RE: No Congestion Charge Increase

[Apache]

im said:

turboman808 said:

I fail to grasp how this is a win? You still have congestion charges don't you? I mean I see it doesn't play favoritism but it's just confirmed you all get equally screwed.

But I am in the states so I could be missing something.

Nope - you've called it correctly from what I can see - short of getting rid of the whole thing, everything else is just tinkering at the edges.

It's a start, nothing more. From what I can see it is a bit more involved than just dismantling it

[peter pan]

It allways makes me smile at the irony of Ken being a a so called champion for the ecoMENTALists, whilst all the time he was apparently responsible for the birth of 5 children by several different women.
Unless he fathered children who dont want to breathe, eat, or drink, dont want to wear clothes, dont want to be warm in winter or cool in summer, dont want to move around the planet, dont want a house to live in, dont want entertainment, or holidays, and most significantly dont want eventually want children of their own, then all he has done is creat a collossal mushrooming carbon footprint. Talk about hypocrite!? he could win the gold medal for hypocrisy!.

[mattikake]

johnnyv6 said:

actually global warming IS happening pretending it isnt wont make it go away ...come to that NOTHING we do is going to make it go away, something i watched a while back really started me thinking.....do you know what ACTUALLY makes the most carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.............plankton apparently......six TRILLION tonnes of it per year and it seems the cycle is plankton grows year on year on year till the output of carbon dioxide causes global warming - about every fourteen thousand years ....ice caps melt and lo we got a new ice age.it gets cold - plankton dies co 2 drops earth passes go......... you get the picture oddly enough weve had an ice age every fourteen thousand years since adam was a boy and we had our last one errrrrrrm...thirteen and a half thousand years ago trouble is THIS one is being aided by there only being a thin line of trees up the middle of south america these days as one poster said co2 = plant food but if there aint the plants !!!! eureka ive had a brain wave........ Gordon tax the plankton and leave us the eff alone lol theres a job for ken get him a boat and a ticket machine

Er, Plankton actually absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Specificially Phytoplankton (plankton is a term for a variety of lifeforms that coalesce on the surface of the oceans) are more like plantlife using photsynthesis to absorb and convert CO2 to Oxygen. When it dies it naturally and takes whatever CO2 is currently has absorbed to the seabed where it is burried, assuming it's not eaten beforehand.

See here: http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/seawifs/phytoplankton.h...

Anyway, it's irrelevant to the point. Plankton is part of the natural ecosystem of the Earth and are in balance with the atmosphere, regulating the levels of Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen.

The problem is man. We have disturbed this 2-fold by polluting the oceans killing off plankton and by releasing unnatural levels of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere by digging up plankton and land equivalents (trees!) and burning it as fuel, in vast quantities.

In short, we're all dead. And congestion charging is one of those many excuses to taxs us that have come into operation some 10-20 years too late. The exponential process of global warming has already been started. All we can do now is sit back and enjoy the ride... Sadly the clever people die just as easily as the stupid greedy rich people and our only salvation is we get to say "we told you so".

Edited by mattikake on Wednesday 9th July 09:46

[anonymous-user]

Apache said:

im said:

turboman808 said:

I fail to grasp how this is a win? You still have congestion charges don't you? I mean I see it doesn't play favoritism but it's just confirmed you all get equally screwed.

But I am in the states so I could be missing something.

Nope - you've called it correctly from what I can see - short of getting rid of the whole thing, everything else is just tinkering at the edges.

It's a start, nothing more. From what I can see it is a bit more involved than just dismantling it

Agreed. This was a proposed increase. It's relatively easy to stop as nothing's been enacted yet. The next step is that Boris is due to launch a consultation into abolishing the Western extension. This isn't quite so easy as it's already in place and presumably, he wants to show he has a mandate to remove it, especially as that essentially renders the millions ploughed into it wasted (arguably wasted when it was implemented, but at least it's doing *something* rather than simply flushed down the drain). He's only been in place 2 months, I think he's doing pretty well considering the usual speed of local government.

[mattikake]

^ hmm... ban people onthe spot who can't be constructive? Or at least get them a free invite to join barryboys.com.

[im]

mattikake said:

^ hmm... ban people onthe spot who can't be constructive? Or at least get them a free invite to join barryboys.com.

This is what results when you allow chavs to copulate.

Edited by im on Wednesday 9th July 11:08

[Mr Gear]

If it were possible to reduce pollution (notice, I didn't use the CO2 word... I'm talking pollution in general) in cities, then great! Do it! But the congestion charge does no such thing. It has vastly increased traffic around the edges of the congestion charge area since its inception, and the policy shift away from congestion and onto CO2 is just insulting.

Personally, I wouldn't chose to drive a Range Rover into central London... I think it's a stupid idea for all sorts of reasons, but to have a retrospective charge of £25 on CO2 emissions and claim it as a congestion charge is ludicrous, so thank God Boris has displaced that smug neo-commie Ken.

[anonymous-user]

mattikake said:

^ hmm... ban people onthe spot who can't be constructive? Or at least get them a free invite to join barryboys.com.

Excuse me? Would you care to explain?

[im]

hmmm......why do posts keep disappearing...I know POD just posted...?

Edited by im on Wednesday 9th July 11:56

[Garlick]

im said:

hmmm......why do posts keep disappearing...I know POD just posted...?

