Violet Elizabeth Bott Greta Thunberg did all her running around Europe by train, not plane, in order to reduce her carbon emissions. The thing is, such reduced emissions aren’t in fact all they seem.
Well, at least, good for walking the walk. However:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]With train travel generating 15g of CO2 per kilometre compared with about 100g for flying, environmentally conscious Swedes such as Greta are stopping flying, or at least reducing the number of flights they take.[/perfectpullquote]That’s not actually true that 15 grammes. Sure, it might be true, under a certain set of assumptions. But how realistic are those assumptions? Not very is the answer.
Actual emissions from a journey start at zero. If the train’s going anyway then you getting on it has an entirely trivial effect on emissions. The same is also true of a plane of course. Easyjet’s going to fly London Edinburgh whether you get on the ‘plane or not. The emissions of your trip are zero.
The calculation leading to the 15 grammes starts with using the French railway as the baseline. That’s the one that’s near entirely ‘leccie run. Getting on a diesel train is about as emitive as using a car (certain circumstances for engine size and no. of people in car etc). Further, French ‘leccie largely comes from nuclear plants which, for the marginal production, we can say are non-emitive.
Your electric train across Germany, where they use large amounts of lignite to generate the ‘leccie, will not meet this number, nowhere near.
Then there’s the load factor. The train estimates are based upon the train being full. Of course they are, that’s what makes the numbers look best. Long distance trains always full across Europe? No, really, they’re not.
The actual truth here being that we don’t know what the emissions from a train ride around Europe are. We’ve too many different factors and no one has actually pieced it all together. No one will either. All we do really know is that Greta Thunberg’s emissions were higher than that claimed 15 grammes per km. Or, of course, they were zero.
After reading this – https://quillette.com/2019/04/23/self-harm-versus-the-greater-good-greta-thunberg-and-child-activism/ detailing the various mental health problems she has I doubt that she’d be able to get on a plane without freaking out. I have to wonder after reading about her, if she isn’t drugged up half the time to cope with all these mental conditions.
Loved the Twatter storm about an innocent 16 old girl with disabilities under attack from 50 year old males (probably includes you Tim). They complained about them playing the man (or in this case, female child) rather than the ball by going on to do exactly the same thing to the people they saw as criticising her. Not like the SJWs to be two-faced is it… Thing is, the critics are right – she is a stooge who (because of her problems) doesn’t grasp that what she wants (or more likely has been conditioned to want) won’t happen because no… Read more »
The proper comparison is to look at the total CO2 emissions from the rail network in a Country, including from infrastructure, travel to and from place of work by railway employees, versus total CO2 emissions by motor vehicles and then compare numbers transported, unit weight of freight carried.
It is also the case that in large measure road traffic CO2 emissions are much higher than should be because of delays caused by inadequate roads, deliberately neglected to make road journeys longer and frustrating to ‘force’ people out of their cars onto trains.