NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm angry tonight.

As some of you may know, the EU is on an eco-trip at the moment. They're setting all sorts of targets for all sorts of industries to make the EU greener.

Nevermind that this won't help much if this sort of crap (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,461828,00.html) continues, but that's not my point.

My point is that they have, of course, now moved to the car industry. There's all sorts of lobbying going on, frankly ridiculous targets being proposed and rebuffed, car manufacturers trying to hang on for dear life to the right to sell what people apparently buy these days.

But that's not even the problem. Targets are one thing, and I'm sure there are ways to reduce pollution and CO2 emissions.

My problem is with the rhetoric that once again comes up. It pisses me off to no end.

http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,464904,00.html
Der Fraktionsvorsitzende der Grünen im Europaparlament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, kritisierte den jetzigen Kompromiss scharf. Die Kommission sei auf Druck der deutschen EU-Ratspräsidentschaft der Autoindustrie entgegen gekommen, sagte er heute im Saarländischen Rundfunk. Er kündigte Änderungsanträge aus dem EU-Parlament an. "Ich kann der Autoindustrie nur raten, sich jetzt schon darauf einzustellen, dass eine Mehrheit im Parlament eine schärfere Gesetzgebung beschließen wird, als die Kommission es im Moment will", sagte der Grünen-Politiker. Die Kommission brauche eine Mehrheit im Parlament - und da könne es ganz klare Änderungsanträge geben.

Cohn-Bendit forderte eine CO2-Steuer für Autos mit hohem Sprit-Verbrauch. "Diese Pitbulls auf unseren Straßen, diese Riesenautos, die 30, 40 Liter verbrauchen, die müssten so mit einer CO2-Steuer versehen werden, dass sie niemand mehr kauft." Gleichzeitig müsse der politische Wille die Autoindustrie zwingen, technisch umzurüsten.

I'll translate:
The speaker for the Greens in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit is strongly criticising the current compromise. The commission yielded to the pressure of the car industry due to the current German EU-Presidency, he said today on the radio. He announced changes being proposed from the EU parliament: "I can only advise the car industry to prepare for a majority in the parliament approving much stronger regulations than the commission wants at the moment." The commission needs a majority in parliament, so changes can be introduced there.

Cohn-Bendit demanded a CO2-tax for cars with high fuel consumption. "These pitbulls on our roads, these giant cars, which use 30 or 40 litres on a hundred kilometres, we should tax them so highly that no one buys them anymore!" At the same time the political would have to force the car industry to change.

I am utterly and completely disgusted. The idea that "political will" will destroy people for our betterment is...well, beneath a civilised society, really.

Let's look at the issue. These "giant cars" (some of which are listed here (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,18997,00.html)) he's talking about are for the most part halo models. They're ultra-extreme performance cars. They're not made to serve a practical purpose - they're there to make people happy.

Believe it or not, but thousands of people buy performance cars because that is their personal way of feeling happy. Millions of kids and teenagers dream of having one, and that's been that way for decades.

How many Ferrari 599's will there ever be on the streets? A few thousand, at the most. It's a negligible contribution to climate change, or to the rate at which we use up our resources. If we replaced every Toyota Prius in the world with something like a VW Lupo with a diesel engine, we'd have done the environment more good than by banning any number of sports cars.

But the reaction of the Green lobby (and who would have thought that I'd ever reach a point where I felt I had to rant against them) is to outlaw, to ban, to destroy. Politicians don't create, politicians only destroy.

Sorry if I'm being a bit incoherent, but this is getting to me on a personal level. My life goal for the foreseeable future is to help make these cars, to eventually own one myself. Nothing, absolutely nothing, gives these...people the right to take that away from me and millions of people like me who dare hang a poster of a car on their wall, even if it does in fact use more than 5 litres on a hundred km. Even if it is not the most sensible thing people have ever come up with.

But what do you think? Can a Bugatti Veyron still be justified? Where do you stand on an Escalade, and where on a Porsche 911 Turbo? Should we all be made to drive tiny little cars with tiny little engines, and wait until its Chinese CO2 rather than ours which destroys the world?

And to finish off, a video: http://www.evo.co.uk/videos/supercarvideos/204672/ferrari_f40_and_bugatti_veyron.html

We have to do something to combat climate change, but these gas-guzzlers, compared to other CO2 sources, (such as transport in general) are pretty low. We would be better focusing on reducing emissions on cars which most people have, and can afford, rather than a small minority.

But what do you think? Can a Bugatti Veyron still be justified? Where do you stand on an Escalade, and where on a Porsche 911 Turbo? Should we all be made to drive tiny little cars with tiny little engines, and wait until its Chinese CO2 rather than ours which destroys the world?

i care little or nothing about cars. i think it's a good idea to tax cars that polute a lot and don't really serve a purpose (like SUV's in cities etc). this of course in combination with the promotion of public transport for people and transport over water/railroad for other stuff.
i also read in the paper that the reduction of CO2 emission, by limiting the amount of CO2 that new cars can produce, could produce 50 000 jobs (according to a research of B&D forecast, wich also appeared in 'automobilwoche'), so yeah, they would be creating jobs and a cleaner air. wich are way more important than fast cars.

They should just tax their emissions. If you can afford one of these cars, you can afford to pay the kind of money needed to clean up your mess; for that matter, I'd assign a tax to all personal transportation, but this is a particular example. However, I do not support taxing these vehicles out of existence; that's no different than a sumptuary law and does nothing but harm the economy and curtail our individual freedom for negligible benefit.

Even so, these vehicles' contribution to global emissions is extremely low as is their share of fossil fuel consumption. It's those mid-sized cars, trucks, and SUVs that are the most damaging and threaten our national security the most. We'd be better off making auto companies design more efficient vehicles than tax them out of existence...that makes a lot more sense.

They should just tax their emissions. If you can afford one of these cars, you can afford to pay the kind of money needed to clean up your mess; for that matter, I'd assign a tax to all personal transportation, but this is a particular example. However, I do not support taxing these vehicles out of existence; that's no different than a sumptuary law and does nothing but harm the economy and curtail our individual freedom for negligible benefit.

Even so, these vehicles' contribution to global emissions is extremely low as is their share of fossil fuel consumption. It's those mid-sized cars, trucks, and SUVs that are the most damaging and threaten our national security the most. We'd be better off making auto companies design more efficient vehicles than tax them out of existence...that makes a lot more sense.
Absolutely. And we ought to find a way to reward people who get out of the emissions cycle completely.

If they were serious they'd be looking at flying....

Absolutely. And we ought to find a way to reward people who get out of the emissions cycle completely.

We could have a negative carbon tax. The government would give an additional tax credit or compensation to people whose emissions are below the established levels; if you're willing to make the investment necessary to cut your emissions below the standards set by the government, you deserve a reward.

And the lower you cut them the proportionately bigger the reward gets. I would also have tax credits and aid for low-income people to reduce their emissions and save money, so as to spread the benefit as much as possible.

evo got to roadtest the veyron!? :eek: top ear wasn't allowed apparently, heh.

and yeh, it seems pointless that, considering the tiny numbers of these cars on the road, that they should be taxed more. that's sports cars though. SUVs on the other hand should be taxed into oblivion, unless the owner can demonstrate that they ever take it further from the CBD than their suburban semi. i honestly can't remember the last time i saw an SUV with mud on it and there's hundreds round where i live. well, apart from the one landrover that's always stuffed to the gills with boating equipment and covered in sand and salt stains.

evo got to roadtest the veyron!? :eek: top ear wasn't allowed apparently, heh.

and yeh, it seems pointless that, considering the tiny numbers of these cars on the road, that they should be taxed more. that's sports cars though. SUVs on the other hand should be taxed into oblivion, unless the owner can demonstrate that they ever take it further from the CBD than their suburban semi. i honestly can't remember the last time i saw an SUV with mud on it and there's hundreds round where i live. well, apart from the one landrover that's always stuffed to the gills with boating equipment and covered in sand and salt stains.

TG did test the Veyron...Jezza drove it from italy to london...May and the Hamster flew....

it was pretty awesome....

Aawwww the pissy environmentalist want to take away the thing that "makes you happy", the thing that millions of kiddies dream of at night. Suck it up. Cars, particularly big, fast, fancy cars are stupid inventions this world does not need. Yes, there are more important ways to cut greenhouse gasses, and yes, using sports-cars as a burning effigy to sell newspapers/buy votes is pretty lame, but your entire argument hinges on the fact that this particular pice of dirty technology is *your* favorite toy. Boohoo. Unfortunately, emmissions are at a point that governments have to ensure we cannot make the wrong environmental choices, instead of leaving it up to us (and that goes for industry and agriculture too). Also, bitching about how china will be the ruin of the world anyway gives away your real problem: you think there is nothing humanity can do, and you're bitter that it's even trying to try.

Also, bitching about how china will be the ruin of the world anyway gives away your real problem: you think there is nothing humanity can do, and you're bitter that it's even trying to try.

That's the one I don't understand:

If we cut our emissions, say, 20% in the next ten years and China's go up by an amount equal to 20% of our emissions, the net global emissions haven't changed. We've stabilized our emissions, and China's economy has probably by that point developed enough to start cutting its emissions.

That's a hell of a lot better than having them go up 30-40% like they would if we do nothing. Emissions aren't zero-sum, and any cut will help no matter where it comes from.

TG did test the Veyron...Jezza drove it from italy to london...May and the Hamster flew....

it was pretty awesome....

oh right, maybe they weren't allowed to get the Stig to do a track test then. i'm pretty sure i remember them saying it last week. right after May took it to 256mph.

Absolutely. And we ought to find a way to reward people who get out of the emissions cycle completely.

They have found their own rewards by not having to maintain a car, buy insurance, ...

Here's another place where emission credits would be a nice thing. Baseline a care for 0 credits. Then for every so many mpg above or below that baseline, you get or give credits. How to get credits? Buy them off one of those lucky folks that have left the grid.

That's the one I don't understand:

If we cut our emissions, say, 20% in the next ten years and China's go up by an amount equal to 20% of our emissions, the net global emissions haven't changed. We've stabilized our emissions, and China's economy has probably by that point developed enough to start cutting its emissions.

That's a hell of a lot better than having them go up 30-40% like they would if we do nothing. Emissions aren't zero-sum, and any cut will help no matter where it comes from.Indeed - but I think we can hope for better. The best most realistic hope is that Europe, (and the US and Canada, who have done more or less nothing so far) lead by example, and convince China and India to skip a generation of technology and develop "green". The technology exists now, mostly in production in the west, and there is no reason in the world not to help the big developing countries use it.

Indeed - but I think we can hope for better. The best most realistic hope is that Europe, (and the US and Canada, who have done more or less nothing so far) lead by example, and convince China and India to skip a generation of technology and develop "green". The technology exists now, mostly in production in the west, and there is no reason in the world not to help the big developing countries use it.

That's true. Thankfully, there are forces building within China to control its industrialization and to implement modern methods of pollution control. It's not strong enough to change things yet, but it's getting there.

Their economy is simply running out of its ability to accommodate more environmental destruction, and they have to change their course or face major economic decline. You can't continue to do what they are doing without severe and possibly irreparable (in the short term) damage to the economy and environment.

Aawwww the pissy environmentalist want to take away the thing that "makes you happy", the thing that millions of kiddies dream of at night. Suck it up. Cars, particularly big, fast, fancy cars are stupid inventions this world does not need. Yes, there are more important ways to cut greenhouse gasses, and yes, using sports-cars as a burning effigy to sell newspapers/buy votes is pretty lame, but your entire argument hinges on the fact that this particular pice of dirty technology is *your* favorite toy. Boohoo. Unfortunately, emmissions are at a point that governments have to ensure we cannot make the wrong environmental choices, instead of leaving it up to us (and that goes for industry and agriculture too). Also, bitching about how china will be the ruin of the world anyway gives away your real problem: you think there is nothing humanity can do, and you're bitter that it's even trying to try.
I certainly agree with Kreitz here.

