I suspect that I will be adding links from elsewhere to these, not to mention a whole raft of emotive comment, Just what the media loves.
Pressure group urges higher air taxes to penalise 'rich' flyers
Brown tackles 'Chelsea tractors' in final Budget
As with road pricing I simply fear potentially necessary measures to manage personal travel emissions will get snarled up by woeful knee jerk legalisation that has little to do with the environment and more to do with hype. Not all who fly or use 4x4s are rich or doing so simply for fun.
Let's see how the BBC mangle that one.
ps: The banner ads at time of writing were... ironic. One for short haul flights. And the other for a dirty great Beemer.
BBC - Budget 'to hit gas guzzlers hard'
Guardian - Budget to give tax breaks for green homes
Sir,
As a strong advocate of incentive based measures, this is, on the surface, hard to fault. I just worry about the practice. And how fair it can be made without more legions of civil servants draining the public purse simply to assess measure, approve and/or fine.
Not all are in a position to whack up a wind turbine to order. At least the payback is being claimed as on energy created and sent back tot he grid.
What I am not keen on is greenwashing measures, that may be acceptable if it leaves the financial ROI to the wallet and conscience of the consumer, but not if the ultimate enviROI is actually worse for not being done at all. That would not be helping my kids' futures.
The question then arises whose shorter term interests are being served.
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