Driving the 8 with a conscience ?

Zitat

4x Discs, Pads & Braided Hoses @ £105

That is cheap!!! I'm getting new discs, pads and wear-sensors at the end of this week for 500 euro's. And that is cheaper than stock:

http://www.autopartsonline.nl/…41&width=1280&height=1024

The site is in Dutch though

THIS JUST IN!!!!

Sadly I can't post the article since no one here would understand it.

A Norwegian (christinan sosialist) political party wants to make car manufacturers stop making cars with combustion enigines as of 2020.
This to improve the invironmently friendly image of this party and they blame the sitting government that they are not serieous enough in their plans to protect the invironment.
They want to infuence the EU to make this happen.
The reason for this is to make car manufacturers invest more money in developing alternate scources of fuel already now.

Thank God (you se the irony here) they are not in the current government.

@ Tony. Ah I see. I pay 95 euro's for the BTW (VAT), in this case.

@ Noggie. Let them, that makes our fuel less expensive

If you watched the US go thru its oil crisis in the 80's you got to see all of the money poured into "Alternative Energy Sources"

Literally Tons of $$$ of taxpayer money went into Oil shale, geothermal and Solar research. In the end it all really went to the oil companies and they ended up owning all of the technology including most of the solar. Wind was an afterthought and is now controlled by the power companies in reality if not in title.

At the end of this cycle the bio fuel industry and gaseous fuel production will be owned by who? And who is paying for the research again?

So I suppose that the moral of my fable is that no matter what the righteous cause may be to start, it is twisted into a moneymaker for some along the way and ends up as a profit center for the same "investors" as last time.

Good thing that I am getting old because a few more decades would probably turn me into a real anarchist By then I will be too feeble

Just noticed that for some bizarre reason I've written Invironment instead of environment...... not once but over and over again... must get my head checked, maybe it's polluted

Zitat von Noggie

Just noticed that for some bizarre reason I've written Invironment instead of environment...... not once but over and over again... must get my head checked, maybe it's polluted

Noggie, must be all that Aurora Borealis radiation thingy stuff, created by your Reindeers and home made stills.

`Before your Mummy Government clamps down on y'all even more you may wish to donate your 8 to the Scottish 8 preservation society.

Not only will we remove your potentially earth destructing gas guzzling dinasour from you, we will give you an "official" carbon footprint voucher
redeemable at your local Vimpolet, so assuaging any percieved loss of fun.

With Vimpolet I asume you meand Vinmonopolet.
The only place Norweginans can buy (legal) spirits, wine and other types of alcahol stronger than beer.
Home made stills is something I havent had in....well I guess 10 years now.
Reindeers are keept in certain areas and I havent seen one in at least 15 years.

My 8 wont be donated, If need be I'll be buried in it

Zitat von Noggie

THIS JUST IN!!!!

Sadly I can't post the article since no one here would understand it.

A Norwegian (christinan sosialist) political party wants to make car manufacturers stop making cars with combustion enigines as of 2020.
This to improve the invironmently friendly image of this party and they blame the sitting government that they are not serieous enough in their plans to protect the invironment.
They want to infuence the EU to make this happen.
The reason for this is to make car manufacturers invest more money in developing alternate scources of fuel already now.

Thank God (you se the irony here) they are not in the current government.

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What a great idea! I have no problem with that. Have you seen the electric car that whoops the shit out of the porsche GT?

.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqYbNEiW0Y

I'd love a car where the engine is also the breaks, uses no more than batteries and brushes as consumables and can out accelerate a formula one car.

I have no problem withelectric cars. And would gladly transplant an electric engine into my 850. I'd miss the noise, but gain so much more. Lets have more nuclear power though so we're not just burning HCO at the power station.

Its not joe publics job to find alternatives. That is the job of companies. And its the governments job to create an economic situation which encourages this. At the minute we are getting all stick, and no carrot. Its not our fault all the green alternatives are hippymobiles.

I believe that climate-change is a cyclic event, but that the current cycle has been accelerated by CO2 pumped out by man in the last 150 years.

