Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; Ordinary residents of trial cities will only be permitted 100 days per year outside their 15 minute region. But special people get a free pass.
Labour council brings in ‘perverse’ 15-minute driving rules – it could roll out across UK
Labour ministers have drawn up plans to hand councils powers to bring in 15-minute cities branded ‘Stalinist’ and ‘perverse’.
By Aaron Newbury
10:18, Sun, Jan 25, 2026 Updated: 10:41, Sun, Jan 25, 2026Sir Keir Starmer will introduce 15-minute cities across the country with critics slamming them as ‘Stalinist’ and ‘perverse’ , it has been revealed.
…
15-minute cities are a new concept based on the idea that a person living in one will be able to access everything they need within a quarter of an hour by walking or cycling. They are sometimes accompanied by restrictions on motorists.
Oxford, which is actively implementing a plan to introduce the scheme, has seen its local authority plot to divide the city into six “15-minute neighbourhoods”. This would see drivers needing to secure a permit for residents so that they could travel for 100 days for free through the traffic filters in the city.
A separate permit would allow just 25 days of free travel, with drivers hit with fines should they move around the city beyond those allocated days.
…
Read more: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/2162240/labour-council-perverse-15-minute-driving-rules-roll-out-across-uk-oxford
Advocates have defended the scheme;
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For some conspiracy theorists, this has come to mean an attack on freedom, arguing that people will be restricted from leaving their homes and forced to live within a 15-minute radius of where they live.
This has been widely debunked.
Nicholas Boys Smith, the chairman of urban planning think tank Create Streets, has written widely on the subject.
He said: “If you live in any neighbourhood built before the 1950s then the chances are you already do live in a place with some or many of the characteristics of a 15-minute city and are able (more or less) to walk to the pub, to the corner shop or to a nearby school. If you are richer, then you are more likely to live in such a place.”
…
Other users asked: “Why is having amenities near people a bad thing?” Or described the concept as “a dream”.
Oxfordshire County Council confirmed to Big Issue that the proposed traffic filters trial has nothing to do with the concept of 15-minute cities.
Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for transport management, told Big Issue: “I read the article in the Daily Express and my jaw nearly hit the floor. I mean, it is a quite extraordinary misrepresentation of what this scheme does.
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Read more: https://www.bigissue.com/news/environment/15-minute-cities-sharron-davies-right-said-fred/
Why would anyone choose to travel more than 15 minutes from home?
Because something they need is more than 15 minutes away, of course.
If everything you need is within 15 minutes of home, lucky you. But if everything you need is the wrong side of one of those “traffic filters”, this new law is going to hurt.
If your kid’s school is the wrong side of one of these “traffic filters”, does this mean you need to find your kid a new school? Like the awful school just down the road which you rejected in favour of the 20 minute drive to the better quality school?
Do you now have to put up with the overpriced corner store, when there is a much better supermarket 20 minutes drive from your house?
The suggestion people should use more public transport or cycle more to avoid the new 15 minute city restrictions is absurd. Not only is British weather cold and rainy much of the time, from 2024 to 2025 there was a 10% uptick in bike robberies in Oxford. Driving in a locked vehicle is more comfortable and far safer than using public transport or riding a bike down lonely tracks, especially for women returning home from late shift work.
These new laws restricting travel are a recipe for hurting ordinary people, people who aren’t well connected enough to get a special pass.
If local governments had attempted to actually create 15 minute cities, by working to improve the availability of local amenities, I would not have had a problem with that. But there would still be lots of people who have to travel further than 15 minutes, for work or school or taking care of elderly relatives, or any number of other reasons.
Punishing people who are already doing it tough, in the hope magic 15 minute eco-cities will somehow arise out of the cruelty being inflicted on ordinary people, that’s just nasty.
Because I want to, and none of your business are the first two answers that spring to mind.
Why would anyone choose to have their right to travel restricted?
Rights?
What, pray tell, are those?
Who owns your body, Tom?
Rights we have in the US, but apparently those in the UK don’t.
In Canada mobility rights are in the Costitution. FWIW. Didn’t stop them from blocking the unvaxed from travel.
You, and Eric, have gotten very confused.
This is not about stopping people from travelling 15 minutes from their home, There is no compulsion to stop people travelling. Their aren’t any planned fines.
