What does your car get?

Mentioned on STW a lot?

It’s a Volvo.

What does your car get?

Envy from the panther….

😜

Nah……not enough seats for me.

We live in an oil based economy. £70 is £70 worth of oil. £332 is £332 worth of oil. The green option is £70.

Obviously not true because the train varies from £80 to £332. It doesn’t use four times more fuel at peak times. This tells us that the fuel isn’t the main factor in the pricing.

How can a plane with 2 pilots, 2 cabin crew (minimum, depending on plane), plus someone to put your bags on for you, come out cheaper than a driver and guard plus a snack trolley, if you are lucky.

You have to get over the idea that things are priced according to what they cost. It costs the same to run a train at off-peak times as it does peak. The reason trains cost so much is that they are so full – they are trying to discourage people from using them. There basically aren’t enough train lines.

And our first attempt to create some more badly needed infrastructure is being torn to pieces by the baying political mob. Good work.

I had the same dilemma travelling from Manchester to Southampton day return – FAR cheaper and quicker to fly than to mess around with trains.

On the journey home, I got a Cross Country service the one stop from Southampton Central to Southampton Airport Parkway. It was the Bournemouth to Manchester service. Got off at SAP. Had a drink and a bit to eat in the pub, waited the hour until boarding. Flew to Manchester. Train from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly. Train from Piccadilly to mine (another 25 mins). And I was still home 30 mins before that same train I’d been on had even arrived at Piccadilly. For half the cost.

Like imnotverygood said. Not travelling at all and having a teleconference is the only credible way.

How much subsidy is there on flying?

There is much fuss being about the need for new roads and maybe even a rail link between the two UK research centres of Oxford and Cambridge.
If they need that then maybe they should have any government funding removed as they are obviously pretty shit at getting stuff sorted properly. These are the guys talking about the future and they can’t even sort the present,

Oh, and don’t start me on the policy of bikes on trains, I was thinking about training up to Edinburgh with the bike. It was cheaper and easier to fly.

 I work for a national environmental education charity who has the UN Global Goals at our heart.

I can’t believe that you are actually going to the meeting(s) in person. That seems insane in this day and age.

Member
How much subsidy is there on flying?

Interesting – so in theory my car is taxed by emissions (VED and fuel duty).

Transpires that other fuels or fuel uses don’t have the appropriate taxation to “clean up” after themselves.

I wonder what our economy would actually look like if we did….

There is much fuss being about the need for new roads and maybe even a rail link between the two UK research centres of Oxford and Cambridge.

Bonkers – even back then.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/feb/02/theairlineindustry.travelnews

Yep, I flew on that plane as part of the press coverage. Waste of time and didn’t last. London Oxford Airport my arse. I’m only amazed EasyJet don’t fly London traffic there. (Yes I know it’s too small… 😉 )

How can a plane with 2 pilots, 2 cabin crew (minimum, depending on plane), plus someone to put your bags on for you, come out cheaper than a driver and guard plus a snack trolley, if you are lucky.

Add on the maintenance/inspection of planes which must far exceed that of a train.

Whilst the maintenance and inspection of aircraft does far exceed that of trains being reliant upon a fixed infrastructure (rails) adds some costs that aircraft don’t have.

The ECML, as a major high speed route, requires maintenance and safety checks to be carried out 24 hours a day, with hundreds of Permanent Way staff out overnight checking their areas for issues with the track. This is not a cheap endeavour and when corners are cut you end up with the likes of the 2000 Hatfield Rail Crash, 2002 Potters Bar and 2002 Southall.

Its quicker, cheaper an easier for me to train to london than fly assuming I book ahead. thats door to door to my mates house.

National Express…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6qFpbAgwM

I can’t believe that you are actually going to the meeting(s) in person. That seems insane in this day and age.

+1

Wasting 2 days traveling, and however many polar bears for a meeting?

All the more bonkers as ‘trustees’ implies you’re supposed to be a group of people selected to represent the views, morals and ethics of a larger group!

Even the ‘networking’ argument rarely stacks up these days, guaranteed your names more likely to be remembered if you respond to the meeting invite with “I’m saving the department £300, two to three days of my working time and several penguins by skyping”.

