Toyota is now #1

[dang65]

Wake up you brain dead f***s, it is getting warmer, regardless of what you think is causing it, anything you do WONT make any difference.

If you're referring to me, I haven't said anything about global warming. As you say, that's pretty much inevitable now. The paper this morning had a thing about the Greenland ice shelf melting at a drastic rate (far faster than previous predictions by 'scaremongers'). If the whole ice shelf melts then (it said in the paper) sea levels worldwide would rise by 23 feet, which would drown whole countries, as well as cities like London. Even if it only rises by a tenth of that amount it will cause enormous destruction. So, yeah, we're all pretty much f***ed.

What I was moaning about was congestion and noise. Which is caused by people sitting on their own in cars for hours on end.

[Numptycorner]

Quite right too... Sports cars are functionally flawed, limited by number of seats and load carrying capability; they exist solely to pander to the (usually male) ego.

All cars should be limited to a maximum speed of 70 mph, have a minimum of four seats and only be capable of a 0-60 time in excess of 16 seconds

Welcome to the USSR comrade

[hyperD]

I have a TVR Tuscan sports car which back in 2002 got quite a few thumbs up, moreso in Europe than here.

Now there are more resentful faces than appealing and I'm wondering whether this is due to economic jealousy or the latest "chicken licken" craze that's inflicting the populace.

I run my business from home, cycle anywhere within 10 miles for shopping, nights out etc not for any green reasons but purely fitness. I hardly ever use the car but it makes it sweeter when I do.

I think one of the main reasons why someone would want to build a swimming pool in their garden is so not to share, for all intents and purposes, a giant commode with people that seem to think it's fine to shower and defecate in a swimming pool. Also, basic footcare seems to be amiss in these places.

I find it difficult to take some of this green stuff seriously. I'm all in for becoming energy efficient for cost reasons but I simply dispair when someone buys a solar panel thinking they're saving the planet when the payback time, at best, is 25 years.

I work in the Oil & Gas industry and see the political pressure on adopting biofuels. I'm privy to some info that's not available through the media and find it annoying that the following never get taking into account with these discussions:

How much deforestation (and burning) will be needed to produce the land mass to meet the demand for biofuel?

How much will it cost (both in additional cost and fossil fuel burning) to transport to the refineries? Methanol and to some extent ethanol is extremely corrosive and difficult to transport.

How much will it cost (both in additional cost and fossil fuel burning) to distill and refine?

How much agricultural land will be ditched for the more lucrative bio fuel?

What about where land becomes fallow over time through over intensive farming?

What about the massive use of pesticides and herbicides?

How much interest and additional cost will there be from Monsanto to produce GM crops to increase production?

What about the cost of changes to refineries to process ethanol?

What about the cost (both in additional cost and fossil fuel burning) equipment to harvest the corn?

Ethanol may raise levels of nitrogen oxides produced as gasoline emissions. Because of its lower energy content relative to gasoline, ethanol also reduces mileage per gallon.

Rather than pandering to some sandalista chest-beating, it's worth looking at the bigger picture. Your suspicions should be aroused purely through the fact that this current administration jumped on the bandwagon to generate a whole bunch of new taxes, without reducing any traditional ones. It's not the green chalice it's spun to be.

[VectraMan]

Ah the voice of reason (well apart from the TVR bit obviously - are you insane?).

A pro-global warming documentary I saw recently (Dispatches I think - and no not that documentary) talked about bio fuels, and raised a lot of these points. The eco-mentalists presented basically admitted that bio fuels could only possibly provide a tiny fraction of fuel requirements. On top of that, the best bio fuel was palm oil, and the energy involved in growing, harvesting, processing and transport made it 10x worse than petrol in terms of fossil fuel usage.

They also pointed out what a complete waste of time the home wind turbines were, and laid into the nonsense that is carbon offsetting. And this was the pro-lobby.