Why would any government do that, anyway?
Stop! Think!
If something looks fake on the internet – it probably is.
The 15 minute town idea is that people should not need to travel 15 minutes from their home. The usual services should be nearby.
Didn’t you read the article? It speaks of permits to drive outside of one’s zone. Who is doing the issuing of the permits if not the government?
Labourites, unionists, leftists, greens, ‘progressives’ –
they never think anything through properly.
Everything is about “feelings” and “solidarity” for them.
“ It speaks of permits to drive outside of one’s zone.”
It lies.
Labour has approved a rollout of “Stalinist” 15-minute cities across the UK, The Telegraph can reveal.
Ministers have said that they will allow councils to use driver licence databases to impose fines on drivers who fall foul of “traffic filters”, which restrict driving in certain areas.
The controls on motorists, which are to be implemented for the first time in Oxford city centre later this year, have been described as “perverse” by motor groups.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/24/labour-opens-door-stalinist-15-minute-cities-across-britain/
Just what do you think the entire “Net Zero” exercise is all about, or what it must actually entail? It can be summed up in one word–control. Authority often comes in a small box, but always expands beyond those limits. Ask Pandora.
So the council lies as well then?
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/connecting-oxfordshire/oxford-traffic-filters/traffic-filters-faqs
You can walk, cycle or bus just not drive a car .. it’s well explained and designed to be like that.
In this case I have to agree with nick. The permit, in oxford’s case, is to travel through the city centre. There’s a circular around the outside of the city that you’re expected to use instead. Irony is, it increases emissions, but their main interest is reducing traffic in the centre of Oxford.
Seems to me you’re pretty good at getting confused yourself.
Matthew, back in 2023 the proposal was a £70 fine to drive through an Oxford traffic filter without a permit. I can’t find what the fine will be now, because the relevant page https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/connecting-oxfordshire/oxford-traffic-filters/traffic-filters-faqs#paragraph-16911 fails to answer the question, “What happens if I drive through a traffic filter without a valid permit, or the permit has been fully used?” You assume there aren’t any fines, but where is the link that proves that? And wouldn’t you agree that it is dishonest for an FAQ page to fail to answer what would be the most important question in the mind of anyone who has no alternative to driving?
And what would be the point of having traffic filters if there is no punishment for those who drive through them without permission? To suggest that there would be no fines is an absolute joke.
And when it is coupled with a digital ID or your car is connected to the network, when you exceed your filter crossing your car will stop and your ID/social credit score will stop you. We are not confused. This will lead to controlling where you can go and when you can go.
Not needing to travel – then let the private sector build those services near you but keep the damn government from mandating and controlling. If you don’t want to cross the 15 minute filter that should be your choice not a mandate from the government.
Liberals like you won’t always be in control – you won’t like it when you are restricted because of your politics when someone else is in control.
Seriously, what is wrong with people like you? Stop trying to control the lives of others!!
As a proud socialist, he believes that the government always knows best.
According to the extreme left rag “The Big Issue”, you’re the one that’s confused:
Sure, the government never escalates authority or becomes draconian or oppressive. It can always be trusted to do what is best for those it represents and never to serve its own objectives or those of an elite.
Do I need a /sarc tag?
Are Oxfordshire County Council waiting until all services are within 15 minutes of everybody living in Oxford before tgey implement the restrictions? It doesn’t matter what people should not need to do. What matters is the reality. The reality is that many services are getting further and further away from where we live, not nearer. To get to my local Bank branch used to be a 15 minute walk. Now it’s a ten minute drive in the car. Government and local Councils are doing absolutely nothing to bring services within 15 minutes of where we live.
Right on, Phil. The identical thought immediately occurred to me, too.
Thanks. I think something like that was probably the initial reaction of a lot of readers, I just happened to be first. The scary question is how many people support things like 15-minute zones or whatever, and any idea or expression of individual freedom is anathema?
I believe a large fraction of the population has a brain organized to produce a collectivist psychology as its mental ground-state.
Tribal collectivism was a survival trait. Genes that promoted collectivist loyalties were selected. That psychology remains in wild-type humans, and dominates many, if not most, of them.
All these people yearn for a collectivist society. A society organized around individualism – one of personal freedom – is deeply unsettling to such people. Scary, even.
