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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With regard to the bottled water, I like to point out the irony that, in the US at least, bottled water only became popular after environmentalists raised a big stink about (trace) contaminants in tap water.
Now that I think about it, use of tap water can be analogized to taking mass transit, and bottled water to private cars…
clipe says:
March 14, 2013 at 11:57 am
Most likely Gleick, McKibben et al accrue frequent flyer miles for personal use. Would be interesting to know how they use them.
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They’ll go to vacation in “green island”. LOL
Only Al Gore is wealthy enough to fly with private jet, to speak climate change all over the world. Laughing at stupid people whom put all their money to his pokets.
Instead of flying around to these environmental confabs, why don’t these scientists and political activists use Skype or some kind of video teleconferencing?
ralfellis says:
March 14, 2013 at 11:11 am
“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.”
*I* don’t mind how anyone who buys a barrel of oil decides to use it as long as it’s not a petrol bomb on my house.
I remember, back in high school, walking through Univ. of Ill. campus to wait for the bus to take us back to the train station. Naturally, during winter, the wind had to blow in exactly the same direction the damn bus was coming from. We’d stand behind one of the posts holding that school up and take turns popping our heads out from behind that shelter (a somewhat luxurious term) and straight into the icy blast to check for the damn bus. Needless to say, they were infrequent. And, also needless to say, when we got to be juniors and seniors, and a very few of us acquired cars, well, those guys became gods, and had the most friends.
You’ll pry my cold, dead hands off of that steering wheel.
I get so sick of hearing how wonderful the public transportation is in the UK. They have built railways, have lots of buses, even a chunnel! Not much to brag about when your entire country fits neatly into the state of Oregon……
Just a few days ago our regional transit system came out with the banner head line:
Rider ship is up 25% and we have now reached for the first time ever (over 40 YEARS of service)
over 30% off our cost of operation (it was a magical33%). Enough said, this madness has to stop!
Public transport has not worked ANYWHERE!
I remember that not one of them worked to remove the contaminants in the water that the public drank. Let the peons in the California fields drink the contaminated stuff; our gullets will remain pure.
I live in a place called Newcastle , 150km from Sydney. I can drive to Sydney, takes about 1.5 hours.. or I can catch the train.. which takes.. wait for it.. 2hr 30 if you get the so-called express service. But generally I do actually catch the train, because its a nice scenic trip.
Local.. I always use the van.
Olavi says:
March 14, 2013 at 12:49 pm
clipe says:
March 14, 2013 at 11:57 am
Most likely Gleick, McKibben et al accrue frequent flyer miles for personal use. Would be interesting to know how they use them.
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They’ll go to vacation in “green island”. LOL
And do mileage runs on someone else’s dime. Me and you no doubt.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-discussion-627/
The transnational water companies pushed the bottled water business big time (after buying the water rights in major American cities). Veolia, Thames, Nestle, and Coke, etc, bought up the water rights of small towns over significant aquifers and groundwater sources and drained them to sell that water out-of-state and overseas. A couple of communities fought back.
Hear a squeak out of a supposed environmentalist? Did any of these supposed stewards of the land object?
NOAA reported last September that their GRACE satellites showed the drought in the US was caused in the groundwater supplies, or as they put it, in the water supplies for farming and drinking.
So I am going to save that pic of Bill Nye and his selfish water comment. Another Bill Nye moment was when he was on Larry King about five years ago with Richard Lindzen. Nye was claiming that fresh water from melting ice caps would upset the “salt-heat driven ocean currents” and shut down the Gulf Stream. Mind-boggling.
We could always take a Carnaval Cruise. Would that be public transportation? There’ s a Carnaval ‘Dream’ Ship (nightmare) right now broken down in St. Martin.
That wasn’t Bill Nye. That was a reborn Peter Cushing from his Hammer Films vampire days. Once bitten, twice Nye.
Anthony is on a roll, I think I’ll stay out of his way 🙂
I lived in Europe and loved the trains, undergounds and bus, but really this is a huge country and to compare the systems is apples to oranges.
Dodgy Geezer says: March 14, 2013 at 10:06 am
. . . 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…!”
Must be true. Even his chauffeur had one.
ralfellis says: arch 14, 2013 at 11:11 am
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.
Jets burn a kerosene relative, not diesel, which would gel up at altitude temperatures.
I calculated fuel economy for our flights out of Houston to London and Paris a couple years back. Unless you’re always driving around with at least one passenger, you’re not beating a modern jet. And we’re doing it at 500 mph.
Pat was explaining to Mike the wonders of Communism.
“When we’re all communists we will be sharing our tractors”
“That’s good, I’d like that.” says Mike
“When we’re all communist we’ll share our horses.”
“That’s good. I’d like that” says Mike
“When we’re all communist we’ll share our pigs.”
“I wouldn’t like that.” says Mike.
“Why not?” says Pat.
“i’ve got a pig.”
People lamenting the current state of public transportation could bolster their case by presenting a business plan that migrates from the status quo to what they dream about. It must include a schedule, all costs and where the money will come from. That would be hard work and require more than 140 characters.
Mike McMillan wrote about jet transport fuel efficiency.
Wikipedia says that a 747-400 achieves 91 available seat miles per gallon and the A380 gets 78. Both are better than a Prius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Aircraft
Boeing claims that the 787 Dreamliner is 20% more efficient than similar aircraft.
And before anyone gets excited about airplanes flying with empty seats taking down the average, flying half empty, both do better than most cars on the road today and they do it faster.
Speed,
They should also be prohibited from using tax dollars for funding.
“Now that I’ve tried it, I don’t think I could live without it.”
A little vague in the wording, which “it” was Bill referring to that he could not “live” without? the appearance on morning television programs, the limo service, or the bottled water??
W^3
Mike McMillan says;
“Must be true. Even his chauffeur had one.”
Good one Mike
Ralfelis, it would take a lot of 20 tons to do that in 4 coaches, and would make more pollution and particulates and you have to add lubrication to kerosine to run a diesel or you kill it! and the specific heat is different! it might take a bit longer too!
The buses in our city of 120,000 are packed in the early morning and evening, but run the streets empty most of the day. It’s very inefficient running a transit system that must be available to “the commons” whenever they want to move.