If you believe it’s reasonable to fight a war, which is expensive in life and money, on the off-chance that the person you’re fighting might eventually otherwise have done horrible things to you – how can you avoid applying the same thinking to cutting energy consumption on the off-chance that horrible climate change nastyness might happen?
The evidence for man-made global warming isn’t yet conclusive, but it’s at least as convincing than the evidence for Saddam Hussein posing an imminent threat. And driving a Mini instead of an SUV seems like a smaller sacrifice to make than mass slaughter and carnage…
I don’t know if it’s just the tone of voice of the global warming activists – I can well understand how someone like George Monbiot could annoy people, but let’s face it, he’s just being provocative like some kind of twisted anti-Clarkson – but the fact seems to be that people get very, very protective about their cars, don’t they?
In fact, cars are almost the only example I can think of where being LESS economical is seen as desirable. Surely saving energy is a good idea whether you believe in global warming or not? You know, reduced demand reduces prices and all that?
It seems people’s minds just switch to defensive mode ‘no… not taking big car… nice big car…’ – instead of thinking along the lines of ‘smaller car – less petrol – more money to spend on food, clothes, CDs, houses, *everything else other than running a car* in fact’. I know I’d rather have the latter – am I mad?
It’s crazy – now I’ll admit I commute by train (mainly because it’s cheaper than parking) but I don’t lobby First Great Western for a wider, taller train with higher fares, do I? People *choose* to fly easyjet because it’s cheaper than – but kind of does the same overall A-to-B job as – a full service airline, and it’s a great success. But somehow all normal sane ideas of market forces just doesn’t seem to apply to cars.