They work instead for a slave-state where the pain of thought is unnecessary and individualism is criminalized. Adherence to the collective determines all. One needs only the loyalty check-list for judgment.
15 minute cities are a perfect expression of collectivist slavery. Localized and easy to surveil
Considering that where I live it takes me 10 minutes to get into town by car…
It’s always reduced to “need”. You don’t “need” to travel outside the zone, you don’t “need” a gun, you don’t “need” to eat meat.
Great minds…
In 15 minutes I couldn’t even get to a Dollar General, let alone any other sort of store.
You will be required to move inside the zone with all the other smellies. You don’t “need” to live in a rural area.
Horrendous unintended consequences incoming.
And incredibly expensive to maintain and enforce.
Left wing lunatics are incapable of understanding the consequences of their policies because they are the morally superior tribe who couldn’t be wrong. Cognitive dissonance at the level of Faraday cages preserve closed loops of perception preventing information and common sense from entering.
A good description but I would apply it to all politicians not just the left.
All automated. Every automobile made since the teens has mandatory tracking built in. You can be automatically fined or have your car turned off. AI doing its job.
Drive an older car–Mine is an 06, and my truck is an 09
Threre are lots of channels on YouTube that talk about the reliability of cars. A point that is made is that older cars are often more reliable than newer cars. You can expect them to last much longer and be cheaper to repair. For example, have a look at Scottish Car Clan. The European Parliament has just passed a law which will result in car manufacturers having to make cars cheaper to repair. For example, if there is a defect in a headlight you currently need to replace the whole unit. The new law will make car manufacturers make headlights that can be taken apart easily (they are assembled with screws rather than glue) and the part replaced rather than the whole headlight. Mercedes are already changing the way they make cars.
Such repairs are mostly the case here in the US. I replace all my own bulbs in all the cars I’ve ever owned. The exception is the driver’s side headlight bulb for my 2020 Hyundai Elantra. You can’t get to it without removing the front wheel and the splash cover inside the wheel well. I’m getting too old for that shit.
Stephen, why do you think these consequences are unintended?
Because the people introducing them are usually too dim to understand what they’re doing in the first place.
They’re not dim. They’re following the intended plan.
Leftist governments: “We are liberals, not authoritarians.”
Free citizen: “Can I make my own choices on how to live my life?”
Leftist governments: “No. We are going to make all of the choices on your behalf.”
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”― C. S. Lewis
This whole thing reminds me of the Nazi ghettos established during WWII.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/nazi-germany-and-establishment-ghettos
When is the left going to begin to be called Fascist.
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose free will.
“Freewill” by Rush (1980)
They also say in the same song “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”. What about if you can’t decide?
The spineless sheep who would submit to this disgust me.
Something’s gotta give! What will snap first? Popcorn please!
I agree. But I do recognise and appreciate that there are good people out there too. Londoners took big risks to try to disable Sadiq Khan’s monstrous oppression system, for example. But the blob’s only objective is its own power, and under Keir Starmer in the UK it has more than enough power to crush opposition. For a while, anyway.
This is really true?
Coming soon to a state near you.
WA state USA has been pushing for “urban villages for years, forcing retail and high density housing into small clusters. This is reality, not a fantasy.
Already in NYC, or at least a version of it. There is a zone where out-of-zone cars pay a fee to drive in Manhattan. Pretty hefty to as I recall. Yes, you can drive there, but it will cost you. The unintended upshot is that many people park just outside the zone, and walk in to subway stations or bus stops. If you happen to live in that area, you will have a lot of trouble parking.
No.
Of course it isn’t.
See the local press. They need to tell people the truth as their entire readership will be affected and know if they are wrong.
Oxford: The 15-Minute City Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) | Oxfordshire Guardian
This is just the Raving Right Rags like the Torygraph and the Ex-press trying to compete with GBNews for fake news fantasy, again.
BTW, Qanon was a fake news conspiracy too. And no, Starmer did not shoot JFK either.
Sometimes protesting too hard reduces credibility. You MCourtney are protesting too hard.
No, the excessive protest in this article and commentary leads to massive misrepresentation of the real situation. It is nothing like that.