You're welcome to keep your love for fast cars and keep the cars themselves but don't go expecting the rest of the world to turn a blind eye to their less loveable features.

evo got to roadtest the veyron!? :eek: top ear wasn't allowed apparently, heh.


Top Gear magazine got to test the Veyron in about october 2005, the TV show has used it twice but they havent been allowed to put it round the track yet

New Burmesia, Neu Leonstein, i have agreed with every thing you two said, if you don't already live England could you please move here in time to join me standing for election.

I've said for awhile that the eco-trip people are currently on is an assult on the middle classes, but turns out im wrong, if the sort of car they are talking about banning is things like the Mercedes GL 6.3 and the Hummer, its an assult on footballers or the upper classes the people that have it better then the eco-nuts

I've said for awhile that the eco-trip people are currently on is an assult on the middle classes, but turns out im wrong, if the sort of car they are talking about banning is things like the Mercedes GL 6.3 and the Hummer, its an assult on footballers or the upper classes the people that have it better then the eco-nuts

Yes, there's a difference between taxing someone to clean up the mess they make and punishing them for buying something that makes the mess, even if they can afford to clean up after it. The former is totally justified and necessary, while the second is nothing more than a modern version of sumptuary laws meant to punish people for being wealthy.

As much as I loathe that stupid looking, wasteful poseurmobile Hummer H2, I'm not going to punish the idiot who buys it with taxes...they're embarrassing themselves enough by buying it in the first place. Just pay the carbon tax to offset its emissions and begone.

I wouldn't mind a Bentley Arnage myself, but that's something else entirely...although I'd probably rather have one of those Tesla electric vehicles instead.

It is in fact difficult to justify the existence of the Veyron, hell it's difficult for Bugatti to justify the Veyron (without Piech VW is struggling to figure out what to do with the company).

Sports cars by themselves don't neccisarily fair that bad (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htm), it's when you get to the big sedans, American muscle, and exotics that mileage and CO2 tonnage gets up there. But while a Guilardo is way worse than a CL55, there are far mor CL55s.

Fleet cars are a better target overall and collectively a better target than manufacturers that produce only maybe 1000 cars a year globally.

However, it's far past the time that everyone has to think about their impact, and on a certain level as much as even I love those exotic sports cars and would want one, you do kind of have to justify it, really. And "Cause I want it" isn't really enough.

There is hope, there are cars like the Tesla Roadster, BMW and Audi are making performance diesels, BMW also has the Turbo Steamer that not only creates a 'hybrid' style engine but increases performance while increasing mileage and reducing emmissions by using exhaust heat for the generator. They boast that putting a turbo steamer on their entire line would have more impact than simply adding one full on hybrid to their line. Even Porsche is looking at fuel efficient alternatives, and they usually function on small engines that are in the middle of the linked chart.

Honestly in the coming years the car as we know it will become an anachronism. It's really up to us who love cars to make room instead of stubbornly sticking our heads in the sand and pretending there isn't a problem so we can still dream of that 150 mph cruiser.

Yes, there's a difference between taxing someone to clean up the mess they make and punishing them for buying something that makes the mess, even if they can afford to clean up after it.

how exactly are they going to clean up CO2 emission?

how exactly are they going to clean up CO2 emission?

The tax would go to investing in clean energy, efficiency improvements, pollution controls and CO2 sequestration, all of which will reduce overall emissions and offset the pollution produced by those cars.

Actually the Veyron is an engineering masterpiece.

Actually the Veyron is an engineering masterpiece.

I wouldn't mind driving it...although I'd probably too scared to do anything cool with it. It is a beautiful work of engineering art.

I wouldn't mind driving it...although I'd probably too scared to do anything cool with it. It is a beautiful work of engineering art.

I would love to drive it....hell...I'd drive a rally version!

The real engineering is not the looks nor the speed...its the internals. The gearbox needs to last 20 years. A F1 gearbox lasts for what...a race or two? The engine also needs to last 20 years. A F1 engine gets stripped and rebuilt after every race. Not something you can do with the Veyron.

How they managed to get 1000Bhp out of a smallish engine...incredible.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/bugatti.htm

The tax would go to investing in clean energy, efficiency improvements, pollution controls and CO2 sequestration, all of which will reduce overall emissions and offset the pollution produced by those cars.

i still don't see why you can't tax SUV's and 'sport'cars more than is required to clean their mess up. there are other disadvantages too, larger cars are way more dangerous than smaller cars in car accidents for instance. and isn't it normal that luxury products are taxed higher than normal products anyway, like cigarets and alcohol etc.

I wouldn't mind driving it...although I'd probably too scared to do anything cool with it. It is a beautiful work of engineering art.

I'm sort of 'done' with supercars, really. They make great posters when you're 13, but when it comes down to it you're really just buying something that's twice compromised. It's a compromised race car and a compromised road car. I'd rather just have a dedicated track day car at a certain point when there is no way I can find the edge of a car on a public road. I'm not going to get access to the VW test tracks to push a Veyron to 253 mph. GT cars and sport coupes, those cars you can use their edge on the road and if you find a nice twisty traffic free stretch of road you really can cut loose with 'em. You can in the Veyron, but that's not where its totality shines. It's just a temperamental race horse that you really can never let run. Even with the Veyron's bragged about civility, it's still just a compromised race/road car.

It's impressive to know exists or watch some dude do two-fifty in, but I don't really have an urge to own it or any other supercar anymore.

i still don't see why you can't tax SUV's and 'sport'cars more than is required to clean their mess up. there are other disadvantages too, larger cars are way more dangerous than smaller cars in car accidents for instance. and isn't it normal that luxury products are taxed higher than normal products anyway, like cigarets and alcohol etc.

There is a tax loophole that was being exploited for a while, it might have been closed, I don't know, that actually gave a tax break for people to buy light trucks for work. This makes sense when you look at small business and farming where a light truck is needed, but it became dentists driving to work in a tax break funded H2.

Thing is that there are still people who do need a light truck to do what they need to do and you don't want to punish them while you're going after soccer moms in a behemoth. Ideally you would word it to reward the ones who have to buy light trucks for buying more efficient ones. Fortunately, efficiency and usefullness coincide on this one, as diesels are more efficient and have better grunt for the work, so for once it should come together nicely.

They could do an Ethanol 1000, I think the top speed is around 180 miles per hour for an ethanol fueled vehicle. It might be faster by now. It would be good public relaions for the biofuel industry.

There is a tax loophole that was being exploited for a while, it might have been closed, I don't know, that actually gave a tax break for people to buy light trucks for work. This makes sense when you look at small business and farming where a light truck is needed, but it became dentists driving to work in a tax break funded H2.
i think they promised to do something about it, don't know if they did (in Belgium that is)

Thing is that there are still people who do need a light truck to do what they need to do and you don't want to punish them while you're going after soccer moms in a behemoth. Ideally you would word it to reward the ones who have to buy light trucks for buying more efficient ones. Fortunately, efficiency and usefullness coincide on this one, as diesels are more efficient and have better grunt for the work, so for once it should come together nicely.

ok, but this still doesn't deter people who don't need a small truck to buy one.

Honestly in the coming years the car as we know it will become an anachronism. It's really up to us who love cars to make room instead of stubbornly sticking our heads in the sand and pretending there isn't a problem so we can still dream of that 150 mph cruiser.

So we're heading to the days of "Red Barchetta?" Good fucking lord, that would mean Rush (the band, not the bloviator) was prophetic. They'd be impossible to live with.

They could do an Ethanol 1000, I think the top speed is around 180 miles per hour for an ethanol fueled vehicle. It might be faster by now. It would be good public relaions for the biofuel industry.
Not the way we're (the US) going about ethonal, anyway. That needs some work (or looking at people who are already more successful at it) before we really start encouraging it.
i think they promised to do something about it, don't know if they did (in Belgium that is)
In the US I think it actually got closed, but I can't be sure.


ok, but this still doesn't deter people who don't need a small truck to buy one.

No, it wasn't a sollution so much as it was a complication to add to the puzzle. Unlike sports cars*, trucks have a 'real world' use and you don't want to cut into the people that use them for that when trying to reduce unnecessary 'recreational' buyers.


*I have argued, however, that the excesses in sports cars come into play far more often than the excesses of an SUV. Every time you have to merge from a tight onramp into fast moving traffic, or have to hit the brakes hard or swerve, suddenly that performance car is stepping up. That comes up more than having to climb a landslide or whatever comes up in those ads for SUVs...

So we're heading to the days of "Red Barchetta?" Good fucking lord, that would mean Rush (the band, not the bloviator) was prophetic. They'd be impossible to live with.

Ever spent time with a Rush fan? They already are, really. It'd be hard to tell the difference. At the very least it would give them something to talk about other than Neil Pert...

Ever spent time with a Rush fan? They already are, really. It'd be hard to tell the difference. At the very least it would give them something to talk about other than Neil Pert...

Scary thing is I believe I still have a vinyl copy of Moving Pictures. Thank gods I turned 14 and got over myself. ;)

It's all relative...if all the conventional combustion engine cars were banned then we would all covet the fastest ultra high performance electric or hydrogen powered Ferrari...

In the US I think it actually got closed, but I can't be sure.
i think here too, it was in the news about a year ago.


No, it wasn't a sollution so much as it was a complication to add to the puzzle. Unlike sports cars*, trucks have a 'real world' use and you don't want to cut into the people that use them for that when trying to reduce unnecessary 'recreational' buyers.

isn't there a way to give tax-cuts for people who use it for their job? there must be other things that are cheaper for companies/businesses.

*I have argued, however, that the excesses in sports cars come into play far more often than the excesses of an SUV. Every time you have to merge from a tight onramp into fast moving traffic, or have to hit the brakes hard or swerve, suddenly that performance car is stepping up. That comes up more than having to climb a landslide or whatever comes up in those ads for SUVs...

i'm not really an expert, because i don't drive a car, but it seems that there are more SUVs here then sport cars, but that's probably because we live in other parts of the world. but they probably polute the same amounts and are equally dangerous for other people on the road.

i think here too, it was in the news about a year ago.


isn't there a way to give tax-cuts for people who use it for their job? there must be other things that are cheaper for companies/businesses.
Well, that was what the loophole was for, it just got abused.



i'm not really an expert, because i don't drive a car, but it seems that there are more SUVs here then sport cars, but that's probably because we live in other parts of the world. but they probably polute the same amounts and are equally dangerous for other people on the road.

There are certainly more available (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass.htm). What's disturbing there is when you go to the bottom of the list, a place where on the sports car list it's low productions number cars like Lamborghinis there is a Jeep Cherokee. I couldn't link the side by side, but you should check out the side by side of a Cherokee and a Murcilago...eep...

Absolutely. And we ought to find a way to reward people who get out of the emissions cycle completely.

who?
all those folks who live in the middle of no where and run around in fur or naked? who build their shelter out of dead trees or caves and live with zero modern anything?
i could keep going but i think you get the idea

Scary thing is I believe I still have a vinyl copy of Moving Pictures. Thank gods I turned 14 and got over myself. ;)

Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures, on the other hand...now that's something worth holding on to.

Aawwww the pissy environmentalist want to take away the thing that "makes you happy", the thing that millions of kiddies dream of at night. Suck it up.
Why? Why should I suck it up, but you continue happily to use electricity produced by a coal power station? Electricity makes you happy, right?

Cars, particularly big, fast, fancy cars are stupid inventions this world does not need.
Absolutely not yours to decide, I'm afraid. You don't have to buy one if you don't want to.

Yes, there are more important ways to cut greenhouse gasses, and yes, using sports-cars as a burning effigy to sell newspapers/buy votes is pretty lame, but your entire argument hinges on the fact that this particular pice of dirty technology is *your* favorite toy. Boohoo.
To apply the same argument to something else...the only some refugee in Darfur is against the genocide is because it happened to kill *his* family. Boohoo.

My personal feelings regarding the issue are not nearly as important as the fact (which you recognise) that these cars are an effigy they can use so they can pretend they're doing something. It's these very Greens who try and phase out nuclear energy, and no one still believes that they're doing a service to the environment that way. So they have to destroy something else.

