Private car ownership needs to end and vehicle use should be cut if the UK is to become a carbon-neutral country by 2050, a committee of MPs has claimed.
A scathing report by the cross-party Science and Technology Select Committee claims the Government “should not aim to achieve emissions reductions simply be replacing existing vehicles with lower-emissions versions”.
The report highlights the fact that the process of manufacturing alternative fuel vehicles, such as EVs, still produces “substantial” emissions. It casts uncertainty on the future of personal transport and owning your own car, saying: “In the long term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation."
Despite this, the committee says that, for the time being, the Government should increase efforts to incentivise take-up of cars producing zero local emissions. It points out that the plug-in car grant was cut for EVs and removed entirely for plug-in hybrids, yet fuel duty has been frozen for nine years.
Further points made include a need for the Government to co-operate with landowners to increase installations of EV charging points, particularly in shared facilities such as apartments.
Once again, the plan to ban the sale of all conventional petrol and diesel cars by 2040 (and 2032 in Scotland) was criticised for not coming soon enough. “The UK is not even on course to meet its existing legal binding targets for 2023 and 2032,” it said.
It called for ultra-low-emissions vehicles to account for around 60% of new car sales by 2030, with "the possibility" of raising that to 100% by 2035.
Government advisors call for 2030 petrol and diesel ban
EVs put fuel duty system on the rocks
UK has more EV charging stations than petrol stations
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Some other inconveneiences for people...
And I know what the ever witless twits of Teslarati will be thinking upon reading all of that. They will be thinking their ickle hero, ickle Ewon da Mookie, said we could all emigrate to Mars or wherever he thinks is a good planet to continue strip mining resources just like all the nefarious greedy people did on earth.
Well you could, but there would be a minor little thing wrong with that assertion and all the assumptions based on it. Not least as, once more with ickle Ewon, you and he would be firmly in the territory as talked about by Ian Malcolm (as played by Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park") that "Just becuase you could doesn't mean you should".
And why would that be I hear you ask? (that is if you are not keeping up)
Well first we have to look back at the NASA Apollo programme prior to the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969. Before that world shattering event happened in 1967, all the world's nation's including the United States signed an international treaty enshrined in law to ensure that any planet humanity visited with its technology, whether with unmanned probes or with astronauts should always be totally respected and kept in the same unmolested, not ruined by human activity pristine condition.
And why is ickle Ewon da Mookie wrong? Because the misguided mallrat told the world and twits who follow like deranged stalkers on social media that you could go to Mars and survive by "Nuking it for the water". This is not too far off the time he also admitted (like I predicted elsewhere he would) that he'd more than probably use one of his totally overcompensating to something that might by missing in a Freudian way "Big Wockets" (just ask the women of the world what that's massively overcompensating for and the man with an E-Type thing looks tame) to escape capture for his corporate crimes and the severe penalties he'd face when both Tesla and that potentially soon to be an X-Space, Space X fold and then take all his other business interests with him after he throws an even bigger tantrum when both pillars (Tesla and Space X) inevitably fold.
If you are thinking like some wholly deluded vegans and vegetarians do that eating either something without an obvious face or even insects to grind down due to that massively unsustainable population explosion is a solution then consider that as a vegan or vegetarian you are still ultimately killing another living organism who also has a right to live without being killed so you can stuff your self righteous face and think smugly that you are being better than anyone else, usually when bothering them in non-vegan restaurants. Because if you are thinking that you'd best start rethinking that sharpish. Not least as life will now firmly resemble "Soylent Green", a truly visionary piece of sci-fi which has a shocking denouement when the main protagonist decides to investigate what people are being fed with in the future. One big clue is that it solves the aforementioned over-population issue as well as the provision of food in one fell swoop.