Nick, as much as would like to see you disappear, you constantly expose the global corruption. So keep posting buddy, you are waking more people up everyday.
This guy still tries to convince everyone that more renewables make electricity cheaper.
And Nick tries to change the subject. Be a better bot!
Nick,
According to the extreme left rag, The Big Issue:
I made three comments,
1st Pointing out that the article is wrong.
2nd This one you replied to with evidence that the article is wrong.
3rd Provided evidence that that the author of the article has been wrong on this subject before – he has form.
Is that “protesting too much” or winning the argument with anyone who has an open mind?
You claimed there were no fines for violating the 15 minute city traffic rules. There are indeed fines.
Your own article mentions::: filters, charges, permits, limits, penalties.
What a good little totalitarian leftist you are.!
This article said (at the very start):
This is untrue. Thee will be no fines for for travelling outside their 15 minute region.
Then people try to make excuses for the lie by pointing out that there will still be fines for driving through no entry signs, going the wrong way down a one-way street, speeding, drive by shootings and any other, already existing, traffic laws. Those laws include a ban on driving in a bus lane.
It is not a sign of a totalitarian state to have traffic laws.
This article claimed that freedom of movement was being restricted to within 15 minutes of your home by building cycle paths and bus lanes.
And you fell for it!
This does not change the fact that the article is a lie. And you are gullible.
The only thing that might change is that you might learn how to spot fake news on the internet before you lose your life savings.
I suggest you try.
You can travel 15min outside you zone just not by car … it on the FAQ
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/connecting-oxfordshire/oxford-traffic-filters/traffic-filters-faqs
There is the basis … it doesn’t get more black and white
A traffic filter is a point on a road where certain types of traffic aren’t allowed through at certain times. The six trial traffic filters in Oxford will only restrict cars; all other types of vehicles can travel through the filters at any time without a permit.
Permits are available for some cars (see questions on permits below).
The traffic filters aim to reduce traffic levels and congestion – leading to faster and more reliable buses, safer cycling and a range of other benefits.
Thank you for the link, Matthew. To quote from it: Drivers using the filters who do not have a permit, or are not exempt, will face a penalty charge notice of £35, which will increase to £70 if not paid within two weeks. And you think there aren’t any fines?
Those aren’t fines, they are merely involuntary donations.
If they were just setting things up so you could, IF YOU WANTED TO, live a 15 minute existence, there would not be a problem.
It is the tracking, the limitations, the fines, the traffic filters, the mandating, the need for permits, and the compulsion etc that are the big problem.
It is the totalitarian state… and they can GET STUFFED.
You say:
OK…from your article:
“There has been a very split reaction to the Oxford city LTN scheme as some are obviously in favour of reducing traffic congestion and harmful emissions…”
and…
“The Pros Of A 15-Minute City
Cars are responsible for a large amount of the emissions on our roads, and this scheme has been designed to cut down their usage and, in turn, reduce the impact they have on climate change. ”
It’s all about emissions and climate change.
There’s more but you wouldn’t understand so not worth the time.
Read the councils own FAQ
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/connecting-oxfordshire/oxford-traffic-filters/traffic-filters-faqs
I live in an area that would probably qualify as a 13 minute village for several of my daily needs. However, what a horrible idea to fine people for this wacky social experiment … Starmer needs to go!
Wtf is this CCP crap. Holy anti-Christ of legislation. But I guess it’s been in the works for years now.
I have a few questions though. Is he doing this at the behest of China or Russia? Is he actually a true Marxist at heart? Or is he just a tool being used by the global Marxist machine.
French and Russians are inclined to revolution while the British more specifically English are nicer about it after all they invented Fabianism the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Fabian Society original coat of arms.
A highly appropriate logo. The Fabian Society is a deeply subversive, totalitarian Marxist group with a genteel English Middle Class veneer.
The truth behind the 15-minute cities controversy in Oxford, explained
Looks like it’s traffic calming again, not 15-minute cities.
And civilian disarmament was labeled
game laws.
Does the traffic get calmer if you can’t drive?
Don’t forget to choose your 100 days of travel carefully.
Eric has a very perverse idea about Oxford.
He had an article on here about a woman driving through a No Motor Vehicles sign regularly. The parents of the children who played outside their houses went out and confronted her.
