Still on the Blog, the piece I entitled New Industry, can currently be read under October. I now am forced to comment yet again, due to the passage of time and what I believe to be the rubbish that is being talked.
I Start with David Attenborough’s apocalyptic programme. Some three weeks ago on TV, he demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the world would be almost uninhabitable by the turn of the next century. Only those who have a deep understanding of a subject should pontificate, thus, I can only offer my amateurish opinion. In that programme, one could believe the scientific evidence to be irrefutable, but the development of the world, the way in which nature can adapt, damage to the brain being a case in point, one could be excused for being sceptical and believing that there is a half-truth here which only time will resolve. I find myself wondering, therefore, if there is another agenda which we know not of, which is making those in charge, to come up with unreasonable and illogical legislation, that will cost us an arm and a leg any time now.
The EU and Green Cars. On the 7th of February ’07, the BBC News informed us that the EU is proposing that all cars by 2012 must conform to new standards of emission which can only be achieved by redesign of the engines. It is estimated that this would put some £3000 onto the cost of a new car. Can anyone seriously imagine that the Italians, Spanish, and all those other impoverished countries which have just joined, or are knocking on the door of the EU, will toe the line? They don’t with respect to some of the other legislation so why should they do so with one as expensive as this? I have previously made the point that the British civil service operates as if they were handling their own personal cash. So it is reasonable to assume that we shall be forced into this situation, but it will probably be glossed over in other areas of the EU. I find it incredible that what I believe to be a country low on the emission list, probably similar to Holland, which has divorced itself almost totally from heavy engineering, generates some electricity without fossil fuels, is being steadily forced by legislation to spend money to reduce, even this lower output of carbon, when the rest of the world is chucking it out in the lorry load. I am all for care of the environment, providing that it is equable, and that I am not being required to foot the bill for the rest of the world’s lack of consideration.
In this modern age a car can readily last, with average mileage, and average use, for eight to ten years. This legislation would then seriously affect those people who had bought cars around 2002. In the context of global warming and the percentage that this change is likely to make, it would seem fairer, if the system were to be introduced, to date it from now, for 2017.
I was highly amused at that programme on television when the reporter marched on the screen carrying a half hundred-weight bag of coal and informing us that this was the amounts of carbon we would be emitting over a certain period of time. I do not believe that he had an idea, and certainly I had none, of the relationship between that bag of coal and carbon dioxide emission. So many people, especially politicians are now getting onto the bandwagon, making grandiose gestures, and talking complete nonsense, because they wish to appear to care. Those same politicians are probably driving around in the biggest cars imaginable, with another gas guzzler or two at home, while we even in the short-term, are going to be required to build in, carbon saving initiatives in all new houses. I grant you the life of a house is of the order of 60 – 100 years, and so there might be some small excuse for bringing in this legislation now, but I believe the building industry rather than the Earth’s atmosphere will have a greater profit.
Just a thought! The other day I was pouring tea, and was exhorted to include semi-skimmed milk in some of the cups. I had been thinking about the disproportionate attention which is being given to saving emissions in this country, and realised that to some extent the same exaggeration probably applies to a lot of aspects of our lives. Take skimmed milk, some of these folk wanted me to put skimmed milk into the tea because they were worried about their health. I have no idea exactly what the differential in fat between full cream and skimmed milk is, and life is too short to sort it out, but I’m convinced that, in certain cases, while there is justification for using skimmed milk in large culinary operations, I can see no advantage in the differential in a cup of tea. I have drunk full creamed milk all my life, and I believe that, apart from people who have serious illnesses which require consideration concerning fat consumption, that the rest are being indoctrinated unnecessarily – maybe by butter and cream manufacturers?