Punish polluters and habitat destroyers

Anything that emits pollution should be taxed extra at the point of sale (like leaf blowers and jet skis) and fines should be enforced (like idling cars), as well as made more severe.  Junk food sold in plastic, like crisps, should be taxed extra.

People who don’t own cars should be rewarded, and people who buy cars,  especially SUVs, should be penalised.  Polluters should be shamed, and that includes manufacturers and merchants.  Anything that is unnecessary and uses fossil fuels, like leaf blowers and leisure equipment, should be banned. 

And, the following should also be banned: trimming hedges during nesting season; cutting down trees and replacing them with short-lived trees; putting up walls around your garden, so that wildlife, like hedgehogs, can’t traverse it; paving your garden, which both reflects heat and prevents drainage. 

And, these punishments should be publicised, so that blame can’t be shifted by pleading ignorance.  Anyone who witnesses these crimes — and they are crimes — should know who to call and that someone in the government will take it seriously.   And anyone who is part of it, from the contractor hired to do the gardening to the developer who is off on his yacht, should be punished.  

Why the contribution is important

It is sad that one is still expected to explain why continued use of fossil fuels and species extinction is bad.  The Arctic was on fire and over 40 degrees this summer in places.  Greenland's ice is irretrievably melting and will be entirely gone soon.  Every summer will be hotter; floods will damage more property. Crops will be harder to grow and food will be more expensive.  We can't change this, as it's already happening.  All we can do now is to try and keep the earth survivable, so our kids won't say wow, they really were selfish a*holes.

by noircampbell on August 24, 2020 at 11:51AM

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Comments

  • Posted by Voiceofreason August 27, 2020 at 19:27

    Super - who's going to tell all the parkies that in future they'll have to use a broom? Everything that uses petrol, diesel or even LPG is presently brutally taxed thank you very much, with a tax on the tax as VAT is added on top of fuel duty. Tell me, who is the worse polluter, someone who commutes on a 30 mile round trip every day in their virtue signalling Prius or someone who lives centrally and uses their V8 sportscar for the odd 200 mile blast at the week-end? By the way, climate change simply happens, we have no control over it - was it the popularity of the 4 horse barouche that hastened the end of the Thames annual frost fair? Even if we take the UK back to the age of wicker, how are you going to prevent billions of folk East of europe from wanting a car as opposed to a bicycle and faster internet access. There's the answer - restrict everyone to 10 minutes of internet usage per day - that'll save more energy than taking cars off the roads and destroying the economy.

  • Posted by Yvonne_CEC August 28, 2020 at 13:38

    There is consensus that global warming is happening and that we can have control over it, as individuals and collectively. You can refer to https://www.edinburghclimate.org.uk/ for more information and evidence on this.

  • Posted by Voiceofreason August 28, 2020 at 17:22

    I've checked the link: https://www.edinburghclimate.org.uk/

    It's just council propaganda - there's no evidence there at all, just opinion.

  • Posted by Voiceofreason August 28, 2020 at 17:37

    This comment has been removed by a moderator.

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