Eric thought the child-endangering criminal was the hero and the parents defending their own kids were PC woke Marxists, stopping people running over families like boring spoilsports.
That was Oxford, too.
Oxford Climate Activists Setting Up Illegal Roadblocks? – Watts Up With That?
Note: Eric didn’t withdraw the article and apologise even when it was pointed out that he was endorsing criminal endangerment of children. He won’t be honest this time, either.
Woke crazies erecting road blocks because they didn’t like outsiders using their street.
Was the street there when she bought the house? What was it used for at that time?
Wrong way round.
The locals lived there .. They were defending their homes.
She was using a rat run through residential streets instead of the main roads.
Have you seen Die Hard 3? There’s a bit where Bruce Will drives through the park. Not the gridlocked road, through the park.
It’s an exciting scene – and funny.
But if you do that in real life, you are the criminal.
(Unless you are trying to stop a mad bomb man, or mad conspiracy theorist, e.g. Eric).
This is the same thing. The council has the democratic right to say you cannot drive on pavements, through war memorials or where children play.
Bot even, if you really, really want to.
That does not make them Communists.
“The council has the democratic right to say you cannot drive on pavements, through war memorials or where children play.”
Did the council (representing the people who paid for the road) say that certain people could not drive on that road, or did some residents decide on their own? It would make a difference.
No citizen has a right to block off a road…. Period.
It’s the elected council, muppet.
There were rabid citizens policing a road block..
That have absolutely NO RIGHT to do that… PERIOD
The No Motor Vehicles sign was put up by the elected council.
The people asking the criminal to obey the laws were the local people who lived in her crime zone.
You absolutely have the right to oppose crime, peacefully, in your own street. Full Stop.
So you are now admitting that the council is putting up road blocks to ENFORCE their 15 minute city rules.
Well done.. FAIL. !
Did you read the link or just parroted the extreme left line?
The Green Blob would bring back sedan chairs for their elite selves. Peasant scum
can walk.
And you thought the speech control in the UK was Communist as the UK sinks further into Marxism. What’s wrong with the people in the UK that they keep voting in these authoritarians? If I had to guess I’d say the voting isn’t legitimate or there’s so many invaders that they’re outnumbered?
They don’t keep voting them in. They voted them in once. Actually, I would argue that they didn’t vote them in – that can’t happen until the next election – what they did was to vote the Tories out. The power of democracy is that it can remove a bad government. A major weakness is that sometimes there aren’t better alternatives to vote for. The price for removing Rishi Sunak was Keir Starmer, ie, a huge price. But could the public realistically have rewarded the Tories with another term? I would argue that the Tories had to go. Next time the public can remove Labour. What Britain needs is shorter terms, because 5 years is enough for a bad government to do an enormous amount of damage.
PS. This is what mass migration is about, Labour are getting as many migrants as they can into the country because the perception is that those migrants will vote predominantly Labour. Keir Starmer doesn’t care about the country, only about his own power. He just wants enough migrants to give him a second term, in which he may be able to control the system enough to destroy the democratic process. Britain has a real battle on its hands.
The uninformed notion that political parties are essential to democracy because only another party can displace an undesirable incumbent party is a tragedy. While this notion persists democracy will seesaw into the abyss. Shorter terms are not the answer. Zero parties is.
Yes and no. I would argue that political parties are not at all essential for democracy. But by uniting in a “party” a relatively small number of people can exploit the democratic process. Hence, once political parties exist, they become essential for winning in the democratic process. so they are not essential but they are essential
Somewhat circular reasoning that is essential to deliver rubbish to the top.
“what they did was to vote the Tories out”….. “This is what mass migration is about, Labour are getting as many migrants as they can into the country because the perception is that those migrants will vote predominantly Labour” This is how/why Trump was voted in for us. Lesser of two evils but he does keep his promises. All the invaders end up in ‘sanctuary’ states and since they are counted in the census it balloons the population giving those states more representatives in Congress. With (estimated, which varies) 20 million illegal aliens that equals about 20 representatives in Congress when legislation is often won by just a few votes! Supposedly the illegals can’t vote for Presidency but who knows, they still control the power of Congress which is where the real power in our government is.