Edited by im on Wednesday 9th July 11:56

Sorry chaps- A certain poster who contributed nothing to PH has been asked to leave. I was just removing some of his unsavoury comments- including those that had quoted it.

All say

[mattikake]

LexSport said:

mattikake said:

^ hmm... ban people onthe spot who can't be constructive? Or at least get them a free invite to join barryboys.com.

Excuse me? Would you care to explain?

See Garlick's post. It wasn't aimed at you. I should've quoted perhaps, but as clearly a constructive poster, I'm sure you'll understand.

Edited by mattikake on Wednesday 9th July 13:06

[ewenm]

Garlick said:

im said:

hmmm......why do posts keep disappearing...I know POD just posted...?

Edited by im on Wednesday 9th July 11:56

Sorry chaps- A certain poster who contributed nothing to PH has been asked to leave. I was just removing some of his unsavoury comments- including those that had quoted it.

All say

[anonymous-user]

mattikake said:

See Garlick's post. It wasn't aimed at you. I should've quoted perhaps, but as clearly a constructive poster, I'm sure you'll understand.

Ah hah! I see. Glad I didn't respond with more vitriol.

[Mar10]

zakmat said:

magnus911 said:

God I hope something horrible happens to Ken

I totally agree, I would piss myself if he became another knife crime statistic!

I really hate the fking left wing commie , the jealous little socialist prick that he is. Ken you , I hope you die a slow painfull death!!!

So, you don't like Ken then?

[SMiFFAD]

Fiatfan said:

I would rather drive a low CO2 car in London than ride a bicycle.

Exactly why kens idea wasn't a good one, it would increase congestion with everyone getting back off the train and driving small cars!

[Scraggles]

johnnyv6 said:

actually global warming IS happening

what's causing the global warning on mars then ?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/07...

quote:-

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (Get an overview: "Global Warming Fast Facts".)

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
---
So no humans on mars, maybe the martians have underground coal plants, or maybe just, maybe the sun is warming up the planets

[peter pan]

I blame the Sun too!
But if humans are indeed contributing to climate change, why are we churning out millions more every year?
Why is it, that the ecomentalists can point and scream at what they call a gas guzzler, saying that a 6 litre car, will consume more fuel, and produce more emissions, than a 1 litre car, but somehow go blind and quiet, and cannot see that 9.6 billion humans, are going to consume more resources (land, fuel, food, water, minerals, oxygen etc) and produce more emissions, than 6.5 billion humans.( Its why I laugh at the irony of Red Ken being a so called eco champion, whilst apparently churning out 5 sprogs)
Does the Earth actually need the 9.6 billion humans predicted to be on the planet by 2050? Does it `need' the 6.5 billion we have now?
If you could ask just about every other species on Earth they would probably say no.

[mattikake]

peter pan said:

I blame the Sun too!
But if humans are indeed contributing to climate change, why are we churning out millions more every year?
Why is it, that the ecomentalists can point and scream at what they call a gas guzzler, saying that a 6 litre car, will consume more fuel, and produce more emissions, than a 1 litre car, but somehow go blind and quiet, and cannot see that 9.6 billion humans, are going to consume more resources (land, fuel, food, water, minerals, oxygen etc) and produce more emissions, than 6.5 billion humans.( Its why I laugh at the irony of Red Ken being a so called eco champion, whilst apparently churning out 5 sprogs)
Does the Earth actually need the 9.6 billion humans predicted to be on the planet by 2050? Does it `need' the 6.5 billion we have now?
If you could ask just about every other species on Earth they would probably say no.

Hell we can't even sustain 6bn people now! 2/3 of the livable land on the planet is devoted to growing crops or farming animals - for food (New Scientist report)

It's the competitive nature of competing economies. Above all else, numbers of people are most important for our tax revenues and human labour generates economies. Growth fuels growth. Except we have nowhere else to grow.

Time has change for nations to compete with each other. We need to collaborate or the human race will become extinct...

[lestag]

Z064life said:

gumsie said:

You guys are all missing something. Tfl didn't pay the legal fees, WE did! That's right, you and I.
Commendations for Porsche for getting the sensible outcome but something else needs to be done at times like this. What ever the outcome Joe public has ended up with the bill.

Exactly what I was thinking. It's the revenue from our taxes paying for this.

Aye, thats why everyone should exercise their right to vote.
If you don't vote in your elections, you have no right to whinge.
At least it's going to charity!

[lestag]

peter pan said:

It allways makes me smile at the irony of Ken being a a so called champion for the ecoMENTALists, whilst all the time he was apparently responsible for the birth of 5 children by several different women.
Unless he fathered children who dont want to breathe, eat, or drink, dont want to wear clothes, dont want to be warm in winter or cool in summer, dont want to move around the planet, dont want a house to live in, dont want entertainment, or holidays, and most significantly dont want eventually want children of their own, then all he has done is creat a collossal mushrooming carbon footprint. Talk about hypocrite!? he could win the gold medal for hypocrisy!.

Aye carbon neutral is just a POS marketing excercise to manage world ecomony. What the world badly needs to be is people neutral, unfortunately that is a taboo subject.
On a lighter note...the world will survive after we have gone just like the unicorn. http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/unicorn.htm
"Then, Noah looked out through the driving rain,
Them Unicorns were hiding, playing silly games,
Kicking and splashing while the rain was pouring.
Oh, them silly Unicorns."