Saturday, July 08, 2006

Polluted Planet



It's taking me a bit of time to adjust to being back in the UK. The first thing that really hit me was the amount of traffic there is on the roads and how polluted the air seems after the clean fresh air of Lesvos. Second is how stressed out and aggressive people seem. It must be to do with our life styles. In the taxi coming back to Norwich I was struck by how ironic it is that we just keep building roads whilst oil is fast running out.

Years ago I had a dream that I woke up one day and the whole of the country was just one big sheet of tarmac. Sometimes I think that that dream might just come true - a land made of tarmac but nothing left to drive!

I always find a trip on the motorway stressful and I am bemused as to why the government keep pouring money into making new roads and not into public transport. It is obvious to any fool that a major way to reduce air pollution, conserve fuel etc is for more people to use public transport. And why not, statistically it is safer, less stressful, more relaxing and yopu can reador work at the same time. The most prohibitive factor for most people that I know is the cost. From Norwich it is cheaper to fly to Edinburgh than go by train, to visit my mum 200 miles away costs £70, more at peak times. It's no wonder that the roads are full of single occupant cars - it's cheaper. In Norwich it is cheaper for a family to park in the city centre than to travel in by bus. Now that can't be right.....

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