The Great Car Con
Tomorrow night on Despatches on Channel Four are showing a program called The Great Car Con. They say this in summary about the program.
Motorists were promised diesel would be the cheap, green fuel of the future, but it turns out that’s not the case. Why did politicians encourage the ‘dash for diesel’?
All of today’s generation of politicians, won’t know much about air pollution, like my generation suffered from before the Clean Air Act of 1956, cleaned up our major cities. Unless of course they have been on a freebie to Beijing.
In my view we need to agree an objective function, where the amount of everything we emit into the air is balanced in a scientifically-correctly weighted way.
I would want a strict limit for CO2 and all the other pollutants. And there should be a firm cut-off date when after which vehicles that do not meet the limits are banned. I should also be Europe-wide.
In London we should start with buses, taxis and trucks, which would be controversial. But lots of legislation is opposed, but if it is sensible and well thought out, after a brief time, no-one would want to give up the improvements to their lives.
Does anybody want to allow smoking on buses, trains and in public houses?
I used to love my cars, but I haven’t driven for nearly five years now. Do I miss it?
Of course not!
I do wonder if people choose to give up driving voluntarily or not bother to learn, then they should be entitled to a discount on public transport.
The Anonymous Widower 
This problem created by the last government by promoting the use of diesel powered cars is typical of almost all government actions; and I would add governments of all political persuasions. They have little practical knowledge, as a result of entering politics directly from education, and so they don’t have the wit or experience to see the downsides of their decisions. A business would fail if decisions were made only considering the upsides, but to consider the downsides needs analysis and the knowledge to apply to the issues. This is why we have a habit of stirring up hornets’ nests, creating generations of benefit dependants, and making houses unaffordable for young people. I remember reading about a politician stating that graduates earn 10% more than non-graduates, so we need more graduates. No, we need more people to satisfy the demands of the trades, professions and industries. We now seem to have out of work graduates, a glut of barristers and a shortage of scientists, doctors, mathematicians, software developers, bricklayers, plumbers and electricians. So I just rant like all old men. At least I don’t read the Daily Mail.
Comment by John Wright | January 25, 2015 |
True!
The trouble is also that because politicians have no engineering or scientific knowledge, they believe the emotional arguments against things like nuclear power, fracking and GM foods.
With energy we should sort out usage and our poor housing stock first and I would only do nuclear as a last resort, as it is just so expensive. Baraging the Severn may well be expensive too, but once there it doesn’t lead to any difficult legacy, except a lot of electricity.
Fracking needs more research and before we start we must create an earthquake map of the UK, which doesn’t exist.As to GM foods, let’s have good foods first, which are produced with due regard to animals, wildlife and the environment. And I don’t mean the con that is organic.
One day, I’ll write a dictoinary of scientific correctness.
Comment by AnonW | January 25, 2015 |