Petrol prices versus the environment

Coveredinbees!!!!

I don't believe in global warming, it's a conspiracy to make us pay more tax.

ravenlighte

arniel wrote:

People who bang on about taxing cars off the road seem to be under some sort of delusion that all motorists do is drive around and around as a hobby. It should be quite obvious by now that raising tax to stupid levels is not going ot do anything to reduce car usage, and the only people that it will affect are the poor and those who are not well serviced by public transport. It may not reduce car usage, but it can be fixed so as to tax the holy heck out of all those fat cats in their two jags that are too posh to take a bus. That's a winner to me./

Hint: people do live out of range of an Oyster card!
For most of us, our car usage is a necessity, I guess you must live out in the sticks then where the public transport systems just don't go, and you have to ride your horse 5 days to the nearest trading post...oh no that was hundreds of years ago...

That concept may suit the soap-dodging eco-fascists amongst us, name calling is always a sign of personal impotence but the reality is that the vast majority of people are not going to let go of their standard of living, so we'd better look for alternatives.Luckily at the rate we are going, we may have no choice but to change our greedy self-important ways, when climate change kills millions of us and makes life very uncomfortable for the rest of us.:rotfl:

If, and it is a big if, we need to be carbon-neutral, then the only practical alternative fuel is nuclear. Like all other non-carbon producing systems, it does consume CO2 in the ancillary stages of production (e.g. collection of the raw material), but it is the only source that can be guarenteed when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing etc. etc.
Having just been to the dentist has nothing to do with my mood, m'kay?!

The advert by Greenpeace in the paper showing how long it takes for nuclear waste to degrade to a safe state was an excellent visual for those of us that are obviously challenged in the brain cell area. It takes as long as it took man to make it down out of the trees, and learn to walk upright as homo sapiens. You don't need to do the math for that one. Can we bury the waste in your back yard then?:j

charlieheard

I realise that this has been posted to get a rise out of the forum, but some points must be answered.

arniel wrote:

People who bang on about taxing cars off the road seem to be under some sort of delusion that all motorists do is drive around and around as a hobby. It should be quite obvious by now that raising tax to stupid levels is not going ot do anything to reduce car usage, and the only people that it will affect are the poor and those who are not well serviced by public transport. Hint: people do live out of range of an Oyster card!

People use cars because they can afford to do so. People drive around in high-consumption vehicles because they feel they can. They would rather pay for the convenience than travel by public transport or car-share. If increasing the tax on fuel reduces the amount of car usage, why is that wrong? Where is it written that I have a god-given right to own and run a car? I get 60mpg in my 5-seater supermini on a long journey if I "potter" at 70mph. Bigger cars pass me at 80-90mph, doing less than 30mpg. Why? Because they can afford to. And they arrive a few minutes earlier - so what? Do they do anything special with those few minutes?

arniel wrote:

For most of us, our car usage is a necessity, and nothing short of returning to a feudal way of life where the furthest anyone travels is to the next village is going to change this. That concept may suit the soap-dodging eco-fascists amongst us, but the reality is that the vast majority of people are not going to let go of their standard of living, so we'd better look for alternatives.

So you want to keep your inceased standard of living, but don't want to pay for it? Car usage is NOT a necessity for most people. For some, I can accept that a car is necessary, but many people choose to work somewhere which means they WANT a car to travel to and from their place of work. Easier, cheaper access to personal transport and better roads have fuelled the belief that car usage is now a necessity. Think back to the time before the M25 as built: were London and the surroundings at any more of a standstill tahn they are now? Building the M25 created the belief that you could commute around London, and millions of lemmings started to do so every day. I know - I used to be one of them commuting from Wimbledon to Maidenhead. Would I have taken that job before the M25 was built? Almost certainly not - providing something to relive congestion has just increased the problem.

arniel wrote:

If, and it is a big if, we need to be carbon-neutral, then the only practical alternative fuel is nuclear. Like all other non-carbon producing systems, it does consume CO2 in the ancillary stages of production (e.g. collection of the raw material), but it is the only source that can be guarenteed when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing etc. etc.
Having just been to the dentist has nothing to do with my mood, m'kay?!

The last time the carbon stored in the oil we are burning was at the surface, the temperatures were over 15C higher. Now we are pumping all that carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2. Are you suggesting that pumping ever increasing amounts of CO2 back into the atmosphere is a good thing? :eek: The Chinese are currently starting a new fossil-fuelled power station every week! Nuclear energy is much like fossil fuels - I'm all right, and let future generations sort out my mess.

We need to do 2 things: use less energy and leave less waste. Both take a significant mindshift. Less waste is like driving smaller cars more slowly. No one needs a £20k+ car, but many people want to own them. Fossil and nuclear energy both leave significant waste. The risks of anything going wrong with nuclear energy is (thankfully) low, but the consequences are huge, and the timescales for things to go wrong are huge, too.

There are plenty of ways of storing surplus renewable energy (we do it at the moment to cover peak demand using hydro), and we are not short of wind and water in the UK. The main problem is accepting that we would have to change the way we behave to make a significant difference. Many (?the majority of) people are not yet ready to make that change.

There are too many NIMBY's (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANA's (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) and with reason. People don't want to give up their comfortable current lifestyle when they can't see a better alternative. But that is a matter of enlightenment. Everyone thinks we (as a larger group) should do something, but no one thinks that we (as a smaller group) should be in the first group to do it. :rolleyes:

BTW, hope the tooth's better

Davidboy

I get fed up of those nice people in London who have every conceivable public transport at their feet, and then say, cut cars usage, use public transport, walk to work.

Come out into the sticks and see what you got...nowt. Unless you call 3 buses per day and a train station 5 miles away where trains do not stop!!

The fact is we have NO choice but to use the car, the days of living and working in the same village died out before the war, people now have to travel a long way to get to work, that is reallity. So whats the anwer? I don't know, but I have some questions. Why do we still use the internal combustion engine? We have so many brainy people in the this world, professor that Doctor this, why aren't these people all put together to find the solution, why is it left to the car manufacturers to come up with alternatives? It aint worked so far, all they have come up with is pretty lame ideas.

As already stated, the modern cars emmissions have been cut dramatically and now where near as bad as they used to be.

As for trains, if we had any round here, I could not afford the second mortgage to buy a ticket anyway.


D

humfer

B. Cut it by 50p

Lets get things right here - people have to use cars in Britain today. Its ridiculous all this talk of taxing petrol higher to force people out of cars and onto public transport, which is not up to standard and doesn't provide the necessary needs for a high proportion of this country

chris73

I'll believe the Global Warning argument when I actually see those with the power to do something about it, ACTUALLY DOING something about it rather than simply talking about it in a way that simply justifies being a martyr and paying more tax.

Alternative fuels DO exist, its just that the Government do not give a rats A*$e at investing in them, cutting tax on them, and making them widely available to the general public.