Also, bitching about how china will be the ruin of the world anyway gives away your real problem: you think there is nothing humanity can do, and you're bitter that it's even trying to try.
You're right. I don't think we'll avert climate change. That's my dirty secret, and it'll take a while to convince me differently.

I'm bitter that they're attacking what I like, and leave everyone else alone.

You're welcome to keep your love for fast cars and keep the cars themselves...
I'm afraid there is a torch-bearing mob of politicians out there who disagree.

I'm angry tonight.


You'll get over it. Just like we'll all get over the internal combustion engine, soon enough.

I'm angry tonight.

As some of you may know, the EU is on an eco-trip at the moment. They're setting all sorts of targets for all sorts of industries to make the EU greener.

Nevermind that this won't help much if this sort of crap (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,461828,00.html) continues, but that's not my point.

My point is that they have, of course, now moved to the car industry. There's all sorts of lobbying going on, frankly ridiculous targets being proposed and rebuffed, car manufacturers trying to hang on for dear life to the right to sell what people apparently buy these days.

But that's not even the problem. Targets are one thing, and I'm sure there are ways to reduce pollution and CO2 emissions.

My problem is with the rhetoric that once again comes up. It pisses me off to no end.

http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,464904,00.html


I'll translate:


I am utterly and completely disgusted. The idea that "political will" will destroy people for our betterment is...well, beneath a civilised society, really.

Let's look at the issue. These "giant cars" (some of which are listed here (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,18997,00.html)) he's talking about are for the most part halo models. They're ultra-extreme performance cars. They're not made to serve a practical purpose - they're there to make people happy.

Believe it or not, but thousands of people buy performance cars because that is their personal way of feeling happy. Millions of kids and teenagers dream of having one, and that's been that way for decades.

How many Ferrari 599's will there ever be on the streets? A few thousand, at the most. It's a negligible contribution to climate change, or to the rate at which we use up our resources. If we replaced every Toyota Prius in the world with something like a VW Lupo with a diesel engine, we'd have done the environment more good than by banning any number of sports cars.

But the reaction of the Green lobby (and who would have thought that I'd ever reach a point where I felt I had to rant against them) is to outlaw, to ban, to destroy. Politicians don't create, politicians only destroy.

Sorry if I'm being a bit incoherent, but this is getting to me on a personal level. My life goal for the foreseeable future is to help make these cars, to eventually own one myself. Nothing, absolutely nothing, gives these...people the right to take that away from me and millions of people like me who dare hang a poster of a car on their wall, even if it does in fact use more than 5 litres on a hundred km. Even if it is not the most sensible thing people have ever come up with.

But what do you think? Can a Bugatti Veyron still be justified? Where do you stand on an Escalade, and where on a Porsche 911 Turbo? Should we all be made to drive tiny little cars with tiny little engines, and wait until its Chinese CO2 rather than ours which destroys the world?

And to finish off, a video: http://www.evo.co.uk/videos/supercarvideos/204672/ferrari_f40_and_bugatti_veyron.html

They're trying to accelerate the fuel efficiency of cars, it's happening slowly due to fuel increases but they want to make it much faster. And so they're trying to lessen the number of inefficient cars. If they made an exception for "super-cars" then it'd be effectively "your car has to be fuel efficient unless your rich enough to afford one of these in which case the law doesn't apply to you"

You'll get over it. Just like we'll all get over the internal combustion engine, soon enough.
The thing is, we have a century of experience with these engines. They are incredibly complex machines, marvels of engineering prowess.

It takes time to get something as good happening for other fuels. All I want is that cars which vitally depend on a great engine (ie sports cars, not family sedans, not SUVs) be allowed to use the best we can do.

As whatever alternatives are used more and more in normal cars, firms will start working out how to make truly great engines using those alternatives. But engineers have to be allowed to make these decisions. Not hippies.

And so they're trying to lessen the number of inefficient cars.
Have a look at some of the cars they're talking about. My parents drive a Ford Escape V6.

I couldn't believe it, but the BMW M5 only uses one more litre on a hundred kilometres.

So don't tell me they're not making progress on that front.

To apply the same argument to something else...the only some refugee in Darfur is against the genocide is because it happened to kill *his* family. Boohoo.


There's a world of fucking difference between losing your entire fucking family and a minor inconvienence.

There's a world of fucking difference between losing your entire fucking family and a minor inconvienence.
The principle is the same. Just because something unfortunate hits you personally does not mean that you're suddenly no more allowed to be angry about it.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,464912,00.html
The conservative daily Die Welt writes: "Politics has discovered a new enemy: It is the car, and in particular the German car. Popular and coveted throughout the world, it has now been enthusiastically declared a pollution-spewer and climate killer. Even though Europe's CO2 emissions only make up 0.56 percent of the global total, one could be forgiven for thinking that the German car industry carries the main guilt for global warming.

"(The market) decides if an idea catches on or not. ... Now consumers are beginning to reconsider, because human beings are adaptable creatures. And industry will find a way of building hybrid models or vehicles that run on hydrogen, that will meet consumers' transport needs, as well as being attractive to buyers and protecting the environment."

[...]

The financial daily Handelsblatt writes that the CO2 emissions dispute between the EU and the car industry has become a "battle of beliefs": "Market-driven alternatives to the system -- such as trading emission rights or trying to influence demand -- are no longer being negotiated ... The time for a sensible exchange of views has passed.

"It is true that traffic is one of the biggest causes of climate change. But the impression that a reduction in emissions from cars could solve the environmental problem is wrong. Transport only accounts for a fifth of total CO2 emissions.

"The industry has little choice: it has to respect the demands and wishes of its customers. The buyer has the choice. If an attractive exterior and comfort play a bigger role than environmental compatibility then these priorities must be considered. Because it's no good offering fuel-efficient cars if nobody buys them.

"It has to become an expensive luxury to excessively damage the environment. And a progressive car tax could be the way to do this ... This type of taxation would set in motion a sustainable dynamic towards fuel-efficient cars and would increase the pressure on the big gas guzzlers ... If politicians then spent the income from the increase in taxes on infrastructure projects to avoid traffic jams, the environment would be helped twice over."

Here's another idea: the easiest way to make a car better for the environment is to make it lighter. What are the two main reasons for cars getting heavier every year?

The first is consumers who want to sit in bigger and bigger cars. I don't understand it, but there's nothing we can do about it.

The second is safety regulations. Maybe we should relax those...but wait, that might not be popular politically!

The first is consumers who want to sit in bigger and bigger cars. I don't understand it, but there's nothing we can do about it.

One way is to let the price of oil reflect its real cost rather than the one subsidized by the world's governments and the US military.

The principle is the same.
No. Not even remotely. There's this tiny thing called "degree".

No. Not even remotely. There's this tiny thing called "degree".
As I said - "in principle".

I said I like sports cars, and I'm angry about them being used as a scapegoat. And he came out and said "well, your argument is no good because you like sports cars". That's absurd.

Why? Why should I suck it up, but you continue happily to use electricity produced by a coal power station? Electricity makes you happy, right? "makes me happy"? I have no strong personal feelings about electricity: it is necessary. Mine happens to by hydro, which is moderately clean on the scale of things. Coal is dirty, and should be phased out, much like your beloved internal combustion engine.
Absolutely not yours to decide, I'm afraid. You don't have to buy one if you don't want to.Unfortunately for you, it is mine, and every voting, functioning person's to decide what becomes of this here planet. Not only will I not buy one, but I will prevent others from doing so as best I can. That's democracy for you: you are expected to do, or not do things if most other people would like you to, or not to. In this particular case, cutting greenhouse-gas emmisions will trump your little love-affair in importance. So sorry.
To apply the same argument to something else...the only some refugee in Darfur is against the genocide is because it happened to kill *his* family. Boohoo.You know Leonstein, you must still be very upset because I have never seen you so utterly unreasonable. Get a grip on your outrage. Genocide is a universal wrong. Depriving you, even unfairly and uncessarily depriving you, of a piece of obsolete and dirty technology is not something anyone will go to war over.
My personal feelings regarding the issue are not nearly as important as the fact (which you recognise) that these cars are an effigy they can use so they can pretend they're doing something. It's these very Greens who try and phase out nuclear energy, and no one still believes that they're doing a service to the environment that way. So they have to destroy something else.I do not know anything about the European Greens, but environmentalism has a broader base than them now. Your derision of "hippies" just degrades you. Modern environmentalism is the most realistic, most pragmatic, most informed, and best-researched political and scientific venture probably ever concieved. And i guarantee you that nuclear will not be dimissed out of hand because it makes too much sense. I think this move is actually a decent symbol, as long as it is accompanied by the more substantial systemic change necessary.
You're right. I don't think we'll avert climate change. That's my dirty secret, and it'll take a while to convince me differently.

I'm bitter that they're attacking what I like, and leave everyone else alone.Again, it's you and your victim complex. Poor middle-class-boy-with-dreams-of-a-fancy-car is being unfairly targeted, while entire industries, households, and agricultural sectors that are also being called upon to change are getting off easy. Not to metion the people whose homes and cultures are already being destroyed or threatened by climate change.

As long as you're uninformed and hopeless about what we can do, as you are now, this will always be an us-them situation. When you see yourself as part of the solution, your attitude will be different. Your enthusiasm/preemptive nostalgia for a certain piece of technology is kindof cute, to be honest, but we'd still be in the stone age if you got your way. That's what museums are for.

Coal is dirty, and should be phased out, much like your beloved internal combustion engine.
Phasing out is one thing. I already said that I can live with phasing out, as long as engineers are able to make those decisions so they can still produce great cars.

But they're not talking phasing out. They're talking bans.

Unfortunately for you, it is mine, and every voting, functioning person's to decide what becomes of this here planet. Not only will I not buy one, but I will prevent others from doing so as best I can. That's democracy for you: you are expected to do, or not do things if most other people would like you to, or not to. In this particular case, cutting greenhouse-gas emmisions will trump your little love-affair in importance. So sorry.
You're working hard to kill off my last bit of respect for the democratic system.

You are of course perfectly aware that these cars have a negligible effect on the environment. Few of them are built, and even all transport worldwide only accounts for a fifth of CO2 emissions. But you don't care about that, you're not interested in weighing up the pros with the cons.

You know Leonstein, you must still be very upset because I have never seen you so utterly unreasonable. Get a grip on your outrage.
I think I made clear what I meant to say. Just because I like fast cars is no reason for my argument against banning them to be any less meaningful. Much in the same way that a person's argument against a crime doesn't lose weight because he or she fell victim to it.

I do not know anything about the European Greens, but environmentalism has a broader base than them now. Your derision of "hippies" just degrades you.
Not if "environmentalism" starts banning things for populist appeal. Fact of the matter is that the only people that can be respected as environmentalists are people with experience in the field of economics and cost-benefit analysis. No one else can be taken seriously - especially a politician.

Modern environmentalism is the most realistic, most pragmatic, most informed, and best-researched political and scientific venture probably ever concieved.
As I said, unless the person in question knows his or her economics, they are nothing more than another pointless lobby group thinking their opinions are somehow more valued than those of anyone else.

And I don't see a cost-benefit analysis of a ban on big engines. I just see a guy calling these cars "pitbulls of the road". There is nothing realistic, pragmatic or informed about that.

And i guarantee you that nuclear will not be dimissed out of hand because it makes too much sense.
Tell that to the party that the guy belongs to. They pushed through the phasing out of nuclear energy in Germany, and they're against even extending the deadline to help meet emission targets or achieve a bit more energy independence with respect to Russia.

I think this move is actually a decent symbol, as long as it is accompanied by the more substantial systemic change necessary.
Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.

Poor middle-class-boy-with-dreams-of-a-fancy-car is being unfairly targeted, while entire industries, households, and agricultural sectors that are also being called upon to change are getting off easy.
I don't see it, I'm afraid. I look around me, and nothing is being outlawed. There's the occasional research grant, the occasional deal to lower something until 2072 and that's it.

