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Motorists 'demonised' by ministers in drive to cut pollution, says top government advisor

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... visor.html

Motorists 'demonised' by ministers in drive to cut pollution, says top government advisor
By Ray Massey
Last updated at 12:09 AM on 25th July 2008


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Labour faces being kicked out of office by angry motorists if it continues to 'unfairly demonise' the car, a top Government adviser warned today.


Families are 'rebelling' against unfair car taxes, restrictions on their freedoms, and attacks on 4X4s and luxury cars by politicians and campaigners driven by 'ideological dogma' rather than hard-facts, Richard Parry-Jones claimed.

Mr Parry-Jones was appointed by the government to look at how technology can be used to cut pollution.


4x4 vehicles, like this Freelander 2 being unveiled by tennis star Maria Sharapova, have been unfairly demonised according to Parry-Jones

But the former Ford Motor Company executive turned on his new employers yesterday urging them to stop the war on the motorist.
Unfair motoring taxes and attacks of family runarounds were the result of 'muddled thinking' based on prejudice and dogma rather than hard scientific facts, he said.


'If you price consumers out of their cars, they will probably throw you out at the next election,' he said.


He added that Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his ministers must 're-assess the political bias against cars'.


He accepted that cars did have some impact on climate change - but pointed out that they represented only 8per cent of the problem while appearing to get 100 per cent of the blame. Tax raised from motorists and motoring was 'disproportionately high', he said.


Mr Parry-Jones is a world-renowned motor industry expert who has just been appointed as a ministerial adviser to John Hutton's Department for Business.


He is chairing Mr Hutton's Automotive Industry Growth Team, looking at how to create 'greener' cars and cut costs.


His speech follows a visit this week by Mr Brown, Mr Hutton, and Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly to the British International Motor Show in London's Docklands where the PM met motor industry bosses to discuss 'green' cars.


Mr Parry-Jones recently retired as chief technical officer and head of research at Ford.


He said politicians must carry the confidence of Britain's 30 million voting motorists if they want achieve or maintain office:''If politicians go too fast, ultimately they get detached from the electorate and get thrown out.'

He noted:'What on Earth are we doing allowing our elected representatives to decide for us what we should be allowed or encouraged ton drive, or what should be banned or penalised in the name of climate change.'

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nigel_bytes

Ever since the government has started this "green" nonsense I have said this on various forums, although no one seemed to listen and kept making a case against the combustion engine. It is a shame the Daily Mail reported it, as they also had a campaign to raise the driving age as well, which I hate them for Where did the 8% figure come from? Look at all the benefits and enjoyment cars provide as well. It beggers believe that the government are willing to restrict car owners in the name of climate change.

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

I would not have thought that drivers of 4X4 vehicles and luxury cars would have been Labour supporters anyway, but it's fair to say that motorists across the board are fed up with Labour's "green" policies.

Gordon's energy policy is all at sea. He comes out with edicts like "Everyone should drive electric cars", with the promise of punitive taxes for those who don't. But until he stops dithering on the nuclear energy issue, the only thing electric cars are going to achieve is a redistribution of pollution - from vehicle tail pipe to power station chimney. David Milliband is no better. When his fresh face first appeared, I was interested to know what his "green" policy would be. And yes - you guessed it - more taxes. No surprises there then.

Way back in the mid 1970s, my father wrote an article in Autocar saying just the same, in fact pointing out that burning fuel in the car itself is a hell of a lot more efficient than burning it in a power station, sending it down powerlines, charging up a battery that then drives a car.

How come no one has picked up on my point about the small amount of pollution cars produce?

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Is that still true these days though? From what I've seen, an electric car doesn't make sense on a decent motorway run but makes excellent sense in urban stop-start conditions where the infernal combustion engine is notoriously inefficient.

It's true, of course, that (battery) electric cars merely move the pollution from the tailpipe to the power station but is that such a bad thing? It brings about real improvements in local urban air quality. It might even prove easier to install carbon capture technology on one power station than on several thousand cars too.

We should also bear in mind the usage patterns. Battery-electric cars tend to get charged overnight. At present, it's pretty hard to switch a big conventional power station on or off so they tend to waste a load of energy during off-peak hours at night - dumping heat into the cooling towers. They also tend to use them to light long stretches of motorway to give the generators something to power. We could probably charge up a fair few electric vehicles using only "waste" electricity produced overnight.

My big problem (and I guess it's not too different to other people's) is that I don't always know how long my daily drive will be, so an electric car would have to be a second car. I'd still need to keep the conventional one for the long runs. As my mate Gordon is shafting me royally for the privilage of merely allowing it access to the Queen's highway, I tend to think "stuff you, Gordon, I'm going to get my money's worth"!

