{"id":1817,"date":"2018-09-11T11:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T01:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midlandexpress.com.au\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2018-09-11T11:17:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T01:17:54","slug":"what-hope-is-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralvic.com\/midlandexpress.com.au\/opinion\/2018\/09\/11\/what-hope-is-there\/","title":{"rendered":"What hope is there?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jill Loorham, Castlemaine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Until we stop using our cars, it is pointless to point a finger at coal-powered electricity production. The worst environment pollution to our world is caused by every person who drives a motorised vehicle &#8211; and I am one of those people.<br \/>\nWhat is the alternative however, in this country we live in, when most of us live too far from public transport to consider it an alternative (or it is unworkable practically) and where current freeway construction claims most of the Victorian tax dollar.<br \/>\nShort of moving north to live in a new abode within &#8216;Cooee&#8217; of shops, work, schools (and everything else I take for granted), I can see no solution.<br \/>\nAs well, the ever-increasing population of Australia and the rest of the world, continues to exacerbate environmental degradation with the side-bar being massive, world-wide malnutrition.<br \/>\nThe answers are not simple, nor are environment problems singular.<br \/>\nPoliticians are reluctant to talk about, let alone investigate, real solutions, even if they could think of them.<br \/>\nQuestions I ask myself:<br \/>\nCan I drive to the local shops?<br \/>\nCan I sell my car and catch a bus?<br \/>\nCan I influence population?<br \/>\nCan I keep warm in winter without heating?<br \/>\nThe answer to all of these questions is &#8216;No&#8217;.<br \/>\nAnd so if I, a person who sees the problems but cannot individually or easily change my behaviours, what hope is there for anyone or everyone else to do so?<br \/>\nArguments between believers and non-believers are pointless: strangely, I thought these were words for religious or non-religious people.<br \/>\nI would like to be able to answer those earlier questions with a resounding &#8216;Yes&#8217;. Sadly I think it won&#8217;t happen in my lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jill Loorham, Castlemaine Until we stop using our cars, it is pointless to point a finger at coal-powered electricity production&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,13],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[5234],"class_list":["post-1817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What hope is there? | Midland Express<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/centralvic.com\/midlandexpress.com.au\/opinion\/2018\/09\/11\/what-hope-is-there\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What hope is there? 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