20% electric cars quota comes into force.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

So if I believed all the political reasons for pushing zero emissions in this country, which the tiny % would make little if any difference worldwide ,even if all this was true, and the result of industrial age onwards pollution, and not natural climate change patterns caused by other cycles which are completely beyond the control of politicians.

I fully agree with this.  See, the way they frame it is "We're the UK. We lead by morals and set the right example.". And sure, while in the last 200 years / industrial revolution time we sure have come out with some amazing findings / products / processes... Todays world just has Russia... China... Iran... laughing at us as they just see it as us self-inflicting a weakness on to ourselves.  Whilst they blatantly lie, destroy the planet and breach their own peoples human rights - another one where we lead by example, but does it resonate with them? Absolutely not. 

My view is we should do our best and take it seriously, yes. But when you're letting big companies and rich people buy 'carbon credits' to swerve the whole issue, and then you're having the normal every day working folks from Greater London (outside of the central busy zone) finding that it's just gotten more expensive to run their kids to school in their old hanging in there Astra.. that's just unfair. And the money in Khan's pocket doesn't exactly make the planet greener either. 

I'm far from a 'all rich people are bad and we deserve their money!' person like many people are these days. But all of these green initiatives do seem to be impacting the lower end of the income spectrum and seem to be completely easy to step over by more wealthy people. We need to be practical and fair. After all, the lower income side of the scale represents more human lives and to punish them out of something as simple as car ownership just seems backwards to me. I'd say many of them, if not all, would gladly give up the expense and hassle of a car if they could. I doubt they're driving and committing that portion of their income to owning the kind of cars they own for fun, or pride, or as enthusiasts. It's just a necessity. And they're being punished for trying to function in society. That's wrong. Shame on the ULEZ expansion. 

[Haliotis]

3 hours ago, Bper said:

While the global population continues to reach new highs, demographic experts have pointed out that the annual growth rate has consistently declined to below 1 percent. Based on these projections, the world's population is expected to peak at about 10.4 billion people in the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100.

I find that hard to swallow - particularly as you mention “demographic experts”.  I have read somewhere that the 10 billion mark is expected to be reached by 2050, and the practices of society in general suggests that the population will continue to expand.