Think too that we humans live in a world where some people including over-opinionated blithering Brexit bobble head Mike Parry think it's perfectly acceptable to persecute an entire species called seagulls which allegedly share the planet with. Why? Because he doesn't like getting his chips "stolen". Now despite the protection seagulls are afforded attitudes like this seem more pervasive than ever. And, again this is atypical of Brexiteer's like Parry they seem totally unable to grasp the real reason the conflict between humans and seagulls is that human greed has meant dramatic levels of industrial over fishing meaning the gulls who'd normally eat fish from the sea cannot get enough, or even any, because too many people are eating fish instead. And what have the gulls done? Simply put they have adapted to survive and raise their young in the only way they could and if that means stealing some chips or dive bombing a dog that's more like a rat and gobbling that up then so be it.
This applies to other species we share earth with such as dolphins, where they are accused of "stealing fish" from humans (though mostly dim-witted and greedy oil men). And where did this most heinous of crimes happen? None other than the mouth of the River Dee in Aberdeen, the self professed (and laughable) "Oil Capital of Europe" where dolphins regularly can be seen in close proximity to the harbour and the shore.
Or, as I like to view it these days, a city on its last legs with so many problems of its own making and the drastic consequences of trusting (literally) a bunch of cowboys (and not just from the re-titled "ACSEF" that is "Opportunity North East"). And do the oil oiks feel the same about gulls. Why yes they do. And some alleged "business leaders" are scared of being "attacked" by gulls proving what a pathetic scaredy cat they really are.
So, as I have firmly established here the world has been severely depleted by human greed and making new things to address our previous mistakes actually ruins the planet even more and that going to new planets also has an extremely harmful effect just what is the human race to do to save itself from "slipping back" as some see it?
The Government and what they tell the public...
With this report from the Science and Transport Select Committee motorists and car enthusiasts are once more being lectured by the UK government. The same sad-sack, nit-witted, nanny state half wits who are foisting the eternally dumb Brexit insanity which is going to severely damage beyond repair the surviving so-called UK based car manufacturer's.
Lest we forget this is the same UK government who ignorantly decided that diesels were okay for the environment and that in turn led to the "Dieselgate" scandal rearing its ugly head. And then punished all the so-called UK car owners for doing so after extremely belatedly realizing what was one hundred per cent abundantly obvious prior to the tax breaks diesel cars received.
And it's the same government which has begged and crawled over whichever hot coals the oil industry, and possibly jumped through some burning hoops, and its assorted moronic cowboys giving them tax breaks aplenty over successive decades of the UKCS being in existence whilst the oil barons and tax avoiding twits of tycoons sell them bare faced lies about jobs and how fantastic they are all for the environment. And latterly have also shown previously unseen levels of delusion by claiming that instead of being the reason the problem exists through the burning of fossil fuels, that they are "part of the solution". Yes, really.
So now they have decided that, yet again, cars and car owners are to be treated with utter disregard and disdain with more punitive measures because all of a sudden being eco is all the rage?
That is to say the public is seriously getting used to the idea that human technology and inventions have pretty much ruined planet earth as we know it since a little "thing" called an industrial revolution and we've been caught with our pants down and our hands in the cookie jar (as some Westminster wastrels undoubtedly have over the years), due to David Attenborough's excellent "Blue Planet II" and the pressure from the youth eco movement spearheaded by chip off the old block Greta Thunberg.
So what to do?
Well the assertion that Hybrid/Fuel Cell and EV adoption and ownership isn't quite as sound ecologically has been known for some years now. Back when Toyota was still on its mark two version of the Prius (about 2004) it was pointed out that the carbon costs to the planet were astronomical when the entire supply chain system and sourcing of materials was assessed with serious scrutiny. This too was noted during the same period when Clarkson, Hammond and May did the same thing with the Prius.
A significant amount of knowledge on the damage you are doing buying an EV such as one of poor ickle Ewon da Mookie's misguided milk floats more commonly known as Tesla's is that just like the smartphone can be gained by watching Professor Marc Miodownik's "Secrets of the Super Elements" which has been on BBC4 in recent years. Just as you kid yourself you are "upgrading" to a "better phone" (usually on an ever bigger rip off contract) when you upgrade and think the phone's being recycled it's not. It's actually being stuck in a blender with all the precious metals taken out of the planet during its manufacture being permanently lost.
