1) Of course a bus full of people going from A to B emits less CO2 than each using their own car to go from A to B. The problem arises when A isn't where you're going from and B isn't where you're going to which, outside of major towns and cities, is the majority of cases.
2) Again, you miss the point. To reduce CO2 emissions we should have built nuclear power plants 10-20 years ago. If we start building them now (as we should) we're only covering future energy demands, not reducing our reliance on fossil fuel burning plants. Further, you still ignore the secondary factors associated with nuclear power (what do we do with the waste, where do we build the plants, who pays for it all etc).
3) Why the focus on Aluminium? Remember, aluminium is a fraction of our total recycling programme. Moreover, I'm not arguing that recycling is a bad thing, simply that it is rarely done for reasons of reducing energy consumption and, since it is already prevalent, increasing it can only have a small affect on overall CO2 emissions.
Further, it's not aluminium we need to worry about. Oil is the obvious example, not just because of energy demands but because of the prevalance of petroleum in almost all products sold toay. You also have to consider speed of production. Whilst some elements may be abundant, we can't get at them whenever we need it. The rate of consumption can easily exceed the rate of production.
4) With a total of about 408,000,000,000 miles per annum covered (average mileage per user of about 12,000 miles - DFT figures) it's a number that doesn't seem quite so big. In fact, it's a reduction of 2%.
You do know our target is to reduce emissions to a level 10% lower than those seen in 1990 (and scientists would say that doesn't come close to solving the problem) and that we're going to fail to meet this target despite our efforts already coming at great economic cost?
The solution to the CO2 "problem" can only come from large scale policy/projects (at a minimum on a national scale but in reality global) and technological advances. Even then, we don't solve the true problem; this planet can only support a finite number of humans.
|
|