Aviation fuel tax - Why Oh Why Not???
- Thread starter aurora green
- Start date
aurora green
Tectonic
circlesquare said:
The vast majority of the scientific community, and even the Pentagon
disagree with you actually, but even if you were right, (which deep down I wish with all my heart that you were)
and we leave aside the issue of imminent catastrophic climate change, it still doesn't aswer why we have no aviation fuel tax.
Our government is refusing people free treatment on the NHS saying we cant afford it, and this would be an excellent revenue source.
So peoples' foriegn holidays might cost a bit more, (air travel is ludicrously cheap), but free health care at the point of delivery and decent pensions are surely more important.
(And you can rollleyes at me all you want, but it wouldn't matter if I was Mrs Bill bloody Gates and the mother of 17 children I'd still have every right to be concerned about climate change.)
aurora green said:
I'm fairly certain I am. These temperature changes are tiny. There is nowt to worry about-it's just an excuse for Bliar to increase fuel taxes and the like to pay for his wars.
Few things are more important than the NHS, but that doesn't mean we should use regressive taxation (taxation which hits the lower income groups harder than the better off) as a means of funding it
Again, it was a nasty, uncalled for personal remark, but I really don't think there is any climate change to worry about.
I take it a 'conspiraloon' is a cross between a conspiracy theorist and a lunatic?laptop said:
Sorry to disappoint but I don't even know what "debt money" is
I've actually googled "debt money" to no avail, if someone would like to tell me what conspiracy I'm supposed to be standing up for, I could try and be a 'conspiraloon'!
circlesquare said:
I agree totally - how much does aviation contribute to aerial pollution - .00000000000001% or .0000000000000015% of the world's total emissions?
The square root of bugger all vs, the cube root of bugger all.
I fly internally in the UK wherever possible - on any journey greater than 150-200 miles it's liable to be cheaper and much quicker than travelling on a train powered by a knackered diesel pumping particulates out at a huge rate of knots.
aurora green
Tectonic
But all the above, Aurora, assumes there is owt in global warming theory to begin with........
Interesting theory about the average joe, affordable holiday thing.
I mean, do people really not care about their decendents? Future generations?
There are other ways of reaching your destination other than by plane. I guess its about convenience, low cost airlines dont help much either. Hmm, interesting, thats why fuel tax could work. Internal flights would actually be more expensive than trains, for a change. Its a shame that, when people consider the pros and cons of flying vs trains (where applicable), there are quite a few comparisons to make, but never ever of the one that the train is much less polluting. And its not also the planes, you'll probably travel to the airport by car/bus/coach/taxi, which just add to more unncessary pollutage (is that even a word?). Anyway.
I mean, do people really not care about their decendents? Future generations?
There are other ways of reaching your destination other than by plane. I guess its about convenience, low cost airlines dont help much either. Hmm, interesting, thats why fuel tax could work. Internal flights would actually be more expensive than trains, for a change. Its a shame that, when people consider the pros and cons of flying vs trains (where applicable), there are quite a few comparisons to make, but never ever of the one that the train is much less polluting. And its not also the planes, you'll probably travel to the airport by car/bus/coach/taxi, which just add to more unncessary pollutage (is that even a word?). Anyway.
Cobbles said:
Ummm. You're not very numerate, are you?
Currently 4% of EU CO2 emissions and rising quite fast.
Sez who? Sez EasyJet
And 99% of the nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, etc injected directly into the upper atmosphere. Obviously.
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
I really cannot believe that people are still denying climate change, when even george w. bush has admitted it.circlesquare said:
Aside from global warming, oil supplies aren't gonna last forever, and are actually gonna start dwindling pretty soon. Taxes are needed to slow down oil consumption.
citydreams
on the road again
laptop said:
Fine so if that's a weeny 4% of the EU's emissions, what percentage of the world's total emissions does that add up - even if all air travel was banned in the EU (crashing the economy of all its member states), it'd probably make less difference that 1% of China's moped users switching to a 125cc bike - e.g. a number so small that it's indistinguishable from zero.
I remember the good old days when we used to worry about CFC's - whatever happened to them - either they never were a problem in the first place or there was no mileage in bleating about them. It was probably more to do with the concept that there was nothing to tax. With fuel, you can tax the bollocks off pretending that it's something to do with a green conscience - we never used to have airport tax or fuel tax on petrol/diesel at 60% but now these ludicrous values can be imposed under the guise of "greenness".
Thankfully Gordon Brown (facing a couple of elections) has now decided to stop pandering to the tiny but vocal green minority by not splapping on even higher fuel taxes.
Maggot said:
All we need to do is tow some lumps of the supposedly melting ice caps over to the Sahara and use them to irrigate the desert to allow biofuels to be produced.
At the same time, as the per barrel price rises, it makes it economical to exploit gimungous reserves such as the Alberta Shale and oil sand deposits.
We can also ease the pressure on fossil fuels for vehicle usage by adding more wind farms and a shed load of tidal barrages, as well as ramping up our nuclear power supply status.
That should keep a few zillion new 4x4's running happily in China.
No country in Europe will do this alone because (repeating myself) all trans-national short haul operators would simply uplift fuel elsewhere.