Errmmm – given what I know of Matt questioning his environmental credentials is a bit much

questioning his environmental credentials is a bit much

I don’t think they are. It’s questioning his employers policy.

It seems very strange that they worry about saving £100 on travel expenses for the more damaging travel method.

I can’t believe that you are actually going to the meeting(s) in person.

I can. By the sounds of it, he hasn’t met them all before. There is a massive difference between a video conference and actually meeting in person. It makes a lot of sense to spend time to actually meet someone in person. Once you know someone better, tele and video conferences work a lot better.

It makes a lot of sense to spend time to actually meet someone in person.

It does? Given the environmental cost? Wouldn’t it be better to simply learn how to get to know people digitally instead?

I can’t believe that you are actually going to the meeting(s) in person.

For the first time in 6 years I will meet our trustees.
I’ve skyped before.
I’m in a new promoted role that is core to the business for the next two years.
I’m combining multiple meetings while there for 24/48 hours.
I may have to meet our patron to discuss his attendance at a conference next year, possibly get him and I in front of TV crew on the evening news, Seeing as he is 93 and a Sir, it’s better if I meet him in London where he lives.

I’m not flying for a 1 hour meeting, that’s crazy…

You have to get over the idea that things are priced according to what they cost. It costs the same to run a train at off-peak times as it does peak. The reason trains cost so much is that they are so full – they are trying to discourage people from using them. There basically aren’t enough train lines.

That is very true – but both rail and air companies must be (trying to) turn a profit.

As a guess, rail companies are grabbing a substantial part of their income from charging £7000 a year to stand shoulder to shoulder in a rattly commuter train. A long distance express even at 3 figures to travel the length of the country, is maybe not such an efficient earner.

Can anyone prove or disprove this hunch?

To add to my question above – seems TJ could travel from the wild lands north of the wall to London and back every week for a full working year, for less than I can do travelling in daily from Berkshire.

learn how to get to know people digitally instead

Keep it clean. 🙂

As much as I dislike flying if they can get my wife, daughter and me to Geneva and back for £104 I’m in!
I like taking the train for UK journeys, sometimes it’s not a pleasant experience!

air companies must be (trying to) turn a profit.

And a very very low % profit is what they generally achieve. Very cutthroat business.

Elon Musk and his ilk should stop pissing about with electric cars and get busy with the full sized hologram technology to keep us off the roads unless it’s actually necessary.

About a bajillion teenage boys also share your opinion on the necessity of this technology.

ayjaydoubleyou

only offpeak and booking 12 weeks ahead.

It does? Given the environmental cost? Wouldn’t it be better to simply learn how to get to know people digitally instead?

Yes it does in this scenario.

As the OP stated, he hasn’t met them in 6 years. Video and tele conference work well when you know the people at the other end.

Still think he should get the train.

Obviously not true because the train varies from £80 to £332. It doesn’t use four times more fuel at peak times. This tells us that the fuel isn’t the main factor in the pricing.

Where do you think the money goes? Give me £332 and travel by bicycle. I’ll then spend £332 on petrol for my chainsaw and imported Japanese beef for the BBQ.

How’s that journey looking now?

This thread is actually quite illuminating of the problem we all face in respect to Climate change.

The message is doom and gloom, so the natural response is fear and guilt. We dont deal with that well so we want to tune it out, or come up with excuses or mitigate our guilt, or push it away. Typically we say “I recycle my plastic bags”, or “I bought a hybrid car”, or “I will take the train and not fly” etc.

We also become passive when faced with such a big issue, we tune out, we opt out as we are powerless.

We also think of it as distant in time or place. Its the future or its the Arctic, or the third world, its not on my local trails.

We as individuals will continue to fail to deal with it, businesses are not motivated to deal with it and so all that are left are the governments. Well they actually know what to do about it, they just dont know how to get elected if they did do somthing about it.

Also we are in the West, so for now we are rich enough to ignor it or pay for someone else to deal with it.

There was an interesting study done some time ago where energy useage was tracked in households and those in the study offered three responses to their useage.

The first were shown the cost and offered money saving schemes – 3% took it up as energy is too cheap to matter much, so few modified their behaviour.

