Hypocrisy
The whole environment thing exposes the mass hypocrisy of everyone who chooses to pipe up with their own contribution of hot air. Politicians pay lip service to the whole issue whilst having their overweight carcasses hauled around in limousines. Dump the limos - sling 'em in the back of a pickup and you'll soon find them using public transport.
Chancellor Chubby Brown makes supposedly noble gestures like promoting low sulphur fuel and low tax for shopping cars. What hogwash. Never mind the efficiency of a car, lets just tax it on how few Pot Noodles you can get in the boot. When did you last see Tony Blair cycle to the House of Commons? They should start broadcasting Prime Ministers Question Time five minutes earlier - I want to see the overfed, overpaid anaemic specimens legging it there under their own steam. Energy efficiency would be improved if Two-Jags and Chubby shed a few pounds too. Cream cakes are bad for the environment, ban the bun!
Greenies
On the flip side, grubby green activitist chain themselves to trees in the name of the cause, but they're not exactly doing the Green image the power of good are they? I tend to respect well formulated arguments and hard evidence rather than snot covered oiks playing Action Man in army hand-me-downs.
It's time for some common sense. Think of all the energy expended making cars from start to finish. It's enormously damaging to the environment in terms of both the power required and the raw materials. Then at the end of it we get boring cars. Most of the damage has been done already then we're forced to drive around in painfully slow wheezing matchboxes. It's our children's futures we're spending and I want value for money. I don't want a clever catalyst that pre-heats itself to gas mark five. I want power, noise and flames.
I'm okay Jack...
We're ok in Britain anyway. The grubby smeg gobbed out of our cars is relatively minor compared to the crud hurled out of cars in poorer parts of the world. Call me an uncaring bastard but why don't we confiscate all the Morris Oxfords in India and give them all those silly little scooters everyone's hopping about on now. That would make more of an impact than me putting the catalysts back in my car (shhhh).
The lentil eaters might point out the many alternative sources of power that we could switch to, but somehow I think we're playing a losing game anyway. Electric vehicles are touted as environmentally friendly, yet some poor Columbian kid has to go to the centre of the earth, crack open some coal seams and then torch the stuff to generate enough electricity for a milkfloat to carry a yoghurt. Wave power? Take all that energy out of the sea and the Atlantic will become an algae filled mill-pond full of bored whales. Harness the power of the wind and we'll be stuck with the same weather all the time, killing the art of conversation stone dead. Nuclear power?... nah... Hydroelectric? How many more Chinese villages must join the Man from Atlantis to let me boil my kettle?
Doomed
In the words of the old Scottish crumbly in Dad's Army, "We're doomed". We might as well accept it and continue running down the vegemite army with our fast, foul and filthy cars. I'm off out now to plant a tree hugger in the hedgerow. I'm doing my bit - are you?
