Higher petrol taxes urged by MPs

[McJamweasel]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3554030.stm

Like its not high enough already. Jeez.
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BCF: Be yourself, just don't be an arse.

[r1_lad]

Tw*ts. Our government really does take the piss.

[headlamp]

The Environmental Audit Committee is just another bunch of MP's with not much else to do other than spend taxpayers money and make ludicrous recommendations. I noticed in the article that there was no mention of the affect higher fuel prices would have on inflation - food prices, wages etc. Equally, unless there is alternative for motorists and other fuel users then higher transportation costs would only lead to less well off people becoming more isolated.

What they should have done is rather than suggest increases in fuel duty, is suggest to the government to subsidise fuel efficiency such as lagging, cavity wall insulation, encourage home delivery/mail order, to reduce journeys and recommend and encourage and promote motorists to use alternative more fuel efficient modes of personal transport - er, motorbikes perhaps??
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Using a mobile phone while driving a car should be made a capital offence!

[Shade_BW]

Yet again, skewed figures and government spin.

30% is transport, yadda yadda.

What about the other 70%?

How much of the transport is planes, trains, boats, lorries and vans? You do know that planes dump excess fuel before landing, don't you?

Recycling. Do you know that their is very little market for recycled goods, and that this country has already more goods for recycling than it can use, and yet targets are still going up.

Lag your house, get energy saving lightbulbs. And all this does fuck all compared to big business that leaves the lights on overnight etc.

We think we are making a difference based on what they tell us, but it's all pants.

Unless governments make the extremely unlikely u-turn and crack down on business, you can recycle your lightbulbs for dinner to your hearts content, and the experts will still predict global warming and doom for us all.

Shade
It's all bollox.
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[Ian (GPX)]

Pah, increase in duty, got to be taking the PISS......

It's bad as it is that I have to fork out for fuel to do my job (50+ miles per day @ £9.00 - £10.00 to fill tank every two days).

[Kickstart]

Hi

We have the highest fuel taxes in the world. The only countries that have close to the same petrol prices have substantially lower diesel fuel prices (and diesel as a fuel contains 15% more energy by volume compared to petrol). Despite this we only travel about the average number of miles for Europe.

I suspect that it would take a very large increase in fuel costs to have a significient effect on overall fuel consumption. People already drive fairly small cars generally. Not that many people really drive large cars, and most of those could probably afford to continue to drive them long after rising fuel prices had pushed those already in the small fuel efficient cars off the road.

It is hardly like there is an alternative. Buses are very dirty with hideous emisions and fuel consumption compared to cars for the number of passengers they carry. Trains are similarly as bad (just about the dirtiest air in London is found in the Underground system). Few people can walk or cycle where they need to go, and public transport is environmentally worse and far less convenient for the users.

Even if you believe in man made global warming (and the evidence is dubious at best), then remember that around 20% of man made CO2 emisions are from road transport, yet man made emisions only account for between 3% and 4% of global CO2 emisions. In total road transport accounts for less than 0.8% of CO2 emisions. Added to which CO2 is not even a particularly strong greenhouse gas, and methane is far worse as is water vapour (so stop farting and stop breathing).

Sure CO2 levels are rising, and temperatures might well have risen by a small amount. We are still recovering from the last ice age, and temperature changes are well within general variation (remember that the south of England was a wine region during Roman times). There are signs that during previous increases in temperature that CO2 levels rose, but this evidence also suggests that CO2 levels rose following temperature rises.

Historically we only have 25 years worth of accurate temperature measurements (from satellites). Ground based measurements go back far further but are badly corrupted by other factors. After all if you measure the temperature at airports then it will hardly be a surprise that the temperature increases as they airports expand (and effect known as an urban heat island). While the inaccurate ground based measurements do show a fairly large increase in temperature the satellite measurements show barely any increase (and also studies of the ground based measurements excluding those in expanding urban areas also show very little increase, although that would be an easy figure to fiddle by excluding different areas).

There is a very large amount of energy wasted in this country and it would be easy to reduce that wastage. For a start turn off the motorway lighting during the parts of the night when there are few people on the roads.

Domestic fuel in the UK (heating, lighting, etc) accounts for more CO2 emisions than transport, yet you do not hear of people calling for a 400% tax on electricity bills.

All the best

Keith
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[Big Pete]

Shade, aircraft don`t dump fuel anymore unless there is a problem, its too expensive plus they get nailed by the airports, (not quite sure how that works tho)
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[MarJay]

Cows create the largest proportion of the second most damaging greenhouse gas, Methane.

Maybe we should just destroy all the farmed cows and live on mutton and chicken...

Or maybe we could build giant gastight sheds that harvest the methane from cows and pigs in order to use as energy. Thats a more blooming sensible suggestion than increasing fuel duty!!!
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[Sparks!]

I got a better idea, ban all cars, bikes, buses, planes trains and so on - crush them all and use all that metal to make free push bikes for everyone and make everyone cycle, but charge £15 a day cycle-efficiency-tax and so on...
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[G]

[Bendy]

If the government would put pressure on companies to offer 'work from home' options to their employees, they could cut congestion and pollution overnight.

I could do my entire job from my desk at home. Maybe go in once a week to say hello. But I'm not allowed to.