So that just about wraps it up for global warming

[alitalf]

I watched "The Great Global Warming Swindle" a couple of days ago. It increased my knowledge of some of the reasons I had already had doubts about the theory that human activity was causing any significant fraction of the climate change that is happening, as well as adding other reasons not to be a true believer.

Global warming caused by human activity seems to have many aspects including; a misunderstanding, a scam, an excuse to increase taxes, and a cult or a religion.

Comments

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

Well, the story does seem to change according to what the government can use to try to justify higher taxes. Though the programme appears to have been far from accurate in one important respect, and by extension perhaps not to be relied on too much elsewhere, I also don't trust the pressure groups that push for extreme measures.

Since you raise the subject of cars, charging a different amount of road tax according to how much CO2 they emit per mile is nearly equivalent to adding a tiny bit more on the fuel tax - except that the former requires a bureaucracy, costs a lot to run, and there are more snouts in the trough. If you remember, the Labour gov in the 1970s was going to abolish the road tax and add the equivalent amount on to fuel tax, because it was more difficult to evade. They did increase fuel tax more and didn't actually increase road tax for at least one year, maybe two.

Then the Conservative gov said they weren't going to abolish the road tax, and that it had to be increased because it cost £50 per car per year to collect, and the tax was not enough higher than the costs. I doubt it is that cheap to collect now, particularly with added complexity.

I don't have the knowledge or time to form an opinion on human action causing more or less climate change that I would actually trust, if anything serious depended on it, but I trust some of the environmental pressure groups much less than that. If it is possible I trust the government less than all but the most extreme pressure groups.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

A thought occurs to me on pollution emitted by cars. The gov almost certainly intends to tax on theoretical CO2 emission per mile, but it may be that pollution doesn't match that. If they tested a good many representative samples of cars and measured unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and so on, that might not even nearly match fuel consumption.

For example, burn hotter to improve Carnot efficiency, and the result is to oxidise more nitrogen. Add a catalytic converter, and make the engine provide it with sufficient heat to work in UK winter, and 3% to 10%, (according to who you believe) more fuel is burnt.

Of course some of this is tested on the MOT, so cannot be worse than whatever figure is specified at least once a year. Still, if all the carbon tax aspect of things was on fuel - after all, there must be an exact correlation between fuel burned and CO2 emitted - and graduated road tax on pollution - that could be justified as an attempt to improve air quality, and it might even do some good in the long term.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I think the story changes because nobody really knows what the detail of the truth actually is. Also it is reported by the media; the media, as you well know, (a) don't understand things and (b) change the emphasis on things to produce a story that will sell papers or what have you.

The fact that governments use the change of governing party as way of justifying raising taxes has absolutely nothing to do with global warming. That is simply just a red herring.

As far as I'm concerned the tax on all but the most efficient vehicles should be raised by a very high amount. And the money raised should be put towards incentives for people to get energy efficient things (heating, transport, etc.), proper insulation, public transport infrastructure, reducing waste (including litter), etc.

People who can justify their need for things like SUVs (see my second comment to didiusjulianus) should be able to claim for a tax refund, or something similar. However, I can see this as potentially being open to abuse.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

My main point is that I don't think it a good idea to collect one tax that is NEVER going to be abolished and that is cheap to collect, then supplement it with a tax that is very expensive to collect that is approximately equivalent in incentive terms.

A tax on inefficiency and therefore on carbon dioxide can be handled by taxing fuel purchased, and road tax appears to me as a way to employ more civil servants for little or no good purpose. The more complex the tax rules, the more bureaucrats in all likelihood.

I can't agree with your idea of charging a very high road tax on all but the most economical cars for many reasons. The most obvious is that scrapping and making cars has an environmental impact, and it is pointless to make an incentive for a low mileage driver to scrap a working car and buy a new one to save tax. That won't help the environment.

A tax on fuel does give an incentive to burn less, however you achieve that end. Only a small proportion of the tax collected is needed to pay for the collection, and the cost does not change if the exact rate alters.

As for the concept of giving people a refund if they can show they need the less efficient vehicle - that would be a bureaucratic nightmare at best and another corrupt system more probably. Oh yes, and it would waste a lot of the extra tax collected. [sigh] To my mind a tax on actual fuel purchased, not the amount that would theoretically used if you drove an average mileage at a specified speed in specified road conditions etc, is about as fair as you can get in the real world, and simple enough not to cost too much to run.