There's no one running around saying we need to close all coal-powered stations right now. By law, with no compensation. There's no one saying we need to stop using throw-away plastic bags right now, under the threat of jail.

And there's definitely no one asking a serious question about what China and India are doing. It's much easier to just say "we won't sign Kyoto because of them" and leave it at that than to actually go over there and work something out proper.

But now we have someone saying "we need to make fast cars disappear". Hallelujah.

As long as you're uninformed and hopeless about what we can do, as you are now, this will always be an us-them situation.
It is. For decades various scaremongers have been fighting the very concept of a fast car. This is just the latest chapter, and this time they happen to use climate change as their excuse.

We have known about greenhouse gasses for more than a decade now. We've known about climate change for just as long. We have done nothing. Excuse me for laughing in the face of anyone who thinks we will avert this.

When you see yourself as part of the solution, your attitude will be different.
Yeah, kidding myself into making sacrifices so others won't have to is a surefire way to happiness.

Let's see what might happen. They outlaw fast cars. I lose every motivation to go on with uni, I'll have no more direction for the foreseeable future. Since I won't be allowed to work on the things I want to work on, there is no more difference between finishing uni or becoming a carpenter.

They'll be marching into people's houses, stealing their car keys from them.

And then there'll only be little cars on the road. Millions of them. Probably hybrids, which don't actually help the environment any more than any other small-engine car would, but at least they have image, which is what environmentalism is about for most people. There will be no significant reduction in CO2 emissions, no significant reduction in the rate of using oil.

China will still be poisoning the planet.

But hey, "we" made a statement. And I better be happy about it, or else.

Your enthusiasm/preemptive nostalgia for a certain piece of technology is kindof cute, to be honest, but we'd still be in the stone age if you got your way. That's what museums are for.
I think I pointed out that I believe in progress. I also know for a fact that government cannot create, government can only destroy.

You cannot force progress by outlawing stuff. Especially if it's something out of left field that has no relevance to the actual matter at hand, just to somehow make a point to your electorate.

Here's an idea:
http://www.evo.co.uk/news/evonews/205034/toyota_supra.html
http://www.evo.co.uk/images/front_picture_library_UK/dir_425/car_photo_212721_7.jpg
Officially billed purely as a concept car but rumoured to be a certainty for production, the Toyota FT-HS occupies a slot in the market once filled by the Supra but has 21st century credentials – namely a hybrid powertrain.

Designed and engineered in California, where such things carry considerable political, social and commercial clout, the FT-HS is powered by a combination of a 3.5-litre V6 and a version of Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive electric motor system already employed in the Prius and Lexus RX400h. Between them the two propulsion units generate the equivalent of 400bhp, enough to sling the coupe’s lightweight body from rest to 60mph in less than 5.0sec.

Front-engined, rear-wheel-drive and with all its batteries sitting low on the floorpan to keep the centre of gravity low, the FT-HS is claimed to provide genuinely sporting dynamics.

With its carbon-Kevlar roof panel in place, the concept is (just about) a 2+2, but if you fancy driving alfresco then you have to ditch your passengers as the roof stows over the rear seats.

Of course, that only makes a real difference in stop-start city driving...it's still a 400 horsepower petrol engine if you really drive it.

My point is that they have, of course, now moved to the car industry. There's all sorts of lobbying going on, frankly ridiculous targets being proposed and rebuffed, car manufacturers trying to hang on for dear life to the right to sell what people apparently buy these days.

Ask you self why there are now inforced harder targets, simply because the gentlemans agreement the EU had with the car companies has not been honored.

Car companies have not made great strides towards the imporvement of the cleandleness of cars for whatever reason despite making them more and more powerful. Had they put the same effort into making the cars cleaner instead of more powerful there would not be a problem now.

But instead the motor industry is of course up in arms, how dare government impose something as silly as restrictions on pollution.

As for Car manufacturers hang on for dear life, which ones are those exactly? BMW which if i remember rightly made 3 billions euros profit last year, of Ferrari, or Porsche, of VW, of Mercedes all of which have made healthy profits along with a most of the worlds makers of cars with out even mentioning the likes of Toyota.

The fact is the motor industry is going to have to change, no ifs no buts no maybe's it will have to change.


Oh and your rediculous tragets got watered down to 18% reduction in 6 years. yes it's the destruction of the car industry. :rolleyes:

If you want to get a fuller version of events try this slightly more informative article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6334327.stm

Ask you self why there are now inforced harder targets, simply because the gentlemans agreement the EU had with the car companies has not been honored.
Because people don't buy a car because it's environmentally friendly (at least not until recent months). They buy it because it's got lots of leg room, lots of head room and lots of safety features. And because the doors make a nice sound if they fall shut.

Had they put the same effort into making the cars cleaner instead of more powerful there would not be a problem now.
It's not like they have a choice but to give it more power if safety regulations force them to make cars heavier and heavier.

The fact is the motor industry is going to have to change, no ifs no buts no maybe's it will have to change.
And as always it is not government that can contribute, it is only the consumer.

Or let me qualify that: If instead of all the all the rhetoric and blaming the scapegoat the government would have seriously subsidised setting up an EU-wide network of hydrogen fuel stations, companies like BMW could actually sell the hydrogen engines they've standing in their workshops.

Oh and your rediculous tragets got watered down to 18% reduction in 6 years. yes it's the destruction of the car industry. :rolleyes:
Which hasn't been passed yet by the parliament. So the maniacs still have plenty of opportunity. I won't rest easy until this is actually through.

But even then: this rhetoric sets a precedent. If there's a new climate report - let's blame cars. Especially scary cars we're not interested in personally.

Even people who are really into saving the environment and reducing carbon emissions should see that this sort of approach isn't helping anyone. Shutting down coal powerstations - yes. Banning Ferraris - no.

Here's an idea:
http://www.evo.co.uk/news/evonews/205034/toyota_supra.html
http://www.evo.co.uk/images/front_picture_library_UK/dir_425/car_photo_212721_7.jpg


Of course, that only makes a real difference in stop-start city driving...it's still a 400 horsepower petrol engine if you really drive it.

Man I wish it weren't so damned ugly...

Phasing out is one thing. I already said that I can live with phasing out, as long as engineers are able to make those decisions so they can still produce great cars.

But they're not talking phasing out. They're talking bans.


You're working hard to kill off my last bit of respect for the democratic system.

You are of course perfectly aware that these cars have a negligible effect on the environment. Few of them are built, and even all transport worldwide only accounts for a fifth of CO2 emissions. But you don't care about that, you're not interested in weighing up the pros with the cons.


I think I made clear what I meant to say. Just because I like fast cars is no reason for my argument against banning them to be any less meaningful. Much in the same way that a person's argument against a crime doesn't lose weight because he or she fell victim to it.


Not if "environmentalism" starts banning things for populist appeal. Fact of the matter is that the only people that can be respected as environmentalists are people with experience in the field of economics and cost-benefit analysis. No one else can be taken seriously - especially a politician.


As I said, unless the person in question knows his or her economics, they are nothing more than another pointless lobby group thinking their opinions are somehow more valued than those of anyone else.

And I don't see a cost-benefit analysis of a ban on big engines. I just see a guy calling these cars "pitbulls of the road". There is nothing realistic, pragmatic or informed about that.


Tell that to the party that the guy belongs to. They pushed through the phasing out of nuclear energy in Germany, and they're against even extending the deadline to help meet emission targets or achieve a bit more energy independence with respect to Russia.


Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.


I don't see it, I'm afraid. I look around me, and nothing is being outlawed. There's the occasional research grant, the occasional deal to lower something until 2072 and that's it.

There's no one running around saying we need to close all coal-powered stations right now. By law, with no compensation. There's no one saying we need to stop using throw-away plastic bags right now, under the threat of jail.

And there's definitely no one asking a serious question about what China and India are doing. It's much easier to just say "we won't sign Kyoto because of them" and leave it at that than to actually go over there and work something out proper.

But now we have someone saying "we need to make fast cars disappear". Hallelujah.


It is. For decades various scaremongers have been fighting the very concept of a fast car. This is just the latest chapter, and this time they happen to use climate change as their excuse.

We have known about greenhouse gasses for more than a decade now. We've known about climate change for just as long. We have done nothing. Excuse me for laughing in the face of anyone who thinks we will avert this.


Yeah, kidding myself into making sacrifices so others won't have to is a surefire way to happiness.

Let's see what might happen. They outlaw fast cars. I lose every motivation to go on with uni, I'll have no more direction for the foreseeable future. Since I won't be allowed to work on the things I want to work on, there is no more difference between finishing uni or becoming a carpenter.

They'll be marching into people's houses, stealing their car keys from them.

And then there'll only be little cars on the road. Millions of them. Probably hybrids, which don't actually help the environment any more than any other small-engine car would, but at least they have image, which is what environmentalism is about for most people. There will be no significant reduction in CO2 emissions, no significant reduction in the rate of using oil.

China will still be poisoning the planet.

But hey, "we" made a statement. And I better be happy about it, or else.


I think I pointed out that I believe in progress. I also know for a fact that government cannot create, government can only destroy.

You cannot force progress by outlawing stuff. Especially if it's something out of left field that has no relevance to the actual matter at hand, just to somehow make a point to your electorate.This blow-by-blow approach is a bit too arduous, so I'll simply make this general comment: If you want to be credible, stop bitching about your ruined life prospects, and stop dragging personal 'happiness' into the picture. It trully is irrelevant.
You outlandish whining about how government "can only destroy" really is beneath you, and again, I'm surprised. It is only through regulation enforced by government that this crisis can be lessened, just as enforced regulation of health and social ills of the past have caused improvements. Hopelesness and selfishness is not the answer, in any event. Climate change is the ultimate collective action project and that is what makes it so hard. I regret that something as trivial and banal as this would so diproportionately alienate an otherwise reasonable person from the supremely reasonable assertions of environmental sustainability.

I regret that something as trivial and banal as this would so diproportionately alienate an otherwise reasonable person from the supremely reasonable assertions of environmental sustainability.
I think that's where the problem is: you think it is trivial, and therefore you assume that it must be for everyone.

It's not trivial for me, and collective action or not (note that I don't think there is such a thing in the way you imagine), unless I see any evidence whatsoever that the problem is actually being tackled, I am not ready to give up the things I love as a token gesture.

Do I think the sports car designers will design more environmentally friendly high-performance engines? Yes, I do. I think that the next generation of Porsches and Ferraris will run hybrid additions to their petrol engines.

Do I think that will appease those who want to ban sports cars? No, of course not. If it was actually about the environment for them, they wouldn't be trying to burn effigies.

Do we need yet more red tape for that? Nope. A carbon tax is already a silly idea, because we all know that it's gonna go into paying old people's pensions, not into helping the environment. It is government, after all. And it won't even reduce the emissions from sports cars, because their price elasticity is so low. Not that this particular politician would know what price elasticity is.

If people want environmentally friendly cars, they'll go and buy them. If they don't, they won't. Government can't force them to change their motives, it can't provide positive reinforcement. As I said, all government can do is punish, ie cause pain...destroy.

But even if I changed my mind and wanted carbon-friendly cars...will it make a difference? Not really, because the future of climate change is being decided a long way away from the car show room.

Despite all the nice rhetoric, it is not you or me who decide the future of the world. Absolutely nothing I do has any significant effect on the climate. Neither does my behaviour make others behave differently. If I decided today to remove all pollution filters from my car and drive around, that would not make anyone else do the same thing.

You can decry that as fatalism or whatever, but it doesn't detract from the truth of the statement. Ultimately, the case for me giving up fast cars is less than convincing. There pretty much is no case to speak of. And that's why some nutcases want to come out and, rather than plead their flimsy case, just threaten me with punishment if I don't do as they tell me.

...

But what do you think? Can a Bugatti Veyron still be justified? Where do you stand on an Escalade, and where on a Porsche 911 Turbo? Should we all be made to drive tiny little cars with tiny little engines, and wait until its Chinese CO2 rather than ours which destroys the world?

