hi all,
this is making interesting reading as i decided earlier this year to holiday
without air travel and private hire vehicles.
firstly i travelled to the lake district using train and bus and got around
on foot, bus and boat. secondly i went to norway via train, ferry (in which
i happily shared a 4-berth cabin) followed by a bus (at close to maximum
capacity) up through norway to oslo.
so... was it worth it? it took 35 hours and was enjoyable, but i had perhaps
inccorectly (roughly) calcuated a reduction in emissions by not flying to
norway and by going to the lakes rather than to portugal. the message i am
getting seems to be that people believe the emisisons would actually be
higher than the same journey taken by air?
some other points:
regarding trains - it depends once more, upon efficiency, power source
(electrical for instance - and how was that generated), occupancy and how
the emissions are distributed.
there does seem to some widely contradicitng sources of information on the
level of emissions from different sources of travel.
as someone has already alluded to the support needed for aircraft which can
also contribute to total emissions, could we take this further and apply it
to construction of the vehicle and transportation of fuels and consumables
needed to run it? airport vs port?
and again, something which has already been touched upon - which form of
travel represents the greatest potential for low CO2 emissions?
hope to hear more from this debate,
best wishes,
Jonathan
|