For pete's sake - peat tax

I strongly disagree with you. There is noeveidence to show the government actually use any of the "Green Tax" money on anything to do with the environment. There are now a huge raft of taxes that are supposed to be part of the governments "Green Policy". They are all just a very badly disguised grab toget more of our money and do nothing for us in return.

What you are suggesting is a very dangerous thing. Many years ago the government introduced Road Tax for all vehicles. This money was supposed to pay for the building and maintenance of our highways. We now pay massive amounts of money to the government for Road Fund Licences, yet EVERY major highway in the UK is at least 15 years beyond its refurbishment date. Ask any biker what he thinks of the state of our roads. When you ride a custom bike like mine you feel every bump, ridge and pothole there is.

BUT THE GOVERNMENT KEEPS TAKING OUR MONEY!

Apply the same backstabbing antics of the governmentto what you are suggesting and we will end up with taxes that are introduced for trial periods and NEVER reduced or abolished.

You should also bear in mind that UK gardeners are probably the most green people inthe country. Look through someof the threads here and see how many people have posted ideas how to make good use of reclaimed materials. Have a look at how many people want to make maximum use of thier own compost. Some of the ideas are nothing short of brilliant. Now roll that kindof thinking across the whole of the UK and see how much gardeners are actually helping the environment. To impose a tax would set back gardening 50 years. There has been a big uptake in gardening as a hobby and as a means to subsidise household budgets. Gardening is a good, healthy and wholesome passtime. So your tax is NOT going to be of any benefit whatsoever.

All it will do is annoy people, prevent or hinder new gardeners and give more of our very hard earned money to the backsatbbing, lying, thieving politicians. Those swine have had more than enough of my monmey thankyou very much.

Chopper.

 

I hear the argument about carbon emmissions and habitat destruction. However, I would counter that in a couple of ways.

Firstly, the old carbon emmissions argument is pointless. In Britain we only contribute 2% of the world's carbon emmissions. If Britain became carbon neutral today, about a year from now China would have taken up the slack anyway. Then there's the fact that natural sources pump more CO2 into the air than anything man made. Iceland's volcano did about a year's worth in a matter of days.

Then there's the fact that all the focus on carbon is purely to divert our attention from other problems. On climate changing gaseous emmissions alone, methane is more significant, and 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas. The trouble is, much of this methane comes from agriculture, as incidentally so does a significant proportion of CO2 emmissions, but we can't complain about that because we all have to eat, and all want it easy.

As for habitat destruction, it is a shame, and it is something I hope we would all like to prevent if we could. However that's difficult when so many people want the easy life, of commercially produced food (myself included to a degree). Sadly, its not just the fact that intensive agriculture in itself destroys habit so that we can eat, we (the collective 'we', I know there are many exceptions, especially on forums such as this one) waste so much. Agriculture has to produce far more than we actually need, because we feel it necessary to waste so much. How many here I wonder realise that some cattle are raised for their hides, while others are raised for their meat. And of those that are raised for their hide (for leather) quite often the meat is wasted, and the meat ones have their hides wasted. There is also the fact that so much meat is wasted too, because we turn our noses up at the less favourable parts of the animal (although those bits often go to the hot dog factories and the likes). Even apart from that, we simply throw away so much good food. There was a study a couple of years ago where they found that the average household throws away about £400 worth of perfectly good food every year, and that didn't include leftovers from oversized portions. That was just Britain, Germany and America did even worse in the study.

So in conclusion, if it comes to down to a choice of habitat destruction and greenhouse gas emmissions from taking peat so people might grow their own food, or habitat destruction and greenhouse gas emmissions so that we can continue sending good food to landfill, and clearing rainforests to raise the cattle that we waste, or to grow soya to feed the cattle whose meat we throw away, I think peat use isn't that bad really.

 

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Apparently when the original motor car tax came in , the motorists were told (lied to as usual) that it would be used exclusively to build and maintain the road network.

This time it was the NHS is safe in our hands!

Quick where's my expenses!

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I agree with the person above, and have little faith in politicians' promises. Neither do I think a £1 tax on peat would go towards alternatives, but the point being made was that it should do so, and if that were the case I would be in favour. I think any effort to help preserve the planet is worth a try, whatever percentage of carbon emissions this country is or isn't reponsible for. The earlier points about animal farming are also worth considering; I'm vegetarian, though for other reasons also, but the fact that meat farming also damages the environment doesn't mean I don't care about the impact of peat excavation. In short, I would like to see as few people as possible using peat, and I am sorry if others do not agree.

 

Just to balance up how "destructive" peat extraction is, here are a few pics of the old peat workings near Glastonbury.



Peat is still extracted in the area.



But the old workings are flooded & provide valuable habitat for birds, amphibians and otters.