I'll address just this one paragraph, since it solicits my opinion.

Petrol-powered cars are indefensible. Coal power is pretty bad, plastics are over-used, petrochemical fertizers, dyes and industrial chemicals have produced enormous amounts of wealth, but will probably turn out to be destructive of sustainable alternatives. But those are essentially by-products, and the root of the evil is the egotistical urge of individual consumers to embody themselves in a ton of steel and go about their business at ninety miles an hour.

China is not well blessed with oil. They don't even have enough coal to pursue the stategy they're opting for now, for more than a couple of decades.
The Chinese will solve the fossil fuel energy crisis. Not because they have a different approach to progress (which they do) and not because they're smarter and more accustomed to co-operating instead of competing with each other (which they are) but simply because they must. Even a quarter-billion Chinese can't drive petrol-burning cars without wrecking their environment and dragging them into wars far afield. They'll solve that problem.

The western nations also could solve that problem. We could obsolete oil. The billions thrown into a war for oil, the billions thrown into the conquest of space, the trillions spent on armed forces far beyond the needs of self-defence, might suffice to find the alternative to oil. Or they might not. Because our economies, our continued economic growth (even one year of recession is considered a disaster, and a sackable offence for the government of the day) are based on oil, on cheap oil-based transport, on cheap oil by-products, we don't bother trying to obsolete the filthy stuff. We simply don't take the investment risk, because we aren't compelled to.

The Chinese are compelled to find an alternative. They will.

If we (us Western upstarts) are lucky, the Chinese will license the alternative to oil, to us. If we aren't, they'll sell us energy until we go broke.

EDIT: I was wrong about the coal. China has plenty.

...
A carbon tax is already a silly idea, because we all know that it's gonna go into paying old people's pensions, not into helping the environment. It is government, after all.
You're drunk, right?
You usually make such sense, and here you are saying that anything government does can just be discounted by pointing to the looming aged welfare bill (common to all western countries, btw) which will wreck all good intentions.
Look, I could justify any new spending by pointing to another seemingly out-of-control, exponential growth field: taxation. Goods and Services Tax (VAT to some) increases with GDP. Income tax increases each year with incomes (roughly GDP) and even more if you allow bracket creep. That's the bulk of government income, at least here in Aus.
It's just so easy to bash the government. I refer you to the conspirator's meeting of the Popular Front of the People of Judea, in "the life of Brian." Funny, because it's so true.

Regulation of emissions is called a "carbon tax" by it's opponents. To it's protagonists, it's "carbon trading." For it to work, for it to be embraced by business as a fair cost factor in doing business, it's important that the money not be drained out of the private economy and thrown into some unrelated hole, eg deficit reduction or pensions. It has to be "traded," re-injected into the economy as rewards for businesses which are actually reducing their carbon footprint. Out of every stick, a carrot is made, or else quite rightly it will be seen as an excuse for a new tax.

Howard is groping towards that. His economics is rusty, and it's ridiculous that he wants to take a softly-softly approach to business (robust businesses like coal and uranium mining, at that) when he was the guy who introduced the most disruptive anti-business tax I know of, the GST. His motives are no doubt impure, but still I want to see him land a few blows on emissions reductions. If he can't inspire some change in the business community, there's fat chance of a Labor PM doing it.

Petrol-powered cars are indefensible.
Meh, not nearly as indefensible as you think.

The Chinese will solve the fossil fuel energy crisis. Not because they have a different approach to progress (which they do)...
They do?

...and not because they're smarter and more accustomed to co-operating instead of competing with each other (which they are)...
They are?

...but simply because they must. Even a quarter-billion Chinese can't drive petrol-burning cars without wrecking their environment and dragging them into wars far afield. They'll solve that problem.
When?

I suggest you read the link I provided in the OP (linky (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,461828,00.html)) and then make an argument for your claims.

You're drunk, right?
Slightly depressed, but sober.

You usually make such sense, and here you are saying that anything government does can just be discounted by pointing to the looming aged welfare bill (common to all western countries, btw) which will wreck all good intentions.
I have watched the jokes in the German parliament for long enough to know that not a cent of that money will go to the environment. It's one lobby group after the other, and in the end the only one's old people in parliament will listen to are other old people.

It's just so easy to bash the government.
That's because they make it so.

Regulation of emissions is called a "carbon tax" by it's opponents. To it's protagonists, it's "carbon trading."
The two are very different things, and I'm afraid carbon trading is not gonna work on that sort of scale. It'd be impossible to implement.

Out of every stick, a carrot is made, or else quite rightly it will be seen as an excuse for a new tax.
Government grows, that's what it does. It's a natural thing, because we all want to rule over others and make them behave the way we want to.

I've heard this whole "yeah, we should give them the benefit of the doubt because they could do the right thing" for long enough. They won't do the right thing. They pretty much never do. Hell, they'll have forgotten what the right thing is in a few months.

...

I suggest you read the link I provided in the OP (linky (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,461828,00.html)) and then make an argument for your claims.

I read it. I don't argue like that ... I put out what I've got. If you can't find anything in what I say, ignore it.

I simply don't play that way. I'm used to being ignored by those who do.

EDIT: this was a stupid post. It was dealt with in a gentlemanly manner, but will rankle me for a while. It is a most dishonourable fusion of foolishness and honesty, demeaning both.

If you can't find anything in what I say, ignore it.
Look, I don't want to ignore anyone's opinions, but at the moment it's difficult to see China do anything different to any other ruthless top-down economic system that puts GDP above all other measures.

Slightly depressed, but sober.
Not too depressed, and not too sober here.
I have watched the jokes in the German parliament for long enough to know that not a cent of that money will go to the environment. It's one lobby group after the other, and in the end the only one's old people in parliament will listen to are other old people.
There's truth there, but not enough to extinguish hope.

The two are very different things, and I'm afraid carbon trading is not gonna work on that sort of scale. It'd be impossible to implement.
Yes, if it's implemented in a top-down, "we've got this great idea and you're all going to do it" way. It's possible for government to lead and inspire without having to go that command-economy route, isn't it?

Government grows, that's what it does. It's a natural thing, because we all want to rule over others and make them behave the way we want to.
Sort of. Government grows because society (population, diversity and opportunity) grow. Of things it can be said: "they grow, that is what they do."
Government continues to expand the reach of its regulation. There's continually more to regulate.

I've heard this whole "yeah, we should give them the benefit of the doubt because they could do the right thing" for long enough. They won't do the right thing. They pretty much never do. Hell, they'll have forgotten what the right thing is in a few months.

That's a pretty radical position.
"The government pretty much never do the right thing" implies that government is a negative force, an impediment to all the rest of society.

Is that your position? If so, is it a recent development, or has government always been a yoke and a cynical corrupting force on humanity?

well cars are one of the two biggest screwer uppers of the whole biospher and web of life. and the other one involves combustion as well.

and what comes out of the back end of cars is only half the problem. the real estate they consume is the other, even IF they could be completely clean themselves, like maybe a battery powered bycycle or something.

now i would think a smaller light car would generaly be more environmentaly coppacetic then a bigger heavier one, but i still think the dumbest thing europe, or any other part of the world, especialy one as densely populated, has ever done, is the dumping, aka 'privitization' of rail systems, which, are, by their very nature more environmentaly compatable, then any sort of combustion powered rubber tire on pavement.

we need more, not less, guideway based public passinger transport everywhere (preferably to more modest and 'human' form factor then traditional heavy rail, and with friendlier propulsion methods and systems), and less not more, defacto subsidising of the oil and automotive industries.

government ineffeciency is no reason to trust the bussiness of bussiness either. they screw up everything just as bad if not, and usualy, worse.

whatever is good, bad or indefferent about anything else, capitolism, at least corporate capitolism, has become a kind of doomsday machine, destroying everything in its path, with no one in control and no off switch.

=^^=
.../\...

It's possible for government to lead and inspire without having to go that command-economy route, isn't it?
I don't think it leads and inspires by threatening people with jail.

Government continues to expand the reach of its regulation. There's continually more to regulate.
I don't think so. Human life has always been complex, it just changes shape occasionally. Ultimately government creates the need for itself, in the vast majority of cases.

"The government pretty much never do the right thing" implies that government is a negative force, an impediment to all the rest of society.
You could say that, yes. In theory, I see the point of government in a few limited areas. Not as an inspiration or as a leader of things, but as a market participant which can operate independently from the normal profit pressures firms face and can create markets where there normally wouldn't be any.

That's theory. In practice, government to me is the sign down the road from me that says "Brisbane City Council". Underneith it says "these repairs will be finished by:" and a white space. There is nothing written there, and that sign has been there for eight months.

That's government. That's what I get for every week seeing hours of my time taken away from me on my paycheck. Every electrician would long since be out of a job if they did that, but not the city council. They don't have to perform, no one is gonna make them.

Is that your position? If so, is it a recent development, or has government always been a yoke and a cynical corrupting force on humanity?
Well, let me put it this way: the first known written account of the concept of "freedom" is the Ama-Gi, a Sumerian symbol. That was the first time that people thought about this rather abstract concept, and gave it a name.

Where was it found? In a bit of tax law.

...i still think the dumbest thing europe, or any other part of the world, especialy one as densely populated, has ever done, is the dumping, aka 'privitization' of rail systems, which, are, by their very nature more environmentaly compatable, then any sort of combustion powered rubber tire on pavement.
If they hadn't been privatised, chances are they wouldn't exist anymore. There'd be broken down rails and trains littering the countryside, rusting away into oblivion. And we'd still be paying the same train taxes (if not more), even if most of the trains don't drive anymore. Sometimes I reckon it's a pity that not everyone had the chance to visit places like East Germany and see what happens if you let government make the decisions.

There's a reason Thatcher sold everything she could get her hands on: it was losing money while providing an inferior service.

we need more, not less, guideway based public passinger transport everywhere (preferably to more modest and 'human' form factor then traditional heavy rail, and with friendlier propulsion methods and systems), and less not more, defacto subsidising of the oil and automotive industries.
And private firms are working on it. And if people want to use them, they will.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,458893,00.html

government ineffeciency is no reason to trust the bussiness of bussiness either. they screw up everything just as bad if not, and usualy, worse.
The thing is that there is no "they" in business. If one of them does a bad job, you hire another one.

It's possible for government to lead and inspire without having to go that command-economy route, isn't it?...
You could say that, yes. In theory, I see the point of government in a few limited areas. Not as an inspiration or as a leader of things, but as a market participant which can operate independently from the normal profit pressures firms face and can create markets where there normally wouldn't be any.
Interesting. As a 'market participant' shouldn't they play by the same rules? IE earn the money they spend?
Of course governments participate in markets. It's because they cheat, by taking taxes to fund their operations, that they are, as you just said, free to take actions from other motivations than profit. That is their role, to express societal needs not provided by the market.

The worse the market and the less it provides for the common good, the more need for government. Depending on whether you see government, or capitalism as the primary structure of society, you could also express that as "the less government occurs, the better the market will express the common good."
I see government as a more basic, more established and more sound expression of "society" than the market. But I'm not fanatical on that: exchanging things for mutual benefit goes back a long way, and it works and it's good. Sitting down and discussing the common good, reaching a compromise and regulating our own actions by that also goes back a long way, works and is good.

That's theory. In practice, government to me is the sign down the road from me that says "Brisbane City Council". Underneith it says "these repairs will be finished by:" and a white space. There is nothing written there, and that sign has been there for eight months.

That's government. That's what I get for every week seeing hours of my time taken away from me on my paycheck. Every electrician would long since be out of a job if they did that, but not the city council. They don't have to perform, no one is gonna make them.

Government makes mistakes. Putting that sign up was one of them ;)
Here's a thought: perhaps they need competition?

Well, let me put it this way: the first known written account of the concept of "freedom" is the Ama-Gi, a Sumerian symbol. That was the first time that people thought about this rather abstract concept, and gave it a name.

Where was it found? In a bit of tax law.

