It still blows my mind that the last “Bovril Boats” didn’t stop operating in the Thames until 1998. 1998 ! Their job was to take Lordon’s sewage down the Thames from Beckton and to dump it into the North Sea (but oh, on the ebb tide, so that was ok). Dumping anything in the ocean is an admission that our systems on land have failed, but in this case it was failure by design. We cannot continue to treat the ocean like this. #ocean#sewage
@helenczerski yes this is an extremely awful way to treat the ocean, but it also could've led to an infinitely more funnier version of the Evergiven incident, so i'm torn over whether this was a good or bad thing
@helenczerski the Sir Joseph Bazalgette used to dump Dublins shit in the sea. Not sure if it still does. Bazalgette being the designer of Londons sewer system
@SusiArnott I’ve been to Crossness - there’s a section about it in Blue Machine, and I tell that story during talks regularly. It is amazing that so few Londoners even know it exists.
@helenczerski it’s about to get worse. Lots of prominent electric car proponents who claim to be all about the environment are advocating mining the sea bed for lithium.
They scream at those who question EVs in any way yet, with a straight face call for ripping up the sea floor.
I struggle to see how one can claim to be an environmentalist but happy to do damage as long as it meets one’s ideology.
@CrackedWindscreen I don’t think that’s true. Most people advocating for EVs accept the answer is fewer cars, not 1-for-1 replacement, also they welcome greater scrutiny of where all materials come from. No-one ever asked where car materials originated before, but that question is now essential. No-one is proposing mining lithium from the seabed. There are polymetallic nodules down there, which we don’t need because battery development is taking those minerals out of batteries.
@helenczerski I agree, there is much more education and knowledge and appreciation of what it costs to make a car. But there are many who are actually advocating using such lithium for batteries, unfortunately.
I'm in the car sector so see it being said and who by.
I also agree with you on the fact we need to accept we need fewer cars etc. But not sure how we can get there without penalising people, as it stands. Vast investment needed in public transport and active travel options for local.
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