And how does this fit with most EV's such as Tesla's? Well its generally well known that ickle Ewon did not create the first EV, nor did he create the first car with what's known as a "skateboard chassis". That honour lies wholly with the genuinely visionary genius who used to work for Ford before starting his own company Syd Mead, the man who helped Ridley Scott visualize "Blade Runner" and has worked on "Elysium" as well. The first car with the same concept of chassis was the 2002 General Motors Hywire Concept (also seen in an early Clarkson, Hammond and May "Top Gear"). And that skateboard is very much like the chassis of a smartphone once its split into two with the screen in one part and the lithium-ion battery in another, incidentally the same lithium-ion shared with current EV's.
The levelling of the sales playing field between internal combustion engined cars and hybrids, Fuel Cell and EV's was, let's face it going to have to happen anyway. With greater sales and adoption of EV's the time for a government grant was always on borrowed time. Besides which with that greater adoption there's no reason to expect a bottomless pit of tax payers being handed out to the Teslarati and others especially when most governments have been dealing with the problems they created for the public by letting the scum bag bankers and banks off with so much. There comes a time when sales of the EV's have to stand up on their own without a single penny being behind their existence. And it is passed now.
Other issues mean that with an planet with significant and irreversible resource depletion due to the decades when the human population has spiked to an alarming level bringing humanities survival in drought conditions, heat waves and ever more frequent environmental disasters harming where people can live without coming into dangerous political and religious conflicts with each other whilst human greed means previously temperate climates have burned (see the Arctic tundra) and the lungs of the world, the Amazon rainforest, is under extreme stress as idiots misled by the current Brazilian President who has alarming Donald "The Dump" Trump-esque eco hallucinations is literally killing one of the most precious eco systems on the entire planet.
Over the last fifty years or so the human population has effectively doubled, ironically including the very same under twenty fives now so desperate to save earth from its doom. Even more ironic is that is the biggest of all the environmental elephants in the room called how do we save our planet from destruction. But nobody on the eco-warrior side likes to mention that nugget. No way, no sir. Not at all.
But are there other factors which create the very same environmental issues which are not created by the car and its invention?
Why yes there are.
Once its established that only two per cent of the world's carbon emissions are created by human activity, and of that two per cent only a further two per cent is due to emissions from cars, the rest of carbon emissions claims always negate a number of real truths. The biggest one is that remaining ninety eight per cent which is created by entirely natural phenomena outwith human control.
That means solar flares, volcanic activity amongst other s. Then there the fact that all us humans emit carbon too given we are carbon based life forms simply by breathing in and out every day. And the more of us there are the worse the situation gets. All the planets other life forms including that eco-mentalist sacred cow to blame, the cow also emit noxious gases. Plants and trees however do an immensely good job of reversing that particular trend. But what do us humans do? We chop down and burn trees like a dark wizard in Lord of the Rings. Not clever. And we're back to the Amazon rainforest.
Then ask yourself just what the damage done by diesel actually is. If you really don't know watch the BBC4 documentary "The Engine that Powers the World" and realise every single tractor and farm vehicle uses it, then factor in buses, van, trucks, trains, construction vehicles and commercial shipping including the ever more vast super tankers, cargo vessels and cruise ships. Then add in the growth in cruise liners and deliveries from online companies like Jeff Bezos's Amazon and the destruction of so many city and town centres seems even more crass and ill-advised. Consider too that just one of the container ships hauling its mammoth bulk around the globe pollutes as much as fifty million cars. And that we never, ever hear any eco-mentalists banging on about that one.