That's profound. It's food for thought. Thankyou.

Interesting. As a 'market participant' shouldn't they play by the same rules? IE earn the money they spend?
Well, there are public goods which just can't be provided with a profit. For example a lighthouse...you can't charge the users, nor does any additional user take away anything from the ability of others to use it.

So pricing is pretty much impossible.

But anything that can be sold for a price doesn't need to be provided by the government. If it really is necessary for people who can't pay to have access to it (like education or healthcare), then government could provide the money to these people to then be spent in a competitive market. There doesn't need to be public schools or socialised healthcare for everyone to have access to them.

The worse the market and the less it provides for the common good, the more need for government.
Except that I don't think that the common good is a good way of putting it. If you call it that, it is too easy to fall into the trap of seperating the "common good" from the actual people. It's the same with "society" - if people are too zealous in using that term, they end up thinking that it is society they're planning for, not the people within it.

I'd rather be thinking for example about allowing everyone access to education through a voucher system.

Everyone needs enough positive liberty to be able to either succeed or fail on their own merits. Government can in some cases be instrumental in creating such a situation.

And that's the scope I'd like them to think in. Not about what "society" needs, but what it can do for its individual customers.

Depending on whether you see government, or capitalism as the primary structure of society, you could also express that as "the less government occurs, the better the market will express the common good."
If government was indeed an expression of people's dissatisfaction with the market, yes. But unfortunately it's not us who decide on whether there is a government department for regulating how often people wash their pets. Because we don't vote for the bureaucrats, they stay in their position regardless of elections.

And even the guys we do vote on don't give us fair choices. They lie to us, try and shift attention to other areas, oversimplify or overcomplicate things and so on. We never actually get to vote on whether there should be such a department, we get to vote for a guy who might have a stance on the department among hundreds of other stances on other issues. We are always forced to compromise, so the decision of the electorate isn't ultimately what people would actually do if they were in charge. The only expression of us as our uncompromised selves is what we do in the market place, the alternative uses for our time, our income and so on.

Sitting down and discussing the common good, reaching a compromise and regulating our own actions by that also goes back a long way, works and is good.
Certainly, but we don't need government for that. Because government isn't "us", it is essentially a gigantic faceless mechanism. Rather than us regulating ourselves, it really is a case of it regulating us. If it weren't, there'd be no prisons because we'd all happily follow our own rules.

Here's a thought: perhaps they need competition?
Yes. I quite like the idea of only community-based, small bits of government. Citystates, or something like that.

If you vote, you aren't outvoted by a guy who lives thousands of kilometers away, you know the actions of government affect you on a personal level and are clearly visible to you. You have a much greater stake in it all - and if you don't like it, it's much easier to just move into the next city.

Of course, that would require the abolition of all immigration law, which I virtually advocate for the real world too.

There doesn't seem to be a lot on the innanet about ama-gi.

I believe I've seen animals experiencing freedom, and I think we probably had it long before anyone wrote about it or claimed it for a right.

:)

Do I think the sports car designers will design more environmentally friendly high-performance engines? Yes, I do. I think that the next generation of Porsches and Ferraris will run hybrid additions to their petrol engines. If sportscars don't make a bloody mess, there's no reason for then not to exist. It really seems like a non-issue.
Do we need yet more red tape for that? Nope. A carbon tax is already a silly idea, because we all know that it's gonna go into paying old people's pensions, not into helping the environment. It is government, after all. And it won't even reduce the emissions from sports cars, because their price elasticity is so low. Not that this particular politician would know what price elasticity is.You clearly don't uderstand the concept of carbon tax. It doesn't function by reducing the carbon emmited by the cars, or reducing the number of cars sold (thought these trens would accompany such a tax due to implimentation of clean technology and alternative trasportation), but by making up for it in other ways. Refer to Vetalia's earlier posts if you are confused about this: she, for one, would do well to go into policy-making while you stew in a puddle of despair.
Again, your assertions that government can only provide dissincentives is absurd. See france's current (non-immigrant) mini baby-boom. Your wholesale dismissal of government as a tool for taking on the biggest issues ofthe world is depressingly, unjustifiably cynical.
If people want environmentally friendly cars, they'll go and buy them. If they don't, they won't. Government can't force them to change their motives, it can't provide positive reinforcement. As I said, all government can do is punish, ie cause pain...destroy. We no longer have the opposrtunity to build our houses with asbestos, or to build fridges with ozone-destoying chemicals. We are already required to keep car engines at a certain level of efficiency, and blood diamonds are illegal. In some cases (cheerfully destroying the world being one of them) consumers aught not to have the choice to make the wrong choice. carrots, sticks, whatever - that's what it comes down to.

You can decry that as fatalism or whatever, but it doesn't detract from the truth of the statement. Ultimately, the case for me giving up fast cars is less than convincing. There pretty much is no case to speak of. And that's why some nutcases want to come out and, rather than plead their flimsy case, just threaten me with punishment if I don't do as they tell me.I don't know any statistics offhand, but "there is no case to speak of" is obviously absurd:
A huge amount of the world's carbon emmisions comes from internal-combustion engines housed inside vehicles. Removing said engines, or said cars, will obviously reduce a huge amount of the world's carbon emmisions. And I'm not talking about your car, or any car; just cars. WHAT IS NOT TO GET?

If sportscars don't make a bloody mess, there's no reason for then not to exist. It really seems like a non-issue.
See, they don't, if you look at it on a global scale. It is a non-issue, but those are a politician's favourite.

You clearly don't uderstand the concept of carbon tax. It doesn't function by reducing the carbon emmited by the cars, or reducing the number of cars sold (thought these trens would accompany such a tax due to implimentation of clean technology and alternative trasportation), but by making up for it in other ways.
And why would you trust the government of all things to do that?

Someone mentioned the GST in Australia before. It was introduced so that other taxes could be lowered - that was the promise. Did it happen? No, it didn't. Once all that extra money was around there was not a politician in the land who could bear give some of it back. Suddenly there were all sorts of holes to dig and then fill again, a million ways of spending but not one way of saving.

Why would you expect them to take this money and then actually spend it on the things that might help?

Refer to Vetalia's earlier posts if you are confused about this: she, for one, would do well to go into policy-making while you stew in a puddle of despair.
Oh, a lot of things would have to change before I would consider working for a government. Or even voluntarily work with one.

Again, your assertions that government can only provide dissincentives is absurd. See france's current (non-immigrant) mini baby-boom. Your wholesale dismissal of government as a tool for taking on the biggest issues ofthe world is depressingly, unjustifiably cynical.
But what is the reason for the baby boom? It's tax breaks for people with kids, basically.

So if we punish some people a little bit less, we're the heroes?

And I can see how an ideal, theoretical government could solve problems in the world. But that's not what we see in practice...in practice we have this behemoth peddling to interest groups and, mainly, itself. There is not a sensible sentence uttered in this debate, and that's because the debate is all about image and trying to make a marketing statement. Or to quote Mr Barroso (http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2007523,00.html): "It is the concrete proof of EU leadership in the field."

Or to translate: "Lots of people like environmentally friendly stuff right now, so if we present ourselves as the knight in shining armour saving them from whatever they're afraid of today, that'd be great."

That's hardly something I want to play sacrificial lamb for.

In some cases (cheerfully destroying the world being one of them) consumers aught not to have the choice to make the wrong choice. carrots, sticks, whatever - that's what it comes down to.
The problem is that you don't trust people to do the right thing. You actually believe you're the only moral person on the planet. Like everyone actually wants to kill off the planet, and only your idealised form of government can stop them.

A huge amount of the world's carbon emmisions comes from internal-combustion engines housed inside vehicles.
All transport accounts for only a fifth of CO2 emissions. The EU accounts for only 15% of CO2 emissions.

Even if we banned all CO2 emitting transport in the EU, we would expect a reduction of about 3% worldwide. In return for literally billions of dollars of damage and yet more erosion of our freedom.

And I'm not talking about your car, or any car; just cars. WHAT IS NOT TO GET?
The commission (not the Greenie from the OP) wants an average for all cars across all firms, of 130g per kilometre. I have no idea how they are going to coordinate it. Neither do they at the moment.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/emissions-cap-may-end-car-making-in-europe/2007/01/12/1168105177850.html
Jeremy Clarkson, who presents Top Gear on BBC TV, said: "I would anticipate that a lot of car manufacturers will start making bicycles. There will be a Lamborghini bicycle, a Peugeot bicycle, a Ferrari bicycle and a BMW bicycle. They will say, 'Look, these are all zero emissions', and get out of it that way."

That's a good idea, actually. If they all add a few bikes to their range, they might push their averages down a bit.

There doesn't seem to be a lot on the innanet about ama-gi.
http://www.bureaucrash.com/node/1526
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urukagina

I believe I've seen animals experiencing freedom, and I think we probably had it long before anyone wrote about it or claimed it for a right.
Well, animals don't think about complex, abstract concepts like that. They know when they're free and they get unhappy if they're not, but that's just about as far as that goes.

To actually write something down, especially in this context is several steps beyond that. The fact that the concept entered our literature (and thus the minds of coming generations) as basically a safeguard against government tells you a lot about government itself.

Am I the only person who realised that this doesn't actually effect Neu Leonstein, what with him living in Australia and not the EU?

Am I the only person who realised that this doesn't actually effect Neu Leonstein, what with him living in Australia and not the EU?
For now. And besides, these cars are built in the EU.

...
That's a good idea, actually. If they all add a few bikes to their range, they might push their averages down a bit.
That strikes a funny chord with me. You see, my bicycle IS a Peugeot. It was made in the seventies. :)


http://www.bureaucrash.com/node/1526
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urukagina
Thanks, I'd seen the other wiki entry which was very short.


Well, animals don't think about complex, abstract concepts like that. They know when they're free and they get unhappy if they're not, but that's just about as far as that goes.
That's a fair way it goes! Humans, with our complex and subtle interpretations, quite happily trade off our liberty for other values. We also use the word without meaning it personally. We abuse words until they have no useful meaning any more, and in the meantime we aren't really thinking or talking about things like liberty.
Liberty is nice, yeah, but it isn't the only prerequisite of a good life, and to judge by actual people's choices, really doesn't matter to some.

To actually write something down, especially in this context is several steps beyond that. The fact that the concept entered our literature (and thus the minds of coming generations) as basically a safeguard against government tells you a lot about government itself.

Based on those two links, I'm dubious about hanging too much off the translation. The wiki entry even says "Urukagina's Code is perhaps the first known example of government self-reform" so the conclusion you choose to reach is pretty much up to you.

To return to the thread subject, I kind of agree that putting a ceiling on the entire market would almost eliminate sports cars. You might be able to buy an electric muscle-car, unless they plug that loop-hole by considering to the emissions cost of charging the thing up.

Now, I don't know much about cars really, but I imagine the luxury car market drives innovation in much the same way that the (mostly) luxury market for laptops gave us LCD monitors, or premium computers like Digital's or Sun's created technology which trickled down to our ordinary PC's.
The same argument used to be advanced to defend the Space Race: the actual programs of the US and USSR might have been an egotistical wank, climbing it because it was there, but the technology required for those launches and for survival in space has given us many things: GPS, cheap international communication, the Hubble telescope and many other scientific explorations. It might even have contributed to our thinking about closed environments, and seeing the earth as one.

Without government-funded universities 'wasting' time and money on commercially unviable programs, without the common joe being robbed by the government and the money being given to highbrow dropouts from capitalism to pursue their nutty ideas, there wouldn't be an internet. Perhaps it would just be getting going now, but I can assure you that an internet running on Windows NT 4 would have been an abortion. It would have been a dud.
Yes, Unix was written by guys working for AT&T. But it was used by people working unpaid overtime in universities and the military net (arpanet) .

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

To return to the thread subject, I kind of agree that putting a ceiling on the entire market would almost eliminate sports cars. You might be able to buy an electric muscle-car, unless they plug that loop-hole by considering to the emissions cost of charging the thing up.
There are a few options.

