Re: Another nail in the coffin?
- From: "Stephen Rainsbury" <stephen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 01:40:34 +0100
"Ewan Scott" <ewanscott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:da99ba$9e6$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > Yes you can explain to a 10 year old that he only needs a tiny fire,
> > but if its boring he will stop going camping and then you can't teach
> > him anything. Somtimes you have to accept a bit of waste, and accept
> > that he will learn how to be more econimical when he is a bit older and
> > then pass teh message to his children.
>
> I've had kids leave for many reasons, usually they claim that they are
> bored. usually they are bored because they fail to turn up regularly and
so
> have no sense of belonging etc. I have never had anyone leave because they
> cooked over a small fire.
This is where we are so far off topic its not true, but in for a penny....
As I see it firelighting is fun for most YP and we can use it as a very
powerful teaching aid for many subjects.
ASa rule of thunb I am happy if the 10 year I referreed to above can just
baout light a fire, it means that they have actually mastered the concpets
of planning what materials to collect, how to arrange them and how to make
it burn. For most this is a major achievement and if they have 2 or 5
legths of pallet wood doean't really make a huge differrence, but seeing
something visually impressive to them is a good re-enforcing reward.
As they get older we can incorporate camp cooking, backwoods cooking,
axemanship, bowsaws etc ... so by 14 they are pretty well rounded, but they
will alll remeber their first fire.
> Yes, we accept some waste, but usually it is burnt food, or a fire that
> can't be lit (because they forgot to get enough tinder). No we teach them
> economy now and they will respect it now and later. Teach them profligacy,
> even once in a while and we teach the profigacy forever.
I agree but maybe we need to do a terminolgy check here, and I am going to
use pallets merely as a term of refernce...
Small fire (Boild kettle) = One slat of palet wood, split donw to a couple
fo tent peg sized bits and a pile of sticks, possibly one would eb a fether
stick to get it started.
Medium Fire (Breakfast) = 2/3 slats of pallet wood, one split in two and
halved, the other cut into much smaller sticks
Large Fire (Dinner for 6+) = 5/6 slats of pallet wood, plus a couple of
blocks from teh corners.
HUGE fire (Camp fire) = 3 of 4 pallets.
I start them at Medium / Large its a good test and good visual
re-enforcement.
> Don't fall into that trap Stephen. The more I read KP the more I can
equate
> what he says to the tone in which BP wrote. BP used a great many
euphemisms
> to say the same thing about poor leaders, poor scouts etc..
BP was great for his time, and I admire his ideas and principles but he
wouldn't last 5 minutes with his attitudes today. Wasn't his favouite sport
pig sticking, even if he didn't need the food? Do you remeber the
incidents of stealing a Mafeking? If it was a white man he was to be whipped
but a black man was to be shot! I can't remeber a reference to concervation
of resources, but the Victorians were possibly one of the most destructive
wasteful buch of hypocritical bullies that have ever lived, which makes BP
even more of a superhero in my eyes.
> Better we conserve and use resources well, and perhaps more importantly,
> that we teach others to use them well.
I agree but there are far more immediate examples of exhausting supplies,
Natural gas, petrol, Bannanas all of which are going to change the way we
live in the next generation, and most of them are tottaly oblivious, but
then so are their parents.
By comparison buring wood that would otherwise rot is insignificant.
> In this country we,
> for a thousand years simply dumped our waste, now we have run out of holes
> to fill, marshes to poison, and we are paying the price for that
profligacy.
So what do the Council do? Build incinerators.
> Usually I tend to try and find common ground with KP and sadly we diverge
> and we end up slogging it out to a standstill, this time I'm moving closer
> and closer to his point of view on the subject.
I don't siagree with KP entirely, he means well but once again is trying to
judge us by his own envornoment, withoiut any concept of how and where we
have to camp. Kent is a car park for London, suitable camp sites are
becoming harder and harder to find, anywhere we camp will be used by
somebody else in a few weeks, its far from teh vast wild areas in canada.
> We SHOULD be teaching conservation of resources, even in times of plenty.
Agreed, but firstthey need to be equiped to understand teh concepts. Most 10
year olds round here are self centered spoilt little brats who don't give a
rats arese about other people, so we are staring from teh back foot.
> Joseph saw that thousands of years ago, if the Old Testament is to be
> believed. That is a lesson that mankind has forgotten many times over.
Time
> we learned it again and set our reserves aside for a time of famine.
Just wait until the gas runs out in the next 10 years and we have tostart
importing just to keep the power stations going.
> Me, I've downsized my car, I love driving a 4x4,
There is no reason why you shouldn't do that occasionaly but they are not
necessary for town driving.
> But, when I look at the
> damage , however temporary, and the sum of each individual set of damage
> added together I made a decision to call it a day.
Excellent, its one of the reasons I have put off buying an MPV, but when I
do it will be because I intend to transport 6-8 people to places with no
public transport. As I understand it a modern Galaxy doesn't do much more
damage to teh envirnoment that my 14 year old escort.
It comes back to the same considerations, and I stil cna't get over my
neighbouring chucking out a perfectly good audio system just because it
didn't match his wall unit. Well thats at our HQ now.
> I kayak now, yes, in a
> plastic boat, however it is 100 per cent recyclable, and will be recycled.
Lets hope its not Biodegradable :-)
Reaslisticaly though how much energy was used to make the boat? How much oil
was used to fire the power staion to lkeep the factory going, how much fuel
did works use who made it... its one of the inponderables but what you are
doing is a damn good comprimise.
We have to accept that we will be using non renewable resources at some
point, the alternative is to just give up and top ourselves.
> think we all need to think a little greener, and if making smaller fires
and
> teaching that is one way, then I would urge all to follow that tried and
> tested path.
Agreed but if you have a 10 year old who is proud to have completed his
first fire and you tell him not to throw on another log when a new lorry
load turns up each day he is not going to get the message. He will just
think that you are trying to spoil his fun and that you are talking out your
bum.
Ideally conservation should start at a young age, but like many concepts
most people don't actually start to understand why until they are older.
Now stopping Explorers from lighting huge fires is another thread for
another day. It involves Native Africans, Jung and Peter Gabriel.
--
Stephen Rainsbury
ADC(Scouts) Gillingham Kent
ESL Agathoid Explorer Scout Unit
"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens" - Jimi Hendrix
.
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