I believe that we should all stop driving our 8-series, because there are far more effective ways to help speed up global warming:

1.) We should all travel more by air because with prices as low as £29 for flights to Europe, that's a far more inexpensive way for all of us to produce more CO2.
2.) Transatlanic fights are even more effective, such that if you take one of these, you won't need to drive your 8 for probably a whole year!
3.)We should all buy as many items as possible that are made in China (impossible not to?), to help support their present construction programme of 7 new, dirty-coal-fired power-stations every week.
4.) We should promote the use of concrete as much as possible, since each tonne of cement produced realease 1 tonne of CO2.
5.) We should continue to build cheap, gas-fired power-stations so once our North-Sea is all used up, we can produce more CO2 from Russian gas.
6.) we should continue to penalise local shops with parking restrictions and congestion zones and build shopping centres out of town so that we can drive futher.
7.)We should continue to use as much disposable packaging as possible and create more landfills to produce more methane.

well, you get the idea...

why should human-kind last forever? Life is short, lets live it before we all suffocate or get blown up.

It's a matter of ethics. Why should we live the way we want to, and why should our children's children, etc. do not? What rights do I have over that of others. Difficult question to answer once you think about it.

But then again, given the rate of technological adaptation in the face of need.

1) All of those horribly wasted materials we have been throwing into landfills for the last century will be Mined for metals and re-useable carbon based materials. That will solve several "Shortages" and protect the ground water at the same time.

2) The major population centers on the coasts will creep uphill and claim a victory for modern architecture. Or become the new Venice of where ever they are Of course, we who don't live there will pay more than our share.

3) the high and dry taxpayers of the world will pay even more to help the rest of the poor helpless coastal city dwellers move to our neighborhoods.

Considering that we have a hundred years or so to fix it I don't believe that blind panic and uncontrolled spending on wild schemes is called for yet. Nor is living in a cave in the dark going to help.

Learn, PLAN and then do what you can to mitigate the problem. Otherwise it is just pissing up wind

Among all the other various bits of paper in my filing cabinet is a Geology degree. With that in mind here is my take on the situation:

> Wild climate change has happened thousands of times in the past for a whole host of non-human reasons. This time may be the same.
> The current environment obsession is due to politicians latching on to any passing band wagon they can to get our votes.
> As always, the least effective, least vote-losing ideas are pushed. Politically safe and easy is more important than environmentally safe.
>Reducing CO2 and the other greenhouse gas emmissions may be a waste of time - nobody actually knows. If they are wrong, it would make no difference, but would do no harm.
>Not reducing may be fine too - but if they are wrong.......

Buying my Eight, which is nearly 10 years old now, was a perfect example of re-using, which is better than recycling, which is better than disposal in the green crusader's handbook. Even my windows are green!

I like that point of view. Climate change due to greenhouse gasses may be what I call: a social dogma. Something the masses takes for granted to be true, but may as well not be. The're a lot of examples: just watch Oprah and You'll see many (that with my psychology degree in mind )

Driving the 8 with a conscience ?

If a "green" ever asked me that question about my 850, I would ask him three questions:
1. Which is his favorite airline ?
2. Does he fly often ?
3. Does he shop the net for the cheapest tickets ?
Or perhaps it might be necessary to add:
4. Does he dream of being able to afford an overseas holiday ?

These questions fall flat if his only transport is a push bike, his lady has hairy legs and armpits, they use a horse to pull the plow, sell their produce at the farm gate, use home made candles to light their home at night, and their children wear home made clothes.

But if he is an enthusiastic accumulator of frequent flyer points I would ask whether he was prepared to go back to 1948, when there was no frequent flyer program, it cost half a years average wage to fly from Australia to the UK and back and I would attempt to explain to him that if he would allow price elasticity of demand to kick in and make a real contribution to reducing carbon dioxide production, he would not need to worry about my car.

An interesting thing is that the "great unwashed" never make this remark about one of my other cars, a genuine "gas guzzler", a 1957 Vanden Plas Princess (see pics.) Less than 10MPG. It empties its 16 imp. gal. tank so fast at 70 MPH you can see the fuel gauge moving.

Most of the "greens" who ask this question are actually displaying covetousness.
They wish they could have one too, and are trying to justify the reason why they can't.

Cut backs

I don't think it takes much thinking to admit less is better when it comes to burning fossil fuels.
It is easy to point fingers at hundreds of other more wasteful/harmful sources which is a great way to shrug off responsibility.
I have looked at my own practices in other areas that will help with the bigger picture and taken measures to reduce my total output of pollutants.
Driving my car more and my boat less for instance!
Being more self conscience about keeping the car tuned up and yes, using the Jetta more often for around town.
I put close to 20,000 pure pleasure kilometers on mine last year and plan on cutting this in half. For me it will be like getting a crack addict to cut back.
This is my two cents worth.