One of the main contributors of CO2 to the environment is people so if you wish to significantly reduce levels you can see what the answer is...
Let's hope Mr G Brown doesn't latch onto this as we'll end up with tax on the number of offspring we produce - maybe even end up having to be tested for CO2 output and taxed along similar lines as company car drivers.
As for people such as David W (who will become "thoughtless and uncaring individuals") who own a pony, I'd get saving now... :-)
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I agree many trains are badly maintained. Worse in the last few years I think. But they are also doing a LOT of work for the amount of pollution they produce. You can't compare an average artic. with an average freight train and say the train is more polluting. You'd have to compare sixty or seventy artics. with one train. I reckon even a badly maintained diesel locomotive is competitive in terms of fuel efficiency and pollution with seventy brand new artics. It's just that when it makes smoke it makes it all in the same place. Then there's the electricity issue. Complete nightmare on the roads - pollution from batteries, short range only etc., etc. Works a treat on the rails, and has for a hundred years, give or take.
We've completely lashed up the relationship between road, rail and other kinds of transport, in the last twenty to thirty years. Setting one against the other isn't the answer, since they are each good at different things. Problem is, the car makers and oil companies have had it all their own own way for a long time. Only now, when the roads are becoming unusable in many places, are the stupid British realizing what they've lost.
Chris (who is a stupid Brit.)
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BLASTPHEMY!
Dirty diesels indeed ? Can you imagine if they had invented / perfected the diesel engine first, and somebody came along and said" Weve invented this petrol engine - it uses twice as much fuel, and it needs all these complex electrics to generate a spark at just the right time etc etc..."
Any badly maintained vehicle will produce loads of filthy fumes - wait until you get behind an old Ford Sierra or similar, that really stinks and is worse to breathe in.
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