The EU probably won't do anything because - well, it can't as such. Member states have the veto on taxation so effectively it would be a voluntary scenario, similar to what we have now, with the same problem that partial adoption would have little impact on reducing flights.
If EU specified taxation is the answer to reducing emissions, then we need a more powerful EU - which is a long way off.
The alternative is that instead of mandate, everyone sits around the table and agrees, and that there are no significant dissenters who won't play along.
The EU probably won't do anything because - well, it can't as such. Member states have the veto on taxation so effectively it would be a voluntary scenario, similar to what we have now, with the same problem that partial adoption would have little impact on reducing flights.
If EU specified taxation is the answer to reducing emissions, then we need a more powerful EU - which is a long way off.
The alternative is that instead of mandate, everyone sits around the table and agrees, and that there are no significant dissenters who won't play along.
citydreams
on the road again
Cobbles said:
You really aren't very numerate, are you? Since you're incapable of opening or reading a link, here's the relevant quote:
Note that this is from EasyJet, campaigning against aviation fuel tax.
Aviation in 15 EU member states accounts for 4% of CO2 in those 15 EU member states.
Observe the way they distort the projection: since the 10 new member states have lower GDP/head, we can safely conclude that the 2030 projection for the 15 is more than 6%. Which is by any honest standard a significant amount.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
citydreams said:
Also bear in mind that to get usable oil out of those nasty shales, you need to put in a lot of heat. It turns out that for every Joule of energy you spend making oil form tar sand, you get about 1.5 joules out. That's an EROIE ( Energy Return On Invested Energy) ratio of 1:1.5. Compare that to the ratio of 1:30 for the easiest oil (now globally down to around 1:10) and you see that the oil sands are very nearly not an energy source at all.
For example, the figure of a trillion barrels of oil is bandied around for the Canadian sands. Seeing as how 2/3 of your energy is going into refining the stuff, that's actually only a resource of 333 billion. Still pretty big, but not the life-saver people think it is.
So you're thinking "well, they wouldn't use the oil to make the oil, that's just sill" - At the moment they're using natural gas, but that's limited too. Nuclear would be a good option, but why piss 2/3rds of your energy away converting it into oil? The tar sands are a dead end. Give them 30 million years underground and maybe they'll turn into oil, but they're close to useless right now.
laptop said:
Clearly syntax and comprehension are your weak points. If aviation is 4% of the EU's CO2 what proportion is it of global CO2? e.g. if the EU is responsible for, say, 10% of all global CO2 then EU aviation would be responsible for 4% of 10% of Global CO2 emissions - sod all.
Which bit of
does cobbles not understand?
This, recall, in response to a post wildly asserting that global aviation is "0.00000001%" of of global "pollution".
And they've ignored the obvious point that aviation is responsible for 99% of nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, etc injected into the upper atmosphere.
I conclude that for this poster, disbelief in climate change is either a religious belief or a delusional system (not that there's necessarily a difference).
does cobbles not understand?
This, recall, in response to a post wildly asserting that global aviation is "0.00000001%" of of global "pollution".
And they've ignored the obvious point that aviation is responsible for 99% of nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, etc injected into the upper atmosphere.
I conclude that for this poster, disbelief in climate change is either a religious belief or a delusional system (not that there's necessarily a difference).
Disbelief in climate change as a product of fuel usage is just as valid as belief.laptop said:
Who says the climate is cahnging anyway?
Where's the data - how many temperature monitoring stations were active in 1800? 1400? 900? 100BC?
Data gathered over the blink of an eye is hardly definitive of anything, especially when it's promulgated as science by envronmental lobbyists whose only purpose in life is to elicit subscriptions to keep them in Business class junket tickets and Hybrid fuel lexus cars..
obanite
Kroketten
Cobbles said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record
Dodgy studies and declarations are hardly definitive of anything, especially when it's promulgated as science by oil company lobbyists whose only purpose in life is to make money regardless of how it fucks up the planet their grandkids will have to live in.
the B said:
How else can anyone definitively state exactly when the climate has been warmer or colder and therefore whether there is any rate of change. It's all very well gathering estimates (which may be out by heaven knows how many degrees either way) from indicators such as paleoclimatology but I always thought that science should be based on evidence, not theories built on other theories.
In any event, even if the climate is getting warmer, that's just because climate change happens, no mattter what we do.
Was the "Global Warming" after the little Ice Age in the Middle Ages caused by 4x4 barouches and carts? (No aviation then to blame it on) - of course not, it happened because the earth is subject to its own uninterruptible cycles.
We can't ban aviation simply on the strength of a bit of theory and some emotional hype - how else can you get from Glasgow to Bristol or Leeds to Dublin in an hour?
Cobbles said:
Not a use of "thought" that I am familiar with. Do you not mean "guessed"?
I'd recommend you to go away for, say, three months to read some philosophy of science. After you've finished the remedial arithmetic, of course. Your current guess appears to be confusing it with history.
Cobbles said:
You've already said that for you it's all a matter of your belief being as good as the considered conclusion of the entire scientific community, bar some paid shills and one or two honest eccentrics. (Sure, go ahead, believe any old cock you want - just don't expect a welcome for proclaiming it.) So I should put effort in why?
Cobbles said:
0.0000001% according to you. Which would be measurable if true.
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