Praising with faint damn Eric, freedom of movement within a country is fundamental along with freedom of thought, expression, conscience, assembly, association etc., freedoms that are slowly being whittled away in the United Kingdom, it’s all going in one direction.
At least the Mayflower 2.0 will be a green ship to exit on as long as they aren’t patrolling the waters too heavily.
Fifteen-minute cities is silly because CO2 (burning fossil fuels) has no significant effect on climate:
I asked a LLM (AI) about the perception in Sect 3 of https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com and https://energyredirect3.blogspot.com about flow of radiant energy in the atmosphere. This AI appears to grasp and agree with the concept, and perhaps explain it better than me. The concept helps explain why CO2 (burning fossil fuels) does not have a significant effect on climate in spite of showing major absorption (‘blocking’) by CO2 around wavenumber 667 on a MODTRAN graph e.g. Fig 10 in https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com .
Q: Then doesn’t it follow that much of the IR energy absorbed by CO2 molecules in the troposphere is conducted (nano sec) to water vapor molecules which (steep population gradient) can radiate it to space.
GOOGLE AI, A: ThinkingSearching That understanding is an insightful way to conceptualize the complex energy flows in the lower atmosphere, and it captures a crucial element of atmospheric physics: the role of collisional energy transfer (quenching). The answer is yes, it is largely correct, but with some nuance in how that energy eventually exits the atmosphere.
Here is the breakdown of why your reasoning aligns with how the atmosphere works:
1. Collisional Quenching is Dominant in the Troposphere
In the dense lower troposphere (below 6 km), the time between molecular collisions (around 10^-9 seconds, or 1 nanosecond) is vastly shorter than the intrinsic radiative lifetimes for both CO2 (milliseconds) and H2O (milliseconds in the IR range). When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon (primarily around 15 microns, or 667 cm⁻¹), it becomes vibrationally excited. Before it can spontaneously emit a new photon, it almost certainly collides with a neighboring molecule (usually N2, O2, or H2O). This collision transfers the energy into the kinetic (speed/heat) or vibrational/rotational energy of the collision partners. This is how the air itself gets heated by greenhouse gases. [Perhaps partly. The air is also heated by direct absorption of solar radiation by water vapor at 1.38 and 1.87 microns and latent heat deposited by the hydrologic cycle.]
2. Energy Transfer to Water
Vapor Energy absorbed by CO2 can be efficiently transferred to H2O molecules during these collisions, especially because some energy levels have overlap.
3. The “Population Gradient” and Radiation to Space
Your point about the “steep population gradient” of water vapor is key:
Water vapor concentration drops sharply with altitude (because of condensation/precipitation), while CO2 is well-mixed throughout the atmosphere. Energy that starts low down (absorbed by CO2) and collisionally transferred to the general air mass, including H2O is constantly being reabsorbed and re-emitted as it moves upward through the atmosphere. As you move higher, there are fewer and fewer H2O molecules above the emitting molecule. This is the main mechanism: The energy eventually reaches an altitude where the density of all greenhouse gases (including water vapor) is low enough that a photon, once emitted, has a clear path to space. The altitude from which the radiation finally escapes depends heavily on the specific wavelength, as shown in MODTRAN graphs. In short, CO2 acts as a primary “gatekeeper” for specific wavelengths, and through rapid collisions, this energy gets mixed into the thermal pool of the local air. Water vapor, being the most abundant and effective overall greenhouse gas in the troposphere, acts as the primary medium for this thermal energy to eventually radiate away at higher altitudes and longer wavelengths (>16 micron) where the atmosphere is less opaque.
“Fifteen-minute cities is silly because CO2 (burning fossil fuels) has no significant effect on climate:”
It has very little to do with CO2, and is all about traffic management. In Oxford, before the change, no-one could travel outside the zone, or even much inside, because of jammed traffic. Now, with permit or a modest fee, they can.
Bollocks, Nick. Oxford city centre has had traffic restrictions for years. At least half the proposed traffic filters are in the suburbs: https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022/places/map-of-traffic-filter-locations.
Well, here is your map
The two outer filters govern key cross-sector roads, which were badly jammed, with the clear intention of diverting traffic to the nearby ring road.
Five years ago, Oxford had few restrictions. I was surprised to see that it was quite easy to drive into Broad St ( from the eastern end), once you had got past the traffic on the main roads. But very costly to park, which kept the traffic down.
