[RandomElement]

Read with interest, ta. I was more thinking about the decline allegedly caused by disease/pollutants.

On a different matter, I'm travelling south by electric train at the moment and I have passed numerous solar farms. Here's the thing - why do people oppose them so vigorously? Big campaign going on to oppose what is known as "Mallard Pass" locally but as far as I can see, they're unobtrusive and nothing's stopping you farming sheep around them, so what's the problem?

With a well maintained hedge, you cannot see them anyway. I would think it's pretty much just 'owning the libs'

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Fear of the new, fear of the future if it is unlike the past. The imagined past.

[davidjay]

There's probably a very large Venn overlap between opponents of solar power and HS2. If it's new, I'm against it.

[kreuzberger]

Aye, it is quite remarkable how they can rail against anything with a shred of goodness or progress at its heart. Whatever, we need to just get on with it and ignore this noisy minority.

Anyway, I was watching the telly a couple of weeks ago and a local news-features item caught my eye.

Basically, some farmers in Brandenburg tried an experiment in their cow fields. Instead of the neat and tidy PV rows, they have erected their panels at a height of about 2.2m. This lets in easily enough light to nourish the pastures while still earning them a pretty Pfennig through selling the leckie to the grid. Anyone who has ever needed to water a lawn will understand that grass really doesn't need a day's worth of sunlight. Far from it.

I take my hat off to genius thoughts like these.

[Boiler]

When I saw this, I thought the tedious ex-Forces contrarian on another forum would have something sneering to say about this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-66510193

"Clean energy in action hur hur..."

Fucking twat. Like conventional power stations never had fires.

[Bones McCoy]

Fear of the new, fear of the future if it is unlike the past. The imagined past.

JeWiSh SpAcE LAzErZ - faCT!!

[Boiler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66623252

So, six out of seven councils are refusing to put up signage warning motorists they're entering the new ULEZ - which starts tomorrow.

I wonder if anyone who receives a request for payment as a result will bring a case against these councils?

[kreuzberger]

Things have been evolving in this house during the summer.

I took flights to the UK in June, and I must admit to feeling rather guilty about it. Still, I did it, and Lufthansa was more than agreeable.

The kids have been exerting gentle but consistent pressure, nonetheless. That's entirely laudable and we are always open-ears to their rationale.

The upshot is that flights of under 1500 km are now off the table. Trains, it is.

Out of left field came the clothing thing. I hadn't realised that it is entirely possible to buy most garments second-hand, and I have been mooching around to put that to the test, buying scarcely worn linen or pure wool suits for less than twenty bucks a pop. I still have some twenty pairs of raw, selvedge denim jeans in 34" or 36" in the cellar, and enough leather jackets to carry me to my grave. The CO2 consideration can be measured in tons, which is quite the eye-opener.

The unresolved question is underwear plus there is a need/wish to go to Turkey later this month. It is 700 € each way on the Interrails (fuck that) but I could offset the flights with immeasurable amounts of socks, drawers, and gentlemen's accessories which are produced on the spot. At least, a relatively spartan life in TK - based on seafood, salad, and a hired bike - is as low on emissions as it can get without being in somewhere like Laos or New Caledonia.

I'll figure it out. I guess we all need to.

[Youngian]

Sweden is making an effort to reintroduce overnight train services but most operators don’t make the choice easy. A London-Madrid overnight service would be welcome especially with Spanish rail network upgrade. Don’t know if taking the overnight ferry to Holland instead of flying does reduce my carbon footprint but I haven’t flown for six years and that was an unnecessary flight to South West France but the cost was so much cheaper. I loathe airports and flying so it’s not a great sacrifice.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Long distance international rail doesn’t seem very promising to me. You need both very big cities and reasonable proximity.

Birmingham to Paris isn’t too far but apparently not enough passengers to make it worth joining HS2 and HS1.

London to Madrid is certainly enough passengers but sounds too far to me to challenge flying.

That’s if we continue to have the luxury of choosing, of course…

[Youngian]

Big city railway stations are hubs just as Schiphol or Heathrow are.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Think it’s a stretch that people come from much of a distance out of the city to take a very long international train journey.

