unclebuck

I see the Government propaganda machine is working well today via the Blair Broadcasting Corporation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4075140.stm

combined with:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4075490.stm

Should get the message across as to where we are headed.

They are lining us up for *massive* increases in taxes, road charges, water bills etc as the 'eviromental' policy makers take control of our society.

OllyK

Interesting that for an "average" motorist, doing 12,000 miles per year, if it was ALL done on country lanes at off peak times, it would cost them £1,440. Also interesting that:

But when I heard it this morning it was followed with an "over time", which one suspects means, once every car is fitted with a tracker, until then you pay road tax and fuel duty - so they get a nice double whammie and have those that do sign up pressurising those that haven't so they can get the road tax discount.

OllyK

At least they are pusing GPS, which as wel all know has a rather poor response when there is anything very much blocking the ariel, like a bridge or a car park or a bit of lead flashing that you are planning to use to repair your roof sometime.

hedgehog

It is interesting that they claim that air pollution in cities, caused by cars, is increasing despite cars getting cleaner. It isn't so very long since we started fitting catalytic converters, for example. Of course if civil engineers are designing congestion into cities then there will be more cars sitting at idle.

Also their oxdes of nitrogen caused, they say, by coal firec power stations is shot down by a recent paper in "Faraday Discussions" the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry which found, in summary:

"Nitrogen oxides produced by huge fires and fossil fuel combustion are a major component of air pollution. They are the primary ingredients in ground-level ozone, a pollutant harmful to human health and vegetation.
But new research led by a University of Washington atmospheric scientist shows that, in some regions, nitrogen oxides emitted by the soil are much greater than expected and could play a substantially larger role in seasonal air pollution than previously believed.

Nitrogen oxide emissions total more than 40 million metric tons worldwide each year, with 64 percent coming from fossil fuel combustion, 14 percent from burning and a surprising 22 percent from soil, said Lyatt Jaeglé, a UW assistant professor of atmospheric sciences. The new research shows that the component from soil is about 70 percent greater than scientists expected.

"The soil emissions were much larger than we expected," she said. "The biggest areas were the dry topical regions like the Sahel, and in the mid-latitude regions where there is a lot of agriculture."

During summer in North America, Europe and Asia, nitrogen oxides emitted from soil can reach half the emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

"And this is at a time when there are already problems with air pollution," Jaeglé said.

Nitrogen oxides comprise a group of highly reactive gases containing nitrogen and oxygen in varying amounts. Besides producing ozone smog, they help form the dirty brown clouds that often hang over major cities, they contribute to acid rain and they play a role in global climate change.

In addition to equatorial Africa, hot spots for soil emissions include the central plains of the United States; southwestern Europe, primarily the Iberian Peninsula; much of India; and the northern plains of Asia, she said. All of those areas are highly agricultural. "

So, there you go, growing lentils could be making much more of a contribution to pollution than we ever realised before. I'm off to handcuff myself to a push bike and to set a field of lentils on fire, those things should be taxed more to fully reflect their impact upon the environment and air pollution.

unclebuck

It's statements like:

Followed by:

That worry me. I think I can see where this is heading...

hedgehog

As I have been explaining for some time now blocking the GPS signal will not work too well as it is likely there will be 3 independant methods used to monitor your position, movements and speed. Your GPS system will be linked with RFID tags in your numberplate and also with a network of cameras. Ever wondered why the government wanted a network of speed cameras and partnerships across the country when the figures show they don't work in safety terms?

The following, for example, are some links relating to the RFID numberplate:


www.e-plate.com

http://www.patent.gov.uk/tm/tmj/jour...c/2326295.html

www.hillsnumberplates.com/dvla_cons.html

www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=123899

www.dvla.gov.uk/public/consult/ria-rnps.htm

Vegescoob

Coming from beneath the sand I hear a faint cry.....

"It'll never happen".

