imlach

PMSL.
See, you can't even justify your reasons Just endless abuse at me

Lagamorph

iTrader: (12)

FOR GOD SAKE I WAS JOKING

TootyV5

And lets not forget in Blairs infinate quest to be best friends with the rest of europe he created shared rights for 'scotlands' fishing grounds to spaniards etc. They overfished there grounds and now the same has been done to ours. And do blair etc care that there doing tens of thousands of people out of jobs?? NOPE, as long as his euro counterparts are happy he doesnt care, different story when farmers are in trouble!

Sorry for the rant, is it obvious i live in a small fishing town

bluto22b

Wondered when pslewis was going to have his say.

imlach

To come on here and call ME names for no reason is a disgrace. Answer the points or keep your peace. If you can't make a valid contribution, don't post at all.

bluto22b

Who rattled his cage

Lagamorph

iTrader: (12)

imlach it was a joke im not going to lose my cool just chill i dont want this thread to turn into some bullsh*t argument with someone i dont even know

you have a valid point just calm it a bit i dont want to argue with your opinion because theres no need too ive made my point youve made yours.

Andy

pslewis

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!

Pete

imlach

If you're going to come on here calling me names, at least justify it with some reasoning. That's all. As I said, if you have nothing to contribute, which clearly you haven't, then you'd be advised to keep your trap shut.

If you can't give a reason, then why call me a name?

sti-04!!

our 1st fight club anyone ?????

Brit_in_Japan

QUESTION: How does the world restrict the use of non-renewable fossil fuels ?

We are increasing the rate of consumption of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) and there is nothing waiting in the wings to replace them. Oil and gas will run out first. Maybe we have 40 years worth of oil remaining (within our lifetime!!). Renewables (wind, solar, hydro) would only make up a small percentage of current usage, let alone what the consumption will be in say 40 years time. People are against nuclear power (but we may have no alternatives). What are you going to run your cars on ? Don't tell me, you don't care because you'll be dead/infirm. What will your children and grandchildren do ?

Consider this, the US has 22 billion barrels of oil in exploitable reserves. The US uses oil at a rate of 6 billion barrels a year, or about 25% of the world's supply. Do you suppose that cheap petrol might have something to do with the proliferation of SUV's and pickups which return low teens or even single figure mpgs ? Hmmm, tough one...

If the world is going to start reducing it's consumption of non-renewables then one area to focus on is the car. Carbon dioxide emissions are a fairly good indicator of how much energy a car consumes. So taxing cars with a capacity to output large volumes of CO2 (high performance cars, heavy cars) is one way to send a signal to the populous.

If every country took the same approach to taxing cars and their fuel consumption then I'm sure we could eek out the oil reserves for decades longer. But every country is too absorbed with their own self interest and every country's politicians are too scared of knee jerk motorist reactions, especially the US where they believe that the world owes it to them to provide cheap fuel.

Although we love our scoobs (and other cars), at some point we have to stop spending out childrens and grandchildrens inheritance and stop being so wasteful with oil. But no-one is going to volunteer to do this, we will have to be forced out of our cars. Driving up the cost of car ownership is an inequitable but efficient way of reducing car usage.

Brit_in_Japan

And an article from The Guardian which may make you stop and think a little...

imlach

At last, someone that sees the point

sti-04!!

scary !!!!!!!!!

Sprint Chief

We were told in the seventies by the environmentalists that all the oil would be used up in thirty years time...

Glad to see its gone up to forty years now, thirty years on!

The oil companies claim there is about 300 years left, aim for somewhere between these marks and you'd be about right.

Nothing to fill the gap when oil is gone? Assuming things like biofuel stand still, that is possibly true; I suspect the advances made in biomass as fuel, combined with improvements in efficiency and usage will result in ensuring our children's children can still enjoy the delights of Jap rally weapons

imlach

...but it doesn't mean we need to be wasteful of our current resources.