I live on the Hereford-Birmingham line. Even if such a thing as Birmingham to Paris trains existed, I doubt many would chose to do that journey via train.

As a leisure journey, then some might, and I probably would because I hate flying and love high speed trains. But it wouldn’t be like London-Paris, where rail is what most people think of first.

Birmingham to Edinburgh etc should be train first if we ever get our arses in gear.

[Youngian]

Overnight business travel via train has a lot of advantages as its a very long day by plane and your employer usually books you in overnight anyway as a day trip isn’t practical. Unless you’ve a private lear jet waiting at City airport.

[kreuzberger]

Overnight trains really are the absolute bomb. They may not be the cheapest mode of travel, but that's the cost of a hotel bed saved, there and then. The journey is an integral part of the adventure.

I can't praise them too highly, and that is with recentish experience of travel to Amsterdam, and within both Thailand and Vietnam. For me at least, they offer a wonderful night's kip. That may be motion-related or somehow associated with the bottle of Saigón vodka which greased the way northwards to Hanoi. They are also as romantic as hell.

Here on the mainland, the night network is being expanded and improved upon at a fair clip. Here's a map and full guide to the current state of play, today's further announcements notwithstanding: https://nachtzugkarte.de/en/

[Bones McCoy]

I see those windfarms have been legalised again.
The tabloids can't work out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

[kreuzberger]

It remains quite remarkable that Nimbys and - er - something about birdy-wirdies were bestowed with Solomonic powers over the nation's energy security and household budgeting. Compulsory purchase and a few relatively irrelevant cheques would have solved that issue, years ago.

[Killer Whale]

Just had a conversation in the pub. Apparently yes there's undoubtedly a climate emergency but someone else should sort it. There's no way it should be ameliorated even in a tiny way in my back yard. The fact that other people aren't doing enough means, not that we should do more, but that we have a get out of jail free card to do fuck all.

We. Are. Fucked.

[Youngian]

Overnight trains really are the absolute bomb. They may not be the cheapest mode of travel, but that's the cost of a hotel bed saved, there and then. The journey is an integral part of the adventure.

I can't praise them too highly, and that is with recentish experience of travel to Amsterdam, and within both Thailand and Vietnam. For me at least, they offer a wonderful night's kip. That may be motion-related or somehow associated with the bottle of Saigón vodka which greased the way northwards to Hanoi. They are also as romantic as hell.

Here on the mainland, the night network is being expanded and improved upon at a fair clip. Here's a map and full guide to the current state of play, today's further announcements notwithstanding: https://nachtzugkarte.de/en/

Speaking of which

Berlin to Brussels by train: Get ready to cross Europe on this new sleeper service

European Sleeper - a new Dutch-Belgian rail company - will launch the service in May.
The train will depart Berlin just before 11pm, and arrive in Brussels around 9:30am the next day. En-route, it will stop at Amsterdam and Rotterdam https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/02 ... er-service

Paris to Berlin: New sleeper train between France and Germany to launch later this year https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/09 ... -this-year

The chances of this happening in the UK are as likely as a manned mission to Mars.

France will launch a €49 rail pass after the success of the ‘Deutschlandticket’

The new €49 pass will offer passengers unlimited travel on TER regional services and intercity trains.

Transport minister Clément Beaune revealed details of the plan earlier this week.
“It will be simple. French people – irrespective of their age – can buy this pass and have unlimited travel on an intercity or TER for a flat, inexpensive price,” he told France 2.
The ideal is to have something a little like what the Germans and other European countries have … to encourage train use.” https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/09 ... landticket

[Killer Whale]

Aside from the Heart of Wales line, which doesn't go anywhere that anyone actually wants to go (aside from fair Llanymddyfri, of course), most trains I catch are practically full. There's no way the UK could lower prices without having a massive capacity shortage.

[kreuzberger]

It's raining with three years' deluge in the blink of an eye.

500 bodies in the wreckage of Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Tuesday, and it is feared the toll could spiral with 10,000 people being reported missing.

That's a lot of innocents in the rearview mirror, and there's still another month of heat in the North Atlantic.

Who's next?