Increasing pollution? Who knew!

Not that I intend to do anything about it but as a 5k mls p.a. motorist with a V8, I wonder how long it would take to offset the manufacturing carbon footprint of buying a new electric car. My guess is at least 5 and possibly rather more.

The car industry has been saying for a while that the lifetime energy consumption of an electric car is greater than that for an ICE car. The problem is that the Politicians don't want to hear that in the same way that they really aren't interested in the truth unless it suits their career or political aspirations!

+1. 

I heard the news item on the BBC that Tim referred to. Talk about "sound bite" news! It basically implied that getting everyone to drive electric cars would make transport carbon neutral. WTAF! Only if the electricity came from thin air and the electric cars were produced by fairies at the bottom your garden. But that does not fit their eco-simplistic fact mindset.         

I was listening to R4 on the way home and they interviewed someone from the organisation that did this research.
It was pretty stupid.
Apparently 'it's too easy to blame the consumer' but actually the car companies are at fault for daring to market these products while not highlighting their pollution. Er, don't cars still have the same sort of efficiency chart as electrical appliances?
In addition the finance deals are too attractive - well that can be applied down to the bottom of the market as well.
Actually IT IS the fault of the consumer - the car companies aren't holding their family hostage to make them buy one of these things and if someone's going to spend £60k or more surely they can be assumed to be intelligent enough to do a bit of research?

A few stats:-

Apparently car companies are only spending 4% of their marketing budget on electric cars. Well, as electric cars have been less than 4% of the market that means they're spending more per unit on those than on IC engines. That's also before you think of all the positive messages and free advertising from the coverage of electric cars an climate change.

SUVs 'now' outsell electric vehicles in a ratio of 37 to 1. To illustrate this there's a dramatic bar chart but hold on, back in 2009 how many electric cars were sold? Even in 2013 I expect the ratio would've been a lot higher than the latest stats.

The spokesperson said they thought some form of legislation was necessary to change the market including investment in alternative forms of transport and making car travel NOT the cheapest option - great if you're going to provide decent services into rural areas.

Just once I'd like these preachy types to be put on the spot themselves - what car do they drive, when did they last travel by air, do they have a decorative wood burning fire at home, etc.

I remember watching something on the electricity supply thing - iirc (not the most reliable thing I know), we are actually at generating capacity in the UK, and have to take additional from France! They were following a distrubution centre down south around the time of a world cup/euro finals and the guy the were interviewing stated that at halftime they would have to call on additional capacity from France as everyone would make tea/get a beer at the same time. Sure enough to within the minute of his prediction they were making calls and makign changes to bring this extra online.

There are interconnectors between all the EU countries so power can be transferred back and forth to balance demand. We have 3  - France, Ireland and Holland, with a Belgian one coming online. We also have gas ones between us and Belgium/Netherlands. 

I hope so. Bleedin' French electricity coming over here and powering our toasters! It's not right!

Interesting. From that it seems warming was happening anyway, had maybe settled for the most part but there's a clear correlation with human industrialisation.

I wonder why some large organisations do not see that THEY are contributing more than they need to. A news team that hires a helicopter to gly as close as they can to a known exclusion zone around a recently popped its head volcano for a clip of some moronic rep telling everyone that is what they have done. We know what an island looks like and they and already shown clips of it from boats ffs.

We also do not need to see a stupidity rep talking outside a school when a bus has crashed, or another stupid rep standing close to a sea wall with breakers going over it either. I think we have sufficient background film for that. It only encourages entrants for the Darwinian quiz to apply for membership, posthumously.

We are doubly or even triply condemned. What with science bods, politicians and big business on both sides of the climate debate, we are royally fucked ten ways 'til sunday and three times on blank holiday's. When do I start ordering sun block in ten gallon drums?

I don't agree - summers were longer and drier and we always had snow for days, if not weeks, in winter.
Obviously some were better/worse than others but the current run of 7 or 8 years with barely any snow is new.

I can remember back in the 60's having hot summers that left me so sunburned that sheets of dead skin would come off, way before parents smothered kids in sunblock. More of the winters were colder but then we had an outside loo and had to take boiling water with us when we went out.

That's true, but it's also the scary part.  Changes that are noticeable over a short period are not good, and they do tally with scientific consensus.  And as this is an experiment we only get to run once, I think it needs taking seriously.

I think this issue exercises drivers because we feel treated unfairly, and I guess it's precisely because most of have little choice but to drive and therefore to pay the taxes and penalties deemed appropriate. Yet flying seems to get ever cheaper and no parallel tax regime applies at a meaningful level. That cannot be fair, but of course fliers can largely opt not to fly, and taxing people's holidays (in effect) sound like a massive vote-loser.