Climate Change, and the Economy
Following my earlier posts about the climate, the economics of climate change, and Australian car culture (as well as my thoughts on the unlikelihood of any change being made by politicians), Seth Godin has written a pretty good piece on why change is good for business.
This sums up what needs to be done, so, whilst I have recently been accused of being ‘depressing’ for saying ‘everything thats bad about life’ I am still managing to suggest viable alternatives. That being, if a company were to produce an extremely green car which was as powerful as a high emitter, or one that at least looked manly, I’m sure they could sell it to Aussies, and at the same time get a load of support from greenies and pollies as well. That’s right. I’m abbreviating everything now. Must have been in Australia too long.
Anyhow, reading Seth’s post brought another thing that Sir Nicholas Stern said to mind, and this one was a pretty good sound-byte, which I myself have repeated a couple of times, and it usually has the desired effect. Here goes:
One would expect the worst performer in the world in terms of emissions to be China. Consider this, then, the Chinese have such stringent emissions rules for motor vehicles, that very few, if any, American cars can be sold there…
Your estimed parents purchase second-hand cars as a recycling way of dealing with some matters. And travel to Europe by diesel motorhome rather than fly - has the great advantage too of not waiting for hours and hours and hours in airports!
As the Dad says, a car is just to get you from a to b, not a substitute for manliness!!
If we could run any of them on horse manure, of which we have a lot at home as you will remember, we would have it all sussed.
Noted in Germany and Netherlands, many many more fields of oilseed rape (already in flower in this early season year) for biodiesel, which in the stations seen in Germany was about 5 to 10 E cents cheaper. But and it is a big but, the allergens of rape are horrendous and it has a different human cost… what are the carbon footprints of all the anti-allergy medicines which will be needed? and to my knowledge even some racehorses seem to be affected during the rape-blooming season…
Comments? Mum/Jo