If any UK government department mentions the words:- green, environment, carbon gas emissions, etc, etc, you can be sure before the end of the sentence arrives you’ll also find the word- TAX.
As recently as last month the UK government announced plans to increase taxes for motorists so drastically as to put the future of driving cars in jeopardy for most people, these taxes are to be raised as a method of contribution to a Green Tax Levy amounting to £150bn over the next 10 years.
One factor that never seems to be considered by the people who think up these measures is how will their decisions affect people who live out in the country. Practically everyone who lives in the country are on lesser incomes than their city dwelling counterparts and cannot rely on a good public transport system, how then are they going to conduct their lives with no travel.
A survey reveals very clearly that transport lags behind both industry and buildings in global energy usage yet is always seen as the cash cow when tax revenues are required to be topped up.
How long will it be before our Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a statement, as he did on the recent increase in Flight Taxes, that these motoring tax increases are just a revenue raising exercise and nothing to do with environment issues.
Of far greater importance to the well being of our planet is the absolutely enormous damage being carried out in the Amazon Rainforest, and not to be forgotten, other regions including Indonesia, where logging will have cleared all rainforests in 10 years and in Papua New Guinea in 13-16 years.
All this deforestation, a great amount of which is illegal, is to provide land for agriculture and crops, some of these crops are for the production of bio-fuels for our cars. Can anyone see the sense in that, clearing rainforests which absorb carbon gas emissions to plant crops for the production of further fuels, ok perhaps slightly less polluting fuels.
What we have not heard a lot of information about is where these crops and products end up; answer- BRITISH SUPERMARKETS.
There is a clear case to answer here, if British supermarkets are buying cheap products (which these products would have to be for the supermarkets to be interested in) then they are not only profiting from illegal activity and having supported indirectly the logging and deforestation but they should be making a corresponding contribution to green taxation.
Bill Williams
www.thecarhub.net
Bill is now retired but has always enjoyed travelling, which included driving on all continents of the world. He also has a very keen interest in all environment issues. He started his first website last year and is about to launch a more comprehensive motoring site www.thecarhub.net
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