Fuel Protests.

Trouble is David the ballot box is no choice, no party will promise to alter the situation on fuel.
And lets face it, if they did they would probably be lieing.

We have the "green tax" to consider, and how "enviromentally friendly" it is to price us off the road.

 

The thing is Pete, if we ( the twenty odd million entitled to vote ) insisted they do what we want, or else sign on the dole, then they will do it. Never mind " global warming" , and " greenhouse gasses", that is bovine manure. We are going through a natural cycle of ice age, tropical age. If you think about it ,people in the 18th and 19th centuries pumped more chemicals into the atmosphere than we ever could. And did they have a hole in the ozone layer?

 

Sorry David but you are talking bovine manure on that one, you even have the ozone layer and global warming mixed up. No doubt you jumped on that TV programme bandwagon that talked about there being a global warming conspiracy and it was made by a serial **** peddlar. There is not a conspiracy, just a lot of worried people. even the sceptic Maggie Thatcher accepted global warming and I don't think she let on half of what she was privy too. People in the 18th and 19th century did not pump out anywhere near as much as we do - that is just total garbage- the industrial revolution then only affected a small proportion of the world.
We are not going through a natural cycle. We never left the Ice Age, we are still in the same era. We are just in an interglacial and not a particularly warm or long one at that. Normally the ice would return after a several thousand years or so . The changes that caused the Ice Age are still here. However normal changes of climate are such that vegetation zones are able to migrate and so habitats survive by gradually moving their location. The recent changes are happening so rapidly that this is not happening. In this country we can be blase about it because we live in the middle of a climate zone. People in parts of Africa who live near climatic zone boundaries can actually see the changes occurring as the years go by and are suffering immense hardship.
You can argue about the tax burden on fuel and the unfair comparison between us and Europe but to deny global warming as a part of it diminishes your argument.
Also it does not address the fact that oil is running out. Even the Americans are looking at alternatives.
Walnut its not so much the tax situation that makes US goods so cheap, its the fact that the dollar has been devalued so much against the �£. I think you can get away without paying duty up to about �£18. So you can split your orders up to get each under the threshold value. My son orders CDs, T shirts and posters and after the first time when HM customs stung him he always splits up the orders. I do the same with seed orders. The little US seed companies are so cheap, generous with seed and give good service ( ever remember thatin the UK?) The value is so good that it usually pays to pay the extra postage costs.

 

If anyone in this area is interested, there are demo's at the Fawley refinery all over this weekend. Might not agree with the protest but I do agree with the right to protest.

 

Geoff, the seasons have been changeing from the days of samuel peeps.

As an aside: many US sellers especially on ebay will mark the goods to a lower value or as a gift if you ask.

[ 14. December 2007, 12:41 AM: Message edited by: Pro Gard ]

 

I have worked for many years with temperature control systems. A key aspect is the time delay. If you switch on your central heating boiler, you may not feel any warmth in the sitting room for several minutes; it doesn't mean nothing is happening.

The bigger the system the longer the time delay. On a global scale the time delay could be 100 years or more. What this means is that we may only be seeing the result of what we did 100 years ago. The result of what we have done since may still be in the pipeline and NOTHING can stop it. I don't know what the time delay is - but my gut feeling is that it is very long and consequently much more dangerous than most people realise.

 

Am I the only one that's a little naughty on here? :confused:

Before I order anything from outside the UK I always ask if the people (of whom I'm buying from) will send the item as a 'gift' 9 times out of 10 they do and it allows me not to pay the custom charge on the items.
Helen.xxx.

 

Geoff and Peter entirley agree on the global warming issues.Geoff the limit is �£18 before duty is paid on anything from the U S I found out too late, and in future will split my purchase if it's possible.

 

Helen you are not the only one the risk is a spot check and if they find something amiss they will confiscate it.

 

I recently bought some seeds from a very small place in the US. They were marked as commercial samples on the green customs form, and valued at less that the invoice inside.

I suspect they only open a tiny percentage of packets.

 

Temperatures have been changing since long before Samuel Pepys. When the Romans were in Britain we had a relatively warm spell and we have had cold spells during the Middle Ages and during Victorian period. Climate scientists have aloways been aware of that and have been able to understand changes over thousands of years - i have seen the pollen analysis, mud deposits and tree ring evidence. I specialised in climatology while at university. Scientists knew of global warming then i8n the 70s but politicians would not do anything about it, cause its not exactly a vote winner is it?
My worry about global warming is that it works as a trigger mechanism. It is self perpetuating in that it relies on the balance of polar ice. Once so much polar ice has melted it upsets the global energy balance and then continues under its own steam. No one knows at what point that limit is reached. I worry that we may have passed that point of no return. As somebody stated the other week global warming is the most serious threat to face the planet. That is no exaggeration - it will make the cuban missile crisis of the 60s seem pale by comparison, it will not leave anyone unaffected.

 

I have nothing against anybody who is worried about the enviroment, in fact I also worry about it, but on a more local level mostly.
Things such as overpopulation need tackeling, without a check on that your just weeing in the wind, in my view.
More people, more greenhouse gasses, its simple, unless of course we all go back to living in caves.

But getting back more on topic, the one thing that really sticks in my throat is how the polaticians are being allowed tho hijack the enviromental thing, for their own gains.
Its mostly **** that they talk, but some people believe it.
:eek:

 

It's all these hippies eating lentils that's contributing to green house gases !

In 2008/9 my car will cost �£400 a year to tax. It does 20-27mpg and runs on petrol that costs a minimum of �£105.9 (at the moment). Does all this tax make me change my driving habits, NO, do I drive it less, NO, are these taxes improving my environmental concern, NO. Infact I have tuned my car and removed the CATS to make it less environmentally friendly ( and much faster , because if I am paying �£400 a year in tax I want my monies worth !

As for protesting about it whats the point ? What will it achieve ? It's all financially linked and at the end of the day disruption is only going to put the public out of pocket even more.

What we need is to address all the other financial issues raping this country which if resolved would allow a revision of UK tax.

 

BM, what sort of BHP boos does removing the cats give?

Agree with you regards road tax, No way id want anything other than a 4x4 no matter what the tax is.

 

With an ECU map change to recognise the flow changes I made an extra 56BHP and 85FtLbs of torque. I actually replaced the standard down pipe cat with a 100 cell sports cat (so I am not completely evil) and removed the second cat in the centre pipe. If you removed them all you would see maybe 80 BHP and 100+ FlLbs of torque. ECU changes are essential in the MY06 Subaru to control the turbo boost levels. Other cars and some older cars can see benefits without ECU changes, but I haven't had experience of modifying cars outside of newage Imprezas.

This is my 2003 Impreza figure increases...

http://bbs.scoobynet.com/scooby.php?do=photo&photoid=6796

and some other scooby info...

http://bbs.scoobynet.com/scooby.php?profileid=86