PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT.

WormThatTurned wrote:

While big business are hand in hand with governments, corruption will continue to rule above the planets best interests. Unfortunately.

Hit the nail on the head.

I saw somerhing recently in a past issue of Auto Express. A woman in England has to shell out an extra £100 on road tax to drive her Suzuki Vitara (hardly gas guzzling when its a 1600cc/1.6 engined 4x4) on road tax against her old Rover Metro. Reason she has the Suzuki? Well when the nearby River bursts its banks due to the Global warming affected weather her old car couldnt manage down the road. Go figure with gas guzzling 4x4s - not many are and a lot of people are ignorant on the fact that most small engined 4x4s actually produce less emissions than standard family hatchbacks and bigger cars. But there have been few comments already on bigger 4x4s against older cars etc where emissions are concerned.

I dont know what kind of 4x4s are being driven where you are Rach, but I do sympathise on the fact that they are bigger and here in the UK are largely evident on the school run. However it is unfair to suggest that all are emission heavy - you need to look at the circumstances and if influenced or applicable to where you live the changes in weather and how they affect daily travel.

My gripe is that the car manufacturers already have the technology to produce 4x4s which have less emissions and use alternative fuels and or/electric against oil or petrol. LPG gas has been available in the UK for some time now but not many garages actually stock it which is useless for any car owner, let alone an electric point if anyone in the UK has a Honda or Toyota model which uses electric batteries.

If the UK was really hell bent in protecting the environment we'd all be using electric or gas powered cars by now - but as usual the availability aspect is taking longer than it should.

To change the topic here somewhat.. and it would be interesting to know, in my local home town in Scotland there is a great debate about wind mill/wind turbines, suggesting that they will spoil the countryside in terms of scenery and that they are not worth getting. I for one am all for wind turbines, particularly in Scotland where it is windy and that wind could be used to power a small island against reserves of power which are slowly running out...

My local community association in East Bridgford are assessing using the weir to generate electricity using hydro - they are just pulling a voluntary steering/project committee together

I think we need to move to wind power where we can (although we have to look to reduce use too)

Vax wrote:

I saw somerhing recently in a past issue of Auto Express. A woman in England has to shell out an extra £100 on road tax to drive her Suzuki Vitara (hardly gas guzzling when its a 1600cc/1.6 engined 4x4) on road tax against her old Rover Metro. Reason she has the Suzuki? Well when the nearby River bursts its banks due to the Global warming affected weather her old car couldnt manage down the road. Go figure with gas guzzling 4x4s - not many are and a lot of people are ignorant on the fact that most small engined 4x4s actually produce less emissions than standard family hatchbacks and bigger cars. But there have been few comments already on bigger 4x4s against older cars etc where emissions are concerned.

But here, the Metro has lower CO2 emissions, which is the basis of tax..so this would be fair to me.

I used to drive a Suzuki Vitara, and let me asure you it does NOT use less petrol than a standard family sized car, it was really quite thirsty!!

Nope and certainly not less than a rover Metro. they are puny, almost without exception less than 1600cc. I had a diesel one years ago, that did a zillion MPG - very handy for the Ayr - Glasgow run every day...!

So the answer is.. or even the question should be do we need any type of car presently given the government's initiative to take buses instead? I could sit here and argue all day that 4x4s may well be gas guzzling even though some companies are now producing hybrids to cut emissions but the cost of the actual models are higher than standard car prices which use petrol or diesel alone.

And diesel is only just about being made to produce less emissions on petrol but the manufacturing process is also environmentally unhealthy...

Maybe we should copy the Chinese and Dutch in cycling to work every day?

I agree we need to use public transport more.


trouble is, that there is no public transport from where i live to where I work. (a country house hotel and golf club several miles out of town) and it is difficult to do.

And I go in an opposite direction to hubby too, he is Nottingham, I am Grantham, and we live in the middle of the two cities, so as cars go, we are not that green I am afraid..

Hubby has got a bus sometimes, into Nottingham, and then walks, but it takes well over an hour then, compared to 20 minutes in car, as we live in a rural village and the bus goes through lots of villages.. There definitely needs to be an urgent look at Public Transport (and probably funding, for less profitable routes) or change, for the most part will not happen. A bus route will never be profitable from here - there are only a few hundred houses.

We don't change our cars all that often...had one of our current ones (1998 Alfa 146) about five years and I think we will just keep it to the death, which helps from a use/reduce/recycling point of view

I had a company car last year, a 2.2i Vectra and I swapped it for a smaller one, for environmental reasons, as I just felt it was ridiculous me driving about the countryside in a huge car on my own 95% of the time. However, I then got an Astra, as it was a group down, and it was the most uncomfortable car I have driven in my 20 years of car ownership. I seriously thought I was at risk of some blood clotting or somthing, the seat squab was that short and thin. Perhaps manufacturers need to look at this too, make smaller cars more comfortable. I dread to think how comfortable the Vauxhall car below an Astra is...but based on the Astra, I never want to find out..!

Before we moved into our current home, we lived in west Bridgford in a flat that we rented That is only three miles from Nottingham City centre, so we got buses everywhere, or walked and he could use buses for work too (I worked from home then), so our travel plans were much greener...!

We can recycle tins and paper and turn off the appliances rather than leave them on standby and drive in smaller cars (even though I hate the 4/4 school run mothers as much as the next man) as much as we want BUT the real pollution is caused by big business (especially China and the U.S). I wish they would be targeted as much as the poor old general public.

Landfill Tax./Climate Change Levy..

plus of course all businesses have to pay energy and fuel costs..(arguably passed on, but then why are we seeing cheaper and cheaper goods..)

More and more businesses need to have an Environmental Management System i.e. 14001 etc to even win business.

then there is the consumer ethical stance - support green businesses, don't support non green business, and those that are not green will soon wake up.