Why cars are taxed on CO2 emission?

tberry6686

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

No, its not a closed mind, its careful examination of the current evidence which is pretty conclusive. Skeptisism is healthy but its not being skeptical when the evidence is so conclusive, its outright denial.

Care to share this "conclusive evidence" with the rest of us then.

I've had cause to examine a small proportion of the so called evidence and what I have seen so far is Psuedo science at it's worst or even outright lies.

P.S. I am also a scientist although not working in the field of climate directly

Joe_Horner

tberry6686 wrote: »

I've had cause to examine a small proportion of the so called evidence and what I have seen so far is Psuedo science at it's worst or even outright lies.

P.S. I am also a scientist although not working in the field of climate directly

Sorry, but by Team rules your opinion is therefore worthless.

If you're a physicist and take issue with a question of the physics, it doesn't count because you're "not a climate scientist".

If you're a computer modeling expert and take issue with some aspect of the modeling, it doesn't count because you're "not a climate scientist".

If you're a statistician and point out abuses of statistical methods, your opinion is worthless because you're "not a climate scientist".

If you publish on any of these aspects, it doesn't count as "relevant" peer reviewed evidence because, guess what? Yep, you're "not a climate scientist". Of course, the side-effect of that is that (as CB likes to point out) "all of the relevant peer reviewed literature agrees".

Must be nice to defend a point of view when you have carte blanche in deciding what evidence is, or isn't, relevant - nice, but sure as hell not science


eta: for a start, you committed the cardinal sin of actually "examining" the evidence rather than simply accepting it cos it's "peer reviewed". Once the Appropriate Peers have passed it how dare you have the arrogance to actually go and look at it again????

Lum

Here's some food for thought. If it really is about the environment then how come I can't modify my car to be more efficient and have fewer emissions and receive a tax break for doing do.

No, the only way to get into a lower tax band is to throw my car away and buy a new one, lining the pockets of the industry.


An obvious exception to this is the London Low Emission Zone where you can retrofit emissions control in order to avoid the tax. That's because that scheme is genuinely about emissions, specifically local emissions that cause smog and other local air quality problems.

Joe_Horner

Lum wrote: »

An obvious exception to this is the London Low Emission Zone where you can retrofit emissions control in order to avoid the tax. That's because that scheme is genuinely about emissions, specifically local emissions that cause smog and other local air quality problems.

Sadly, the emission control equipment you fit cuts down on the real pollutants (CO, hydrocarbons etc) by converting most of them to, errr, CO2.

Personally I'd much rather have plant food coming out my exhaust than the other stuff but must be a bit of a
conundrum for all the clued-in greenies

Lum

That's a whole argument in itself. On the one hand you have CO2 which is allegedly causing climate change and is going to make us all die in a desert inferno ice age.

On the other hand, you have diesel particulates, nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide which have been proven to cause smog and alleged to cause asthma and a whole other bunch of nasty diseases.

I would argue that the latter is a more real, and dangerous, pollutant than CO2, especially in cities.


Really it depends on how and where you drive. I drive a car which doesn't even have catalytic converter but I almost never drive it into cities, it's used mainly in the countryside and on the motorway so I'm fine with this. If the works Mondeo was my own car I'd have no hesitation on removing the DPF either.

If I was driving around in towns and cities on a regular basis, I'd most definitely want, purely on moral grounds, a catalytic converter and a petrol engine. Or even better an LPG engine as those are even cleaner!

Joe_Horner

Yeah, my '66 Daf is non-cat (no surprise given its age) and averages (real world) about 42mpg or 50+ on a run, so on-paper CO2 figure of 156g/km.

But it also produces around 3% CO and 300ppm unburnt fuel, which are both deductible from the CO2 so it's real CO2 figure is lower - on a very rough calculation about 149g/km.

Which means if it was tested under current regs (and not Historic tax anyway) its dirty, poisonous, exhaust would qualify it for a lower tax band on ecological grounds. Kind of nuts really!