eSeM

Poor

Lurking Lawyer

My heart bleeds for you, Steven.

You'll just have to jack up your contracting rates and limit yourself to buying 4 new mp3 players a month, rather than your usual 5.

NeilB

[QUOTE=lower,Mar 13 2008, 02:00 PM] I doubt the tories will be able to do much tax cutting in the short term anyway until they've reduced the overheads from all the bureaucracy that labour has introduced.

i would object less to paying a green tax if it was seen to be fair and i wasn't paying so much elsewhere which just gets pissed up the wall.

The classic was when Blair put

eSeM

I bought another one on Tuesday ......

I can always reduce my salary to save me

juventino

I would agree more with a higher fuel tax and tolls burden on motorists. That way their tax is proportionate to the amount they use the road.

I drive the S2000 as a weekend, fun car only. Any consistent commuting throughout the year (ie. high mileage through year) is done in my Fiat Punto. Less CO2 in the atmosphere that way.

Also what SHOULD be done is more encouragement for people to replace their electricity supply from fossil fuels from the usual suppliers to eco-friendly suppliers such as Ecotricity (windfarms only). This is the BIGGEST SINGLE CHANGE that anyone can make to their annual carbon footprint. Of course, the major suppliers will pressurise the government not to do this.

I will be changing to Ecotricity at some point but of course won't save money.

Saving the planet is the Number One priority in politics now and I suspect the money gained through these tax increases will not be used to good effect. To say that environmentalism is currently 'in vogue' trivialises the fact that we are doing MAJOR damage to the planet. We are on the edge of mass extinction for FECK sake!

This is a bit rambling but it's so frustrating that no politician ever does the necessary thing, ie. take on big business.

Polemicist

Wind farms are a complete and utter waste of time. As are all those other tree-hugging renewables - base-load requirement is the issue.

Let's face it, if we really want to avoid CO2 and a tight grip on our short 'n' curlies by our increasingly unfriendly oil supplying nations, the only viable option is nuclear.

juventino

Wind farms are not a waste of time - they are proven! You say 'tree-hugging' as though it's a bad thing to want to save the environment! Odd, since it will be your children who will suffer if we don't do anything (plus the affect on wider ecosystems, extinctions, etc.).

I'm not unconvinced about nuclear. Let's face it, a nuclear accident might feck up a great swathe of the UK, but climate change will feck up the entire world.

Polemicist

I'm afraid I class all existing renewable energy technology as tree-hugging - it's a pointless distraction within the context of contemporary energy requirements.

Lurking Lawyer

Proven to do what?

They do generate electricity, obviously, but my understanding is that the contribute so little, and can't be relied upon because wind is obviously not constant, that they have negligible impact in terms of generating useful quantities of electricity.

They're also a bloody eyesore and probably not a lot of fun to have on your doorstep in noise terms either.

lower

Problem is that wind farms are not a realistic alternative to conventional or nuclear power because:

1. They take up too much space for the power they generate
2. The wind varies in strength and sometimes doesn't blow at all........