A Re-Energization of Community Activism
Your Ontario Vineyard Village Association has not been idle. We have called for a ban on businesses in the Fourth and Vineyard area. We have proposed that winds come from the south, rather than from the north, until toxic businesses go away. And, the Ontario Vineyard Village Association has also proposed "the decommissioning of all roads within one mile of Fourth and Vineyard, including Fourth Street, Vineyard Avenue, and U.S. Interstate 10."
But even those measures, if adopted, would not preserve the residential character of the community. It's time to ban fossil fuels completely. This was proposed in England several years ago:
Prospects for the [Kyoto protocol] look, if George Bush has indeed won the US presidency, less than promising. Mr Bush, who was suckled on oil, will block its implementation by any means possible. Even if it were to be enforced, however, the cuts it demands are just a fraction of those required to prevent the proliferation of such freak weather events as those we have suffered over the past two weeks. If governments are to make any appreciable difference to their impact on the world's weather, in other words, they will have to go it alone.
But what on earth could we do? It's simple. All that needs to be done to bring our contribution to climate change to an end is for the government to announce that in five years' time the burning of fossil fuel in the United Kingdom will be illegal....
Northern Europe, according to a new report commissioned by Greenpeace, could meet three times its total energy needs simply by exploiting offshore wind. Every terraced house could produce more energy than it consumes by covering its roof with solar panels. And many of us could cut our consumption in half by replacing our clapped-out fridges and rattling windows and insulating our lofts.
As the most accessible reserves are depleted, the price of oil will continue to rise. The countries which control it will be able to hold their clients to ransom. Were Britain to announce a ban on fossil fuels today, then in five years' time ours would be the advanced economy, while America, governed as ever by oil, will still be locked in the fossil era.
In fact, adoption of the "ban fossil fuels" tactic would make the other ones listed above redundant. There's something to be said for simplicity.
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