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G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor
rk wrote: [x-posted to rec.travel.europe] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=646523 G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent, 13 June 2005 Airline groups have condemned plans by the world's richest countries to impose a tax on airline tickets to fund extra money for poor African countries - Not one more cent should be sent to that economic aid sinkhole known as "Africa"...hundreds of billions have been poured into Africa in the past 45 years, and conditions there have only gotten worse...even *more* money is not going to solve any problems. Simply let Africa sink or swim on it's own, e.g. let it "Darwinize" itself... and make a gesture towards fighting climate change. To what effect? The climate is going to change regardless of any human intervention, it's been continually changing now for billions of years... Might as well have a tax on shagging to change the orbit of Mercury for all it's worth. A useless and futile gesture. -- Best Greg |
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On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:15:14 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote: rk wrote: [x-posted to rec.travel.europe] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=646523 G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent, 13 June 2005 Airline groups have condemned plans by the world's richest countries to impose a tax on airline tickets to fund extra money for poor African countries - Not one more cent should be sent to that economic aid sinkhole known as "Africa"...hundreds of billions have been poured into Africa in the past 45 years, and conditions there have only gotten worse...even *more* money is not going to solve any problems. Simply let Africa sink or swim on it's own, e.g. let it "Darwinize" itself... SA and Zimbabwe have produced a fair number of millionaires over the years. It's those smelly little brown people that throw things at each other that can't seem to get it together though. -- --- DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com --- -- |
#3
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"make a gesture towards fighting climate change."
Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains. Most European countries shouldn't even have domestic flights. |
#4
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Martin wrote:
On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote: "make a gesture towards fighting climate change." Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains. How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming? Trains are an 18th century invention. As everyone knows, 18th century inventions are much better than 19th and 20th century inventions. T. |
#5
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"Martin" wrote in message ... On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:31:16 +0200, Tom Peel wrote: Martin wrote: On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote: "make a gesture towards fighting climate change." Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains. How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming? Trains are an 18th century invention. As everyone knows, 18th century inventions are much better than 19th and 20th century inventions. So we are talking about horses pulling wooden trucks on wooden tracks? Yuk - Think of the methane pollution. What we need are fewer people. Lets start by killing all the .........'s |
#6
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For many journeys within Europe, city-centre to city-centre times by
train are comparable (or shorter) than those by air. However, the cost of such a journey by train is absurdly higher than by air. For example, from Exeter (where I am) I can get a Flybe flight to Paris for less than the cost of a train ticket to Heathrow, while the train ticket from Exeter to Luton airport costs six times as much as a flight (on Easyjet) from Luton to Turin. Personally I would always prefer to do a journey within Europe by train rather than by air, but the cost of not flying is enormous. The proposed tax might go some way towards tipping the economics in a more sustainable direction. |
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"Martin" wrote in message ... On 13 Jun 2005 06:07:43 -0700, wrote: "make a gesture towards fighting climate change." Air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and it would make a very significant difference in carbon emissions if short-distance flights were largely replaced by high-speed trains. How will high speed trains help to reduce global warming? Because they run on electricity generated by a nuclear power station :-(. tim -- Martin |
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"Personally I would always prefer to do a journey within Europe by
train rather than by air, but the cost of not flying is enormous." Part of the problem is that air travel is far more heavily subsidized than trains. If flight and train prices reflected the real costs to government and the environment, then trains would be much more competitive pricewise, if not actually cheaper than the planes over short distances. |
#9
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#10
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Deep Foiled Malls wrote:
SA and Zimbabwe have produced a fair number of millionaires over the years. It's those smelly little brown people that throw things at each other that can't seem to get it together though. A lot of money has been pumped into Africa over the years, but it is like a bottomless pit. While foreign governments send billions of dollars the poor people remain poor and the political elite vacation in European luxury resorts and hotels. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to sop giving the money to the government and instead, funnel it directly into infrastructure improvement. Send their armies, corps of engineers or contractors and equipment in to build the projects and hire a few locals so the money goes directly to the poor instead of trickling down. It should be accompanied by an arms embargo on the entire continent. If they cannot feed their people or provide any sort of infrastructure there should be no money available for arms and ammunition. |
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