‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894’

There was a time not so long ago when the people crowded into the world’s largest Cities like London and New York worried for their survival, and it was Henry Ford and his ability to derive a means of cheaply mass-producing the automobile that saved them. Now that the motor vehicle, motor vessels, airplanes and dirty manufacturing processes are plunging the world into climate and environmental chaos with threats of mass extinction we’re once again forced to seek some level of salvation. That dear friends are where I think we are right now in history. I fear we’re being buried under tons of BS and it’s affecting our mental and physical health, not to mention the health and well-being of all living things sharing the Earth with us. The solutions are right in front of us, and sadly the political and individual will to adopt them in meaningful and real ways still escapes us as we argue over whether or not it’s real, or if we should shift some existing jobs for long term sustainable jobs and industries.

Check out the quote I pasted below from a larger piece of written history to which I will point to in its entirety with the below link.

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/

“This became known as the ‘Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894’.

The terrible situation was debated in 1898 at the world’s first international urban planning conference in New York, but no solution could be found. It seemed urban civilization was doomed.

However, necessity is the mother of invention, and the invention in this case was that of motor transport. Henry Ford came up with a process of building motor cars at affordable prices. Electric trams and motor buses appeared on the streets, replacing the horse-drawn buses.

By 1912, this seemingly insurmountable problem had been resolved; in cities all around the globe, horses had been replaced and now motorized vehicles were the main source of transport and carriage.”

The belief in 1894 was that in 50 years London would be buried under 9 feet of manure, not to mention all the sickness caused by such an extreme amount of exhaust. Now to come back to today and the stories told in the oil and gas industries about the attacks they are living under and how they have only worked hard all their lives to bring us the life style we all wanted and appreciated. I dare say the horsemen and women of the late 1800’s would have told the same stories, as would the wheelwrights, carriage builders, horse breeders, harness makers, manure scoopers and wagon drivers. Although I understand the fear with which those folks lived at the time and the fear our fellow citizens are now experiencing, I never-the-less believe we owe ourselves, our children and grandchildren the responsibility to do the right thing and begin in earnest a move to cleaner sources of energy, and two of the ways we can start to shift our habits is to reduce the amount of tax subsidy the petroleum industry receives and to dramatically increase tax incentives to individuals and companies who develop the way to a better future. More importantly though, we must stop buying into the rhetoric used by the profit-addicted corporations and their puppet governments to divide us as friends, neighbours and fellow citizens, and we must seek ways to work together toward the better day we all need and want. If we vow to hear each other’s feelings and needs, and to cooperate in the development of solutions the only thing that will break out is peace.

“Let’s Give Peace a Chance”.