Fully electric sports cars (http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1) already exist, but they're limited by range and because they can't rev like normal engines. So 100% of the torque is available from standstill, meaning a completely different sort of car (which becomes rather impossible to drive without all sorts of traction control systems). Plus, that electricity has to be produced somewhere first, like you said.

Then there's diesels and biodiesels. Audi recently won Le Mans (http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=14716) in a diesel race car, and the top-of-the-range BMW 5-Series diesel has way more torque than their M5 sports car. But again, diesel engines behave very differently (mainly, they don't rev as high), and they still burn fuel, albeit perhaps a bit more efficiently (for the tech heads: you know what I mean).

Then there's hybrids like the Toyota above. Those are great if you drive your sports car in the city at times, because it really reduces emissions. But once you step on the pedal, the thing switches back to a normal combustion engine. I think that's a good alternative for the near future, though they'll have to work something out with the sound...I'm not so sure people would want a Ferrari that's completely silent below 4000rpm.

Eventually we'll probably have hydrogen-based engines. I don't know how those will turn out, the first production models are only now coming out (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09/12/bmw-officially-announces-the-bmw-hydrogen-7/). So there's still a way to go.

What I'm saying is that there are these alternatives, and companies will be interested in pursuing them, especially if people want greener cars. But it must be up to the engineers to decide when a technology is ready and what to use, the government can't jump in and make these decisions. They'll just create inferior choices for us.

I don't know if you lived in Aus when the Keating government (?) banned leaded petrol. There are real similarities with the legislation we're talking about here.

When I first heard of the phasing out of leaded petrol (it had a very short lead-time, was essentially a ban, effective 2002) I thought "about time." Lead causes brain damage, particularly in children, and the people who live by big roads are the poorest people. It seemed like a very sound application of government power to protect the most vulnerable.

When it actually happened, I heard otherwise from my friends who owned old cars. Essentially, their cheap old cars didn't work properly on LRP, and most of them simply junked their car. Some of them bought a newer second-hand car, some of them held onto their antiques for sentimental reasons, and ran them with expensive petrol additives. Some of them kept driving their old cars until the engine blew up from knock.

Of course, I urged every one of them to give up their car. If you were a friend IRL, I'd be bugging you every time you drove anywhere "give up the car, it's depriving you of excercise, costing you money and destroying the planet." I'm a real pest, and I can count my RL friends on one hand. Anyway.

Perhaps it's different in Queensland (haven't been there in a decade) but in Sydney you see almost no old cars on the road. A 'poor person's car' is a five-year old Honda, not a twenty-year old Holden. The poor either have no car, or they have a car but nowhere to live.

That's the lesser of two evils (perhaps with those people using public transport instead, keeping it half-viable, it's not an evil at all) ... and it's not something that an unregulated market would ever have achieved.

I don't know if you lived in Aus when the Keating government (?) banned leaded petrol. There are real similarities with the legislation we're talking about here.
I doubt I was even alive when people stopped using leaded petrol. :p

I left Germany in 2001, and I can't really recall ever seeing a leaded petrol station.

It seemed like a very sound application of government power to protect the most vulnerable.
That's because that's what they said.

When it actually happened, I heard otherwise from my friends who owned old cars. Essentially, their cheap old cars didn't work properly on LRP, and most of them simply junked their car. Some of them bought a newer second-hand car, some of them held onto their antiques for sentimental reasons, and ran them with expensive petrol additives. Some of them kept driving their old cars until the engine blew up from knock.
I suppose people had no choice. There were people who wanted leaded petrol, but the government would put you in jail for selling it, because afterall, government always knows best.

Perhaps it's different in Queensland (haven't been there in a decade) but in Sydney you see almost no old cars on the road. A 'poor person's car' is a five-year old Honda, not a twenty-year old Holden. The poor either have no car, or they have a car but nowhere to live.
No, there's plenty of old cars around here, stinking up the planet more than any Ferrari could.

That's the lesser of two evils (perhaps with those people using public transport instead, keeping it half-viable, it's not an evil at all) ... and it's not something that an unregulated market would ever have achieved.
Why?

Leaded petrols are bad, that was established. People learned that. New cars were produced to run with unleaded already, it was old cars which had trouble with the law.

But these old cars would have disappeared sooner or later anyways. And once there were no more cars that needed leaded petrol, there would be no more point in selling leaded petrol, and it would disappear all by itself.

As it was, the process was sped up by maybe five or ten years. In return, people had to spend a lot of money on additives or give up their cars. Millions were spent on introducing and enforcing this new regulation. It's a matter of doing a cost-benefit analysis again, but I'd dare say that we survived for several decades with leaded petrol and the world still existed. We might just have survived the few more years until the last 70s Holden gave up the ghost.

And as a side note: Public Transport isn't nearly as fun as you think it is. If you ask your stereotypical poor single mum trying to do the shopping, I think you already know the answer to your question on whether it's better to have an old car or catch the bus to Woolies.

*snip replies to mine*

Leaded petrols are bad, that was established. People learned that. New cars were produced to run with unleaded already, it was old cars which had trouble with the law.

But these old cars would have disappeared sooner or later anyways. And once there were no more cars that needed leaded petrol, there would be no more point in selling leaded petrol, and it would disappear all by itself.

As it was, the process was sped up by maybe five or ten years.
That five or ten years is pretty critical to a kid in the inner city, attending a school on a main road, taking the bus home on a main road, living in a house on a main road. Tell me that's their choice.
As long as my government is protecting that kid, whose parent(s) is too poor to protect them, I'm willing to pay.
It's when they hand subsidies to businesses because of all the jobs those businesses support, and those businesses hand the money right back to run a re-election campaign, that I get suspicious.

And as a side note: Public Transport isn't nearly as fun as you think it is. If you ask your stereotypical poor single mum trying to do the shopping, I think you already know the answer to your question on whether it's better to have an old car or catch the bus to Woolies.
Sure, without taxes and regulation cars would be cheaper to buy and run. There would still be some people who couldn't afford a car -- hell, there would be single mums who couldn't afford to feed their kids, let alone go shopping in a car. So let's translate that choice into your paradigm: is it better to drive to the shops, or walk there and back with the shopping and the kids tagging along?

Public transport would be far more comprehensive, take more forms and be far more flexible and economical if it was the mainstream, not a fallback option for those who can't afford a car. If there were no cars, public transport would be wonderfully good, and there'd be parks in place of half the roads.

In fact, it's people who can afford a car but choose public transport instead (so they can do their reading, or socialize, or save money or even from idealism) who keep public transport even half-viable. The roads would be a lot more crowded if they drove, too.

EDIT: I do see a role for cars. Physically disabled people and emergency services should have access to cars, with a very limited subset of current roads available to them. Outside of cities and towns, cars would still be the most practical means of transport. My justification for imposing on your liberty this way is that by driving a car, you are depriving me of the free use of these commons called roads. Road rules forbid me walking or sitting on this common land which you, the car driver, have not purchased. Your licensing fees and car-related taxes have served only to render these commons unfit for any other purpose than driving on, by paving it, and have paid for the enforcement of the road rules. I assert my right to use those commons as a thoroughfare, and I refuse to pay for that right.

We have to do something to combat climate change, but these gas-guzzlers, compared to other CO2 sources, (such as transport in general) are pretty low. We would be better focusing on reducing emissions on cars which most people have, and can afford, rather than a small minority.

Seconded, and, even better, we should focus on trucks (40-tons monsters and the like... USE THE BLOODY RAILWAY!)

Then again, I feel plain stupid that a car is made to "make a person happy" by driving it around for no other purpose than entertaining. Getting around polluting our precious atmosphere just for fun, that's idiocy - and a criminal behaviour.

As long as my government is protecting that kid, whose parent(s) is too poor to protect them, I'm willing to pay.
But in the CO2 example, government isn't protecting anyone. Climate Change goes on either way, simply because the laws don't really change all that much, except that they hurt businesses (which just so happen to employ hundreds of thousands of people as well).

And of course you can say you're willing to pay, but you're not being asked to. You're not into cars, nor do you work for a car company. It sounds as though you're not that likely to go any buy a car in the near future either. So nothing is being asked of you, and in that case it's always easy to talk.

If for example they wanted to rip your house down to plant a few trees to soak up CO2, you'd be a little less convinced, I think.

Sure, without taxes and regulation cars would be cheaper to buy and run. There would still be some people who couldn't afford a car -- hell, there would be single mums who couldn't afford to feed their kids, let alone go shopping in a car.
And public transport would still exist. I'm not saying the concept is wrong, I'm saying there is a reason people prefer their own cars to it.

But as you say, taxes and regulations hurt these people because rather than a car, they have to use other means of transport. And you said that poor people are more likely to be hurt by leaded petrol...so in effect we're telling them what choice to make because we take it for granted that we know better than them.

Public transport would be far more comprehensive, take more forms and be far more flexible and economical if it was the mainstream, not a fallback option for those who can't afford a car. If there were no cars, public transport would be wonderfully good, and there'd be parks in place of half the roads.
And it would never rain, world peace would be declared and cancer would die out.

Anything public is likely to be crap. That's just the law of probabilities if we look at history up to this point. Whether or not there are other cars doesn't make it any cheaper to run a properly functioning bus service. The only way you could finance it is by forcing people to use this monopoly service, and probably tax them for it as well.

So you're using the threat of violence to force people to only use one type of transport, despite them clearly wanting to use another one. Imagine if a business did that...

My justification for imposing on your liberty this way is that by driving a car, you are depriving me of the free use of these commons called roads. Road rules forbid me walking or sitting on this common land which you, the car driver, have not purchased.
Hey, if I had my way we'd privatise as much of the road system as possible. ;)

Seriously though, government land is not common land. It's not owned by us, it is owned by government, which as I pointed out is seperate from us. You can't go and march into a military base either - does that mean you can somehow try and exclude me from the protection offered by the military?

I assert my right to use those commons as a thoroughfare, and I refuse to pay for that right.
So millions of drivers pay license fees, registration fees, speeding fines, taxes and so on and so forth to use the roads as roads, but you reserve the right to use them for something else without paying?

Then again, I feel plain stupid that a car is made to "make a person happy" by driving it around for no other purpose than entertaining. Getting around polluting our precious atmosphere just for fun, that's idiocy - and a criminal behaviour.
So, does this go for all hobbies then? If a hobby damages the environment, it should be criminalised?

But in the CO2 example, government isn't protecting anyone. Climate Change goes on either way, simply because the laws don't really change all that much, except that they hurt businesses (which just so happen to employ hundreds of thousands of people as well).
I'm calling for laws that will actually change the emissions of CO2, by reducing emissions. I say that is the prerogative, and should be done in the most informed and mutually agreeable way possible, but will inevitably harm or even ruin some businesses.
If you have faith in capitalism to adapt to circumstances and follow the optimum course, you shouldn't be too fussed about government trying to move the goalposts. That's just a change of business conditions, like a drought or a resources shortage.

And of course you can say you're willing to pay, but you're not being asked to. You're not into cars, nor do you work for a car company. It sounds as though you're not that likely to go any buy a car in the near future either. So nothing is being asked of you, and in that case it's always easy to talk.
I don't like being called a hypocrit. My not owning a car is largely because I regard them as wasteful and destructive of social values, and when I head off to work on my bicycle on a rainy or stinking-hot day, believe me I'm paying for my beliefs.
The biggest sector of CO2-emitters is electricity generation. If it's not quite the biggest (depends what you measure, could be agriculture) it's the fastest-growing sector. I use electricity, and I welcome low-emissions power even if I have to pay double, plus some for increased costs in a lot of other fields. I'd be materially poorer, but happier in my conscience.

If for example they wanted to rip your house down to plant a few trees to soak up CO2, you'd be a little less convinced, I think.
Well that would be absurd. I can't believe you're putting it as a reasonable analogy to emission limits on cars.

