CO2- Rant of the day

[steelsnake00]

For a while there have been rumours persisting that the EU are preparing to impose new Corperate CO2 legislation which would essentially spell and end to large-capacity and high performance engines across European car manufacturing. Older vehicles will come under this law as well, with their engines being less economical than modern ones they are destined for greater taxation. Similarly, in the UK the Conservative goverment has proposed banning all appliances which have a standby function; the reasoning behind it is that even though a TV, for example, only uses 1/100th of it's original power output when on standby, it's still using electricity and that means it's a threat to the environment.

Why, though? We already pay for our electricity, and the prices for that aren't exactly small. Most of the people who do turn off their appliances do so because they can't afford large electricity bills. Similarly, the only reason we still have a public transport system is that people want to avoid being stuck in traffic jams for 3 hours a day and don't want to be charged enormous tax on petrol. Of course, those who can afford to look the other way do so. But, forgive my cynicism, if we do suddenly all live in perfectly insulated houses, work for buisnesses who use a minimum of electricity and drive tiny engined cars, then what's going to happen? India and China are going to use all of our natural resources and we're going to be left with a broken planet and two Eastern superpower, which is not really what anyone wants.

I know that Global Warming has been blamed for the recent flooding in the UK, our oddly timed summer (April, actually) and our mad weather, but none of these things really bother me. I live on top of a hill, I was on holiday in April and I like interesting weather, So claiming that these things are caused by global warming matters not one bit to me. In fact, with all the hype around it recently, I've actually gone and bought an even bigger car, with an even bigger engine. And if I had the money, I'd move into an ancient house with no draught proofing or insulation and have my heating on 24 hours a day. Just because I've become so bored of environmentalism that I just want to do the exact opposite of what everyone tells me to do.

However, if you do live at the bottom of a valley, like it to be 14 centigrade and raining all year round, and do want to save the planet, theres a much easier solution than selling your car and powering your house from a wind turbine. And it's cheap too.


Trees


Now, trees process Carbon Dioxide, which according to all the environmentalists is worse than ebola, and turn it into oxygen, which we need to live. So, rather than spending vast fortunes making all of our buisnesses greener and our cars cleaner, don't we just plant a bit of vegitation? We have vast swathes of unused farmland which could be sold in aid of forests. The areas of urban desolation should be planted in, along with motorway overpasses, flyovers and, basically, anywhere which hasn't got a reason not to have trees. People should actually have their taxes lowered for having a certain number of trees in their garden.

You see, I still can't understand the mindset behind spending billions of pounds on research and coming to the conclusion that the only way to remove global warming is to produce less CO2, when we have a safe, beautiful and perfectly natural way of removing it from our atmosphere without infringing on our lifestyles.

[Glopaticki]

Lol....that would suck but i'd doubt they'll restrict european performance cars. And by banning appliances with standby feature is stoopid, the electricity is being produced no matter what and the stuff that isn't used is jumped being dumped. I read a research paper awhile back and it said that animals, particulary farm animals such as sheep and cattle produce more CO2 emmisions through excrement than your average v8 powered cars. You don't see the governments banning sheep or cattle now do you?

Woot....300 posts

[boganbusman]

Offsetting the entire planet's CO2 production "naturally" would require an unfathomable number of trees. Every city would have to become a jungle. I guess it could work, but I can't see anyone doing it, since it requires a lot of manual labour. On the other hand, writing new legislations doesn't take much physical effort at all. *sigh*


And if anyone tries to ban my car, I'll run them over with it

[viper16]

they are doing the same here in the states about the cows they are saying each time u kill a cow u are producing noxous gasses and CO2 and killing the atmosphere

[Sir Ibi]

what really grinds my gears (take a minute to make family guy connection) is the lack of solar power available to the mass public.

TO ALL!

Pick up your magnifying glass and burn those silly little ants - SOLAR POWER!!

[TheStig]

Sometimes politicians come up with the weirdest ideas, and even though they say the are done lower CO2 or for the inviroment in general, I still think it's for the added tax income... :S

I do turn of the TV and Xbox instead of on standby, but that is because they are in my bedroom and I can't stand the standby lights (the one on the transformer for the 360 is bloody bright) so it's pure for my own benefit

I do try to keep my car driving to a minimal, when I need to make short trips I go by bike (if the weather is cooperating ) and I do drive as economical as possible (without being as slow as a turd.)

The politicians keep telling us to drive our cars less and use less electricity etc.
So to make us do that they raised the taxes on fuel again by 4 cents and they also raised the VAT from 19 to 20% so effectively it's 5 ct more expensive then it already was... and we already pay over 2/3 TAX over the total price of fuel... :S the 1% extra VAT doesn't bother me cause I can deduct that. but still it's annoying and I doubt we'll see any usefull stuff for the enviroment in return...
If they planted trees with the extra money they gathered, or discount/tax free solarpanels/wind turbines etc...(or magnifying glasses )