Enemies of the Environment

GF has been thinking about the real enemies of the environment - The ODPM, Greenpeace, and tree-huggers. "Enemies!" you exclaim. "Yes, enemies" says GF. Permit the GF a moment to explain.

Freeflowing traffic allows cars to run efficiently and cleanly. Gorse Fox's own car manages 50-56mpg when running. However, when sitting in traffic, waiting at lights, and negotiating the interminable roundabouts at Chichester the consumption increase radically to around 40mpg, or less. GF is sure that this is worse on many other cars. So by preventing the improvements and building of better roads the ODPM and tree-huggers actually:

• Increase the burning of fossil fuels
• Increase particulates in the air
• Damage our work-life balance (as, believe it or not, some people actually have to travel as part of their working life¹)
• Increase the cost of goods (cost of transport passed on to consumer)

Now, there seems to be an argument about unfettered increase in traffic. Sorry - it is not unfettered. It is limited by the number of people with licenses to drive. With a moderatley stable population, the amount of traffic will peak and remain stable. This ridiculous situation is costing us money. In the UK it's costing £20bn p.a. in the US it's worse at $63bn.

Improve roads, allow traffic to move freely, save fossil fuels, clean up the air by reducing particulates. In cities, improve transport links to encourage public transport - there's only so much space available (which is a limiting factor).

Note 1: Work appears to be an alien concept to many of the anti-motoring brigade[File under: Motoring]