The second response was to show the health impacts on kids etc, this resulted in a 8% reduction.

The third was a sort of social stigma. Those doing the best were publically given a gold star displayed on their property, the next best a green one, the worst a red one. This public recognition created a sort of social race to do the best, it had a 20% effect.

So perhaps we need to publically shame ourselves into action, Businesses and the Government are not going to help. We are far more likely to care about how we compare to others than care about the Arctic or distant future, or third world. No one wants to be average, we want to be better than that.

So perhaps we need to publically shame ourselves into action, Businesses and the Government are not going to help

I guess this is where I’m going with work.
We have to be seen to do what we preach.
We need to preach to get more work.
Work needs to preach to influence, to meet our aims.

I think.

Trimix – I would have a much more radical solution – make the economy carbox tax based. Make energy usage expensive. If petrol was £4 a litre how long until 200mpg cars? Small scale local veg producers could be cheaper than large swcale ones relying on long distance transport – that sort of thing

Yes, I do agree, energy is way too cheap.

I happily drive to Italy/France/Austria in my car, which is not fuel efficient. Its a bloody 911, so on the twistyies Im enjoying 14mpg FFS. But the cost of fuel is low enough that I happily spend that in persuit of fun.

But the way our society is designed, you could double the price of fuel and most of us will still drive to work. For me there are no public transport alternatives and for safety reasons Im not riding my bike down the A34.

I dont even drive about looking for the cheapest garage, I full up when its convienient. Perhaps we should be given a ration booklet for energy. Everyone should be given a fixed quota of energy usage to make do with. You pick what sort of energy to spend it on, but its all you get. So Id keep the heating off most of the year just to thrash my way round the Alps for example.

The train is disappointingly expensive, but cost is by no means a good indicator of carbon emissions or environmental damage in general.

If it’s for work, I assume you get paid for it so it doesn’t really matter to you. Just get on the train, relax, get a can of beer or glass of wine and put it on expenses and be happy.

(coffee and tea are also available).

I did the journey from Hampshire to Glasgow by car recently, it really wasn’t too bad (with 2 drivers and careful timing), and carbon emissions are comparable with 2 occupants in the car, potentially less if we had more people in. But it’s a lot harder going than the train.

Small scale local veg producers could be cheaper than large swcale ones relying on long distance transport – that sort of thing

10 calories to produce and transport each calorie of food.
You’d need to know the breakdown to work out if local production makes sense. I’d imagine it generally makes more sense to produce food using less fossil fuels somewhere else then use some to move it. So I imagine the current model is the most efficient.

Applies to wages too. Give someone £20/hour (to spend on carbon intensive stuff) vs £2/hour is a strong argument to grow somewhere cheap and move it.

Where do you think the money goes?

Part of it on fuel, but your original logic was flawed. The true cost of the trip is somewhere in between the two numbers and is fixed.

Part of it on fuel, but your original logic was flawed. The true cost of the trip is somewhere in between the two numbers and is fixed.

You’re missing the point. Give somebody more money for the same fuel and that extra money will be spent on stuff. That stuff has a carbon cost associated with it.

So perhaps we need to publically shame ourselves into action

Or have the government incentivise us. Tax breaks for companies offering proper remote working, for example.

You’d need to know the breakdown to work out if local production makes sense.

This was in the paper the other day. Some stuff (e.g. tomatoes) is more energy intensive to produce locally than to grow somewhere sunny and ship it slowly. But other stuff isn’t.

Cooking dishes with local seasonal food is a good idea. Last winter we ate lots of cauliflower, carrots, parsnips, cabbage and sprouts. Plenty* of British veg around even in winter and its cheap.

* maybe not this year due to flooding tho 🙁

Give somebody more money for the same fuel and that extra money will be spent on stuff. That stuff has a carbon cost associated with it.

?

In the case of train companies the stuff that doesn’t go on fuel is spent on track maintenance etc and other overheads most of which are fixed. And the true cost is between the two numbers, peak fares subsidise off-peak.

Last winter we ate lots of cauliflower, carrots, parsnips, cabbage and sprouts

Methane is a greenhouse gas too, molgrips.