Big Business and Climate Change

[matt_xyz]

Did anybody see this the other day? A fascinating but very depressing article outlining how big business has been supporting those who deny climate change. And not just oil companies either, even Philip Morris tobacco. They've probably set back the fight against climate change by years....

Environment Unlimited | Climate change | The denial industry

Matt

[speckled wood]

Sadly I think that this denial will get worse and like so many inconvenient truths people will simply switch off when people do suggest that we have to break this love affair with the motor car and with cheap air travel. Anything that attempts to limits car use will be a vote loser, on the issue of cheap air travel taxing avaviation fuel is achievable but as to whether it will limit travel is doubtful so we have to target areas where we can do something.

1) is to heavily tax short distance air travel. Within the UK there is little real benefit i internal air travel and most of it can be viably be replaced by train.

2) Another area is to clamp down on gaz guzzling cars and to return the emphasis on fuel economy, by this means I believe that we could reduce fuel comsumption by 50%, and this can be achieved without reducing car numbers or any really significant effect on actual "neccessary" car use.

Truthfully a 1.3cc engine can (petrol or diesel) can deliver perfectly adequate performance and is enough to propel a comfortable family car and achieves speeds well in excess of the legal maximum, certainly there is no real justification for cars with engines above 2 Litres.

Targetting the car and air travel issue in this way is not likely to have all that much effect on votes. It might might not be enough but it will be better than the present situation.

3 We also need to look at other energy waste and the most graring example are all these street lamps left in the early illuminating empy roads and streets. If we only switched every other light out it would be a considerable saving.

Another forgotten issue is looking at what encourages people to buy gaz guzzling cars, and how they are marketed. As I said previously we need to return the emphasis to fuel economy, back in the 1970s and 1980s this was the big selling point for most cars, of course the fact that we had a system that most people could understand ie consumption figures in Miles per Gallon rather than as now Litres per 100 Kilometres was a help. Another area that influences and encourages waste are the "Lifestyle" Programmes on Television, where the designers encourage people install enegy wasting spotlighting, feature people with large cars. That the commercial channels do this is not surprising, but should the BBC be doing it?

[honeybee]

See the news about richard branson today?

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by honeybee

See the news about richard branson today?

hes finally relised that beards and mullets aint a good look and hes cutting it all off for charity ?

[honeybee]

3 billion over ten years... profit from his transport going toward climate change issues etc/ renewable power. I've suffered enough over the years on those blinkin virgin trains. Must be feeling guilty from all the pollution his planes cause.

[Mr Mag00]

unfortunatley his billions will be going in to finding bio fuels to continue his flights over the atlantic, i believe they will offer no benefit to the wider world. the bio fules will need to be grown somewhere typically the tropics! his money could be better spent being a little more altruistic and installing all uk houses with a form of microgeneration!


on the point above about cars and taxes. A friend of mine is starting a new business and its better finacially for him to get a nissan novara? huge tank of a machine as a business expense with 5 seats than a family car. he will not use the mahoosive truck like capabilities of the vehicle but he will save somewhere in the order of 5grand a year. no wonder there are so many mahoosive suv vehicles on our roads these days. its crackers!

[honeybee]

[quote=Mr Mag00]unfortunatley his billions will be going in to finding bio fules to continue his flights over the atlantic, i believe they will offer no benefit to the wider world. the bio fules will need to be grown somewhere typically the tropics! his money could be better spent being a little more altruistic and installing all uk houses with a form of microgeneration!


True...why can't he buy us all a couple of solar panels

[Mr Mag00]

i only speak the truth!

[matt_xyz]

Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth is that we could cut the UK's greenhouse emissions to zero and it would have little impact on climate change (other than by perhaps encouraging other countries to also tackle it). The big problem areas are the US, India and China, although the latter 2 are unlikely to take the problem seriously unless countries such as the US and UK are seen to tackle emissions.

The good news is that Bush finally seems to have accepted the existence of climate change and will shortly be proposing plans to cut emissions. Too little too late, but better than nothing.

Matt

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth is that we could cut the UK's greenhouse emissions to zero and it would have little impact on climate change (other than by perhaps encouraging other countries to also tackle it). The big problem areas are the US, India and China, although the latter 2 are unlikely to take the problem seriously unless countries such as the US and UK are seen to tackle emissions.

The good news is that Bush finally seems to have accepted the existence of climate change and will shortly be proposing plans to cut emissions. Too little too late, but better than nothing.

Matt

The Terminator in California is also sueing several car companies (including Ford, GM, Honda, Chrysler and Nissan) for the environmental damage that their car cause. Someone also needs to deal with the Hummers (big fat SUV not Hawk Moth) used in CSI Miami.