Have you ever wondered about why prices always go up? Why do prices never go down?
For example, we’re in a ‘cost-of-living’ crisis where electricity prices will go up drastically, but they never seem to go down. It’s the same with petrol and diesel. And the short answer for these two commodities is that it’s a simple law of supply and demand. It’s the same with houses. There are more people in the world than ever before (because mankind is so good at gratifying their sexual urges), but yet the number of houses being built doesn’t keep up with the rate of population growth.
As I said in another page, ‘nothing is simple’. To avert this cost of living crisis, we have to know what started it. It seems to be a simple answer, but actually, nothing is truly simple. However, the vast majority of this is the global supply of gas from Russia being cut off. What mankind needs to do, now, is that we need to take a leaf from nature and get all our electricity from the Sun, or renewable resources, like wind and tidal. I’m a huge supporter of tidal energy, as the tides would still go around, even if the Sun burnt out, because the tides are caused by the Earth rotating around the Moon and the Sun, not the Sun’s energy, like photosynthesis is in our natural world. Yes, granted, not all food chains have the Sun as the producer. For some short food chains, the producer is actually sulphurous hot vents at the bottom of the ocean trenches, and life-forms feed off the sulphurous vents. They have a completely different way of making glucose, which is still yet to be understood in any great detail.
Coming back to our ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, there are ways in which we can lessen the impact it has to our lives. One is actually a really simple one, but we need a really big change in our habitual routines. It’s driving in an economical, fuel-efficient fashion. Some call it ‘hyper-miling’ and theses hyper-milers try to get the most out of their car. They drive with their car tyres slightly over-inflated, give themselves a lot of extra time to get to where they want to go and don’t travel at 70 mph (or over) on the motorway. They leave a large gap between them and the car in front, to reduce the deceleration and acceleration that comes with driving too close to the car in front. They only fill their fuel tanks to half-full and take everything out their car boots that they are not using. I go one better, and I have a solar panel that trickle-charges up my battery, so that when the car starts, the alternator has less work to do in recharging the battery, leading to a higher fuel efficiency.
However, there is another thing we all could do, to try and lessen the cost-of-living crisis. It’s the opposite of the convenience factor, and some people might not like the thought of this, but… It’s travelling by bus and train. The busses and trains use a large amount of fuel, be it via electricity from the electrified lines (as the rail network is not 100% renewable) or via the diesel that busses and diesel trains use. But, why do we want to use these? Because the bus or train will carry on burning fuel, on its journey, even if we aren’t using the bus or train service – whereas if we don’t use our car, then we don’t use the fuel. Busses and trains are the most economical form of transport if everyone uses it. However, then these businessmen think that they can harness this and up the fare prices… So, it’s back to the law of supply-and-demand again. But, is there a way in which we can stop these big entrepreneurs getting a very large chunk of the profits? Or even governments and ministers, who we shall not name because their wife gets non-dom status…
And when you get into these complex worlds of different parts of the economy, things get very complicated. But, there is still a way to avert this cost-of-living crisis. And that is acting in a collaborative way, with our friends and neighbours to achieve the unthinkable. Yes, it’s Tesco’s slogan, Every Little Helps. And it’s the opposite of the ‘convenience factor’. For example, I use an old petrol car, even though I’m a devout electro-head. Why? Because the energy used to make a new electric car contains far more CO2 than I would use in fuel to get my car to the end of its life at 100,000 miles. It’s all about looking at things in context.
So: my priorities? If I get to be the next MP for Louth and Horncastle? Read the next page…