Didn't really amount to much did it?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7145581.stm In Southampton, 25 people attended the largest planned demonstration but another protest in Essex consisted of a single pensioner.
petrol protest blog. add your entry quickly.
Moderator: Peak Moderation
-
careful_eugene
- Posts: 647
- Joined: 26 Jun 2006, 15:39
- Location: Nottingham UK
-
Mr Livered
- Posts: 12
- Joined: 27 Nov 2007, 17:13
It's true that petrol is still cheap.
It's also true that fuel protesters need to realise that it is a finite resource.
However, the point which they are pretesting about is arguably valid. The fact is that fuel taxes are unfairly constructed so that when oil prices are high, the consumer gets a double whammy because the duty will rise too, and the VAT on the duty. We need to recognise that for many people, oil-based fuels are necessary for the way they live at the moment and work on alternatives before we penalise people fiscally or otherwise.
It's also true that fuel protesters need to realise that it is a finite resource.
However, the point which they are pretesting about is arguably valid. The fact is that fuel taxes are unfairly constructed so that when oil prices are high, the consumer gets a double whammy because the duty will rise too, and the VAT on the duty. We need to recognise that for many people, oil-based fuels are necessary for the way they live at the moment and work on alternatives before we penalise people fiscally or otherwise.
Nothing wrong with VAT on Duty in my book.
No, when oil prices rise we don?t get a double whammy ? we still pay exactly the same amount of fixed Duty plus VAT. Duty is 50.35p, which with the VAT is 59.16p. That is the same no matter what the oil price does.
In fact quite the opposite, when oil prices rise the British motorist is less affected in real terms than almost anyone else in the free world (some markets aren?t free and have fixed fuel prices) ? thanks to the high level of fixed duty. This has also resulted in a UK fleet efficiency substantially higher than North America, Australia etc, again a good thing for the British motorist.
It should also be pointed out that the rate of taxation on fuel has fallen both in value terms correcting for inflation and in relative terms, the proportion of pump price.
In 1998 tax was 82% of price, by 2000 this had fallen to 76%, 2005 it was 70% and today as of April 2007 it was 67%. See:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... vironment/
In fact the more I think about this the less sympathy I have for anyone who complains about fuel price or tax, and says fuel is ?necessary?. Fuel is cheap, cars are MUCH cheaper, we are richer... private motoring has never been as cheap as it is now, as evidenced by the massive increase in vehicle-miles driven. Hey even students have cars these day!
No, when oil prices rise we don?t get a double whammy ? we still pay exactly the same amount of fixed Duty plus VAT. Duty is 50.35p, which with the VAT is 59.16p. That is the same no matter what the oil price does.
In fact quite the opposite, when oil prices rise the British motorist is less affected in real terms than almost anyone else in the free world (some markets aren?t free and have fixed fuel prices) ? thanks to the high level of fixed duty. This has also resulted in a UK fleet efficiency substantially higher than North America, Australia etc, again a good thing for the British motorist.
It should also be pointed out that the rate of taxation on fuel has fallen both in value terms correcting for inflation and in relative terms, the proportion of pump price.
In 1998 tax was 82% of price, by 2000 this had fallen to 76%, 2005 it was 70% and today as of April 2007 it was 67%. See:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... vironment/
In fact the more I think about this the less sympathy I have for anyone who complains about fuel price or tax, and says fuel is ?necessary?. Fuel is cheap, cars are MUCH cheaper, we are richer... private motoring has never been as cheap as it is now, as evidenced by the massive increase in vehicle-miles driven. Hey even students have cars these day!
-
Mr Livered
- Posts: 12
- Joined: 27 Nov 2007, 17:13
But what about the point that private motoring as never been so cheap! The whole definition of "necessary" has changed. That's what I have no sympathy for.Mr Livered wrote:If fuel was not necessary for a lot of people, peak oil would be an irrelevance.clv101 wrote:In fact the more I think about this the less sympathy I have for anyone who complains about fuel price or tax, and says fuel is ?necessary?.
Peak Oil implications are way more than just cheap petrol!Mr Livered wrote:If fuel was not necessary for a lot of people, peak oil would be an irrelevance.clv101 wrote:In fact the more I think about this the less sympathy I have for anyone who complains about fuel price or tax, and says fuel is ?necessary?.