And public transport would still exist. I'm not saying the concept is wrong, I'm saying there is a reason people prefer their own cars to it.
There's more than one reason, and as I pointed out, in some cases the judgement goes the other way and people who could drive choose public transport instead.
That there isn't just one reason is clearly shown by your parallel arguments "cars are better because people use them" and "driving a sports-car is entertainment and sport." This isn't just a "one is better than the other" issue -- look at London, where people crowd into the Tube to get to work not because they can't afford cars, but because it's quicker and cheaper than driving.

But as you say, taxes and regulations hurt these people because rather than a car, they have to use other means of transport. And you said that poor people are more likely to be hurt by leaded petrol...so in effect we're telling them what choice to make because we take it for granted that we know better than them.
I think you missed my point. Public transport is an outstanding example of economies of scale, and the higher proportion of people who use it the better it can afford to be and the cheaper per person.
It's true I outlined a dilemma which didn't really advance my position (such as it is.) The phasing-out of leaded petrol. It impacted on car collectors (antique cars, more a hobby than a practical transport choice) as well as young people buying their first cheap car.
I think what I was trying to say is that even though there were victims of that regulation, people whom it discriminated against, at this point in time I look back and see it as an overall win. I give the government credit for putting the hammer down on a known health risk five or ten years before it would have been solved anyway.
Perhaps they should have done that, phased in over ten years, back in the sixties when the brain-damaging effects of lead pollution were well-known. If it had hurt the sales of cars, who knows the early seventies Oil Shock mightn't have been as painful.

And it would never rain, world peace would be declared and cancer would die out.
Since we're having a little joke: some places it never does rain and everything is dead. World peace is declared quite often, usually immediately before a nasty war. And cancer does die out when it kills it's host.
Ha-ha. Look at me laughing.

Anything public is likely to be crap.
Well there you are. I won't argue with that, because it's absurd.
That's just the law of probabilities if we look at history up to this point. Whether or not there are other cars doesn't make it any cheaper to run a properly functioning bus service.
Actually I think it does. Roads with only buses on them wouldn't need traffic lights or roundabouts, they'd have a far higher people-carrying capacity (increasing the usable space in cities) and a half-full bus is a lot more economical than one with two passengers.
Instead of just looking at buses stuck in car-traffic, stopping all the time as well, try to really imagine how they'd work if the road wasn't primarily serving cars.
The only way you could finance it is by forcing people to use this monopoly service, and probably tax them for it as well.

So you're using the threat of violence to force people to only use one type of transport, despite them clearly wanting to use another one. Imagine if a business did that...

You define "government regulation" as "coercion at the point of a gun." That's why I mentioned the leadership and inspirational aspect of government before, in the hope that you'd see some shades of grey between lassaise faire and dictatorship. But you know, if it feels good to be fanatic, go right ahead.

Hey, if I had my way we'd privatise as much of the road system as possible. ;)
So if I buy the street outside your house, run it as a toll-road for a year or two, then subdivide it and sell it as building lots, you'd be happy to walk a block to get to your car? And of course you could make friends with your new fourth neighbour, the one with a swimming-pool on their fourth-storey roof.
Because that's exactly what I'd do if I could afford to and you chose to toss away your claim to that land as a commons.

Seriously though, government land is not common land. It's not owned by us, it is owned by government, which as I pointed out is seperate from us.
That depends on how you look at it. You choose to see government as a corporate entity, I choose to see it as a mutually agreed administration of our common interest. Sometimes I veer towards your interpretation, too, those days when government does something to really piss me off.
You can't go and march into a military base either - does that mean you can somehow try and exclude me from the protection offered by the military?
Another crazy analogy. You just argued by analogy that public thoroughfares, which were held in common as publicly-owned land before there were national governments, are the equivalent of a barracks or building covered by military secrecy.
Roads are effective because they are public. The military is effective (at least in part) because it keeps secrets. It's a crazy analogy.


So millions of drivers pay license fees, registration fees, speeding fines, taxes and so on and so forth to use the roads as roads, but you reserve the right to use them for something else without paying?

Yes. They were common land before government, responding to the demands of people who want to drive in comfort at high speed, paved them and put up traffic signs and employed police to enforce road rules.
That's the stuff which costs money, and all of those things restrict my right to walk on the thoroughfare, ride a bicycle or a horse or drive stock along that thoroughfare. So hell no, I won't pay.
Tollroads are the exception, since they are usually added after all the land has been valued as building land, and the money borrowed to puchase that land has to be repayed to provide the thoroughfare. I'm happy to stay off your tollway.


So, does this go for all hobbies then? If a hobby damages the environment, it should be criminalised?
There you go again with the hyperbole. But roughly, yes, because the environment by definition is our commons. The planet evolved us and provides all the resources which we so proudly form into products and foods and artworks, congratulating ourselves "look, I made this."
If your hobby is cutting down the centenarian oaks in one town square after another, or squirting wildlife with dioxin, then yes, I want your hobby criminalized.
See, I can do hyperbole too ;)
The planet made us, not the other way around, and calling for it to be entirely transformed into private property and left to the mercy of it's new owners is the radical and untested system, not my position.

I am in fact taking a conservative position. I am saying that at least some part of the planet has not yet been transferred from it's historical state, a commons, into private property. The oceans, publicly owned wilderness, the roads and parkland, and above all the atmosphere remain unalienated, and I see government as a steward of these things, not an owner.

EDIT(16-02-07): Sorry about the length. I've been out riding my bike, I'm a bit pumped.
EDIT(19-02-07): I'm putting this in the form of an edit so as not to gravedig the thread, laying it open to a troll who might take my side.

I'm done putting my case, and I'll take some time to think it through. The thousand-word essays permit of a bit more subtlety and breadth of thought than quick repartee does, but they also reveal some incomplete thinking (mainly talking about myself here.)
I should have said right from the off that I don't agree with Cohn-Bendit. There are already high taxes on petrol in western countries, and he should be talking about leveling that across all industries in proportion to their emissions, not making the existing system even more unfair to pander to envy and eco-panic.

If that's conceding NL's main point, I'm fine with that. Any debate which widens my understanding and makes me think is a good debate, win lose or draw.

If you have faith in capitalism to adapt to circumstances and follow the optimum course, you shouldn't be too fussed about government trying to move the goalposts. That's just a change of business conditions, like a drought or a resources shortage.
I'm actually a proponent of carbon trading. But this isn't carbon trading, it's taxes and it's bans.

But the point is clear: sports cars contribute the most miniscule amount to CO2 emissions. Simply by weighing up the costs and the benefits it should be clear that you're going to cause more pain than you prevent. And not only that - you're going to distract from the actual challenges, which are in power production and places like China and India.

I use electricity, and I welcome low-emissions power even if I have to pay double, plus some for increased costs in a lot of other fields. I'd be materially poorer, but happier in my conscience.
Yeah, but this politician is in effect telling me that he wants these cars to disappear completely. Which would be like telling you that you couldn't have any more electricity.

Well that would be absurd. I can't believe you're putting it as a reasonable analogy to emission limits on cars.
He says he wants to ban sports cars. Banning sports cars has just about as much effect on climate change as putting trees where your house is.

There's more than one reason, and as I pointed out, in some cases the judgement goes the other way and people who could drive choose public transport instead.
And good on them, I say. Not my cup of tea, but I'm not gonna interfere in their choices. All I ask is that other people pay the same sort of respect to me.

I think you missed my point. Public transport is an outstanding example of economies of scale, and the higher proportion of people who use it the better it can afford to be and the cheaper per person.
Yeah, but public transport is also likely to be owned by government. And so it's not only a bureaucracy that doesn't have any clear motivation to do anything at all (other than the individuals in the organisation trying to climb the ladder), but it's an enforced monopoly as well, so there's no pressure to change from the consumer side.

You could say that agricultural production is another example where economies of scale might pay off. But that didn't mean that the collectivisation programs in the Soviet Union were particularly successful.

Well there you are. I won't argue with that, because it's absurd.
I dare you to find me one public enterprise that could actually do a better job than the free market.

As I said, it's the law of probability. The sheer number of things we tried to make public over the years boggles the mind, and the overwhelming proportions of those projects ended up exactly as common sense tells us.

Instead of just looking at buses stuck in car-traffic, stopping all the time as well, try to really imagine how they'd work if the road wasn't primarily serving cars.
They'd still be buses, so they still need maintenance and proper drivers (which of course are a myth, as everyone who catches a bus knows ;) ). You'd also have to vastly extend the reach of the system, meaning that you need more buses.

And then when you have this behemoth in place, you'd need the motivation to keep it going, which simply isn't there. It's not like unhappy customers just switch to something else if the service is crap.

You define "government regulation" as "coercion at the point of a gun."
Which, strictly speaking, it is. There's been a lot of euphemisms over the year, but if I go out there and not follow the inspirational leadership of Peter Beattie with respect to speed limits, what follows is a rather more down-to-earth situation.

That's why I mentioned the leadership and inspirational aspect of government before, in the hope that you'd see some shades of grey between lassaise faire and dictatorship. But you know, if it feels good to be fanatic, go right ahead.
It's pretty damn difficult to see leadership or inspiration when faced with what we see. I'm not inclined to desperately try and look for the good things in government. I pay my taxes, I want to see some returns and I don't want to go have to look for them.

The Federal Government's inspirational leadership is basically lying and sending people overseas to kill people.

The State Government's inspirational leadership is a crusade against speeding (of course against the evidence).

And the Council's inspirational leadership is that sign down the road.

They're not exactly encouraging me to see their good side, are they?

Because that's exactly what I'd do if I could afford to and you chose to toss away your claim to that land as a commons.
And I would pay you so you don't. Not only that, we'd also have a contract that guarantees people the opportunity to use the road.

Not that anyone would buy suburban roads anyways. It would probably be a local group of the people who live here who administrate it.

It's big arteries into the city for example that would be more attractive investments.

Another crazy analogy. You just argued by analogy that public thoroughfares, which were held in common as publicly-owned land before there were national governments, are the equivalent of a barracks or building covered by military secrecy.
Look, the last time there was such a thing as a common here was when the Aboriginals still lived here. The road is owned by the government, which it took by force from whoever happened to live here before.

One bit is government land, the other bit is government land.

Roads are effective because they are public. The military is effective (at least in part) because it keeps secrets. It's a crazy analogy.
Roads are also effective because you don't get to sit down on them during rush hour...

Yes. They were common land before government, responding to the demands of people who want to drive in comfort at high speed, paved them and put up traffic signs and employed police to enforce road rules.
That's the stuff which costs money, and all of those things restrict my right to walk on the thoroughfare, ride a bicycle or a horse or drive stock along that thoroughfare. So hell no, I won't pay.
So in other words you think exactly like me, that the wishes of the majority don't override the importance of you as an individual, and the things you like and you want to spend your time with.

There you go again with the hyperbole. But roughly, yes, because the environment by definition is our commons.
So no more motor boating? No more hunting? Fishing? What about various sports that require plastics? Or cutting down trees to make cricket bats?

Where do you draw the line?

The planet evolved us and provides all the resources which we so proudly form into products and foods and artworks, congratulating ourselves "look, I made this."
Because we did. If we didn't, there would be no artwork.

The planet made us, not the other way around, and calling for it to be entirely transformed into private property and left to the mercy of it's new owners is the radical and untested system, not my position.
The thing is that we tested the current system, and it's far from ideal. I'm not saying that everything should be privatised, there's lots of things that I don't think anyone would actually want to buy or own.

The oceans, publicly owned wilderness, the roads and parkland, and above all the atmosphere remain unalienated, and I see government as a steward of these things, not an owner.
I'll give you the oceans (at least international waters) and the atmosphere, but the rest are government property. You'll notice that when you go in there and break the owner's rules.

My car gets horrible miliage and polutes like no other, and I love driving it every second I can. The motor is horribly inefficient, it breaks down about once a month, and I'm gonna get a new car soon, but gods know as soon as I get rid of this one, I'm gonna miss it a whole hell of a lot. I really don't care if it polutes, I don't care if it expels nasty amounts of CO2, and I don't care if a bunch of tree huggers hate it and want it gone.