Ok, what I am about to write might look like a 5 year old with a red crayon, no disrespect to 5 year olds and red crayons. I had a shock earlier on when I saw a grey haired but unmistakable John Selwyn Gummer, he who had fed his daughter a beef burger to prove that there was no Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in it (Mad Cow Disease in Cattle) arguing for the Climate over Jobs when the lockdown is lifted. He was waxing lyrical about working from home with investment in broadband more important than in road infrastructure. "Call yourself a Tory" I heckled before I realised that he was now a big Kahuna burger on climate change.
They can see the Himalayas from the Punjab. Air Pollution has diminished over China. The bones of dead gondoliers and dolphins can be spied gamboling through the canals of Venice. The geifr of Pen-y-Gogarth and the goats of the Great Orme have reclaimed the streets of Llandudno from human beings and this is as it should be. We are on the verge of going back to insanity. Of trying to manufacture and flog brand new cars that nobody wants. People have found their legs again and it's taken a virus for this to happen. A virus that was brought into the British Isles by the aviation industry. You can stop blaming bats and the Chinese and 5G masts and start blaming the aviation industry and globalisation.(Yes Mr Smarty Pants I know that 5G is part of globalisation. I'll throw my red crayon at you!) Blame the airlines for cramming people in like sardines and flying them in from Northern Italy with no checks and no quarantine. Blame the cavalier Boris Johnson for shaking hands and boasting about it when the science had told him not to.
I read 'Screw it, let's do it' by Richard Branson once and enjoyed it, thinking he was quite a cool dude but then he humiliated Jeremy Corbyn and started sniffing around the NHS. His trains were fast but I never flew with him. In fact I haven't flown since 2005 and that was an Easy Jet bringing me back to Bristol Airport after 114 days incarceration in a jail in Amsterdam. I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter. I have always thought flying is overrated.Train travel is over rated. None of these modes of transport can operate if they practice social distancing. Imagine social distancing on trains? Heaven. No longer having to listen to train guy on his mobile.
No the Climate is far more important than jobs. If we all go back to global insanity after lockdown then the sacrifice of the 258 thousand people who have died thus far from Covid-19 will have been in vain. You lift the lockdown too early and the next wave of virus will be rubbing its hands to Happy Birthday ready to kill again.
They are talking about staggering work hours. Common sense. Why does it need a virus for us all to start thinking clearly. Staggered work hours means less traffic congestion, means fewer problems at the Brynglas Tunnels and allows the wildlife of the surrounding wetlands to breath a huge sigh of relief.
"We don't need no education" sang Pink Floyd in 1979, well "We don't need no steenking jobs" I will sing outside the Job Centre. We need a Climate. We need to see the Himalayas one more time. Jobs for those who want them, because they want something to do with their time NOT so they can earn oodles of cash at somebody else's expense. Wake up and smell the fresh air in the inner city. Who mentioned Universal Basic Income?
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