In England right now there's a plan that's been approved for a high speed railway called HS2 that will run from London to Birmingham that's aimed to be built really soon. It will run through much of the British country side including Ancient forestland that cannot be moved anywhere else, the railway will run right through the forest cutting 60 hectares of it right out that can't be moved to another location. As a result we will effectively lose that whole piece of land which contains ancient trees up to 300 years old. NOT only this but it also runs thought conservation areas - 3 or 4 forests that contain a very rare species of bats called bechstein's bat which are so so tiny they probably will not survive to disruption to their habitat: this is how cute they are too !
it's not just the natural environment that will suffer, its also detrimental to farmland, HS2 will run though much farmland which takes away from the farmers who have worked sometimes for their entire lives to build up the crops. Backers of HS2 want to tip 1.93 million tonnes of spoil on the farm's hay making fields with slips of 9ms high! Surely these disadvantages will reap great rewards? no. HS2 will reduce travelling times by ONLY 32 MINUTES from London to Birmingham so not a great advantage there. Another argument for HS2 is that it will cut CO2 emissions by getting people out of their cars and on to the train, but I think it is only the people who get the train now who will use HS2, so will it cut CO2 emissions? Not enough, It will create jobs but not a large amount for working people. HS2 does not create new industry and so will not benefit the British economy a significant amount compared to the detriments to its countryside that the High Speed railway will create.