At the moment, fuel is so cheap that no-one really thinks twice about using their car for needless journeys. The cost should be such that people DO think twice about needless use. It's not hard, but people are generally selfish, and think caring for the environment is for someone else to worry about....

It is noticeable that the whiners have shut up on this thread since the issue of the environment was raised. I suspect most are intelligent enough to feel guilty about it....

imlach

300 years, out of how many millions to create it in the first place?

300 years is a tiny dot in comparison to our space-time continuom.
300 years is 10 generations of humans. That's not many.

SCOSaltire

ill fight against u
i sold my scoob because every journey i thought about how much it was going to cost me.
2 of my closest m8s live 50 miles away.
Round trip = half a tank. a tank = 35 quid. do the sums on that one.

public transport: up here? aye right!
would take me 1 hr to get to the nearest town. then another 1.5 hrs to get to their town. then another 30 mins to get to their house.
now do it all again?

aye fecking right!

we NEED cars. they are not luxury for weekend journeys.

I bought a diesel so that i could go twice as far.

there is no alternative to the car at the mo.
taxing it... so whats the option?
it means that more money goes in to the governments coffers - and yet not once is this made into better public transportation.

fecking fed up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tax bread next????

tax nappies????

no, doubt that

fecking motorist always gets it under the 'Green' banner.

fine is there was an alternative to the car - but there is not!!!

imlach

We don't need cars.

I accept a small percentage of the population have no viable public transport alternative, but a large percentage do have a viable alternative (albeit sometimes with a small bit of inconvience to them, but if fuel costs were higher, more would consider that inconvience worthy).

Out of interest, how did you cope personally without your own car before the age of 17?

Brit_in_Japan

No-one is now saying oil will last 300 years. The general concensus is that it will last maybe 40 years, although with global oil comsumption increasing somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5% each year maybe it will last less.

Oil production capacity is generally accepted to peak in 2010. After that date, year-on-year the total oil we could produce if we wanted will decrease. Some experts say 2004 will be the year of peak oil capacity. The US government say it will be 2037, but they have cooked the figures and nobody believes them.

Biomass fuels do offer one possibility, but it is calculated that all of the UK's arable farmland would be needed to produce enough rapeseed oil to power the UK's vehicles. So we would not be able to grow any food and it still wouldn't give us any extra reserve to generate electricity and heat homes etc.

That people now live so far on average from work is a real problem for the medium term future. It is a structural problem and at some future date people will either have to work from home or live within a short commute, probably by bicycle if the bike factories have enough power to produce them.

pslewis

Anyone on the ropes yet??

Is that blood I see or just oil

Ding, Ding round 10!!

Pete

imlach

I just think, as stated in one of the quoted articles, that people are ignoring the issue of dwindling oil resources......it is going to have to be faced up to sooner rather than later. By convincing people NOW (that includes the govt) of things they could do to reduce their own personal usage, it can only help extend the time we have to find viable alternatives.

It is healthy IMHO to have an open debate on the issue.

The fools are the ones sticking their heads in the sand, moaning about increased costs, and ignoring the issue by continuing as they do in their own selfish manner.

BMWhere?

I had to pester my parents to drive me somewhere!

Imlach, If you think only a small percentage of the population have no viable public transport alternative then I guess you probably live in London! Try living in a large village close to a small town in the north of the UK. 1 bus an hour (2 hours on Sunday), takes an hour to get to town as you visit every small village on the way compared to 10 minutes in a car. I agree that the environment issues are a huge problem, but for a great many people in the UK there is really no public transport alternative. I have always car-shared when I can and having lived in various places when there has been a viable public transport option I have taken it in preference to the car. If I can I walk or take ride a bike. I think before we start blindly taxing every driver off the road we should be tackling problems such as the school run and people driving just round the corner because they're too lazy to walk or its raining etc. How many people drive less than a mile just to post a letter, go to the cash machine or get some cigarettes? Increasing taxes just isn't viable until we have a decent public transport system for the whole country!

homer lawtey

I can't get anywhere near my work by public transport as it's in the middle of no-where and I work funny shifts. It's too far to go by push bike, and I'm damned if I'm moving to the villages surrounding the power station/oil refinery where I work as they are dumps (possibly because theres a bloody great refinery next to it!).

