

If it then re-possesses the houses of defaulting mortgage holders, it will simply pass the upkeep of those made homeless to the state and local authorities. The state's problem is also exacerbated by the re-possession of houses mortgaged by other banks.

Let Northern Rock then buy the insecure mortgages from other banks, perhaps at a substantial discount .Northern Rock can then temporarily convert its own and its acquired mortgages to rents, while allowing its tenants to revert to ownership at some later date when house prices have risen again.

Given that the state has to pay for the consequences of re-possession and homelessness, this could be the cheapest solution and has the advantage of an eventual recovery of the losses. An unemployed man or woman has little chance of finding a new job without an address and the stability of retaining a secure base for his family would provide the breathing space for finding another job.

By nationalising Northern Rock, the state has acquired a suitable vehicle for restoring the housing market and easing the current emerging social problems.

John Busby
Stimulating the global economy 9:22pm on 15 Nov 2008 Listening to to Brown and Darling's press conference, it was a little tiring to hear constantly of globalisation just as it is coming to an end and localisation is now the survival mechanism.

Global crude oil production passed its peak in 2006 (according to BP's Statistical Review 2008) signalling the running down of world transport and with it rapidly increasing cost of imports.

Communities from Totnes to Brixton. from Lampeter to Waiheke Island are localising their energy and food supplies and services. Perhaps the rescue of the Post Offices will herald a recognition that charity begins at home.

It's re-localisation now - globalisation is just for concepts passed on!
Look out - speed camera ahead! 7:08pm on 11 Nov 2008 Whatever the cause of an accident, it is exacerbated by the square of the combined speed of the participants, being the kinetic energy released into the bits and the victims.

So speed squared is a factor in every accident, so instead of trying to excuse going too fast as a habit and getting caught, study the applied mathematics.

The government could help by insisting on the setting of the maximum speed on electronic governors, fitted as standard on imported German cars, at 250 kph down to say 75 mph.

Incidentally who buys a car capable of 200 mph when the limit is 70 mph? Why are such cars certified for use on British roads? The government is culpable.

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