Being a fan of public transportation seems to go hand-in-hand with climate activism. Two of the top activists have recently commented on how much they like it. Being curious as to whether this is lip service to a cause or not, I ask simple questions.
Oblivious to these concepts of public transportation, Bill Nye “the Science guy” demonstrates (in his very first Instagram picture) Peter Gleick’s worst nightmare – private upscale transportation AND bottled water.
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Chortle!
As my mother used to say, ” Do as I say. Not as I do, ” She was a hypocrite and so are they. Just on a Grander Scale!
Flying counts as public transportation in my eyes as long as you don’t use a private jet. That’s why the Europeans are calling their passenger aircraft Air”bus”.
Yeah, great UKPT.
£4000 to get to London and back. On a train where the passengers need to crowd together to stay warm. That’s when the thing actually runs and doesn’t break down a mile from a station.
When “debating” warmists, I usually mention that 1) I don’t own a car and, 2) I take public transit to work every day. Doesn’t really shut them up, but it does deflect things for a bit. Particularly those who 3) do own a car and, 4) don’t take public transit every day. It is rather fun, though, when our “green” politicians get out of their chauffeur-driven limos for photo-ops on public transit. They aren’t convincing most of us, and if such a shallow effort DOES convince the rest, doesn’t say much about them.
Both of these have probable racked up far more air-miles flying around the world to attend ‘green events ‘ in a year than most people do in a decade.
Of course its ‘different’ when they do it , that is the key thing to remember !
Are those comments to the right of Bill Nye for real? God complex?
I just can’t wait to see photos of the new pope taking the bus to Mexico…
It was 1917. The Communist Party speaker had just finished a speech to the factory workers and was getting into his car for the next appointment when one of the factory hands shouted:
“Why should we support your party? You promise to share everything equally, but we see you getting into a limousine just like the factory bosses!”
The party official put his head out of the window and replied:
” But, Comrade, when the Party is in power, EVERYBODY will have a limousine…!”
Wonder what he did with the bottle after?
I’m pretty sure Al Gore takes the bus, or he bought a bus or a bus company or something…
Commercial airlines are public transport. I’m not aware of the around the world bus service. Can you elaborate? (Wouldn’t it sink in the Atlantic?)
I might like public transportation if it worked worth a darn (used to use it to get to my college classes back in the day; the cr@p I had to go through to make sure I compensated for the MTA’s whim-of-the-day and make it to class on time often bordered on the surreal). And if a cheap bus came up the dirt road in the woods where I live, and actually took me where I need to go. And back. When I need to go there. And if it didn’t run almost empty wasting more energy per passenger mile than my 17 year old Ranger pickup.
Years ago, here in Milwaukee, there was a public hearing on Lite Rail and so I attended. I drove my car, but there was a bus stop right in front of where the meeting was held. I got there very early and sat outside and observed the bus stop up until the meeting started. Of the several hundred that came to the meeting, exactly one person took the bus. During the meeting the applause for speakers in favor of Lite Rail was overwhelming.
I’m glad public transport works for your life, but quite frankly, I don’t want to live within a few miles from where I work as quite frankly I like my farm and don’t like the neighborhoods close to work. The buses in much of the country (US) are filled with folks I would not normally trust in a confined space (though there are many nice people as well). When I visit a city such as Washington DC, I plan my routes around Metro stations with parking, then take the train to the attractions, only driving from wherever I am staying to the Metro. It takes most of the stress out of the visit. If I worked in DC I would probably commute the same way. For most of the US, it simply isn’t practical to put public transit in place, too much distance with destinations too spread out.
I can’t imagine a world where everyone lived as cheek to jowl as in the Utopians’ city plans. Transit would make sense in such a terribly dense (>100,000 people/km^2) place, but I am afraid the social stress caused in such a dense population would be too much.
Notice all the favor-currying sycophancy in the replies to Nye. Glurge. He’s GREAT!. And Martin, airlines are NOT public transport. So can the equivocation.
Martin
Commercial airlines are public transport.
I don’t think we Brits would be any worse off if the forger Gleick had stayed at home.
Environmentalists tweeting sob stories:
A Bleat Tweet
Leave the Pope out of it. He apparently did public transit for the same reason he rode a bike, because he thought taxis or limos were an imprudent use of the Church’s collection plate money and should be reserved for somebody who wasn’t spry enough to manage the bus.
On taking a bus ’round the world, I look forward to the greens supporting the Bering strait crossing so that you actually could take a train from the americas to eurasia.
You might regard flying as public transport, but it does take 20 tonnes of ‘diesel’** to fly 180 passengers from the UK to Greece and back. That is probably not so different to having four coaches do the same journey, but it is a lot of fuel.
The point it, in order to have the life-style and standard of living we have grown used to, we need vast amounts of cheap energy. Going back to the Middle Ages with wind and solar power are just not going to cut it. We meed Thorium power, and we need it now (and that might leave some old-fashioned fossil fuels for aviation).
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** Same fuel, just more refined. The Isle of Man used to use aviation fuel for diesel cars, because they only had one holding tank for both.
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Having suffered the vicissitudes of public transport in Zurich, Copenhagen, Munich, Berlin, Paris, London, Stockholm, Geneva, as well as Los Angeles, I’m willing to say Public Transportation generally s*cks. The only thing that gets better is your ability to wait patiently for the delayed transport mechanism.
I didn’t see Gleick on any of my buses in the UK.
And yes – I do work on them.
Owen in GA says:
March 14, 2013 at 10:42 am
Well Owen, I’m from Northern Ontario, and our “public transit” there consists probably what is in your neck of the woods as well: school buses and Greyhound if you want to go from town to town. Everyone else drives.
That I currently live in a city and intentionally bought a house near the subway (sorry, don’t do buses, light rail, trams or street cars) was a short-range plan to get enough money to retire to the country-side again. I love the life in where I grew up, but, frankly, I don’t have the temperament to live like most of my family does, who are one or two bad months away from losing that lovely home. Bless the people who are strong enough to live that life, though (if you ate today, thank a farmer. And the trucker who brought that food to your city…).
I only mentioned this fact as the image of someone who questions the “established” AGW is one of a brutish, Hummer-driving thug. That I have a lower “carbon footprint” than many warmists doesn’t shut them up, but its fun to play with their hypocrisy sometimes.
Stonyground says:
I see the difference between travelling by car and travelling by bus as being similar to the difference between living in a house and living in a homeless shelter.
I don’t buy it that buses are more environmentally friendly than cars either. Yes a bus carries more passengers but this is offset by several other factors. It is a much larger and heavier vehicle with consequently far higher fuel consumption and emissions. It does a lot of stopping, starting and idling to let passengers on and off. It has do do long detours so that getting from A to B actually involves riding double the distance that you would cover in your car if you were doing the same journey.
Most likely Gleick, McKibben et al accrue frequent flyer miles for personal use. Would be interesting to know how they use them.