I kind of touched on this jokingly in the useless facts threads but the more I have thought about it and studied it the more it has really wound me up. It seams that on an almost weakly basis, car users and motor manufacturers take a slapping from the various environmentalist lobbies around the world, with, it would seam, less and less basis in fact or reality.
Whilst it is of course true that cars produce a significantly large amount of carbon dioxide annually – in terms of how that relates to output generated by domestic energy usage it is marginal, indeed, merely the act of breathing out produces twenty percent more co2 a year than your car does. Cars and transport in general seam to have been targeted as the whipping boys by environmentalists ignoring the bigger issues that are easier to resolve. Waves of new taxes and charges are introduced regularly on the motorist on the pretext of making them more responsible for the environment. The real motive behind these, to me at least, seams to be more of a profiteering issue instigated and sanctioned by government treasuries around the globe as an easy source of revenue. Little or no attempt is made to make carbon neutral petroleum alternatives such as bioethanol available or attractive to the consumer – either by restricting supply or prohibitive taxing, despite the fact that these technologies exist and can be mass produced.
The simple act of fitting at least one low energy light bulb in every domicile around the planet would more than wipe out the effect of emissions from cars – but how often are you told that? Assuming that each household contained 4 people and ran two cars at average to low annual mileage or one car at high annual mileage, those vehicles would produce less than one three hundredth of the total annual greenhouse gases of the household and their energy consumption.
All that spiel is not to dismiss the fact that cars, trains, planes etc do create pollutants, so do demand better technology from your car manufacturers, do plant your roadside artificial trees etc etc but do that out of a sense of responsibility rather than believing you are making some big climatic impact. Far greater improvements can be made by making your home energy efficient – this can be done to a greater or lesser degree depending on your budget – if some companies were entrepreneurial enough to produce cheap home units, adding a co2 scrubber to your house would also be a massive improvement. Indeed, legislation forcing business or building owners to fit carbon scrubbers to their ventilation systems would seam like and obvious and easy measure to achieve – which is why it probably would never happen. The more power that is consumed the more profit is made both by energy companies and governments so don’t expect any big gestures any time soon aimed at improving the status quo.
The simple fact of the matter is that the world’s population produces more than 165 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year from domestic energy consumption and an additional 4 billion tonnes in exhaled co2. that population doubles roughly once every 3 or 4 generations – we can barely manage on the resources we have available now so unless steps are taken on a personal level at least, things are going to get much, much worse – and it wont be because of the amount of SUV’s on the roads….
OK – blood boiling at a sufficient level now – over to you….
Whilst it is of course true that cars produce a significantly large amount of carbon dioxide annually – in terms of how that relates to output generated by domestic energy usage it is marginal, indeed, merely the act of breathing out produces twenty percent more co2 a year than your car does. Cars and transport in general seam to have been targeted as the whipping boys by environmentalists ignoring the bigger issues that are easier to resolve. Waves of new taxes and charges are introduced regularly on the motorist on the pretext of making them more responsible for the environment. The real motive behind these, to me at least, seams to be more of a profiteering issue instigated and sanctioned by government treasuries around the globe as an easy source of revenue. Little or no attempt is made to make carbon neutral petroleum alternatives such as bioethanol available or attractive to the consumer – either by restricting supply or prohibitive taxing, despite the fact that these technologies exist and can be mass produced.
The simple act of fitting at least one low energy light bulb in every domicile around the planet would more than wipe out the effect of emissions from cars – but how often are you told that? Assuming that each household contained 4 people and ran two cars at average to low annual mileage or one car at high annual mileage, those vehicles would produce less than one three hundredth of the total annual greenhouse gases of the household and their energy consumption.
All that spiel is not to dismiss the fact that cars, trains, planes etc do create pollutants, so do demand better technology from your car manufacturers, do plant your roadside artificial trees etc etc but do that out of a sense of responsibility rather than believing you are making some big climatic impact. Far greater improvements can be made by making your home energy efficient – this can be done to a greater or lesser degree depending on your budget – if some companies were entrepreneurial enough to produce cheap home units, adding a co2 scrubber to your house would also be a massive improvement. Indeed, legislation forcing business or building owners to fit carbon scrubbers to their ventilation systems would seam like and obvious and easy measure to achieve – which is why it probably would never happen. The more power that is consumed the more profit is made both by energy companies and governments so don’t expect any big gestures any time soon aimed at improving the status quo.
The simple fact of the matter is that the world’s population produces more than 165 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year from domestic energy consumption and an additional 4 billion tonnes in exhaled co2. that population doubles roughly once every 3 or 4 generations – we can barely manage on the resources we have available now so unless steps are taken on a personal level at least, things are going to get much, much worse – and it wont be because of the amount of SUV’s on the roads….
OK – blood boiling at a sufficient level now – over to you….
Discuss…..