Just Stop Oil?
In the ‘The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience’ written by permaculturist Rob Hopkins, founder of said Transition Movement, he nostalgised about a time that he himself is too young to remember, telling the tale of a family close to Totnes, the first ‘Transition Town’.
The Blight family business was horses, in particular draught-horses, which provided much of the town’s horsepower (literally) prior to the arrival of the internal combustion engine. In the same way that a globalised, energy-intensified infrastructure now exists to keep motorised transport functioning, before the 1930’s a localised, low-energy, diverse infrastructure existed to support the horse-powered economy.
Having lived in two car manufacturing cities, Coventry and Oxford (the latter of which nowadays has a Zero-Emission Zone), motorised transport certainly developed earlier than the 1930’s, albeit car ownership was financially out of reach for most workers until at least the 1930’s. Note that the Seven Sisters oil cartel, including British Petroleum (then the Anglo-Persian Oil Company) was formalised in 1927, so that the Western Powers could control Middle Eastern oil production. I can’t help wondering though whether Hopkins’ pre-industrial idyll existed as late as merely just ‘before the 1930’s’ even in and around market towns, unless they were as small as Totnes.
One could find a blacksmith within a file-mile radius of anywhere. Also, there were saddlers, harness-makers, ostlers, wheelwrights, grooms, ferries, coachmen and vets.
By ‘anywhere’ I presume that he is referring to South Devon; and how long into the twentieth century were coachmen required? Hopkins noted that the Blight family owned eight horses, stabled in the middle of town. These horses pulled the local trams and fire engine. What happened to the horses after they retired and later subsequently died Hopkins didn’t mention. He emphasised that this was the insight offered into the infrastructure that was necessary before the internal combustion engine, though he overlooked that in towns and cities appreciably bigger than Totnes, horse-power in its literal sense for pulling trams was replaced by electrical power from the local grid (in 1904 in the case of Leicester for example, something that I learned from a recent visit to the excellent museum at the former Abbey Pumping Station).
Accepting that the grid itself requires a fuel supply and that during that transition away from horse-power, that fuel supply was mainly coal, how would a transition away from fossil fuels look? Will horse-power or another form of animal-power be employed for agriculture and transport? In Oxford, perhaps oxen will be used for hauling delivery vehicles within the Zero Emission Zone city centre? Some food for thought for vegans who support ‘Just Stop Oil’ and the ‘Net Zero’ agenda.
Electric vehicles are not in themselves environmentally friendly in terms of the minerals that are required from which to manufacture the batteries. And exactly how environmentally friendly (or not as the case may be) are wind turbines, photovoltaic cells or any other ‘renewable’ devices for the generation of electrical power? Wind turbines kill large numbers of birds, something about which vegans who are Ecotricity customers suffer from cognitive dissonance.
More to the point is how the use of petroleum by-products has enabled the vegan movement, given that the Vegan Society was founded in 1944, when such products had become widely available. Acrylic fibres and nylon have allowed for the replacement of wool and silk respectively for clothing, polyester is used for hi-viz (and other) clothing, such as those worn by cyclists and ‘Just Stop Oil’ activists. Faux fur is made from a blend of polyester and acrylic materials. Good quality synthetic materials have allowed for the development of footwear, such as that sold by Ethical Wares, instead of using leather. It is now possible to make clothing (not hi-viz presumably) from hemp fibres, but what would vegans do for footwear? Wooden clogs or cork sandals from sustainable forests presumably. Most running shoes and other trainers (sneakers) are made from synthetic materials (with or without leather).
Ecologists who consume animal flesh and other products such as milk possess no ethical issues with wearing anything made from animal skins or wool. In their minds they view animals as complete resources to be exploited, including for agricultural and transport labour. They might argue that veganism is incompatible – or at least very difficult to reconcile – with ecology. I do not endorse that view, but I think that vegans need to remember that vegan philosophy developed during a petroleum-based industrial society and that weaning themselves off the use of petroleum by-products is going to be more difficult than it would be for omnivores. Note that the Jain community are not required to be vegan. Some are, but that does not mean that they lead pre-industrial lifestyles.
Since I started drafting this blog post, OPEC has announced a production cut, which not surprisingly has pushed up the price of the barrel of oil. This shows yet again the economic vulnerability of any country that is not self-sufficient in oil but whose economy is strongly dependent upon it. The Arab countries’ oil embargo of almost exactly fifty years ago against the USA should have provided the stimulus for the entire Western world to gradually wean itself off its oil addiction. But it didn’t. The resultant quadrupling of the price of a barrel meant that Britain’s North Sea oil reserves became economically viable to exploit, though they didn’t come on-stream until towards the end of the decade. It was our misfortune that Margaret Thatcher’s government was able to take the credit for that oil boom (and it was her government that sold off the state’s shareholding in British Petroleum).
Now that the North Sea oil bonanza has been and gone, people in Britain need to wake up and any paranoid ramblings that ‘they don’t want us driving cars’ are denying the economic reality of having an import-dependent petroleum-based economy. This issue has become side-tracked into debates about climate change and traffic management, when it is primarily about energy resources and from a British perspective, the lack of them. Ultimately it will be price of petrol, diesel or recharging that will drive car usage. However, British people who haven’t already asked themselves need to do so, as to whether an American-influenced car-dependent drive-thru lifestyle is appropriate for a small congested island whose transport infrastructure can only just about cope (and yes, that is a traffic management issue).
Local journeys I do on foot or by bicycle. For going elsewhere if direct public transport links are available I take them, as long as cash is accepted, the price is reasonable, mask wearing is not mandated (and no vaxx passport or specific ‘social credit’ score is required). My car I just use for other journeys. It is a useful amenity to own but that doesn’t mean that it needs to become my default method of transport. Given the high cost of car insurance and road tax I can understand why some people think that it ought to be their default.
Reference:
The Transition Handbook. From oil dependency to local resilience – Rob Hopkins, Green Books, Dartington, England, 2008, pp 63-64