Grandad April 4th, 2007
Dick Roche has seen the light.
Well, actually, he’s seen the lightbulb. And in one fell swoop he has solved our Global Warming problem.
Who would have thought it? Light bulbs are the cause, all along! All we have to do is switch to CFLs, and the world is safe.
This is great news, because it means Minister Roche can now carry on driving around in his Mercedes or whatever fuel-inefficient car he drives. He can carry on flying to his expensive junkets around the world at our expense.
The government is talking about forcing the switch by putting a levy on ordinary lightbulbs. The fact that they will make extra cash has nothing to do with it. It is strange though that he isn’t introducing a subsidy on CFLs to make them cheaper?
It doesn’t bother me anyway, because I have been using CFLs for years. It’s nothing to do with Global Warming. They don’t blow as often and my ESB bills are very slightly lower.
What does piss me off is that he is talking about higher taxation on bigger cars. Now, I have nothing against that in principle. In principle, that is a great idea. But in practice, it means he is going to put all car tax up. Now if he said he was going to reduce tax on smaller cars and raise it on bigger ones, that would be a different matter. But he won’t.
I have a small[ish] car, but doubtless I would come out worse off. I need that car for health reasons. I would say I do about 2000 miles a year, and most of that is holiday driving, so I’m not exactly killing the ozone layer. But a higher tax will mean I will pay anyway.
If he wanted to be fair and equitable, why not reduce taxation on cars and slam it on petrol instead?
Suppose for some reason of eccentricity, I wanted to buy myself an SUV and just stick it in the front garden as a status symbol? It wouldn’t damage the environment. But I would pay the same extra taxation as some bloke who drives his SUV all day and every day and does about 100,000 miles a year. Now, if the taxation were on petrol…….?
I have known for years about the energy efficiency of CFLs and so have you. We also have known for years that bigger cars are worse for the environment [and just about everything else]. So why is Roche coming up with these plans now? Why didn’t he do it 10 years ago?
Could it be something to do with an election?
Am I being a cynic again?