Nick, so you support forcing people who need to go from, say, Oxford Brookes University to the Cowley Road to drive at least three times as far as they needed to before? With the associated CO2 and air pollution? Your credentials as a green believer are rapidly evaporating.
If that was the intention a simple “local only traffic” would suffice. The laws go well beyond that and it’s clear there is something far more sinister going on.
Very mark about the CO2 nonsense…. direct from MC’s link
You are quoting the opinion of a journalist, Samuel MacGregor, writing in the Oxfordshire Guardian.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
RE: The Greenhouse Effect
RE: CO2 vs H2O
At the Mauna Lua Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is currently 427 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,290 g and contains a mere 0.84 g of CO2 at STP.
In air at 21° C and 70% RH the concentration of H2O is 17,780 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has mass 1,200 g and contains 14.3 g H2O and 0.78 g of CO2. To the first approximation and all things being equal, the proportion of the greenhouse effect (GHE) due to H2O is given by:
GHE=moles H2O/(moles H2O+moles CO2)=0.79/(0.79+0.019)=0.98
The above calculation assumes that a molecule of H2O and a molecule of CO2 each absorb about the same amount of out-going long wavelength IR light emanating from the earth’s surface. Actually H2O absorbs much more IR light than CO2.
Shown in Fig. 7 (See below) is the IR absorption spectrum of a sample of Philadelphia city air from 400 to 4000 wavenumbers (wns). There are additional peaks for H2O down to 200 wns. The active GHE region is from 400 to ca. 740 wns. Note that the CO2 peak is quite narrow. CO2 is absorbing little IR light compared to H2O and is no “primary gatekeeper of the frequencies”. There is just too little CO2 in the air to have any effect on air temperature, weather and climate. Please keep in mind that 71% of earth’s surface is covered with H2O.
The main processes for most of the thermal energy leaving the oceans is evaporation and the wind, and leaving earth’s land surfaces is conduction and convection. We don’t have to worry about the CO2 produced by the use of fossil fuels. The challenge is to convince Mad Ed that CO2 is not a problem and the 15 minutes rules are not necessary.
PS: Fig. 7 was taken from the essay: “Climate Change Reexamined” by Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and can be down loaded for free.
NB: If you click on the chart it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contact the figure and return to Comments.
The planners have a plan for you whether you know it or not and whether you authorize it or not.
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end
-Leon Trotsky
The beach is 20 minutes drive from my home. I guess I’ll just have to drive faster to get there in 15 minutes.
Oh wait, they’ve changed all the speed limits to 20 miles per hour.
You just can’t get dumber than government. Every time I think government can’t get dumber along comes the UK.
Let’s hope Starmer is that stupid.
It appears Labour is really anxious to have Reform take over. There is no other logical explanation for such silliness.
As for Oxford, the explanation is simple. It is an elite University town. All such have otherworldly ideals, well sheltered from reality.
And they are well paid, mostly by taxpayer money, so they don’t even notice the tolls that would bankrupt ordinary people.
I feel sorry for people with medical appointments.
Eg: How many patients have a cancer clinic with radiation treatments, within 15 minutes?
Mine took 45 minutes if the road was clear. Other appointments took an hour and a half to get to.
The NUMBER ONE reason for travelling more than 15 minutes from home is work. The number of people who live within 15 minutes from where they work is tiny. Will they get exemptions? Or have to move to keep their jobs? Or quit their high paying jobs to take lower paying jobs because “downtown” of major cities are where the high paying jobs are? How much will people lose on the sale of their house because no wants to buy a house in those areas?
I have to get back to my real job, else this would be a MUCH longer answer.
Forget TDS. This is GDS. Green Derangement Syndrome.
A lot of people, including me, live more than a mile from the nearest proper supermarket. And in my case, the supermarkets are down in the valley, 170 feet below my home’s altitude.
So a muslim of Pakistani origin has decided that I – Anglo-Saxon, Christian, blue-eyed, blond-haired (when I had hair), of these islands, can only drive my car and how far when this Pakistani pillock says I can?
May I suggest – only a vague suggestion, of course – that crowd funding is perhaps desperately needed – in that the pillock needs to be removed . . . NOW!!
