We are going to have to change our lifestyle and that means adapting to changing sources of energy and different ways of getting around.
Electric cars should become more environmentally friendly. They run on electricity, but at present production is polluting, as are the tyres. It will be a long time before airplanes stop being a threat to the environment. In the meantime, the most durable form of transport is the train.
Brave experiments like the new service to London by Eurostar are showing the way, but have been prohibitively expensive. As planes and buses get cheaper, trains have done little to catch up. There's a promising development as Eurostar is eager to put on trains from Amsterdam to London much more cheaply than at present. Eurostar from Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam to London is just as fast as the plane (centre to centre).
But in general, trains in some parts of Europe are still prohibitively expensive and can be very difficult to book. The UK is in first place when it comes to the costs of train travel. This graph makes for very uncomfortable reading:
Recently three friends who couldn't fly needed to come from Jersey to Amsterdam at short notice, but the journey both ways was hell. Thanks to transport strikes in France, the family spent two days getting here, with an unplanned night in Paris on the way. On the return trip, the planned train costs for three from Amsterdam to Saint-Malo were €1600 (!), but again fate intervened and they had to take a taxi 200 kilometres from Nantes to Saint-Malo at a cost of another €400!
Please follow the train coalition and let's get more iron horses on the tracks. http://groups.google.com/group/traincoalition
