Boris goes to war on Diesel

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Martin4x4

Original Poster:

6,506 posts

131 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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I don't think so. In fact, I think he's probably the first politician to come out and say that the EU economy cycle is bunk - something that's been known in motoring circles for years. That's wholly aside from all of the nasty crap that diesels spew out.

Mr GrimNasty

8,172 posts

169 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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Petrol cars are no better, just slightly different types of ****t. Even tyre dust is nasty.

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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Mr GrimNasty said:
Petrol cars are no better, just slightly different types of ****t. Even tyre dust is nasty.
It's the NOx and particulates that are the problem for diesel, and they aren't addressed by the current regulations or tax regime which concentrates on CO2 emissions.

voyds9

8,488 posts

282 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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Wonder if he will notice/care that buses and taxis run on diesel.

perdu

4,884 posts

198 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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I agree with davepoth here

when I was in the motor trade I was gobsmacked to see that governments were wholesale buying into 'clean' diesel bullshine

not unusually Boris has found the head of the nail

Don't see any hypocrisy from him, he wasn't in any government that bought the lie

smegmore

3,091 posts

175 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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The solution?

run them on veg oil. 2500 litres per year is allowed by HMRC.

tax free and dirt cheap.

smells like a mobile chippy too.

win win thumbup

Gareth79

7,628 posts

245 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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One other thing not mentioned - cars manufactured pre-2006 will also have this surcharge.

Beati Dogu

8,863 posts

138 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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They've already lowered the vehicle exemption threshold from 100g to 75g/km of CO2 for the London congestion charge. I guess too many modern diesels were getting a free ride from the bean counter's perspective.

They've painted themselves into a corner now and can't very well admit that global warming is BS, so they've got to come up with a new excuse to apply the congestion charge to more vehicles.

XJSJohn

15,959 posts

218 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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They seriously got teh air polution down here in Bangkok a few year ago by converting all the diesels to CNG, cheap to do and the various companies didnt have to spend a fortune converting their fleet.

yes still polutes but much less smog / choke from visable large particles.

Triumph Man

8,670 posts

167 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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So I can drive my old petrol BMW into London for less than what somebody with a brand new eco-friendly tree hugging 320d would pay? Excellent.

Not that I'd want to drive into the centre of London.

turbobloke

103,744 posts

259 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Article in the Independent on the Boris diesel war said:
campaigners claiming that some 51,000 Londoners have died prematurely of respiratory symptoms linked to air pollution
Reducing harmful pollution is a good thing, but the claim in that statement is nonsense. Similar armwaving think-of-a-number claims are repeated from article to article with not a shred of credible evidence to support any of it.

Take an example of the so-called evidence, provided by a paper in The Lancet.

"Effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on natural-cause mortality: an analysis of 22 European cohorts within the multicentre ESCAPE project"

Comments below are snipped from an article reviewing the junkscience behind papers such as the above. The review is by W M Briggs, a statistician who has taken the trouble, as some do, to look behind the titles and headlines.

Briggs said:
The three or four dozen researchers listed as authors never measured, not even once, the amount of air “pollution” any person was exposed to. Further, every single author knew that the title was false. And so did every editor.

Not only wasn’t air “pollution” (dust, mostly) measured on individuals, but the proxies of air “pollution” weren’t even measured at the same time as mortality.
What happens with the X0,000 premature death claims is that the premature deaths are firstly believed to be premature essentially via mystical powers, given that no medic actually knows when a person is supposed to die. As the patients involved, who are already ill to degrees known and unknown, don't know either, they die at the 'right time' for them but sometimes sooner than doctors predicted. This may well be a prognosis error, or life exepctancy miscaculation, but prematurity is assumed.

The attribution of cause is then made, in terms of outdoor air pollution, via proxies and as described by Briggs. Given that prematurity is taken for granted, and as there is no other easy answer - also it suits certain agendas - outdoor air quality is blamed. The people dying prematurely are almost always indoors at the time (in bed) and indoor air is on average ten times more polluted than city smog, another issue ignored in these Beano treatments.

Indoor air quality, or rather the lack of it, is known to politicians but they look the other way as there's no easy tax to be made, and a convenient scapegoat, which looks a lot like a milch cow, already exists outdoors.

Briggs calls it the epidemiologist fallacy and as an epidemic in itself it's certainly widespread.

As to Boris and London, any city than bans or restricts cars and relies on buses and diesel taxis will be catapulting itself to a position at or near the top of the urban air pollution league tables, just ask Oxford.

sanguinary

1,344 posts

210 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Gareth79 said:
One other thing not mentioned - cars manufactured pre-2006 will also have this surcharge.
This is what always annoys me.

The drivers of pre 2006 runarounds are usually driving them simply because they cannot afford anything newer. It's always 'middleman' that gets stung in these schemes.

Personally, I choose to run older cars, as there are some real gems out there which need trying out. However, it's not necessarily a choice for many people.

skyrover

12,668 posts

203 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Mr GrimNasty said:
Petrol cars are no better, just slightly different types of ****t. Even tyre dust is nasty.
Modern petrols are far better...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDxQIHoTmxs


beko1987

1,636 posts

133 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Is it free then if I drive in on 100% veg/sunflower oil? I could drain the tank to get rid of any potential deisel from running part and part so its 100% not derv if it helps?

Fotic

719 posts

128 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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sanguinary said:
Personally, I choose to run older cars, as there are some real gems out there which need trying out.
How is that Mondeo?

kingofdbrits

622 posts

192 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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I'm assuming this is a result of the WHO press release on Diesel fumes? Where they've catergorised them as a Cat 1 carcinogen along with substances like Mustard Gas & Plutomium.
http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2012/pdfs/pr...

Diesel used to be, as petrol still is, a Cat 2B along with pickled vedgetables & Coffee.

Also think the paper is unfair on Boris, this has come from Europe, Boris is just the person having to implement the plan.

sanguinary

1,344 posts

210 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Fotic said:
How is that Mondeo?
Much better than I could have ever given it credit for. As a family bus, I can't recommend it enough. (Still miss the CL though (and the Skyline)).

(Thanks for asking wink )

Edited by sanguinary on Wednesday 30th July 09:33

shakotan

10,679 posts

195 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Article said:
The problem is that CO2 isn't the only nasty stuff to spew from the rear of runabouts. Diesel engines, despite recent improvements in filtering technology, emit higher level of nitrous oxide (NOx) and particulates...
No, NITROGEN Oxide, you fking dumb hack.

vonuber

17,868 posts

164 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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Have to say, I can't see any reason why (apart from cost obviously) black cabs can't go hybrid like the buses have. The amount of crap those things belch out is incredible.