h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK FB

I think I have made my point clear about filming and tracking etc. as a matter of principle.

As far as I understand the Road Charging Proposals, we are all to be charged a variable rate per mile dependant upon the day and the time in an attempt to reduce congestion. Have I got this right?

So the idea is that we all go and visit relatives, especially those at the other end of the country, by travelling at the cheapest time - presumably between 0100 and 0330, which is precisely when we will meet increased goods traffic all trying to achieve minimal costs?

What an expensive and inelegant way to reduce traffic and improve the carbon footprint. The best way to achieve that would surely be to increase the fuel duty sufficiently to put us off using the car until it is necessary. That way only the users pay, and the Chancellor gets to pick up the duty.

Ah, but hang on, what Mr B really wants is for us all to pay more, especially 'business users in trucks and reps etc', a cost which will be passed on to 'us ' the consumer so that he can get an extra 17.5% VAT on the increased prices of what we buy.

Neat..

Novo

Well perhaps....

But the truth is there are much easier and more ocnvenient ways to raise taxes, even by "stealth".

I really doubt that if the Government really was only attempting to raise revenue that they would do it in this way. It is too contoversial, and difficult. This is IMHO just a knee jerk reaction primarily from people who knee jerk against *anything* proposed by this government.

No doubt next time the "bad guys" get in I will be just the same .

That Storkey idea is great, it's like expanding the rail system, without the huge infrastructure cost.

Hi FB

No, I don't relate the road charging proposals to 'allowing' authorities to catch law breakers. I have very serious doubts about the uses to which information gathered from proposed 'black boxes' could be put. (Remember the recent hoo-haa about the DVLA selling mailing lists of names and addresses?)

However I have just read the "Storkey Plan" , Wish I'd thought of that myself!!!

Novo

As well as the rather obvious point about what result you get if you put a former head of British Airways in charge, the coaches scheme does have drawbacks - it's very convenient for travel between cities, but not for travel around town.

The government should re-introduce legislation on vehicle size - forced out by the EEC - which will substanially reduce wear and tear on roads, and reduce pollution. Force goods traffic back onto the rails and canals.

Extend and increase rail coverage, not introduce a senior civil servant who's job it is to close stations.

Introduce VAT on aviation fuel.

Well, not that I needed convincing, but the idea that road charging has got *nothing* to do with congestion was hammered home yesterday when I read that the Scottish Nationalists intend road charging to be part of their transport policy for the next ten years.

Scotland does not have a congestion problem anything like the scale of Englands. We have 2 or 3 choke points caused by incompetent road planners and inadequate funding.

It's got sod all to do with climate change either. If the UK became a zero emitter of CO2, China would swallow that up in one year. On top of which, man-made greenhouse gases account for only 1% or so of the total. 99% are naturally ocurring.

So: it's not about congestion and it's not about climate, it's about money.

>>"It's got sod all to do with climate change either. If the UK became a zero emitter of CO2, China would swallow that up in one year. On top of which, man-made greenhouse gases account for only 1% or so of the total. 99% are naturally ocurring."

That seems to be a belt-and-braces argument for doing ****-all.
Where do you get your 1%/99% figures from?

Can't remember the source, sorry. I used them on another thread where I did give the link. And actually, I'm exaggerating. The guesstimates are *between* 1-3%

I don't argue to do nothing. I don't agree with waste so more efficiency is good.

To think that climate change is down to man is just a massive ego trip.

"To think that climate change is down to man is just a massive ego trip."

sorry, wrong. Can't find the link, but I've posted it elsewhere.

Touche

The thing that convinced me, sort of I guess, was that the data from the ice-cores is up on the internet and you can go and have a look at it. A few quick calculations show that since humans came on the scene, carbon dioxide levels have risen extraordinarily rapidly, while methane concentrations have soared well beyond any previously recorded levels.

The thing that convinced me in the opposite direction was the Indian scientist who had previously been convinced by a Greenpeace study on glaciers in Chile. They showed graphic evidence of the retreat of a glacier, thus proving global warming. A year or so later, he visited Chile and went to the site. Yes, the glacier had retreated six miles, which was very dramatic. But what Greenpeace had not shown was that the glacier in the adjacent valley had grown by six miles in the same period. Both glaciers came from the same ice pack in the mountains and the variation was purely down to local conditions. From this starting point, he investigated other examples put forward supporting Global Warming and discovered that evidence had been ignored or tampered with. One example was a group of scientists who published graphs of global temperatures that totally ignored the mini ice age in the Middle Ages.

what convinced me was satelite data showing surface temperature had risen continuously over the last 30 years. I'm sorry, but so unamed scientist is never going to convince me of anything...

Sorry, to both of you, I meant 'what convinced me that humans can have a significant impact upon our planet's climate'.

SWL, medieval mini-ice-age? Sure about that? I thought it was meant to be a warm period . Evidence on medieval climate change is sparse, and its entirely possible that what has been measured is simply local variation rather than a global change. Modern evidence of climate change is based upon frequent, regular measurements across the globe. Geological-term evidence is taken from a statistical treatment of a huge amount of data from hundreds of thousands of years. Variations during recorded history, by comparison, are really a bit shaky.

Your other example that there is some bad science in favour of human driven climate change may demonstrate that Greenpeace are a bit thick and happy to seize upon anything they can, but it doesn't imply that there isn't good science in that direction as well.