Rhydgaled
There is, put a 1 child per person limit in place. China did it, now the rest of the world needs to do the same. Food security is also an issue related to this. This point is only relevent to this disscusion in that, if you do this, you might not need the extra capacity. If you do need the extra capacity, that means a high amount of modal shift is being generated so all we need is a bit more renewable electricity generation capacity and by all means, go ahead with a HSR network. If we had the renewable energy generation, or plans for it to be built before HS2, in place we might not be having this discussion.
tbtc is right, population is not an issue to really be discussing on a HSR forum.
Still you are right that there are too many people in the world but apart from another world war or genocide, getting the population to drop is going to take time. Forward forecasts show the population peaking at 2050 and then dropping.
It is easy to say implement a 1 child policy but we live in a democracy, china is a communist dictatorship. How do you suggest we impose that policy on other countries? I take it you have heard of the stories of enforced abortions when people have fallen pregnant accidentally? We dont live in a 1984 dystopia, thankfully. Anyway, china allows peasant and rural farmers to have more than one child.
Plus on food security, Britain has not been self sufficient in food since 1850, therefore we need transport to import our food needs unless you expect to see the population drop to 20million in the next 40 years. The only way I can see that happening is if we bump each other off.
The other problem is when the birth rate drops as it has in the west and japan then the tax revenue from younger tax payers cannot support the ageing population, you need immigration to support this, which is unpopular. So by rights the only way to shrink the population is to reduce the tax base and therefore the quality of living to support the older generation. Hence the forthcoming pensions and retirement age crisis. Plus our economy is built on constant growth and the need to consume which cant go on. Blah blah blah
I could have wrote pages on this. You have condensed a difficult subject into a one line solution which is the basis for your other posts.
Also you can't make HSR green in the UK without attracting much more modal shift from aviation or building a heck of alot of tidal stream and wave turbines to power it. The only argument for HS2 as it stands, a London - Birmingham line, is capacity.
Two points, you cannot consider London Birmingham on its own as it is just the first stage of a full network. Secondly, well thats one of the many good points, HS2 will attract modal shift from air from Scotland, that is green, reducing air travel. Why delay construction to make it more green thats a daft idea. So what do we do in the meantime, drive around in our petrol cars until it is built guzzling more fuel, when there is already a capacity issue? It is not going to be finished until 2023 and the capacity issues will be acute then and more people will be in their cars. Plus the green argument is bit of a red a red herring, all transport is going to use energy. The only really green form of transport is walking or cycling so what do you propose we do?
If we find that after all this we really are stuck for capacity then we can build new lines, by that time we might have the renewables to make HSR green
If we find? We have found we are stuck for capacity. The problem is already there. The virgin high frequency timetable on the WCML came at the expense of freight and commuting services. If evergreen 2 produces the growth on the Chiltern line its not going to be suitable as an alternative route either. Geezertronic is spot on, whats the point of moving more intercity services onto the Chiltern line and choking up the commuting services? Thats the point of HS2 to free up capacity on existing lines. You have already made the point we will need to use our cars less. Constructing projects of this size takes many year, you cant decide when the issue arises to then construct it, you have to plan ahead. How is the existing rail network either electrified or diesel any more environmentally friendly than HS2?
You contradict yourself, you say on one hand we need to use cars less and public transport more and yet say we dont need HSR yet, only when green power comes online and capacity is exceeded. Currently, rail has very little travel market share. If oil prices shoot up and even a few percent of modal transfer happens from road to rail the network will be crippled by passenger numbers. Thats what many critics of HS2 seem to miss. The country we live in now is going to look fairly different in 30 years time.
You arguments on green power are also ill informed.
You use the green word as a free for all. It needs to be used in conjunction with global warming, peak oil, rising BRIC economies and energy security. You demand renewable power before construction of HS2 and again you simplify energy down to a black and white argument. It is not as simple. Power sources (like building HSR) take years to design and construct. w1bbl3 said. renewables are not a base load producer and by their very nature unless a major technological breakthrough is made never will be. Base load for at least the next 50 years will be either A) coal, B) gas C) nuclear fission or a combination of the three.
Well thats not explicitly true. If we use pump storage we can store renewables. Scottish & Southern Energy are building 2 on loch Ness for this exact reason. But yes, he is right renewable and pump storage cannot provide enough base load, the other 3 in some form will be required. The best solution, and it has been mooted and doesnt seem to have moved anywhere, is a pan European grid to balance out renewable fluctuations. But this is all going to take years to complete. For the moment we are going to have to rely on coal, nuclear, gas with an increasing amount of wind power simple as that. Do we sit and wait like you suggest, use oil and gas at the same rate we presently do, or start slowly shifting our transport policy to fit the likely world in the future?
where's the money going to come from? I can't imagine how they are finding £700 million for HS2's paperwork at a time of cuts!
Its not paperwork. There is design, contracts, planning, land acquisition, compensation and many other costs lumped into the initial £700 million of paperwork. £33 bill is nothing spent over 20 years. The main costs are not going to hit until 2018. Its a drop in the ocean compared to overall government expenditure.
Then why isn't the much smaller amount of money needed to electrify from Cardiff to Swansea and Oxford to Hereford being found, that's an investment in a greener, less oil dependant, future. Perhaps the money is going somewhere else, like paperwork for HS2 or incentives to use cars rather than public transport (rail fares going up even faster from next year, Cardiff to Swansea electrification under threat, road widening schemes going ahead, bus funding slashed, fuel tax going down). If fuel tax went up as well as rail fares, and buses were protected from the tax rise, that would be better. The government's failure to do this, electrify the lines mentioned and change the HS2 plans to reduce emmisions seem to suggest they are intent on enviromental suicide. Introducing a per plane tax on aviation to tax cargo flights, as well as passenger ones migt pay for electrification, and would be a good idea too, but the inital phase of HS2 would still only be carbon neutral at best.
Read modern railways, the DofT claims Cardiff to Swansea does not economically stack up. Whereas Roger Ford insinuates it may be the IEP programme that is driving the selection of electrification. As always decisions are much more complex than the black and white explanation that you seem to have. Why on earth would you electrify Oxford to Hereford? It is not a heavily used line, I am sure the economics would not stack up. Why not the Midland, transpennine or cross country routes as a higher priority if you are making this argument?
I agree with you on oil and fuel tax, we need to get people weaned off cars and an based economy, but you know we do live in a democracy and things dont happen overnight. I thought for one that the budget tax on the oil industry and 1p reduction on petrol was a cheap political trick. But then most of the population support lower fuel prices and drives a car. We can only change things, if we manage to persuade politicians and therefore the public that something needs to change with the way we do things. As for funding for roads, well you are wrong on that, road funding has been slashed. The only major road funding going ahead is the M25 widening which has been criticised by the audit office for being poor value for money.
My point was you could have a slower new line to get freight off the current network so the fast trains don't catch up with it. I do see that you get a slightly better increase in capacity and faster journey times if you make new lines fast passenger ones rather than slow freight ones, but is the increase in costs and emissions necessary?
So we dont move passengers onto a new line, we move the freight. Why would that be economically beneficial, would that be cheaper? I dont understand the logic. Plus where would the freight line go? That the thing about freight it needs to go to different destinations all over the country. Its needs access to the trunk routes and the branch lines. What increase in emissions? Over what are you comparing the increase with? Slight increase in capacity? Massive increase in capacity with High speed rail over trains on classic lines.
