Road tax set to double....

[G60Jet 1]

can we all just plant a few trees

[Tempest 0]

can we all just plant a few trees

 

Now there's an idea :-)

 

Tempest

[dr_mat 0]

I hope it can be agreed that, like dr_mat, I may know something about the weather?

 

I would say that you know quite a lot more about the weather than dr_mat! :)

 

I agree too. I doubt there's anything we can do to prevent the changes that are coming, and I'm not rushing out to sell my VR and buy a Prious (Pious?) soon.

 

TBH my primary concern is about oil/energy consumption more than actual climate change. If people understood just how much energy is consumed by using a car to do some short journey, in terms they can understand (like leaving a light bulb on), then more people would think twice about it and understand that maybe we should all sacrifice a little bit of our current enjoyment so that we can *all* benefit from a reliable electricity supply for a little longer. I'm expecting to live another 30-50 years, and in that time I expect to see the climate change drastically (but we'll adapt easily). What's more of concern is the whole "running out of oil" thing ... We are nowhere near being able to adapt to that now, and it will take solid work for the next 30 years to get us to the point where we can.

Ignoring that one isn't possible.

 

I do think we should pay more for petrol though. Lots more. And aviation fuel (why is there no VAT on airline tickets?). And not just the UK, every country in the world should tax oil consumption for personal transport hard and pour the money into public transport (centrally administered public transport - i.e. owned by the public as well as for the public). People would still have the choice to buy and run expensive cars. They'd just be more expensive...

[dinkus 10]

can we all just plant a few trees

 

Like this? :)

[davidwort 0]

...What's more of concern is the whole "running out of oil" thing ... We are nowhere near being able to adapt to that now, and it will take solid work for the next 30 years to get us to the point where we can.

Ignoring that one isn't possible...

 

I'm not that pessimistic, once dino oil becomes too expensive to extract as resources run low (which will probably be a lot longer than some people predict) then synthetic oils will be more attractive to produce, they cost more at the moment.

 

I do think we should pay more for petrol though. ...

I don't, it's already more expensive than milk per litre FFS.

[craigowl 0]

I joke with my wife that petrol will soon be as dear as malt whisky!

[chubbybrown 0]

DR. Mat

They dont charge v.a.t on plane tickets they have a flight tax instead,£10 for short haul and £40 for long haul.

Planes are really only efficient when full,unlike some toss bag on a G4/G5 going stateside from here on 15,000 litres of fuel for three people that should be ruled out enviromentally,yet they killed the concorde.. I dunno...

Vat is however only charged on internal flights for

Jet-A1(5%) and avgas (17.5%).

 

I like the old car but maybe one of these new electric smarts would be better all round for me as I dont go too far with either of my cars and bikes.

Shame the smart dealer is over 100 miles away :gag:

[craigowl 0]

Much of the most important work on climate change is summarised here at Part 1 of the Stern Review.

 

Of course, many of you will be sceptical because it comes from a government source (!), but IMO most of the work referred to has been known in the meteorological community for years, long before the government co-ordinated the findings into this type of report

 

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/9A2 ... cience.pdf

 

 

The following brochure by The Royal Meteorological Society concisely addresses several controversial points concerning weather & climate.

 

http://www.rmets.org/pdf/weatherclimate.pdf

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I'm expecting to live another 30-50 years

 

LOL, not if you say petrol isn't expensive enough in public you won't.

 

What's more of concern is the whole "running out of oil" thing ... We are nowhere near being able to adapt to that now

 

Not strictly true. The US have already "ear marked" massive plots for E85 production and Morrisons already sell it now. So what's stopping us? It's not THAT much work to replace perishable fuel lines and remap engines to run on it and SAAB already has a car that runs on it from the factory and Toyota and Honda have made hybrids for years.

It's not "we" the public who are no where near ready, it's "them" the greedy bastard feck governments.

Think of all the juicy revenue they will lose on oil (planes, boats, heating etc) and indeed, over the years, many a ground breaking invention has been banned by the government for the same reason. It ALWAYS boils down to revenue.

 

I do think we should pay more for petrol though. Lots more.

 

Thank fcuk you're not in parliament.

[dr_mat 0]

Not strictly true. The US have already "ear marked" massive plots for E85 production and Morrisons already sell it now.

I do think we should pay more for petrol though. Lots more.

 

Thank fcuk you're not in parliament.

 

But I think we should pay market rates for renewable sources of fuel for cars. Non-renewable sources should be hiked to suppress demand. I'm well in favour of the bio fuel thing, using plants to produce the oil directly is a great idea.

 

it's "them" the greedy bastard feck governments.

 

The problem is the oil/gas companies inevtiable courtingof governments in order to massage future policy. We all know money talks to governments like nothing else, so I also think that political parties should have limited budgets and a certain amount of free election advertising so that they are less prone to bribery (it appears that most major political parties are basically bankrupt). Particularly in the US, the people with vested interests in maintaining the oil-based economy pour lots of money into political lobbyists. But to be honest, those people are pushing the government to keep the tax on fuel DOWN... So if there's corruption it's applying pressure in exactly the opposite way to the one most people are complaining about ..

[dr_mat 0]

I do think we should pay more for petrol though. ...

I don't, it's already more expensive than milk per litre FFS.

 

So what? One is a finite resource, the other is essentially infinite. It makes sense that the finite resource costs more...

 

How synthetic are the synthetic oils? You can't refine them and run your car off them .. can you? And at the moment they are produced using energy derived from fossil fuels, so the problem just gets shuffled around somewhere else.

[Tempest 0]

using plants to produce the oil directly is a great idea.

 

I read recently in some German mag, can't remember which one any more, that the production of biofuels to a large degree still relies on the use of fossil fuels itself, therefore negating some of the advantages. Whether it's the production of fertilisers needed to make rape seed plants grow, harvesting and transport of the rape seed and fertilisers, whether it's the actual chemical process to refine the biofuels, distribution of the fuels, all depend and still heavily use fossil fuels.

 

I personally think that the combustion engine principle is now really well out of date (for everyday use, not for classic cars and oldtimers, which shouldn't be used in daily traffic anyway), and it's time for a drastic rethink on how to move people around on a daily basis, i.e. for things like commuting, shopping etc. Alternative technologies exist, but whether it's through not receiving enough money from the government or the private sector, these technologies are just not being rolled out on a garnd enough scale to replace what we've got. Plus, of course, even if they were, the government would need to very quickly introduce corresponding excuses for new taxes on the use of these technologies / cars, as otherwise they'd have a massive shortfall of tax-generated income.

 

Tempest

[craigowl 0]

The following brochure, released this week, by The Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) concisely addresses several points concerning weather & climate.

 

http://www.rmets.org/pdf/weatherclimate.pdf