Ministers claim that backdated tax increases on cars registered since March 2001 will make drivers of existing cars trade in the most polluting vehicles for more environmentally-friendly models.So they're completely oblivious to the fact that most of the "carbon footprint" of a car comes from its manufacture and disposal and that the "greenest" thing you can do is to keep a car on the road for as long as possible.
I despair, I really do.
10 comments:
Agreed.
There's also the point that a higher road tax reduces the value of older cars, so the gap in £-s-d that you have to pay to trade up to a new 'green' vehicle is bigger, so people are less likely to do it.
So they're double-fuckwits with knobs on.
And all this greenie stuff is nonsense, so they're actually treble fuckwits etc.
Do not expect politicians to be technically competent and to actually know facts such as this. They do not understand anything to do with the environment or climate, they have just found something else to tax and use a green excuse for doing so. They really do hate us all.
Honda believe that 72% of car CO2 emissions come through driving, but hell, what'd they know about it?
(Toyota, even)
@john b: I'm amazed, a company that wants to sell hybrid technology to greenwashed idiots finds that hybrid technology is the greenest. What are the odds of that?
Anyway, an alternative perspective is this one.
As Toyota (makers of excellent motorcars they undoubtedly are) are the only company to have been excluded from the World Rally Championship for blatant cheating and come within an ace of being similarly removed from the Formula One World Championship after being caught building their car from a complete set of Ferrari blueprints, I'd be tempted to take their estimates of the "greenness" of their vehicles with a degree of circumspection, not to say cynicism.
I was fairly sure you were basing your claims on the flawed, US-auto-industry funded CNW studay. At some point I need to write a proper piece on why it's dangerous, lying nonsense.
@john b: given your accuracy to date, I'm not sure I'd want to go there. ;o)
Anyway, I don't give a shit what the facts of CO2 emissions over the life of a car are: I'm more interested in clear, incontrovertible proof of the following:
1. Global warming at all.
2. If there is warming, that man is causing it.
3. If there is warming and man is causing it, that reducing the amount of CO2 we emit is the best solution.
Once we have those small issues sorted, I'll look at your research on lifetime CO2 emissions.
Thanks...I can use that as an excuse for hanging on to little Yaris.
I'm more interested in clear, incontrovertible proof of the following:
1. Global warming at all.
2. If there is warming, that man is causing it.
3. If there is warming and man is causing it, that reducing the amount of CO2 we emit is the best solution.
Don't hold your breath...
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