Question for Europeans

"Magnulus" > wrote in message
...
>>
> Consumers/workers are so dependent on a car to get
> around, if you suddenly start raising the costs to operate it, you are
> going
> to hurt the economy much more.

Very true. However you also tend to drive huge cars with very poor fuel
efficiency. I expect if your petrol prices stay high you may see that slowly
start to change.

> In Europe, somebody who is too poor to afford the fuel for a car often
> has
> alternatives, this is not the case in the US except for the major cities.
> And alot of the US population does not live in these cities.

It depends, in the UK unless you are in a city/town then public transport is
going to be non-existant. However most of the UK population lives in urban
areas.

"chris@ukaskew" > wrote in message
. uk...
>
> I'd be interested in how it compares if you factor in the average MPG of
> cars on British roads with cars on US roads. I assume there is evidence
> somewhere when the press always mentions US 'gas guzzlers'

You just have to go to America and take a look for yourself! Here if you
watch traffic going by, apart from 4x4's the biggest type of car you are
likely to see is Ford Mondeo sized. In America that's pretty much the
smallest size you are going to see! Just from the average size of the cars
and that they mostly use automatic gearboxes it doesn't take a lot of
working out that their MPG must be lower.

Brent P wrote:

> In article >, Martin Brown wrote:
>
>>Brent P wrote:
>
>>>In article > , Christian McArdle wrote:
>>>
>>>>People grumble about the price, but deep down know that petroleum use is bad
>>>>due to climate change, so the grumbling is not as loud as it might be.
>>>
>>>I am having problems believing the measured warming is due to CO2.
>
>>Over the past century about half of the Earth's warming has been due to
>>changes in the solar flux and the other half due to CO2 (and other)
>>greenhouse gasses. The main influence of the greenhouse gasses really
>>only becoming impossible to ignore from 1970 onwards.
>
> Correlation != causation. Every model, everything in global warming is
> based on the assumption that the correlation seen is a cause and effect
> relationship and that it works with CO2 causing the warming. All while
> ignoring the other more powerful greenhouse gas from combustion, water.

NO IT DOESN'T. Read the primary literature and not some dumbed down
paranoid rant by right wing think tanks and oil lobby groups. The US oil
companies and Exxon in particular only care about *their* bottom line -
they have money to burn and have spent massively to confuse the public
about GW (just like big tobacco did/do to keep people smoking).

My own position incidentally is summed up by the UK oil company BP.
http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?cate...tentId=3072030

The scientific evidence is clear enough - we are making the planet
warmer by greenhouse gas emissions. Most sceptics now concede this point.

> As if the water we are pumping into the environment has no effect what so
> ever.

Water condenses out of the atmosphere relatively easily as rain. The CO2
concentration is growing since there are insufficient carbon sinks.
>
> From the CO2 theory, it used towards political ends. Things like the kyoto
> treaty. Treaties that would have us believe making widgets in China is
> better for the environment than making them in Ohio.

It might well be at the moment. However, the cost of transporting them
from China to the US might well outweight the gains.

>>>Because other planets and satelites (moons) in the solor system are
>>>warming. I think the scale of the issue of climate change is much bigger.
>
>>Although it is true that the sun's output has increased very slightly
>>the amount is *not* sufficient to explain all the observed global
>>warming. Satellite monitoring of solar flux since the 1970's is an
>>important constraint.
>
> It's not enough to explain the the observed warming of mars either.

However, Mars has polar caps of solid CO2. Additional warming from the
sun there is amplified by emission of gaseous CO2 making the atmosphere
thicker and keeping in more long wave solar radiation. Positive feedback!

It is very sad that in the twenty first century public understanding of
science is going backwards

US cars makers perpetrate a cruel joke by making crude vastly overweight
vehicles that do 10-20mpg, can barely accelerate or go round corners,
with airbags designed to kill women drivers and young children. Henry
Ford's original car managed about 20mpg 100 years ago and US has had no
improvement at all in average fuel efficiency. Time to wake up!!!

ROW average saloon cars will get something like 40mpg, and some German
deisel BMWs will do more than 55mpg cruising at a steady 75mph.

Regards,
Martin Brown

"Scott en Aztlán" > wrote in message
...
> Here in the US the top story recently has been the large upward spike
> in gasoline prices. Some have predicted that gasoline will top
> $5/gallon by next year, up from $2.50/gallon today. Since you folks in
> Europe have had $5/gallon gas for years (thanks to high taxes), what's
> happening to gas prices over there in Europe? Are they going to hit
> $10/gallon soon? Is the price of gas the top story on your local TV
> news?
>

One point that seems to escape many Americans is that Europe is a collection
of seperate countries. We all therefore speak different languages and have
different ways of doing things, including levying taxes. Lumping us all
together is like suggesting that Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados,
Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador,
Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland,
Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States
of America is one country.