The fact that all public transport is powered by diesel and yet nothing is done about it is laughable as it forms so much local and national UK government policy as part of the usually anti-car mantra which has been a large part of its rhetoric. And whilst it's also true some bus manufacturers have started electrification and other have experimented with Hydrogen Fuel Cells, the issue with hydrogen is that it's still 80% fossil fuel based and as such is not "zero emissions", the vast majority of public transport is as bad for the planet and human health as all those dirty "dieselgate" cars and doesn't solve how so many people get to their employment and travel as part of their business which UK public transport has never been able to do for decades before the scandal's which have engulfed buses and trains recently have occurred. Ask yourself why those happened and it all goes back to greed, share prices and bumping up the prices whilst removing service after service till nothing is left. Some companies like "First Group" that Aberdeen based bunch or ne'er do wells had the audacity when they were deregulated by the government to claim "We bought it for you" and then proceeded to make a shocking amount of money for their own board members including Moir "I never use the buses in the company I fronted and I'm English but think I have the right to be part of Scottish heritage and history" Lockhead.
Look into the world of trucks and commercial vehicles and it's clear that Elon Musk's eternally loss making Tesla (which he didn't create) new trucks are behind where Mercedes-Benz already is with electric trucks. Don't believe me? Have a squint at the new EQV the latest version of the V-Class Mercedes- Benz's version of the ubiquitous Ford Transit. Then think of Ford's F150 pick-up, still the world's best-selling vehicle the fact the new electric version has towed one million tonnes, a mass far in excess of a little Boeing 747 which is the most a Tesla has ever done. Factor in too the pick-up from Rivian (part Ford funded) which is way ahead of Tesla's own pick-up and the Tesla truck are both examples of ickle Ewon following not leading.
However the real issue with that is the fact that these machines are firmly in the minority and are not being used on a regular basis and most of that's still down to economies of scale, public demand and cost per unit - still latterly too high, and that the basic infrastructure still isn't where it must be now, and some governments like the UK simply don't have the fiscal resources available to enable much of what needs to happen to happen. And the dreaded B-word (Brexit) also hinders the realisation of those gaols far more than some Brexiteer bobble heads would like to tell you.
Not that being two per cent of two per cent excuses the car as a method of transportation as it still pollutes by being made in the first place. It still has to reduce its environmental impact in many more serious ways if it's to stay a viable method of transportation into the next century. Then there's the extremely negative impact of all those commercial airliners criss-crossing the skies at thirty thousand feet above us every day. And the way that gas fired central heating systems are also contributing to the general catastrophe all around us. For too many years none of those have been mentioned at all.
So where does that place the Westminster wastrels now? Well HS2 cannot ever happen not least as it cuts a swathe of wholly unnecessary damage through rural little England, then there's that similarly misguided expansion of Heathrow meaning yet more planes in the clogged up skies over London and over the rest of the so-called UK. Additionally adding capacities at some ports like those in Scotland for new harbours for oil and cruise vessels is beyond incredulous, Stand up the self professed in a laughable way "Oil Capital of Europe", Aberdeen. Quite how those projects sit with devolved and UK government claims of being in favour of renewables is anyone's guess because right now they lack any kind of credibility.
And what are the plans for central heating and reducing wasted energy lost through poorly insulated homes? Well mostly there aren't many that in some way, shape or form don't involve some "green washing" of one kind or another due to tax breaks. One of the latest being the way smart meters can allegedly (if you're gullible enough to swallow that latest television advert doing the rounds just now) will help predict future energy usage. However as that's been done, why else would the y mention a doubling of energy usage in future in said advert? Nobody with more than two brain cells is going to believe that one either. Furthermore when renewables and better insulated homes replace all the ancient gas fired heating the energy mix will have changed altering the demands on the system.
The likes of the Scottish Government may well find themselves firmly in wishful thinking territory with the idea that all fossil fuel vehicles will be banned by 2030. Given the true scale of what's needed to achieve this admirable aim it will mean that the UK Government forecast for the cost of replacing internal combustion cars will seem like chicken feed by comparison.
In Scotland as long as there's INEOS at the Grangemouth refinery along with the production of all those Scottish beaches being polluted by them with irreversible environmental damages along the way, and as long as the chinless chumps of the dwindling Conservatives side with oil and plastics the real destruction will continue.
