Heritage railways killing the world...yeah right

I have an experiment you might like to participate in. I'll put you in a chamber overnight filled with "harmless" CO2 and we'll see if you have a better understanding of the science of climate change the following day.

 

Thankyou, a perfect example of an entrenched viewpoint - if something is undesirable people will believe what they want to believe about it, irrespective of actual evidence, scientific consensus and even common sense.

...but anyway, this woman has no interest in the global climate - she just doesnt like smoke in her garden.

Chris

 

I expect the real issue is the smell and potential dirtying of washing. They are using all the other things to legitimise their real concerns.

 

Is it?

 

Mmmm... the smell ... nice ... I always walk around locos (and traction engines, etc.) with my nose in the air thinking how nice it would be to be able to bottle it ... :rockon:

Regarding the dirtying of washing, get a tumble dryer !!!

 

Responding to anyone with 'climate change is nonsense' isn't going to work - you'll immediately lose the initiative as you prove yourself as entrenched, and deluded, as they are. They'll want to hear what you're doing about smoke emissions, and it would be genuinely interesting to see the difference in danger of coal smoke to diesel fumes. If that comes out with steam engines being cleaner, game set and match! If not, point out the value of the transport system you are providing compared to visitors in lots of cars.

 

That's not the science of climate change, that's the science of asphyxiation!

Surely the grudge would be with the estate agent or the lawyer carrying out the searches not the railway!

The problem as I see it is that we listen to these petty complainers, a product of the cancer that is left wing libralism blighting our country. If you move in next to a steam railway or anything else for that matter then you cannot subsequently complain about it, if you don't like it then don't move in in the first place. If this person is the same one who came down screaming and shouting at the Alresford station master then she should have been told to "go away" in no uncertain terms! Totally unacceptable behaviour.

 

I don't believe I mentioned that my experiment had anything to do with demonstrating the effects of climate change, merely that it seemed to be a reasonable experiment to conduct on someone with Widge's rather blinkered viewpoint. ;-)

 

But put a plant in and it will survive although I doubt it will partake in a debate on the matter.

 

As a left wing liberal, I object to blaming this mentality on left-wing liberalism (I agree with every other point you make). Nutters are found across all of the political sphere. Sensible, decent people are as well. But let's not get into politics! The 'me' culture has become prevalent, whatever the cause you choose to blame it upon, and it does reach extremes like this. You can't win with such people, you can only try to keep them in a minority by being nice to everyone else.

 

And how much CO2 is produced by the combustion that takes place in a loco's firebox?

 

Heritage railways are a tiny part of the CO2 problem (as calculated below), and the fact that we have to actively cut back lineside vegetation suggests they aren't a major local environmental problem either. However, I agree that the smell and noise can be annoying (I probably wouldn't want to live next to one), and that we should try to keep this nuisance to a minimum but that residents must also bear some responsibility for choosing to live there.

From my line's accounts, I estimate 40 tons coal/year (burning to 110 tons CO2/year) and 6000 steam passengers/year: 18kgCO2 per passenger. This is roughly equivalent to 70 miles by car, eating meat (instead of other foods) at 5 meals, or 2.5 days of an average person's non-food, non-fuel shopping. Per unit of turnover, we emit around 1kgCO2/£, while the UK economy as a whole averages 0.4kgCO2/£.

The HRA's figures suggest that my line is about 1/1000th of the UK-wide movement, giving a total of about 100,000tonsCO2/year: just 0.05% of total UK emissions.

 

...i've just realised, why is this thread called 'heritage railways killing the world'? Why the references to Climate Change?

Reading the initial paragraph it seems she is merely concerned about the effect of this pollution on her... oh, and the local children.

Chris

 

Unfortunately the law doesn't necessarily work that way...

 

Did you not know about the secret government sponsorship? £10 quid in your back pocket every time you mention climate change! The Beeb have been raking it in for years.......

 

It's rather simplistic to assume that my view on man-made Global Warming is "blinkered" just because you don't happen to agree with it. On the contrary, to arrive at a heretical position on a commonly held belief requires a great deal of research and I have carefully examined the evidence before reaching the conclusion that I simply don't believe in it.

There are very many people around the world who have done likewise and arrived at the same conclusion including a significant proportion of the scientific community.

To take the position that eco-sceptics such as myself deserve to be asphyxiated is not entirely surprising given the pseudo-religious zealotry which unfortunately seems to pervade our current culture of carbon correctness.

I believe that steam railways in general are potentially under a significant threat from the eco-lobby and rather than submitting to the total appeasement of those who would see them closed down, a firmly contrary but well-argued position coupled with explanation and education about what they do should be adopted.

The burning of fossil fuels was the foundation stone of the Industrial Revolution without which we would all be living far less comfortably than we do now, and when the current anti-carbon hysteria has died down my guess is that we will probably go back to doing so again.

 

The emisions of a steam loco are visible to the naked eye unlike those of a petrol or diesel engine that are almost invisible. People tend to react to what they see, maybe they do not realise that most of what they see is just water in the form of steam. As an aside in the original post there is no mention of gender so are we assuming the person is female. Any one have a link to the site where this has come from so that we may quietly observe how much or how little support they are generating.

Pete

 

It's also rather simplistic to assume that my view has been formed without also reading scientific papers and researching the subject. It is my day job.

I have looked into the science behind it. Anyone who suggests that Mans activities are having no influence on the environment and climate is frankly just as bad as the eco-warriors who believe the world will end tomorrow. I could easily pull out scientific papers that largely support your claim, just as I could pull out ones that provide good evidence for the eco brigade. The reality is almost certainly somewhere in the middle and that is what the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence suggests. To ignore that evidence and sit back and do nothing would be wrong. Of course, environmental science is far from exact, not all of the theories will turn out to be correct, but they are the best we have to go on, and the majority of evidence suggests that Man is influencing the climate, and probably not for the better.

Preserved steam railways are a tiny factor in the grand scheme of things.

 

Draws up seat.......opcorn:

 

To us, this lady's reaction is gross and over the top. To her it is perfectly reasonable. We should remember that when thinking about how to respond, especially if commenting on Facebook in response. What we write on there and here is in the public domain, and we will do no good to the MHR's case or Heritage Railways in general if the response is not carefully considered.