Is Climate Change Our Fault?

[PRESLEY]

1 hour ago, tinfoilhat said:

What if we do nothing?

Sounds like one of Boris's ideas,  

[Guest sibon]

11 minutes ago, El Cid said:

Why do you, or anyone else, think recycling is related to climate change?

 

Wind farms, solar power and electric cars, that is 'climate change'.

Recycling generally reduces carbon emissions in other areas. It is a vital part of any strategy to combat climate change.

47 minutes ago, top4718 said:

A lot of the "solutions" seem to involve a tax or a price increase of some sort, surely making things like public transport cheaper and more viable would depreciate car use, we also just seem to have spurned a golden opportunity to get more people working from home, its this side of it that naturally raises scepticism.

You are absolutely correct.

 

The only way to make meaningful change happen is if people see it as worthwhile.

 

That involves making things better, not worse.

[El Cid]

23 minutes ago, sibon said:

Recycling generally reduces carbon emissions in other areas. It is a vital part of any strategy to combat climate change.

 

Recycling means councils dont have to pay landfill tax, plastic is cheaper than paper, also means that we dont need to chop so many trees down and therefore uses less CO2 than the paper equivalent.

[Guest sibon]

23 minutes ago, El Cid said:

Recycling means councils dont have to pay landfill tax, plastic is cheaper than paper, also means that we dont need to chop so many trees down and therefore uses less CO2 than the paper equivalent.

It also means that you don’t have to refine more oil to make more plastic. It also means that you don’t have to mine and smelt more metal ores to make more metals.

[tinfoilhat]

2 hours ago, El Cid said:

 

Same outcome, it will take decades for the climate to change.

That's just nonsense. 

[L00b]

2 hours ago, top4718 said:

A lot of the "solutions" seem to involve a tax or a price increase of some sort, surely making things like public transport cheaper and more viable would depreciate car use, we also just seem to have spurned a golden opportunity to get more people working from home, its this side of it that naturally raises scepticism.

Luxembourg made its public transports (all of them: train,bus,tram) completely free at the point of use last year. Basically see a bus, or a tram, or a train, just get on, done. No card, no pass, no small change or contactless, no nothing…

…But even that level of convenience (it’d hard to improve on it, short of Jetsons-like, whistle-a-free-robot-car to your feet), has yet to translate into a change in personal transportation habits noticeable in any scale.

 

Since 1st April, I’ve been doing a minimum of 2 days per week commuting by bus and 1 day per week working from home. Some weeks, 3 bus days and 2 WFH days, zero car commuting. And I have a nice car, and a personal parking spot at work (a *proper* perk in Luxembourg City, let me tell you, like having a work parking spot at Canary Wharf).

So that’s been a minimum of 1 car less at rush hour, 3 weekdays out of 5, and long may it continue. I’m actually enjoying the reading, music listening, emailing, etc while some other poor bugger get their blood pressure up at the front. The extra 30-40 mins in commute time and the loss of ‘go anywhere anytime’ convenience “on bus days” is very small beer, relative to the stress I’m not building up commuting behind the wheel doing 17 kms at a 17 km/h average(…on good days).

 

But I can tell you that, once all the kids get off at their college 3 or 4 kms later from where I get on, there’s basically a dozen of us at the very most for the remaining 13 kms to Lux City. Same at night, minus the kids (schools & colleges break earlier). At the height of morning and evening rush hour, any day of the week, 7 months on, and as rush hour traffic jams are back to their pre-Covid highs.

 

Changing personal transportation habits of a lot of people -enough to matter- will take a long time. Or a systemic shock, e.g. prolonged fuel shortages and/or stratospherically expensive fuel.

Edited October 26, 2021 by L00b

[Resident]

Availabilty/Cost of Public transport is only part of the reason why people prefer the car over it.  (BTW S Yorks has some of the cheapest fare in the country yet speak to an inhabitant and you'd think it costs the life of their first born child).
The main crux, in my opinion is people wanting door-to-door transport at a moment's notice. Public transport doesn't do that, can't do that. 