What also does not help matters is the way which automotive design and consumer choice has gone over the last thirty years when determining what people's next car will be. When we are living in a world where instant gratification is king or queen and people seemingly seem oblivious to the true cost to their choices (not just attributable to the dreaded Brexit word) it's not inconceivable to argue that so many people are in for a massive shock to their mass consumerism and follow the herd leanings. Therefore it's not helpful to be constantly seeing the "me too" lazy choice of the crossover and 4x4/SUV craze (though more accurately craziness) which gives the rest of the car buying public a reduced choice in the first place.
With cars having much larger wheels sizes specified, in part due to misunderstandings over a thing called a "designer sketch" and some intellectual knuckle dragging car makers have been funnelled into a vortex of ever larger, heavier cars. And that due to the aforementioned material usage argument means more materials out, and more damage to mother earth. Larger rims not only mean that the body has to be larger so that the whole remains in proportion but it means that related components such as brakes and tyres also get larger to stop the mass now being hauled by the engine in the body that's also got larger. Another negative is that changing tyres when a puncture occurs is now outwith the realm of most owners in a situation where the now expected breakdown company can't get to you and save your proverbial bacon. Then there's the issue of raised noses as part of the CDa relating to the drag coefficient and most importantly frontal area. And as automotive design genius's Colin Chapman (founder of Lotus) and McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray knows weight is the enemy of efficiency. Always has been, always will be.
However the real problem is that most people are completely ignorant to these issues. Even car sales people seem unable or mostly unwilling to grasp that constantly adding negatives and walking away from those people like myself willing to question what others simply do not (just ask the witless twits of Teslarati who've tried to bully me off autoevolution on the same subjects and how it fits with their love of all things Musk) is all they want to do. Now at this stage in human evolution such backward behaviour will never be a successful route to any human endeavours. Think that's a joke? Yesterday I had a small argument on most of those points about the new Lexus UX and the sales rep had zero answers to the issues posed despite their best attempts.
Another inconvenient truth is that absolutely nothing on this planet called earth can ever be "carbon neutral" as that would suggest that totally removing the carbon from a carbon based planet with carbon based life forms (including all the billions of humans whose very existence threatens earth every single time we inhale and exhale) is possible. Guess what? It's not.
It's a bit like the notion that you can be very rich, say like an Elton John or a hypocritical Royal and jet off around the globe to bump gums about the terrible state of things but if you pledge to plant a tree (without ever getting down and dirty and doing it yourself) you can be 100% okay with what you have done and have lovely sweet dreams about fluffy bunnies till your chosen god whisks you off to some self righteous Valhalla.
And therein lies the immoral problem with being "carbon neutral" and "carbon off-setting", the latter a ploy all the oil companies with woeful eco credentials have used and abused for decades since these terms became commonplace. "Zero Emissions" is another mistitled environmental misnomer swallowed by the masses once the supply chains are factored in, the permanent loss of materials and delivery networks get added the term becomes totally meaningless and disingenuous.
Another massive issue surrounding all the eco hype is the way it's also being marketed to destroy cars which have already been made and crush them in their entirety when only the propulsion system (that internal combustion engine and its ancillaries) are the problem to be dealt with. But instead of retrofitting an EV system off the UK government has timidly toddled and kidded everyone it's okay to throw all that stuff away. This has been recognised as something of a rather bad show which is why the world has seen Jaguar's E-Type Zero, the Aston Martin DB EV's, BMW's Mini Cooper Sport Electric Concept and SEAT and Renault getting in on the act with versions of the 600 and 4 respectively.
And who can we thank for that policy to pulverise some perfectly good usable cars? None other than the aforementioned UK government and its assorted (and latterly Brexit affected) buffoons.
What a long rant, which 5 years on proves to be a load of rubbish. Some self proclaimed professor you are.
Trust in technology despair at society
I attended a lecture recently by a futurist who started his talk by telling us how in the 1870’s the leading scientist of the day were challenged with resolving how they were going to cope in London with all the horse manure. As it was predicted that by 1940, the streets of London would be 6 feet deep in it. Times and technology change. Hopefully in the next 30 years we will have better solutions for general transportation. In the mean-time we can only despair at the apparent lack of acknowledgment that how we are all currently living and using the Earth’s finite resources is unsustainable and has to change.