And guess what builds up on the bottom of the flooded workings ?



Butterflies.

No,No,No...

The black stuff underneath it... Peat :DOH:

 

OK so we keep using peat for now, but we are using it faster than it forms and do we not have any responsibilty for future generations. We use it. They lose it.
Why worry it won't be our problem!

Quote from the RHS site -

"The effects of extraction are irreparable as peatlands take thousands of years to form. Reclamation schemes at previously worked sites have succeeded in creating attractive wetland areas, but they have not recreated peatlands. Peat forms at a rate of only 1mm per year, whilst peat extractors remove up to 22cm a year. A 10m deep peat reserve, which took around 10,000 years to form, will be cleared in less than 50 years. Bearing these timescales in mind, it is impossible to illustrate rehabilitated and restored peatlands. Even if peatlands could be restored, it is important to remember that preservation is cheaper than restoration.

Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) estimate that 2.96 million m3 of peat is used in the UK annually, of which 99% is used as growing media and 69% of which is used by gardeners. Sixty-eight percent of all peat used in the United Kingdom is imported from other countries, incl. the Republic of Ireland and the Baltic states (Defra, 2010)."

 

Just as there will always be healthy looking smokers who run marathons, there will always be examples of decently managed agricultural sites where wildlife and human activity co-exist. I don't know about the site in the photographs or how much peat excavation occurs there so I wouldn't like to comment. But peat extraction releases around 3 million tonnes of CO2 a year and is an activity driven by profit, not the desire to help wildlife or conserve the environment. For all the talk here of unfair taxes, the peat site at Chat Moss, Lancs, is owned by a massive corporation headed by a billionaire - who also happens to be a tax exile.
Undisturbed peat bogs, however, soak up carbon and are invaluable defences against climate change. Most local people are opposed to peat excavation in their areas, as recent public demonstrations have suggested.
I can see that we are at cross purposes here and are never going to agree, but unfortunately, no matter how worse other practises may be, how naive it is to expect to funds would go towards research, the difficulty in finding affordable alternatives, or any other obfuscation, the fact remains that peat excavation is, environmentally, extremely destructive and there is no way of getting round that fact.

 

Well the problem is the unwavering position of most gardeners on their use of peat. There is a very short sighted "I like using it, therefore it is ok to use" view that is held by a lot of people.

Ripping it out of wild areas (not including areas that have been naturally disturbed and are releasing loads of gas anyway) and sticking it in the ground in little squared off, inaccessible to most wildlife, boxes at the back of our houses isnt really a great exchange. We can get a lot of insects, but there is clearly an unbalanced ecosystem in most cities.

Really the answer is to have people use less peat if they have to use it, taxing it puts pressure on people to use less of it, because its worth more. Also, any money accrued from this can go back into the pot to fund things that we need (environmental initiaives for example, like trying to conserve wild areas that are under assault from humans trying to harvest natural resources..and a million other things).

Its about finding a scientifically verified balance. The fact that one government has decided to use it to fuel a power station, against scientific advice, is nothing more than a display of their inability to be circumspect - and is NOT validation of the act itself.

 

A few weeks ago on The West Tonight news there was great ho hahy! about the return of Bitterns to the Somerset "man made" wetlands.(no I don't spend my time in front of the TV)

The RSPB ( anti song birds brigade) were leaping about about how marvellous it was.

These wetlands and others as they are now, are only there because of the extractions of peat for various reasons, over many generations.
They are as the are because the water channels are kept open and not clogged up with rubbish, the reed beds are managed by cutting and any scrub is removed.

If the so called conservationists had their way it would all return to scrub, no use to anyone or thing, especially the Bitterns!

And probably no one will ever see them, hear them yes but not see!

 

Makka-bakka, to claim that this is the endgame of conservationists is very silly, as anyone can see, so i'll leave that one to die.

ARMANDII -I completely understand where you are coming from, if there was an alternative then i would use it 100% of the time and have a great garden because of it.
Mostly my issue is really with the notion that gardener should have free reign to decide they want a certain plant, then if its easier to use peat, use it without thought.

Whenever I think of growing something new in my garden i run an almost "risk assessment" style process and wonder if the output of the plant will outweigh the damage cause by collecting the peat (assuming the plant NEEDS peat). If it doesn't cut it, then I don't plant it. End of.

Its just the notion that you can decide you want it, then do whatever it takes to get it, even though the balance isnt equal in terms of destruction/redistribution. Its perhaps the blind consumer side of gardening that im opposed to; the notion that your subjective appreciation of a plant that wont necessarily provide any ecological benefit but to your highly evolved ape brain looks "pretty" seems hugely selfish.

The ecosystems that exist in our country/planet are the most important thing, if what im doing is ending up with net damage then im doing it wrong, anything other than this to me seems like a self centred approach :(