The War on Diesel

We own a diesel car - we were encouraged to do so by Government-sponsored incentives like road tax concessions and cheaper fuel at the time, along with being rewarded by the warm fuzzy glow we felt for doing our bit to achieve the lower carbon emission levels Gordon Brown was so keen to meet at the time.

I'm sure a few politicians might also have benefited from being given the nod in their gentleman's club to invest in this sector of the motoring industry before these measures came into force.

Then we started hearing about 'particulates' and 'nitrogen oxides' and now we're being treated like the lepers of the road, with Sadiq Khan (London's Mayor) seeking to penalise us further by extending the Ultra Low Emmission zone (ULEZ) to the North and South Circular (A205) roads - in my view, a completely unworkable scheme that would see me paying over £10 just to drive the mile or so from my home in Putney to Putney High Street, which is just the other side of the A205 but in the same borough.

So now we have a perfectly functional, low mileage and fuel-efficient vehicle (we still burn way less fossil fuel than petrol*) that is being rendered worthless - with no apology or compensation from the Government for their reckless misguidance.
 * maybe that's the problem for the Government - declining tax revenue from volume vs petrol

So, where do we head from here? Back to petrol, and the original issues with emissions, or maybe line a few more pockets of the Old Boy Network now promoting electric? Which brings me to these:

A visual pollutant hitting our streets in droves, I hate them. They have "Folly" written all over them. However, as they profess to deliver 100% renewable energy, I don't loathe them quite as much as the concept of charging your car from your home electricity supply - I simply don't understand how it makes it OK to increase our reliance on fossil fuels - which apparently were dwindling long before this fiasco - simply by burning them before delivering the resultant power to your car by way of a cable in place of the liquid form you used to store in your tank.

And, lastly, I despair at the environmental damage of seeing our car consigned to the scrap heap before its anticipated lifespan. I see enough still useful but outdated consumer products being chucked into skips and municipal dumps, with no thought of who they might be useful to (the poor? charities?), without seeing whole vehicles taking up landfill.