I've been playing with a battery-electric car at work recently and I have to say that £2 per hundred miles is very enticing...

...unfortunately, £17k for a battery back is a bit of a turn-off though!

But how much climate change emissions do cars actually produce?

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

OK Flynn. Sorry, I wasn't ignoring you!

To answer your question, it has been argued by even eminent and respectable scientists that greenhouse gas output (eg. water vapour, carbon dioxide/CO2) causes a blanket to be formed at the lower levels of the earth's atmosphere, preventing heat from being radiated back into space. And world output of CO2 has risen exponentially in the last 150 years because of industry and burning of oil and other fossil fuels for electricity generation and transport. Total annual man-made CO2 output world-wide stands at 30bn tonnes, according to the US Department of Energy. But burning of fossil fuels at power stations or in vehicles also produce similar volumes of water vapour.

I've given up trying to debate this on various boards because it's clear that both sides have an agenda. The naysayers will dig out data claiming that it's the sun's activity which is to blame and that the temperature on Mars is also increasing, and that the earth goes through natural cycles. The other side gets accused of engaging in a scam to gouge money/grants from their governments. And here we have NuLabour, bailing itself out of financial tight spots of its own making by adding a green veneer to its taxation policies.

One thing is clear to me, especially in light of this year's rises in the price of oil. We need to wean ourselves off oil. It is clear that dependence on oil can have a serious impact on our personal finances and our country's economy. We need to do as France has done, and get to the stage where 80% of our electricity is nuclear generated. Then electric vehicles WILL become viable, and battery R&D will be carried out such that electric cars can indeed run long motorway journeys. That might sound impossible now, but who would have believed in 1910 at the dawn of the motoring age that we would put men on the moon within 60 years?

I think the really really key thing which the Greens are opposed to (surprise surprise) is making our own energy in sufficient quantities. That means mass Nuclear station building. If we can be self sustainable prices will drop, who knows we could even become a net exporter of energy, too and everyones a winner.

Nuclear is an incredibly powerful and advanced technology, it was a brilliant discovery, a way to produce a lot of energy with little environmental impact - why on earth aren't we taking this up in a huge way? France has proved it works... wtf are we playing at?

Indeed, many Greens are opposed to efficient energy generation full stop, as at heart they want us to go back to a mud-hut, subsistence type economy. If wind farms really were effective at generating electricity they would be dead against those as well - as it is, they're seen as a kind of necessary penance.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think that what a lot of greenie types tend to forget is that there are simply too many of us now on this planet to live the kind of subsistence / crofting life they advocate. We NEED to live in cities and high-rises and places where we can't grow our own food / weave our own wool / knit our own muesli!

As for nuclear power, don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of SOME of it so that we keep the skills and facilities needed to research and improve the technology, but it's by no means ALL good news! Speaking as someone who lives "next door" to Sellafield, I'm only too aware that the waste issue is a serious problem. France must be storing up a BIG problem for itself just now!

Of course a lot of the more hardcore Greens do actually favour a large-scale reduction in the population...

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

We built concorde - it was terrific. We no longer use it
We created Nuclear Technology - it IS terrific - it's strongly opposed
We had hovercraft - they were terrific (record crossing timeon the channel). We no longer use it.
Windmills were all the rage hundreds of years ago, they were suitable for the time - we evolved passed it - now we're being forced back to them. It's abso Stupid.

How much as a percentage of global warming emissions comes from cars in the world? And how about just using oil for cars?

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

To give you some idea, the proportion of UK greenhouse gas emissions that can be attributed to UK households' vehicles (includes cars and motorcycles) is about 9%. When adding in all other forms of transport (rail, bus, air etc.) the proportion of UK greenhouse gas emissions arising from all forms of transport is about 21%.

So do you not have global figures? 9% seems like a small price to pay for all the benefits cars provide. I could quite happily get along even if they accounted for a 2/3rds. There are other areas that can be cut back on without the rediculous taxation of cars like at the moment.

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

All that information is freely available on websites like Oak Ridge Laboratory and US Department of Energy. If you want answers to your questions, do your own research instead of coming here to ask other people to do it for you.

Hmmm! Isn't that just what we kind and considerate motorist types are doing?!

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I actually agree with the principle of population reduction. Nothing winds me up than some hippy with four kids telling childless me that I'm ruining the environment.

Clearly a smaller population will be able to live better in the future than a larger one.