Extinction Rebellion

Well, arguably, a 700k house in Clapham Common can't be up to much. It should really cost millions. :)

As has often been mentioned--Britain's legislation governing driving were largely drafted at a time when there was very little interest in hauling the then-'class' of drivers up before the courts when they mowed down the odd peasant. Instead, a lot of effort was spent trying to get the peasants off the road.

As for protest-specific laws, about which I know very little, I can only assume that these bail conditions are within the range allowed.

It will cost millions when its sold. 700k was purchase price, obvs. Come on pedant, you should know this.

The law is bullshit. Said it before and will keep saying it until it's changed.

and I'm saying this as a HhV* owner.

Fixed.

I agree with the general thrust of what you say, of course, but to make some pedantic points--I don't think trains should be completely free, but that there should not be an expectation to make any kind of profit from them, keeping the amount that needs to be invested every year at a manageable level, of course.

Also, some people rely on cars for quite legitimate reasons, e.g. people with mobility difficulties, and for them driving certainly shouldn't cost a fortune.

Motorised transport is a good thing but we have absolutely no idea how to use it properly. I always think some of that comes from all the bullshit spewed by 'science fiction' writers largely in the 20th century, although most were, of course taking their cue from Jules Verne.

In Verne's work, the machines were always a tool to explore a then largely unknown (-feeling) vast world of huge complexity, whether going to the 'centre of the Earth' (obviously not), travelling 20,000 leagues under the sea, travelling around the world in 80 days, etc. Obviously, Verne also wrote very different books, but these are among his most famous.

However, he and his successors established a deep-seated cultural core in which the use of machines (as opposed to, say, hand tools) is a superior way of living to not using them. Most people, when asked, will give some specific reason for why they use a car or a plane or whatever, but that conditions have become such that these reasons exist in the first place is a product of said culture alone.

Fascination with machines isn't as new as that, of course, and you could probably go back much further than Albertus Magnus to detect it if written records existed. Nor are machines all bad. Still, if we're ever going to get back to some situation in which we think more carefully of which part of our identities we transfer into machines ('saving' work, 'AI' and all that), that culture of machine modernism, whose roots in turn lie in the nonsensical pseudo-philosophy of René Descartes, has to be tackled at the root.

* Heavy hippy Vehicle

Well, it should bloody well have an up-to-date valuation. What's she going to talk about at dinner parties otherwise?

Let's take this thread elsewhere.

So, if we were carbon neutral by 2025 or 2050 then what effect would that have on cycling and the bikes we ride?

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Heavy hippy Vehicle

It's basically a garden shed on wheels.

We wouldn't be able to buy any new parts for bikes. I mean, who's making carbon neutral lube/tyres/brake pads etc. consumables, let alone buying new bikes.

I read an article, fairly recently, almost certainly in The Guardian,
that showed how the investment in High Speed Trains and their dedicated routes
had been mirrored by the withdrawal from service of overnight train services.

Family mespilus used the overnight train service from Ankara to Istanbul a few years ago,
mainly as an adventure for mespilus jr. 3 people in a 4-person compartment, was a fine way to travel, followed by a Turkish breakfast outside Haydarpasa station, (before it caught fire, and before it was sold off to become another Bosphorus-side hotel).

I'd be happy if trains were even remotely competitive with driving. I mean £300+ for a Liverpool return could fly me half way around the world. Is it any wonder people just choose to drive. Same as going to Wales/Poole for a couple of audaxes last year. I think the trains were almost £200 and then you're stuck waiting for them and if you miss them you're fucked. Whereas driving costs me maybe at the most £100 for fuel and in this case saves time as well (at least the Liverpool train is faster than driving). The one time I try to take a train to Bristol for an audax and I almost don't get onto my "bike space" because ALL SIX are full. Six. FFS. Then I spend the entire journey standing up and it's an hour late because of some rowdiness (which was quite fun but still). So, basically, trains are fucked. Make them about 100x cheaper, put entire bike carriages on them and every station should have bike storage and hire. Then you'd be getting somewhere. Fuck the shareholders off and make it a useful transport solution.

Well, yes. There's no defending rail fares at the moment, and indeed rail privatisation.

Her jail time, probably :)

Possibly, would it be quite that drastic?

I mean £300+ for a Liverpool return could fly me half way around the world. Is it any wonder people just choose to drive. Same as going to Wales/Poole for a couple of audaxes last year. I think the trains were almost £200 and then you're stuck waiting for them and if you miss them you're fucked

You must be looking at peak times for those prices (although Liverpool would still be about £100).

Obviously the other issue is that public transport is shit in many places. There isn't a non-driving option because buses (if there are any) stop at 6pm, trains are every hour and frequently don't turn up, etc. Outside of the big cities it's generally pretty limited and there doesn't seem any plan to fix this.

Yes, but don't forget for parts of the country rail travel is an irrelevance. Stations are too far away or don't go anywhere that's relevant.

Well, if you want carbon neutral. How else? All those bike parts come from forrun.
Do you count carbon offsetting as neutral? Giant Bikes going to start planting trees in Taiwan to make up for shipping their stuff around the globe?

Yeah, work trip. It was years ago but I was amazed. It was over £300 for a return. I'd just paid £700ish for a flight to Australia and back. WTAF.

Buses here don't take bikes so there goes your joined up transport option again.

As I understand it , tree planting to offset carbon requires an unrealistic level of forestry.

I think I mean carbon emission reduction to a temperature rise to under the 2c target.

The cycling industry as we know is about moving large amounts of metals, plastic etc around the world so some of us can feel less guilty about climate change.

The increasing efficiency of jet engines and fuselages has been transformed into ever longer non-stop flights. Have a look at how the range of the Boeing 747 increased with each iteration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747#747-100

Trains should be free, driving cars should cost a fucking fortune - and I'm saying this as a car owner.

^ this.

Well, perhaps we need a market for transport that incentivises low carbon travel. We won't get that with a rail state monopoly (BR) or the current oligopoly that is the rail franchise system.

Obviously the other issue is that public transport is shit in nearly all places.

Ftfy. It's quicker & far more reliable for me to jog to work 7 miles than get the bus or tram (door to door time), and I'm in one of our bigger cities. Cycling = quickest but sketchiest, driving = a lottery.

Another thing that has bemused me for years... there's oodles of folks commute between cities e.g. Leeds > MCR & vice versa doing jobs that exist in both locations, wasting their lives sat in motorway queues for a large chunk of each day.

A low carbon future may ask these folks to be paired up to exchange jobs to remove the impact of the long commutes. This probably won't be well received as it breaks routines & long standing social relationships.