For example it seems to me completely crazy that I spent more money and time going from London to Amsterdam the first week of this month by train and boat than I would have done if I had flown there.
I could not buy a straight through ticket like I could in the 70`s and 80`s when I use to regularly use that route.
Now there are no straight through trains from the ferry terminals at either London or to Amsterdam
There appears to now be positive discouragement to the public use of environmental friendly ways of travel.
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On arrival at the hook of Holland we where immediately fined for not having a rail ticket to travel to Amsterdam the ticket machines would not take visa cards and the cash ticket machine would only take coins so we had to buy tickets from the train guard as there is no ticket office as they don’t feel they need one as the boat has mainly lorries and truck driver on it. So the guard had to fine us as the only way we could buy a ticket from him was to be on railway property and to be their illegally without a ticket bit Monty Python if you ask me. |
The British government negates all responsibility on the grounds of it being a free market.
As an older seasoned traveller I am aware that International travel was certainly more environmentally friendly in the days of nationalised travel and government controlled.
This I believe was also true of the now independent colonies of the British Empire where the national transportation systems where in most cases a nationalised industries.I for one believe that until transport at least is taken back under governmental control it will be difficult for any government to implement truly green policies of operation and influence the ion of the travelling public. As most forms of environmentally sustainable travel are by there nature labour intensive. The labour intensiveness rises with the greater the distance that is travelled as the time taken expands and the the number of services required become greater.
Given the border problems we have around the world in some cases over land travel becomes all but impossible.
In effect the greenest way to travel would be to walk so with a back pack and tent it should be possible for me to walk to Dover from London cross on the ferry to France and then walk from there to Africa should I so desire. It is o0f course not that easy not because it cant be done but because the bureaucratic nature of the world now makes it impossible it is this attitude that has lead us to the brink of environmental destruction The need to control entry and exit through your borders it is easy to control movements of people if they have to fly.
OK will get off my high horse now. I do have hope for the future of this planet but it will not be solved by government and big business it will be solved in the same way as all problems have been solved in the past be the average human being saying enough is enough and not buying a new pair of trainers, or the new car, by making what they have last as long as possible, by growing what they can them selves, by building there own homes. A corrugated shed in an Indian or South American slum may not be a great place to live but it is more environmentally friendly than the average United States or European home that’s for sure.
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