Europe consists of 46 countries of which only 25 are members of the European
Union. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworl...europe_map.htm

chris@ukaskew wrote:

> "Scott en Aztlán" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Here in the US the top story recently has been the large upward spike
>>in gasoline prices. Some have predicted that gasoline will top
>>$5/gallon by next year, up from $2.50/gallon today. Since you folks in
>>Europe have had $5/gallon gas for years (thanks to high taxes),

We have much more fuel efficient and refined cars.
>
> I'd be interested in how it compares if you factor in the average MPG of
> cars on British roads with cars on US roads. I assume there is evidence
> somewhere when the press always mentions US 'gas guzzlers'

Yes. When I go to the US I try and hire a decent fast Japanese car. They
work OK and although they would lose badly in a collision with an SUV or
truck are much more pleasant to drive.

Last time I was stuffed with a Pontiac GrandMA ~3.4L allegedly a popular
choice according to the rental guy. So named because of the way it
wheezes when going up hills. A basic manual UK Ford Mondeo 1.6 petrol
would easily have left it standing. The automatic transmission was
lousy, kick down wasn't properly adjusted - it had done about 3000 miles
from new. The gas peddle altered the amount of engine noise with a 2s
delay before anything useful was transmitted to the road wheels.
Overtaking was best done after switching off the aircon. It had the
turning circle of a supertanker, terrible understeer and the wheels
squealed going round corners. The ride was soft and flaccid more like
being on a ship. When I returned it 2000 miles later it already needed
an oil change. It guzzled fuel for a saloon car but that didn't matter
because gas was so cheap and it had a huge tank.

The bigger US cars and SUVs are even worse. "Quality" is apparently
measured by the number of cup holders fitted to the vehicle.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Magnulus wrote:
> I wonder how the European economy stayed afloat with all the taxes on
> petrol and diesel that they levy over there.

Their infrastructure isn't as spread out as ours is. How many
Europeans commute an hour to work every day? In the US, it's
commonplace because there's so much land.

Larry Bud wrote:
> Magnulus wrote:
>> I wonder how the European economy stayed afloat with all the taxes on
>> petrol and diesel that they levy over there.
>
> Their infrastructure isn't as spread out as ours is. How many
> Europeans commute an hour to work every day? In the US, it's
> commonplace because there's so much land.

It probably depends on which country they're in. In the UK an hour's commute
is very common, it takes that to get into central London from the suburbs.

"Larry Bud" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Magnulus wrote:
>> I wonder how the European economy stayed afloat with all the taxes on
>> petrol and diesel that they levy over there.
>
> Their infrastructure isn't as spread out as ours is. How many
> Europeans commute an hour to work every day? In the US, it's
> commonplace because there's so much land.

It's not that uncommon in the UK but that's down to deliberate attempts to make
commuting harder.

Depresion wrote:
> "Larry Bud" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>>
>> Magnulus wrote:
>>> I wonder how the European economy stayed afloat with all the taxes
>>> on petrol and diesel that they levy over there.
>>
>> Their infrastructure isn't as spread out as ours is. How many
>> Europeans commute an hour to work every day? In the US, it's
>> commonplace because there's so much land.
>
> It's not that uncommon in the UK but that's down to deliberate
> attempts to make commuting harder.

Which is why many people choose to live increasing distances from their
workplaces, because commuting is more difficult than it used to be.

Contrary to popular mythology roads have been improved to allow faster
speeds and railways are now carrying more people than ever before, despite
significant reductions in track mileage.

"Brimstone" > wrote in message
...
> Depresion wrote:
>> "Larry Bud" > wrote in message
>> ups.com...
>>>
>>> Magnulus wrote:
>>>> I wonder how the European economy stayed afloat with all the taxes
>>>> on petrol and diesel that they levy over there.
>>>
>>> Their infrastructure isn't as spread out as ours is. How many
>>> Europeans commute an hour to work every day? In the US, it's
>>> commonplace because there's so much land.
>>
>> It's not that uncommon in the UK but that's down to deliberate
>> attempts to make commuting harder.
>
> Which is why many people choose to live increasing distances from their
> workplaces, because commuting is more difficult than it used to be.
>
> Contrary to popular mythology roads have been improved to allow faster
> speeds and railways are now carrying more people than ever before, despite
> significant reductions in track mileage.
>

3/4 or UK's local roads are deteriorating year on year. We are £8.3 billon
behind in road maintenance. By last year the plan was to have halted the
deterioration but it hasn't happened and by 2010 we were to have caught up and
removed the backlog unfortunately the first part was no where near achieved as
about 50% of the money allocated for maintenance is being spent elsewhere on
things like speed cushions, bus lanes, and what's laughably called our education
system by local authorities. It's about time that money allocated by the
national government for road maintenance is reserved only for use in actually
maintaining roads.