While you and so many others go on pretending that all the environmentalists want is to fund local authority spending you will never understand those you wish to convince. They may be wrong in their beliefs, but they hold them just as strongly as you hold yours. Pollution from vehicles in cities is huge and is horrid and for some it causes asthma and other breathing problems. Why are you so surprised that some people genuinely want the older more polluting vehicles either off the road, or cleaned up by conversions, or at least penalised for the pollution they cause?
I think you mis-understood me. I believe quite strongly that cars pollute and would be quite happy to promote a scheme that enables as many people as possible to drive less. (Even though I quite like driving)
Having half my family being asthma sufferers; I have a vague idea of what it can cause.
May I take one specific part of your post though:
Why are you so surprised that some people genuinely want the older more polluting vehicles either off the road, or cleaned up by conversions, or at least penalised for the pollution they cause?
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older more polluting vehicles taken off the road: sounds we're right on track. We charge the oldest and most polluting (i.e. pre-1972, tractors and military trucks) nothing (or next to nothing/less than others)
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older more polluting vehicles penalised for the pollution they cause: again, we seem to be right on track here. I was in Victoria Bus Station the other day and the air felt really clean and healthy; bar the fumes coming from the older buses which you could smell from 2 blocks away...
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older more polluting vehicles cleaned up by conversion: Again, great tax-free incentives here for those that can afford the money to do so; I guess we can conveniently ignore all those who can't afford it
I'm probably more frustrated than you by the ecological situation - not only is there a serious problem; but there are also legions of unscrupulous people ready to cash in on it.
Its like the rumours of Tesco selling bottled water at £4 to water-less homes bottle during the floods... As long as people/companies/politicians can hide behind the "its in the name of the enviroment" excuse; they can do what they want!
I was in Europe over Christmas...
- Nice has just finished installing a brand new electric tramway in the city; the trams have battery packs so they can move even where paying overhead wires would be impractical
- Turin finished its new underground metro line. It uses rubber tyres on concrete tracks (as a post to steel on steel) to minimise noise pollution - no driver is needed.
- Rome is served by ATAC; for public transportation; ATAC is phasing out diesel/petrol buses in favour of methane and electric busses where electric trams are not viable. At the moment 4 routes are served by electric buses and 14 by methane. ATAC also donated a set of electric scooters/mopeds to various institutions, universities and emergency services to replace existing mopeds (and in certain cases small cars)
-There are 11 public electrical-vehicle charging stations in Rome. Adapters/plugs for these are issued FREE to anyone who can bring a registration document for an electric vehicle
-As I already mentioned, on a nationwide-level incentives exist for scrapping vehicles; one such incentive (which I found out about today) targets car sharing:
- If you scrap you vehicle and share one; there is a 800-euro "prize". If instead you scrap 2 family cars and buy just one to replace them (under a certain pollution level) you get 1200-euros.
- If instead you go all the way and scrap your car without buying a new one; you get 3 years of free public transport.
- should you want to convert to LPG or methane, you get 350 and 500 euros respectively towards the cost of the conversion.
In the most polluted cities (i.e. Rome, Milan and Turin) whenever pollution levels go over a certain limit drastic measures are put into force; either the whole town becomes a pedestrian area for a day or two, or only certain vehicles can move around, etc... This usually does NOT affect comercial vehicles! While drastic, this usually works quite well.
And this is just what is in effect now in Italy.
My main gripe with the system here is that "the only 'solution'" (if you can call it that) is artificially inflate the cost of motoring; and there happens to be the "side effect" of making random budgets match.
So, ending my rant - if you want to "save the environment", stop taxing cars and start doing something about it! There are many (many) other methods that would make all but the most petrol-headed people consider a greener-car; taxation is not one of them.
Michele