There's loads of oil left, it's not making a huge impact on the environment. The government just want to screw the motorist even harder as it's an easy target. Eventually there will be a straw that breaks the camel's back, but I suspect it's a way off yet.

The more the cost of oil is increased to slow demand, the better. My shares will soon be worth enough to offset my 12 MPG journey costs.

Steve

PS, Imlach, I'm suprised your tree-hugging opinions are scoffed at on here!

imlach

Ditto

Rob D

Motorist are already taxed enough full stop!
Take 20 million cars on our roads each paying £160 for road tax and then 80% tax on fuel, is that not enough for crying out loud!!!!!
The problem is the government and not us, they need to get their act together.
Simply taxing us on how much emissions we are releasing is not going to solve a thing, Imlach I can understand your views and they are important, but where to you think the extra money from emissions tax will go, back into renewable energy??? I think not!
Why do you think the government is not doing much about alterative energy, simple it's called money, they rake in so much money from oil it's unreal, why do you think the Iraq war was started?
Why should we pay for the incompetance and blinkered approach of our government!
The simple fact is that alternative energy and it's development is very expensive, and the government doesn't want to spend the money!

Sprint Chief

Pah, can't believe the opportunity for a perfectly good wind up reached page 4. Anyway, thought I would quickly reply to the comments made against my post.

And this is my concerned face

Hence my reference to alternative fuels.

We cannot tell how many years of oil remain, because we don't know how many oil fields we have not yet uncovered. However, from the oil fields we have uncovered current techniques are only capable of extracting a percentage of the oil - perhaps 25% to 30%. This means that for every pint of oil extracted so far, we know there are 2-3 pints still in the ground. It would be impossible to extract all of the oil, granted, but as technology improves (and necessity is the mother of invention) we will improve on this extraction ratio. For this reason alone we can be sure of oil for some time yet.

The UK government did a study which came out with some dodgy conclusions along these lines, including a claim that use of biomass was flawed as it consumed more oil that it created. I believe this study made a number of errors and in fact other countries have produced studies which do not agree with the figures you quote.

Besides which, UK agricultural yields have also grown exponentially against time as technology improves. Of course there is a physical limit but we ain't at it yet.

However, we are deviating from the original point of the thread, which was about the appalling taxation regime we are working under. If the governments excuse was environmental reasons, then they would offer tax incentives for moving away from mineral oils to things like biofuels. Have they? Oh no, they haven't. So any suggestion that the government is on some kind of environmentalist crusade is so much political bull$hit. They just want to rake in maximum tax £££ from the motorist. Plain + simple.

imlach

Going on your profile, it seems you *may* live in Preston?
Do you consider that to be the "north of the UK"? Oh dear

Try a few hundred miles north of that, where the glaciers are, and where the dinosaurs still roam....and you'll find me quite happily managing to get by on public transport.

Pagh - soft southerners

Taomyn

But as the "tree huggers" fail to mention in these debates, we've had plenty of time to devise good alternatives, but most of the techniques/patents were bought up by the oil companies and then shelved. Only recently, now that governments and car manufacturers themselves are stepping in, are we seeing what could possibly have been acheived years earlier. Yes the fuel for these might not be totally pollution free to start with, but one step at a time, and a step in the right direction.

And when we do, what will the "tree huggers" excuse be to try and stop all using our new "clean" cars?

imlach

Err....nothing. Once we get fusion sorted, we'll all be happy

...and please everyone, try to stay off the tree-hugger comments. Just because someone is concerned about global environmental issues does not make them a "tree-hugger". Just being realistic about all our futures....