Hanslow

UB, it's good how they fail to tell you where the other 3/4 of CO2 emissions come from isn't it. I wonder how much power stations pump out and whether it's more than 1/4 of CO2 emissions for this country.....

The only way they will stop global warming is to blow the sun up. Isn't it great that all our facts and figures point to the fact that the planet is warming up. Shame those figures go back hardly any time at all (in respect to how long it's been around).

The main reason for congestion in this country is over population. People are living longer, still having copious amounts of kids, and having a car is now something that most people aspire to. The government complain about the pension funds not being supported by enough young working people so hint that we need more children. What happens when they get old...oh yes, we need more children, spiral into oblivion.

What all this charging will mean is that car ownership becomes a class thing. The rich will afford it and not give two hoots, the poor will become criminals if they want to drive and can't afford to. What are the alternatives....good question. There is no alternative for a lot of people as the public transport infrastructure is localised and not efficient enough. Each potential solution to a problem raises two problems of it's own and with our current PC don't want to offend anyone society, nothing decent will ever get done

sti-04!!

Scaremongering

Holy Ghost

OK - pop quiz time.

question to the technologists amongst us:

- how do you jam a GPS signal? what sort of antenna shielding does one need?

OllyK

I appreciate they are looking at 3 methods, GPS, Roadside microwave transmitters (the e-plate) and Congestion charge style cameras. I can't imagine them being able to use / fund / integrate all 3 any time soon.

Interesting from one of the links:
Not sure they would stand up to the mounting hole being drilled right through the chip too well though.

But this is the issue IMO - already people are thinking about ways round it, and plate cloning I can see will go through the roof. This kind of complex system is going to be a nightmare of mischarging and trying to justify you weren't where the system thought you were.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

It's all a load of bollox. They hide behind the environment as it's a great way to extract more cash out of people knowing most people dare not saying anything against it. The fact is until the USA and now China do something about their emissions the output from cars in the Uk is like pi55ing in the ocean!

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

PS If it did come in I would break the law and do what I could to avoid it.

MattW

Tell me, my Grandmother was born in Cork but never held an Irish passport as she came to England prior to Ireland being free. Does this entitle me to an Irish Passport as it would then be much easier to emigrate to the States.

hedgehog

I believe that buildings produce twice the amount of CO2 as cars do, but I don't have a reference for that claim. However, it was an atmospheric scientist who told me so I'm given to believing he wasn't making it up for a laugh.

Most towns have several buildings, some of them quite large.

The following paper, only available online recently, supports the idea that for some amazing reason the sun might be implicated in global warming and also fits current climate patterns:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...ace1a431bfec3b

OllyK

Almost nothing - look at how road angel etc has to be in the windscreen to get clear line of sight, also some cars think it was Renaults in particular had to have a special extra ariel as the UV protection in the windscreen blocked the GPS signal.

Holy Ghost

thanx. well that's an encouraging start. if shielding the signal is as easy as that, then this whole project is going to be a total disaster.

that'll be a DIY "teacosy" for your GPS fin then. does the shielding have to be a specific type of metal or is it just simply a case of blocking line of sight?

unclebuck

You might need to put that plan into action sooner than you think. The initial pilot scheme is to be conducted in the Leeds area starting in under 2 years.

OllyK

I don't think it even needs to be metal, concrete bridges seem to work well, so does parking under a tree. It is, IIRC microwave based, same as Sky, and is easily blocked. I'll do some digging and let you know more detail.

OllyK

Also:
http://www.cmtinc.com/gpsbook/chap10.html
http://www.ipaqnavigation.com/techfaqs.htm

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Well they have the congestion charging infrastructure in place already and I know Leeds uni have been doing testing on the GPS speed system so I can well believe it. I hate this whole Big Brother thing that is now here. I'm starting to feel like something out of the matrix.

Why don't they try and encourage more people to work from home. I know I could do easily 2 or 3 days a week at home. I'm in front of a PC all day and very rarely deal with customers. They should offer incentives to companies to allow them to set up people so they work at home.

