"magwitch" wrote in message
...
Huge muttered:

On 2006-11-01, magwitch wrote:
Huge muttered:

And it might well work better in London than in many other places,
since
most of the people on those trains are office workers.

And most Cambridge commuters aren't?

Calm down. I wasn't getting at you, and I didn't know you were in
Cambridge to start with. And yes, they aren't, or no they are. Or
whichever it is that I agree with you. )

Puzzled. I didn't think you were getting at me.

I'd say it's people commuting into major cities
unnecessarily by car who output one hell of a lot of CO2.

I don't believe that anyone goes anywhere "unnecessarily" for any
reason. All that means is that you don't agree with their reason.
And no-one drives into a city at peak times unless they've a
damn good reason. No-one sane, that is.

So why are there _thousands_ of cars jamming up the roads every morning?
Especially in Cambridge, so many that those trying to get to the station
from outside the city to catch a train to London can't get there. That is
what it was like a few years ago and I doubt whether it's changed.

Just giving drivers a fuel allowance/ration would *force* them to make
alternative arrangements, i.e. car sharing, using the buses etc.


It has been estimated that a carbon price equivalent to $900/tonne would be
required to change significant private motoring behaviour (David Mackay,
slide 88 of
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/m...ons/youfigure/ )

It has also been estimated (Exeter conference 2005, 4CMR research group)
that a carbon price of approx $200/tonne would be adequate to stabilise the
atmosphere at 450 ppm. by savings elsewhere worldwide.

These are all Cambridge people mostly.

That does assume that the savings elsewhere are fully fungible - which is
true for CO2 but not for the special case of liquid fuels. Eventually, in
the long term, when all the various technologies get sorted out, we will
probably be able to drive as much as congestion allows and still have a
decent climate. however, the earl;y 21st century is not that time and will
be "interesting" - for a Chinese definition of "interesting".

(Personally, I think 400ppm is living on borrowed time; or at least a
significant risk thereof)