Good idea! Options

[Turin Machine]

It has been announced that the Lib Dems intend to ban all petrol and diesel cars from the roads by 2040.

Good luck with that then!!

[Biker1]

It has been announced that the Lib Dems intend to ban all petrol and diesel cars from the roads by 2040.

Good luck with that then!!

They may ban themselves once the Middle East, USA, Russia etc. run out of oil and we're not allowed to frack!

[Simon Kirby]

It has been announced that the Lib Dems intend to ban all petrol and diesel cars from the roads by 2040.

Good luck with that then!!

I can't find anything about it on the Lib Dem web site, but the Telegraph has this story. It would appear that it is a proposal to their annual conference and so isn't policy, and is quite disingenuous of the Telegraph to title the story as if it is: "Lib Dems: ban petrol and diesel cars from UK roads by 2040".

I think it's a useful proposal. We're talking 23 years away remember, so that's plenty of time to develop low-carbon transport, and if we really do have a global warming problem it will take a timely decision like this to encourage some positive action. Telegraph readers may harumph, but doing nothing is not a good option.

Obviously, over 23 years I would guess that the policy may well be refined, but I think the idea of banning petrol and diesel per se is misguided, and what is necessary is a ban on fossil fuels - diesel is a particularly useful fuel having a high energy density but also being difficult to ignite in a crash, so for me the holy grail is to produce a non-fossil diesel-like fuel without growing it on valuable agricultural land with all of the environmental problems that go with it. There are already non-food crops that produce diesel quite efficiently, but they don't grow in Northern Europe and our own energy security is important. We have some wind and wave power, so if an industrial process could be developed to turn that electricity into diesel that would be excellent. It would also be good if we could develop nuclear fusion in addition to wind and wave.

I still think that very much more could be done to reduce road miles though. Commuting isn't good for anyone, so if commerce could come to terms with working-from-home that would help.

I'm assuming of course that domestic road miles contributes significantly to our national CO2 footprint - because if it doesn't then this is just a pointless exercise.

[MontyPython]

So Lib Dems want no Diesel vehicles apart from Freight by 2040 (or are to vote on it).

So there would be:

No Buses or Coaches unless suitable Electric/Hydrogen vehicles.

No historical vehicle runs like London to Brighton, in fact all historical vehicles may as well be scrapped as they would be only kept in museums

Perhaps the Lib Dems have realised they would be absolute sh!te if they got into power and are making sure there is no chance of them getting elected.

[Simon Kirby]

Perhaps the Lib Dems have realised they would be absolute sh!te if they got into power and are making sure there is no chance of them getting elected.

Funny you should mention that. Last week a Lib Dem activist from Reading had a letter in the NWN promoting sites in the district for Travellers and denouncing the prejudiced language that is invariably used to described them. He was quite right in my view and made some excellent points, but talking like that will only alienate voters. I can't seriously believe they're trying to d@mn their chances, but the thought had occurred, and now here they are provoking the motorist - that's got to be the No. 1, vote loser surely.

I'm guessing it would be simple enough to exempt historic vehicles from the ban on petrol/diesel, and in practice that would probably need to include anything manufactured before the ban, and I'm also guessing that if it's technologically impossible to power buses on anything other than diesel then they would have to be exempted also. Of course, if it's only cars that are caught by the ban then I really wonder what saving the ban would make to the national CO2 footprint, because it might be easier to save way more CO2 by building nuclear (fission) power stations, shutting down the coal/gas stations, and promoting domestic electric water/space heating.

Of course if we're really serious about reducing our CO2 footprint and combating global warming and a bunch of other environmental problems too, then we really need to depopulate - something like a 1 billion global population would probably be manageable, and then we can burn as much fossil fuel as we like - but other than China I don't see anyone grasping that particular nettle.

[spartacus]

What an absolute non-story! Farcical...!!!

Don't these politicians watch the TV or go to the cinema?! Don't they keep up to date with current forecasts?!
Don't they know that by 2040 there will have been a highly contagious global pandemic that will have virtually wiped out mankind leaving only flesh-eating zombies to stumble around?!!

Mind you, as a survivor of this pandemic (obviously) I will be needing some diesel for the generators and some petrol for the zombie-cooking flame-throwers

[Simon Kirby]

What an absolute non-story! Farcical...!!!

Don't these politicians watch the TV or go to the cinema?! Don't they keep up to date with current forecasts?!
Don't they know that by 2040 there will have been a highly contagious global pandemic that will have virtually wiped out mankind leaving only flesh-eating zombies to stumble around?!!

Mind you, as a survivor of this pandemic (obviously) I will be needing some diesel for the generators and some petrol for the zombie-cooking flame-throwers

See, if you had an allotment...

[motormad]

This story is so BS I'm not even going to bother replying with anything on topic.

So have an animated picture of a cat trying to jump and failing.