Fuel Prices
Someone has sent me an invitation to join their group protesting about fuel prices.
I will not be joining, as I’ve always felt that a large part of the problems of this fragile planet are caused by people, and especially Americans, who create just too much carbon dioxide, which every scientifically correct individual knows has a lot to do with global warming. Today, as I write, the Zoological Society of London, launches the Edge Coral Reefs project to save them from extinction.
So what should we do about fuel prices?
It’s not so much about what you do with the prices it’s what you do with the tax revenues they generate.
I have seen the benefits of putting container traffic on the trains in and out of Felixstowe Docks. There are less trucks on the road for a start and how much is this contributing to reduction in carbon emissions and shorter journey times for other motorists. So the first thing we should do is make sure that more and more containers go between the ports and inland depots by train. And preferably by electric trains. There are a few links that need to be built, like one to the new container terminal in Liverpool and we also need better road-rail interfaces in some large conurbations.
I actually think that one of the reasons truck drivers are militant, is tat they can see these job losses arriving as the containers shift to rail. The rail freight companies are talking about saving truck journeys in hundreds of thousands with each new scheme.
Railway electrification and better commuter trains and buses should be another beneficiary of extra tax revenue, as give people better services and they use them. I know it’s only a small line across Suffolk, but as the Ipswich-Cambridge service has improved over the last few years, more and more people have used the service. I also know examples of couples, who have effectively gone from two to one car, because of better public transport.
I’ve worked at home for over forty years and this can easily be encouraged by faster broadband everywhere. I also believe that this can in itself be a strong engine for growth in rural areas, where public transport of a sufficient standard will never be available.
I would also like to see fuel taxes used to reduce Income Tax and increase benefits in some cases.
We must use all of these things to nudge people towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Technology too has its part to play in this and I’d like to see developments like these cars proposed by Gordon Murray. But would these wean people away from their beloved 4x4s and people carriers? Probably not, but fuel prices are one way to make them pay for their selfishness!
So in my view, high fuel prices should be here to stay.
The Anonymous Widower 
I agree with what you say about fuel prices as applied to transport providing that the increases are spent on the things you mention. Call me cynical if you want, but so often the money goes to line the pockets of oil companies or to governments who use it for more politically popular measures.
Actually fuel prices in real termshave not increased that much since I was 18 and first had a car. In those days a gallon of petrol cost about 5 shillings (25p) and since then costs are generally about 20 times higher. That gives an indexed cost for petrol of £5 now; not far short of its actual cost then. As we are all more affluent (well most of us), it is effectively cheaper. We need a government strong enough to pass laws that require income from fuel taxes to be spent on transport infrastructure.
Another point that needs to be made relates to domestic heating oil prices. Recently we have seen the obscenity of fuel oil prices rising 250% over 2 months, leaving people in rural areas paying extortionate prices to heat their homes. This has lead to a number of elderly people without heating. I paid 40p a litre before the cold weather and the price hit £1 in some rural areas. It has dropped back a lot since the cold spell ended. This needs to be stopped.
Comment by John Wright | January 11, 2011 |
One of the things they should do is connect everyone to the gas mains. I used to live in a village with the main North Sea gas from Bacton passing right through it. But we had no gas, except for Calor.
There has been an awful lot of profiteering in fuel supplies to rural areas.
A lot of rural houses need bulldozing too, as they are as energy efficient as a candle.
I sometimes, feel like writing a book called something like F**k Living in the Country, but then I’d get the Council for the Fossilisation of Rural England on my back. But then that would help sales.
Comment by AnonW | January 11, 2011 |