{"id":104,"date":"2006-05-19T23:29:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-19T23:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/?p=104"},"modified":"2011-07-07T01:02:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T00:02:31","slug":"targetting-those-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"Targetting those….. Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back to the 4×4 \/SUV issue (and I see the Lib Dem VED and indeed air travel policies have got some publicity<\/a> today)<\/p>\n

I was accused of demonising all 4×4 drivers. Well I wouldn’t quite call it that but perhaps I could have been more precise:<\/p>\n

– Not all 4x4s are the top polluters;
\n– so it follows that not all 4×4 drivers are selfish. And of course some 4x4s are essential for professional use.<\/p>\n

But there are a hell of a lot of top polluting SUVs and 4X4s out there that are just fashion accessories. But fashion accessories that are adding to greenhouse gas emissions. Individually a 4×4 that goes out on the occaisional journey may seem to be not a big deal but the sums add up. Just like that coal fired power station, those short haul and long haul flights.<\/p>\n

I would like here to pay tribute to my commenters Alex\/ Richard, who have pulled me up short on my random generalising (there’s no fun left in the world – I’ll tell you). I even have to add an extra category of responsible 4×4 owners: hardly use it but carbon offset the emissions and not even in that temporary “we’ll plant some trees” way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To continue: switching to a lower emission vehicle might not seem like making a big difference, nor does turning off the TV rather than leaving it on standby or putting a wind turbine on your roof. But spread across millions of people, particularly when we are looking at an industrialised China & India joining the “developed” energy-rich world, it is crucial to the environmental future of the planet.<\/p>\n

Finally as a tall chap myself (6’5″) I have found it difficult to find a suitable car to drive too. I learnt to drive in a Corsa 5 years ago. We had a Vectra for a while but it wasn’t good for my back. My older Cavalier was\/is better for that. Now we have a Zafira – much better for someone my height but the 204 g\/km of CO2 it chucks out is not ideal. Not so much a tank, more like an APC.<\/p>\n

In fact there is web site that rates cars by ergomic comfort:
\nhttp:\/\/www.car-seat-data.co.uk\/#projects<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back to the 4×4 \/SUV issue (and I see the Lib Dem VED and indeed air travel policies have got some publicity today) I was accused of demonising all 4×4 drivers. Well I wouldn’t quite call it that but perhaps I could have been more precise: – Not all 4x4s are the top polluters; – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6dbnw-1G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ianridley.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}