It's all downhill from here!
-
kenneal - lagger
- Site Admin
- Posts: 14290
- Joined: 20 Sep 2006, 02:35
- Location: Newbury, Berkshire
- Contact:
-
chubbygristle
- Posts: 148
- Joined: 24 Nov 2005, 11:09
i'll tell you something.
After having also mentioned some peak oil related things on the transaction 2007 forum recently I have been pushed to think that the British Public, on the whole are becoming increasingly dumbed down by the tabloids / t.v. and trying to raise serious issues with these people is like sitting down and trying to explain peak oil to a bunch of 5 year olds at infant school. I guess I knew some of this already but it's really like grinding your face against a cheese grater talking with these "it's my right to drive" idiots.
Anyways, I think that the mentioning of peak oil in as many sites / forums / blogs as possible is quite a good way to bypass some of the fluffy media messages and disseminate some hard truths, so I'll try and keep posting things to places where people might read them - as long as my sanity stays with me.
It's so incredibly difficult for some people to grasp that Peak Oil isn't going to go away because some people "rely" on their cars to get to work shops etc.
I am 100% with Chris on this one. I am totally pi$$ed off with this redefinition of "necessary" these days too.
I am even more pi$$ed off with people who think that they should be able to use their vehicles and not pay for the costs incurred on society.
Sorry about this outburst. I don't normally bother posting general waffle like this.
Someone tell me it's all a bad dream. Are the majority or people really this helpless? Why are people so closed minded to the point where they just automatically start nay saying without even bothering to cast a cursory glance over any of the available on line literature about the problem? Why god why...
It's a shame we are not experiencing peak telly - a massive drop in our capacity to stick 50" plasma screens in people's 2" living rooms so they can watch a 24 hour concatenation of American "it's fashionable to be thick and gormless" sitcoms and reality shows. ARGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
somebody get me some pentepeptides, everyone who's ever auditioned for Big Brother, Jeremy Clarkson, Maggy Thatcher and an angle grinder (metal cutting discs, naturally). It's a new show called "Tonight Mathew, I'm a nervous breakdown"... you can catch it an hour later on e4
laters
i am off to lye down.
After having also mentioned some peak oil related things on the transaction 2007 forum recently I have been pushed to think that the British Public, on the whole are becoming increasingly dumbed down by the tabloids / t.v. and trying to raise serious issues with these people is like sitting down and trying to explain peak oil to a bunch of 5 year olds at infant school. I guess I knew some of this already but it's really like grinding your face against a cheese grater talking with these "it's my right to drive" idiots.
Anyways, I think that the mentioning of peak oil in as many sites / forums / blogs as possible is quite a good way to bypass some of the fluffy media messages and disseminate some hard truths, so I'll try and keep posting things to places where people might read them - as long as my sanity stays with me.
It's so incredibly difficult for some people to grasp that Peak Oil isn't going to go away because some people "rely" on their cars to get to work shops etc.
I am 100% with Chris on this one. I am totally pi$$ed off with this redefinition of "necessary" these days too.
I am even more pi$$ed off with people who think that they should be able to use their vehicles and not pay for the costs incurred on society.
Sorry about this outburst. I don't normally bother posting general waffle like this.
Someone tell me it's all a bad dream. Are the majority or people really this helpless? Why are people so closed minded to the point where they just automatically start nay saying without even bothering to cast a cursory glance over any of the available on line literature about the problem? Why god why...
It's a shame we are not experiencing peak telly - a massive drop in our capacity to stick 50" plasma screens in people's 2" living rooms so they can watch a 24 hour concatenation of American "it's fashionable to be thick and gormless" sitcoms and reality shows. ARGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
somebody get me some pentepeptides, everyone who's ever auditioned for Big Brother, Jeremy Clarkson, Maggy Thatcher and an angle grinder (metal cutting discs, naturally). It's a new show called "Tonight Mathew, I'm a nervous breakdown"... you can catch it an hour later on e4
laters
i am off to lye down.
-
emordnilap
- Posts: 14814
- