COP28 has just finished in Dubai. Why COP? Why 28? And why Dubai?
It’s the United Nations global conference on climate change, so it must be critical to the future of the planet. 14,000 people have flown in from all over the world, many on their private jets.
COP stands for “conference of the parties”, whatever that means in a country that frowns on alcohol, but maybe they set aside their prohibitions for a week or two🤡
Why 28? I guess they must have had 27 of these binges before. How else do you put the world to rights?
Why Dubai? Well Saudi Arabia is the Worlds biggest oil producer, so if they were to agree to turn off all their oil wells we would be at Nett Zero over night ! But don’t hold your breath.
So what has all this to do with potholes ????????
It’s the other side of Britain’s climate change strategy. Anticipating that weaning ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels will be very difficult, the Government has been surreptitiously introducing other tactics to reduce our use oil.
By not repairing potholes it discourages excessive car use. Congestion charges also help a lot, so do cycle lanes which add to congestion on the roads. Not resolving rail strikes also saves fuel. Gradually the Government is gumming up the UK transport system, which all encourages more “working from home”.
There is also the big promotion of electric vehicles. Except they cost a fortune and don’t travel far without stopping. Horses and carts will be coming back soon.
So if COP28 doesn’t save the planet, maybe the UK will still be OK.
Although all over Britain the lights will be going out🤡
GrumbleSmiles 
Well I Never! A little slang for Cop
one- ‘’Coyle in coyle ole’ { coal in the coal hole- the cellar}, on a winters dad would ask me to go into the cellar, fill a bucket of coal [we actually hade coke], for the fires in the house. And once a month/six weeks, we would get a delivery of a ton of coke [ from the gas works] and if I was to earn pocket money, then shovel the coke from the back garden, though the grate into the ‘’coayle ole!’’ Great.
Now another few memories this time of the year to celebrate ’’COP 28’’ or what ever the party is celebrating??? Trolly buses, all electric road transport and passenger journeys, no need for steel works and furnaces or coal to produce steel for say tram tracks- so an updated transport system, full of green credentials???
But there again in my wartime child hood going back to our living quarters in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire dales the daily visit to the loo/nettie pho on the pot, pull the chain the resultant detritus would go down the hole onto a slurry tip, then in spring the local farmer would fork the remnants into his trailer and proceed to spread the ‘’ stuff ‘’ around his hay fields to encourage the grass there to grow stronger and with new green shoots, then in late March he would carefully put his cows on to the field to munch {chew the cud} the new grass!!! Recycling at its best, then; He would after milking the cows in the field, put it into his dairy cooler then serve it in our milk cans and sell it to his villagers, again we were recycling?? PHOO!!! What a story???
I have forgotten the ‘GAS’ and the ‘OLD FARTS’ at the party, and making holes in the OZONE layers with their flights of fancy, and their ‘chariots of fire’ to reach this wonderful conference!!! I am in the farmers chicken shed going ‘cluck, cluck, cluck’?, or is it at the local duck pond going ‘QUACK, QUACK, QUACK’?= Palace of Westminster!! Role on the General Election, and all those manifesto Promises!!!!
Nice memories. Maybe we knew how to recycle all those years ago.