This in particular bugs me a lot, especially when there are so many situations where trains would have been better for this.
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At one time all supermarkets charged for carrier bags. They have a cost to produce, so they arenât free. The large supermarkets started to give away the single use bags to encourage customers in.
The result of this was huge amounts of single use plastic stuck in the environment. If supermarkets want to charge more, then they are entitled to. No one is forcing anyone to buy them.
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Why? If the tax is meant to discourage use of something with negative externalities, and itâs still being overconsumed, then at the very least hopefully the money can go back to being used for public good. As far as Iâm aware, the ULEZ revenue in London goes back to TfL to improve public transport, so it should in theory be a gain anyway, further reducing car use.
I think sometimes people like to see the âgovernmentâ as some big bad entity thatâs again their own interests, instead of a more nuanced picture.
What do you mean by unenforceable, do you mean people just steal them?
I think itâs constantly being looked at, just that there is no good way to even begin trying to filter out all the different travel purposes to levy any charges on.
I think the best thing to start with is actually a global framework for taxing airplane fuel.
If you want the team arriving at 5pm for a 3pm kick off.
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I have a feeling youâd suddenly get a consortium of Premier League club owners banding together to buy UK rail operatorsâŚ
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you could easily start with frieght.
i get the business vs recreational travel would be toughâŚbut freightâŚsurely thats some low hanging fruit thereâŚ
Depends. I have in-laws in Europe. My family live in Australia, as I do, but they live 1800km away in a different state.
Cutting out flying is not even a choice Iâd consider. Potentially I could spend the 3 days one-way driving to see my family, but itâs not even a huge saving carbon emissions wise over flying. Not seeing the in-laws is out of the question for my wife and kidâs sake.
Iâm fully aware of the obscene carbon cost for a flight to Europe: one trip is the equivalent of an average humanâs yearly carbon emissions. But thatâs a sacrifice I canât make. My thinking is probably the average thinking of a human so itâs easy to understand why there isnât more progress on a human personal level.
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Certain people see âtaxâ as a four-letter word.
People who canât count.
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And therein lies the problem.
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I think the issue is one of capacity. Rail expansion is not easily scalable in the modern era, while road capacity expansion has a little more room.
But the point also still stands, should it be that cheap for tat to be flown around the world to get somewhere sooner? There are things which are perishable and for which itâs understandable, but the rest of it?
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The bulk of freight globally is moved by ship. Air is actually a very small part of it.
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The footprint of one passenger on a long haul flight is pretty low in comparison to their annual footprint through other activities.
Medical supplies? I havenât done any thorough research into this yet so I can withdraw the claim if you prefer?
A return flight from London to Melbourne produces 16.8 tonnes of carbon emissions per passenger. The average human carbon emissions is 4 tonnes per year. The average US citizen produces 16 tonnes per year.
EDIT: SMHâs figures are bogus.
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Suppose it depends where you look.
Can either be classed as accurate?
Where I work is irrelevant.
Not in your case. It clouds your perspective, and your posting history on this topic amply demonstrates such.
Either that, or youâre just wrong.
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That sounds a bit off. If you take a 747, which is pretty energy inefficient, it will go 14,000km on 240,000 litres of kerosene. London to Melbourne is around 17,000km so it would need around 290k litres. Round thst up to 300k to account for multiple take offs.
If you get 3kg co2 from 1l kerosene thatâs about 900tonnes per flight. A 747 can carry about 560 passengers. It should be 1.6 tonnes.
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Iâve just googled this and there are loads of different answers coming up for a Heathrow to Melbourne return flight. It shows that itâs an inexact science (not sure why, though) but the average appears to be somewhere in the region of 5-6 tonnes per person for a return journey.
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