I wonder if Billy Bragg still drives his Mitsubishi Shogun round Burton Bradstock?

no doubt the liar thief brown will bring your wishes true

this is a typical pc nutter campaign

if people can afford them fuck you little jealousies up your arse

and taxing them makes no sense when there are many many non 4 x 4's that are just as inefficient etc

the pc crowd driving around in the toyota prius with tax perks are actually fucking the planet up when you take into account the cost of disposing of the battery etc

if people can afford them fuck you little jealousies up your arse

stand at any traffic lights and compare and contrast the number of 4 x 4's jumping red lights with the vast numbers of cyclists ignoring the red lights and all other road rules

i think thats the answer to your cyclist casualties

Don't know if anyone knew this but I read, the other day, that more cyclists are killed by pedestrians than the other way round.  Funny that (peculiar not ha ha).

Back on topic.  4X4s is it?  Fucking sledgehammer to crack a nut I say.  Don't ban em though, just transfer all road tax from small cars on to 4X4s, thus making it dead expensive and giving drivers, of such vehicles, a reason to have that fucking miserable look on thier faces that they always have.  Big twats.

Cheers, Andy.

do you?

No I drive through it in a small hatchback. Bragg's Shogun is often parked outside the newsagents blocking all and sundry. "Rich Luvvie" I thought, but then I heard him sanctimoniously droning on about the environment on telly and thought I'd check out his website - sure enough a load (..a load..) of guff about "campaigns" including a load about 4x4's and what should be done to the owners - what a hypocrite!

I'm no fan of 4x4's particularly with respect to what they do to pedestrians unfortunate enough to end up in the path of one - come on Billy - trade it in (or even better scrap it - you've got enough money) for something safer/less polluting.

come on billy, get your newspapers delivered by a paper boy!

if people can afford them fuck you little jealousies up your arse

More than 4.5 metres long and weighing four tons, the H1 is built to appeal to those who do not need to worry about fuel consumption or parking spaces - or indeed anything to do with money, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says.

btw, unless he has traded it in, Bragg drives a Nissan Pajero, not a Shogun.

I don't know if there is much humour in this article - well maybe if you like laughing at 'posh people' like
Annable Heseltine.

Buy a copy of December "Car" and turn to page 19 on the Bulletin section. It's a two-year Oregon-based study on the total environmental impact of a vehicle, they call it "dust to dust" So it's not just fuel comsumption, they even go so far as to measure energy used by an employee commuting to the factory to make the parts. Cars score for recyclability and durability.

Of the cars available in the UK, the greenest was the Jeep Wrangler, second was Toyota Yaris. (I'm just gonna quote chunks from the article here)

The dust to dust energy cost of a Prius is almost five times that of a Yaris

Hybrid Lexus RX400h scored lower than a stock Range Rover

Hybrids scored poorly because of low durabilty of key components and replacement and disposal cost of complex items like batteries and electric engines. High R&D energy costs and complicated to manufacture (two engines) and lightweight steels are energy intensive to make and harder to recycle.

4X4s did well, easy to manufacture using simple grade easily recyclable steels and have good durability. Prius will last 100,000 miles before major replacement costs; the Landcruiser will last three times as long.

It goes on to say if fuel consumption is your priority, sure buy a hybrid, if you really care about the environment, larger more conventional models have a lower impact.

Better still cycle.

Lead poisoning is the most serious environmental health threat to children and one of the most significant contributors to occupational disease. Lead causes symptoms ranging from the loss of neurological function to death depending upon the extent and duration of exposure. In children, moderate lead exposure is responsible for a significant decrease in school performance, lowering IQ scores, and is linked with hyperactive and violent behavior. Both children and adults can suffer from a range of illnesses including effects on the central nervous system, kidneys, gastrointestinal tract, and blood forming system. It also affects the reproductive system in both men and women. The annual cost of lead poisoning in the U.S. alone is estimated to exceed $43.4 billion in children. Worldwide estimates are not available, but would greatly exceed this figure, as exposures are known to be significantly higher in developing countries.

In the past several years, most large countries have removed lead from gasoline or are in the process of phasing out its use. Lead battery production, including the mining, smelting and recycling segments, is now becoming the most significant source of lead exposures throughout the world. Average exposure levels in children residing near battery plants in developing countries are four times the current level of concern established by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the average worker blood lead levels in these plants is approximately twice the recommended level at which workers should be removed from working around lead by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The only humour here might be if you enjoy seeing the rich get whacked - which I find funny sometimes.
But our glorious mayor now plans to scrap the 90% rebate for 4x4's and large engined vehicles for residents in the new congestion charge zone.

Which will mean up to £6,000 a year for any of those Kensinton and Chelsea residents who own one of the offending vehicles. (Or £12,000 for two ) He openly says it's not about congestion, but pollution. Save the planet etc. But why is this central zone so important? Big engined cars driving around the zone are going to put out just as much co2.
Or is it that you can just bash people inside the zone, until they give up their Bentley's and Jag's?
Tell them to get on the bus like everyone else.
And why should people outside the zone not have cleaner air too?

But our glorious mayor now plans to scrap the 90% rebate for 4x4's and large engined vehicles for residents in the new congestion charge zone.

And why should people outside the zone not have cleaner air too?

I would be interested to know how high these charges should be. You hear reports of £1.30 or £1.50 a mile on the busiest routes at peak hours. But that can't be right. Thousands of people drive half way around the M25 every day - (it's what it was built for - an orbital motorway). 10p a mile would still be quite steep, but any charge would have to be down about there - wouldn't it?
How much should a mum in the Surrey Hills - (within the M25) be charged to do the school run in a 4x4? £25? She might argue that the 4x4 is needed when it gets icy.

How much should a drive from Crawley to Luton airport cost? £50?

What is Britain's contribution to world co2 output? (2-3% I think). Would we make much difference?

You may be right Barmyrob - I wouldn't really know. It's so complex. As I don't read all the scientific papers and articles needed to have an informed opinion, I admit my ignorance.
People have different opinions, like this guy has.
He sounds as credible as anyone else to me. (More so even/maybe).

And you're more likely to get done for putting grass cuttings in your garbage, than for driving a scooter off a cliff

The oil-based energy policies usually associated with Vice President Dick Cheney have just come under scathing attack. There's nothing remarkable about that, of course -- except the person doing the attacking.

Step forward, Jeremy Grantham -- Cheney's own investment manager. "What were we thinking?' Grantham demands in a four-page assault on U.S. energy policy mailed last week to all his clients, including the vice president.

Titled "While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data," Grantham's philippic adds up to an extraordinary critique of U.S. energy policy over the past two decades.

What Cheney makes of it can only be imagined.

"Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change," he writes, "and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain."

Yet "there is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures," he writes. "The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)."...

Grantham is, like most fund managers, prudent, conservative and inclined to favor the free market and smaller government. He has even said he supported Bush-Cheney in 2000. That doesn't make him particularly political. He also manages a portion of the Heinz-Kerry fortune, as well as those of many other wealthy types.

But he's certainly a man Cheney respects highly. According to the vice president's last personal financial disclosure form, filed with the Federal Election Commission, Cheney has somewhere between $1.6 million and $6 million of his family's money invested in four of Grantham's funds. These aren't even index funds. These are discretionary funds, where you trust the manager to look at the landscape, analyze all the data, and make the best investments. Cheney must have a lot of faith in Grantham's judgement and analytical skills.