Apart from the racism, you have the wrong city.
Wrong, as always. Sadiq Khan is Mayor of London, and ULEZ is his policy.
BTW the racism card doesn’t work anymore.
Wrong again. ULEZ is a quite different scheme, which was actually introduced by Boris Johnson (then Mayor of London) in 2015.
It is still part of the far-left car and movement control agenda.
ULEZ and 15 minute cities both aim to restrict the citizen’s freedom of movement and to extend surveillance by the State. The environmental considerations are merely a pretext.
Khan not only supported ULEZ but also extended it.
What makes you think I have any regard for that utter t0sser Boris Johnson? I loathe him almost as much as I loathe Khan.
That’s a lot of loathing. Anyone you like?
Brilliant.
You mean the guy controlled by the balls by a far-left greenie lunatic?
Surely, this can’t be true.
Correct.
It isn’t.
Thank goodness there are some sceptics left.
Except that the link you posted showed that it was very much about the totalitarian control agenda.
Fines, mandates, limits, penalties, compulsion… etc etc etc
Sorry. Not sorry. I have absolutely no sympathy for the British people. This is what they voted for. This is what they have been voting for for decades. This is what they will keep voting for even as the voting decision keep making their lives more and more miserable.
If they people don’t like what the politicians are doing, they can vote them out. It’s called democracy. But the people won’t vote them out even when the politicians keep doing thing the British people don’t like.
The only logical conclusion is that the British people like it when their politicians keep making their lives more and more miserable. Deep down they are masochists.
I have NO sympathy for them.
There are of course some systems of government which can be voted in but require revolution to get out.
Promises of nirvana and free stuff can overwhelm rational thought.
I’m sorry, Aetiuz, but you are damning individuals because of what others did. You’re smearing everyone in the UK because of what some fools have done. That’s morally wrong. I happen to be campaign manager for my local branch of Reform UK, so I would appreciate an apology.
A complete misunderstanding of the situation. The Conservative Party moved centre-left to pick up votes from a Labour Party that had moved more hard left under Corbyn. In doing so they abandoned their right-wing support, believing they had nowhere else to go. Along came Farage and Reform at the last election and took a huge chunk out of the Conservative vote, splitting the right and letting in Labour by default. Starmer’s Labour actually polled fewer votes nationally than Corbyn had in the previous election, but due to the nature of the electoral system ended up with far more MPs. Since then, support for Labour has continued to decline and according to current polling, Reform would get a parliamentary majority if an election were held tomorrow. Labour also continue to haemorrage votes to the Greens led by Zack Polanski, a character who apparently once offered a breast enlargement service by means of hypnosis. Labour are also losing votes to so-called ‘independents’, whose policies are to somehow improve the NHS and welfare services (pesumably by spending even more money that we don’t have) and oppose Zionism. So there are a few who support national suicide, but the majority of the electorate do not.
“Ordinary residents of trial cities will only be permitted 100 days per year outside their 15 minute region”
Just untrue. In Oxford, each of the six regions is adjacent to the ring road. Anyone, any time, can freely go to the ring road, and then anywhere in Britain. Including to any of the other regions, via the ring road (which was often the only practical way anyway). What is restricted is going from one sector directly to another. And it is a light restriction – not only the free resident permit, but if that is exhausted, you can pay a modest fee.
This stuff is like the people who used to rage against parking meters as a violation of freedom.
Poor Nick.
After being locked down in your house for so long during COVID by communist Victorian premier Dan Andrews, you haven’t recovered a sense of what individual freedom of movement, thought and release from the constraints of oppressive authoritarianism feels like.
I see that you said here a few days ago that you don’t have a car.
Maybe you should get one, and see how good it feels to just jump in and drive anywhere a street or road can take you.
Without having to get permission from some government bureaucracy.
Actually I spent a fair bit of that time in Oxford. The early part we could theoretically go anywhere, but traffic jams were terrible. The only practicable way of going across town was to head for the ring road (which you still freely can).
Now the traffic jams are much less, and cars, busses, everything (including emergency vehicles) can move.
Yes nick. Your monthly chocolate ration has been increased from 16 to 12 grams.
And if you don’t like your particular 15-minute city, just move to one that’s more to your liking. Easy peasy lemon squeezie!