Making it free is a false move. It isn't free, it's paid for by increasing taxes, usually at the local authority level so in our case, a massive increase in Council tax.  It's why I laugh at all the dullards that clamour for buses to be taken back under public control. They have this notion that it will lower fares. It won't. What's more likely is that the authority would have to take out a massive loan to buy currently used vehicles from the private companies (and then re-liver them) or a larger loan and buy new. There's probably over 900 buses in SY, average price new, £250,000.  Those loans plus operating costs would need to be paid for and that means fare rises. 

[L00b]

43 minutes ago, Resident said:

Availabilty/Cost of Public transport is only part of the reason why people prefer the car over it.  (BTW S Yorks has some of the cheapest fare in the country yet speak to an inhabitant and you'd think it costs the life of their first born child).
The main crux, in my opinion is people wanting door-to-door transport at a moment's notice. Public transport doesn't do that, can't do that. 

That re-adjustment of expectations is the biggest hurdle IMHO. Any person you speak with is always ready and willing to do their bit for the environment…until you ask them to give up a little convenience and/or £s.

43 minutes ago, Resident said:

Making it free is a false move. It isn't free, it's paid for by increasing taxes, usually at the local authority level so in our case, a massive increase in Council tax.  It's why I laugh at all the dullards that clamour for buses to be taken back under public control. They have this notion that it will lower fares. It won't. What's more likely is that the authority would have to take out a massive loan to buy currently used vehicles from the private companies (and then re-liver them) or a larger loan and buy new. There's probably over 900 buses in SY, average price new, £250,000.  Those loans plus operating costs would need to be paid for and that means fare rises. 

That one is always going to be context-dependent. In Lux, it was already costing enough to subsidise public transport, that making it fully free at the point of use represented a saving after the annual budget uplift, after everything was said and done and the tram extensions baked in. All tax-neutral, so a no brainer, really. But, and of course, few other places would be able to emulate this experimental policy, because of wildly different socio-economic situations.

 

My point was that, living the concept of ‘free public transport’ at the coalface, moreover in a very highly-congested city, so far the evidence is that it’s not because “you build it” (make public transport completely free without any hassle - plus a really good and free app geolocating you with stops, buses,destination, etc.all in real-time), that “they will come”.

 

More societal changes and stronger drives are needed.

Edited October 26, 2021 by L00b

[El Cid]

1 hour ago, tinfoilhat said:

That's just nonsense. 

So if the UK cut our CO2 today, to 50% of 1990 levels, when do you think it would affect the climate.

44 minutes ago, Resident said:

The main crux, in my opinion is people wanting door-to-door transport at a moment's notice. Public transport doesn't do that, can't do that.

I agree, to a point. But some people already get, mostly free, transport to hospitals, doctors and day centers.

[Resident]

31 minutes ago, L00b said:

That re-adjustment of expectations is the biggest hurdle IMHO. Any person you speak with is always ready and willing to do their bit for the environment…until you ask them to give up a little convenience and/or £s.

That one is always going to be context-dependent. In Lux, it was already costing enough to subsidise public transport, that making it fully free at the point of use represented a saving after the annual budget uplift, after everything was said and done and the tram extensions baked in. All tax-neutral, so a no brainer, really. But, and of course, few other places would be able to emulate this experimental policy, because of wildly different socio-economic situations.

 

My point was that, living the concept of ‘free public transport’ at the coalface, moreover in a very highly-congested city, so far the evidence is that it’s not because “you build it” (make public transport completely free without any hassle - plus a really good and free app geolocating you with stops, buses,destination, etc.all in real-time), that “they will come”.

 

More societal changes and stronger drives are needed.

First already have an app with that. Granted the real-time isn't 100% spot on however from what I was told it's addition to the app was expedited by covid and the need for the real-time passenger info due to the limited seating.