We can do something against climate change, but if we realise in 50 years that all the scientists have been wrong and that it was all for nothing, that we have, in fact, without valid reason, ensured that we can breath fresh air, even in our cities, that our rivers are no longer poisonous, that we do not have to live with the din and stink of cars and that we are no longer dependent on dubious dictators and their oil then it would have been worth it.
Mrs NZ is involved in a protest about the amount of non-recyclable plastic waste in NZ. She bags up what should go directly to landfill and sends it to Parliament. Anything sent to the NZ House of Representatives is freepost so the only cost is time,
I see Lewis Hamilton has sold his jet opened a vegan restaurant and feels veganism is the only I to save the planet..
Every year here All Saints day is a public holiday, and people buy chrysanthéme plants in the hundreds of thousands to place on the graves of their loved ones. I notice that this year for the first time that they are no longer in plastic, but clay pots.
I have been reading about how in the 1960's the UK was leading the world in research into manufacturing electric cars. Some scientists had predicted that petrol or diesel cars would create problems for the environment within the next 40-50 years. The researchers were begging the government for development funding, but the attitude was that this was all too far away for investment. Of course the scientists were right, and another great opportunity for the UK to lead the world in manufacturing cars was lost as the developers took their knowledge to Japan and Germany. Today such R & D is often carried out at international level to share the costs, but a few million all that time ago could have had the UK in the position of licencing production around the world.
We don't need electric cars Frenchie, we need fewer cars of all descriptions. More public transport. We cannot move along the road of believing that we can produce and consume the same as before, but just using other technology. A few years back the green parties of the World were proclaiming that electric cars were the saviour of the future - until we realized their need for lithium batteries, and until the fire service told us the problems attached to dousing them when they were on fire. We cannot go in this technofix direction - it is very comfortable to be able to tell the people that they can continue to consume and produce as before, just changing the technology involved, it sounds better at the ballot box, but it doesn't get us anywhere.
You may be right in the need to reduce the number of cars on the roads, but are you saying that if the UK had been using electric cars for the past 30 years the pollution would have got to the levels it has today? My fuel consumption in the UK was 50% higher than it is in France mainly because of the time I sat in queues. Could I have used public transport? No, it is just not possible in all cases, and just try getting money out of governments anywhere to improve it.
I wouldn't deny the direct connections between conventionally driven cars and pollution Frenchie. But you also need to consider the safety aspect - Electric cars use Lithium-ion batteries, the production of which is extremely polluting in countries where it is produced. Also, these batteries are prone to thermal runaway - which means they can catch fire days after an accident, and, having caught fire, keep re igniting. The experience of the fire brigade with these is minimal - at the moment a burning car needs to be raised and placed in a large pool of water (ie. totally submerged) - otherwise it keeps re igniting. The question of public transport needs a kind of revolution in reverse - Germany had more railway stations, and more destinations served, in 1880 than it does now (actually over double the amount) - it was all run down to benefit the booming car industry in the 50s and 60s. Truly every place should be reachable with public transport - and, in the past, they mostly were.
No doubt we are all using Lithium-ion batteries just to contribute to this thread. There are many dangers around us that we don't even think about. There is a story on the BBC website today about a very lucky man who blew his car up when he lit up a cigarette having sprayed air freshener around the inside. I am not arguing for electric cars over public transport, but would like to see both improve. There has never ever been a railway line within 8 miles of here, and that one closed donkeys years ago. Cost has to come into it. If I wish to travel to say Paris, it will take about 3.5 hours and cost €40 in the car. The same journey by bus costs, €57 and takes over 6 hours, by train and bus, 5.5 hours and €100. Those costs are for one person, so if Mme is with me, car cost is halved per person, and bus/train is doubled, and if it is raining it is better to stay dry as you jump into the car outside the front door. Will any government actually subsidise public transport enough to make it attractive to travel on public transport? You might actually have to make it free to attract people onto public transport.
I suppose that the equivalent journey for us would be from our place in the sticks to Berlin - a journey we often make because we have family there. The cheapest variation is to drive to Cologne/Bonn airport and take an inland flight The second cheapest is to drive. The third is a very long bus journey (like 6-7 hours). The most expensive is to take the train - which, due to geographical peculiarities, involves travelling the first 40 minutes in completely the false direction via Cologne, and possibly via the Ruhr as well. Also German trains are the most overfilled in Europe, so there is room for improvement. Unfortunately the car is the number one status symbol in Germany (becoming less so in the cities), so travelling by bus or by the underground railway in Cologne has a slight stigma attached to it - the automatic assumption being that you are doing it because you cannot afford a car. So you can share your journey with drunks and potential muggers. We need to change that rapidly. Comparing the underground in London with that of Cologne is interesting - used by completely different people ! Public transport needs to be safe, clean, reliable and comfortable and that is not always the case in Germany. We need to knock the car off its pedestal as a status symbol - so that it is no longer used as a symbol of success. We need also to support car charing schemes - it is horrifying how many cars are occupied only by a single driver.
Maybe in France we are slightly ahead of you with car sharing, as many junctions with the autoroutes have parking areas where people can leave their car for the day. The overhead signs often ask you to think about using them. In Limoges they have a very good bus and tram system, which from what I see is very well used. A day ticket can cost as little as €1 according to the signs I have seen. Poitiers is replacing many of the buses with electric ones, but this is due to it being regarded as a public service rather than a private service run for profit. The result is that you do not have queues of competing services all creating pollution. My experience of the Metro in Paris has been generally good, although it is not all that clean. When we have been there as tourists we have driven to a hotel with parking and near a train station. Once again it is cheap and provides a good service even if it runs at a loss.
How will the circle be squared. Once you go one mile north of the Leeds conurbation buses are radically reduced. I cannot see a time where people will not need their oen transport if they live out of cities.... And the answer is not to move people into conurbations. Those who have posted on this thread have tended to live in more rural areas because they enjoy that lifestyle.. In France where we choose to spend more and more time.. There has not been a bus for perhaps 60 years. The nearest train station is in the middle of nowhere and four miles fron the town it is named after. So people in rural settings need clean personal transport. That is the challenge.
Just catching up on some French news items and found one that made me stop and think. It stated that people are suffering from more allergies due to the temperatures rising. 20% of the population now suffer from hay fever, double the number of ten years ago. Every year the length of time that grass seed and blossom pollen floating around in the air is increasing by nearly 5%, and some people have the symptoms throughout the year. I had never suffered from it in my life until last year, and the doctor told me then that she was seeing more and more cases of it. Allergies to dust mites are also gaining ground. You are more likely to suffer from these if you live in cities due to pollution in the atmosphere. There is a direct link to the hotter weather, yet more large open areas in the cities do have the effect of dropping the temperature by a degree or two and any that exist should be guarded against further buildings being placed on them.
please log in to view this image I think cologne would approve of this piece of public transport as it runs on hydrogen. It can carry 125 passengers at a time and provides a service every eight minutes along the route in Pau down in the south-west of the country. The problem that we have discussed before is that it only operates along a 6km route within the city, so no help if you live outside.
