Image credit: RAC
Hardly a day goes by without a climate propaganda item from the BBC, and here’s another one, laced with pollution claims as well. Now it’s claimed even electric cars are bad for the environment, if not for the climate. No mention of trucks, buses, taxis, tractors, vans and the like, which can’t work from home or switch to cycling. The madness never ends.
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The vast majority of emissions cuts from electric cars will be wiped out by new road-building, a report says.
The government says vehicle emissions per mile will fall as zero-emissions cars take over Britain’s roads.
But the report says the 80% of the CO2 savings from clean cars will be negated by the £27bn planned roads programme, reports BBC News.
It adds that if ministers want a “green recovery” the cash would be better spent on public transport, walking, cycling, and remote-working hubs.
And they point out that the electric cars will continue to increase local air pollution through particles eroding from brakes and tyres.
The calculations have been made by an environmental consultancy, Transport for Quality of Life, using data collected by Highways England.
The paper estimates that a third of the predicted increase in emissions would come from construction – including energy for making steel, concrete and asphalt.
A third would be created by increased vehicle speeds on faster roads.
And a further third would be caused by extra traffic generated by new roads stimulating more car-dependent housing, retail parks and business parks.
Full report here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Transport for Quality of Life the team http://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/team/
Companies House filing for the company (incorporated in 2009) https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06819672/filing-history?page=1
Interesting bunch, eh?
I disciplined myself to do cycle and transit commuting for many years.
I enjoyed the cycling — too much …so it compromised my schedule and so I would end up just going cycling and skipping work and school.
Transit was an absolute disaster. Downright horrifying. Euthanasia would be preferable to tolerating what it was putting me through. It was insanely inefficient and there are so many places (and times) it just doesn’t go. It reduces a (formerly busy and fast-paced) person to having to eliminate 2-3 hours of healthy and productive activities from their life every day. The cumulative impact is a nightmare. I could not endure it. DON’T TRY TO FORCE PEOPLE TO DO IT.
The dignified solution I found: living where all needs — including work and outdoor recreation — can be met near home …and I never fly.
My ecological footprint is probably below that of 97% of people (especially “experts”). On purpose I drive very little. I would have done even better for society if ATCs (All Terrain Cycles) were road-legal. “Experts” supposedly say ATCs aren’t safe. Bullshit. They can be made safe enough.
If people want to bike in the snow good for them, but transit doesn’t work and ATCs would be a welcome alternative. 2 wheels don’t go well with snow — I did it for years but won’t now. 3 wheels or 4 wheels with a motorbike engine is enough. It doesn’t need to be a car, but it does need to have TOTALLY controllable origin, destination, and departure times …and switching to a different mode for 4 months of winter (planned instability) shouldn’t be necessary.
Noteworthy: I never scored any points with employers for living close to work even when the employers considered themselves hardcore greens. These supposed hardcore greens had hundreds of medium-distance car-commuters on payroll. Lots of people do long commutes past each other in opposite directions to similar jobs. Maybe there’s untapped opportunity to set up systems of job-trades and other incentives. It might not work, but the point here is let’s pursue every creative alternative to the unbearable nightmares of transit.
I think a real positive for the environment & the BBC staff would be to transfer all
BBC activity to a new headquarters at Scapa Flow.
In such pristine surroundings they might start to fixate less on pollution, enabling them to do something useful.
Hell they might even start to wish for a bit of global warming, & realise it is not happening anywhere but in a few super computers.
It would help if the government gave up the fixation on CO2 targets since there is nothing they can do about it other than bankrupt the country.
The problem is the Climate Change Act (2008) and its following legislation that should have been repealed long ago, but that would have stopped the well stuffed brown envelopes arriving.
‘Electric’ cars are coal fired. They are worse for the environment than diseasel ones.
🙄🙄🙄🤯 as usual from the BBC.
Idiocracy runs deep at the BBC.
Back in the real world…
U.S. Natural Gas Production, Consumption And Exports Hit Record In 2019
Jul 10, 2020
U.S. natural gas exports surpassed imports in 2017 for the first time since 1957.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/US-Natural-Gas-Production-Consumption-And-Exports-Hit-Record-In-2019.html
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Wake up, navel gazing eco-nerds.
the cash would be better spent on public transport, ? EH? did I read and copy that correctly? Not so long ago – surely memories aren’t THAT SHORT ? – we were told to NOT USE public transport – take the car was the message…..so as to NOT SPREAD something. First Bus (?) in finacial troubles according to local Scottish News t’other day …..
They could pander to eco-nerds by putting a solar roof on the new roads 🙄
It might make visibility better in the rain.
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10 Jul 2020
Austrian and German researchers to develop solar rooftops for highways
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/austrian-and-german-researchers-develop-solar-rooftops-highways
I worked in transportation and warehousing for over a decade. Crazy waste is normal and the control comes from unreachable levels high in organizations. A few examples:
To ship an item from my warehouse to an address 1 block away on the same street it was cheaper to send the item via multiple carriers from Vancouver to Seattle to New York to Toronto and back to Vancouver than to have a single carrier do the delivery with no border and continent crossings.
Ocean freight arriving in Seattle bound for Vancouver (a few hours away by road) was detoured through New York and Toronto (on the opposite side of the continent) for years on end.
Maybe it’s not “waste” if you’re a manager trying to generate revenue and jobs for hubs in New York and Toronto …but I don’t hear the left and the deep state screaming about such easily-eliminated waste. They don’t go for the easy stuff, which is telling.