On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:56:25 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

Perhaps a close to the bone question, but I might as well ask it -

Not at all. I'm quite happy to debate these points.

elsewhere in another thread you've mentioned your "moral code" - I
wonder if you have any thoughts on regularly using (and choosing) a
form of transport that is more polluting (higher CO2 emissions etc)
over other modes? (That's not meant in an aggressive way, but it's
just something that's always in the back of my mind when it comes to
these sort of discussions.)

You can mean it how you like - robust debate is always good in here

The answer is - I'm to some extent being a bit of a hypocrite. But
read on.

Normally, I choose other modes than car (mainly rail) for personal UK
domestic travel, so I think it offsets the effect to some extent,
though that said I am (probably temporarily) doing a long car commute
at the moment. I've never taken a domestic UK flight for my own
purposes, and am not all that likely to do so in the near future.

To some extent, my relatively high use of air travel is driven by
work, and is not something I have much choice in (unless I wish to
relocate fully each time I change contracts, which I think would be a
bit much, or to lose my entire Friday evening and Sunday
afternoon-evening to go by rail, which almost makes going home
pointless). Normally, we are contracted to be on site for a whole
working week, and that just isn't feasible with other modes.

It might be worth bearing in mind that air travel on full planes (I
tend to choose easyJet, and they run high load factors) is fairly
comparable by car, though not as good as long-distance rail with
decent load factors, and nowhere near as good as road coach, which I
think often comes out best of the motorised modes.

But on my own European travel, should I consider the train instead?
Most probably, or maybe I shouldn't travel at all (I travelled a lot
less when I had a bit of a fear of flying - I did do European trips by
rail from time to time, but the time taken for them unless you're
going to Paris or Brussels tended to be a bit of a killer, as is the
difficulty of booking and the often astronomical price tag). It's
certainly something I've thought about on many occasions, though
perhaps my morals aren't quite good enough to prevent me doing it
completely as perhaps I should.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.