It's not about reducing pollution though. It's about money!

hedgehog

It may be better to "fight" this technology on the political front rather than to wait until it is law and then try to find ways around it. Once it is law getting it removed again is very tricky indeed but writing to your MP, the papers etc. now is a good start in putting pressure on to prevent it from becoming law.

There is a huge amount of money caught up in this, the EU are even launching their own satellite system to (eventually) provide positioning information so there will be a lot of determination to make it work. With the EU in this you will find that people like the Germans will be closely involved and they are not known for their failures when it comes to implementing control systems.

Big business are also involved and have already made large investments in this scheme and they haven't done this with a view to making a loss.

With this in mind it is down to the individual motorist to take a stand right now. You might get away with blocking the signal, or whatever, but probably only for a short time and the consequences for a normally law abiding citizen will be made so great as to make you think twice about subverting the system. It is not intended that you will bypass this once it is law so you'd better start fighting to ensure it never becomes law.

Holy Ghost

thanx. surely they'll have thought of this and foolproof it somehow?

i sent an email to david millward (transport correspondent at the daily telegraph) who wrote a front page story on this earlier this week. he replied saying that he knows darling and believes that he may opt for a non-intrusive tag and beacon system (as in singapore) for congested areas only.

i have no problem with this - it makes sense, it works, it's proven elsewhere, the technology's off the shelf and doesn't mean Big Brother.

darling's flying a policy kite on nationwide GPS i think to gauge initial public resistance levels. politically i'd say it was suicidal - hopefully milward is right and darling will go for a simple t&b system.

here's hoping ...

milward's reply below if you're interested:

**

Thank you for your email which I picked up remotely. If the purpose of road pricing was merely revenue raising, then your idea of charging on all motorways would be logical.

My understanding is that the purpose is to manage traffic flow, which suggests that a more subtle form of control is needed. As it happens I have known Alistair Darling for some time and I believe he is sincere in trying to find a solution to the problem before it is too late, rather than a "New Labour control freak".

I would guess they will go down one of two routes. Either they will rely on GPS, which as anyone who has tried to use it will know, is not completely
reliable.

Or they will go for tag and beacon - but perhaps follow the Singapore route of selecting congested roads only, such as motorways and routes into town centres.

Yours sincerely,

David Millward

**

Jap2Scrap

I work for Leeds Uni and I feel dirty

OllyK

As the guy from the Telegraph said, GPS is far from fool proof. While hedgehod has suggested we may end up with a hybrid of all 3 types of tracking, I suspect that would be very costly to implement and would potentially be a cross charging nightmare. I guess all we can do is keep trying to get our voices heard and see what happens over time.

While I have nothing to hide and don't object to paying for my use of the roads, I do object to the government being able to track every inch of every journey I take, it's tantamount to the tagging of criminals.

OllyK

In that case you should make every effort to sabbotage it or introduce as many back doors as possible - like a nice big "off" switch on the box

unclebuck

Can't you find out who's in charge of this project and stick a bomb under their car or something?

Jap2Scrap

To be honest, if it moves ahead with the pace of most engineering projects in this place we'll all be using jet-packs and hover-cars before it comes in.

I'd be more worried about an independant in the commercial sector coming up with the goods first.

unclebuck

"As it happens I have known Alistair Darling for some time and I believe he is sincere in trying to find a solution to the problem before it is too late, rather than a "New Labour control freak"."

Oops... you said the wrong thing to the wrong person there.

You will be added to their 'special list' for extra 'attention' when this becomes law.

Holy Ghost

i hope so: god, darling & his deputy ladyman. is richard curtis NL's new head of communications or what? i'd love to see them greeting each other in the office each morning ... :-)))))

like ID cards, this GPS cr@p needs to be buried. they want to catch us in a pincer: who you are, where you are, where you go, all day every day. fascist bastids. the lot of them.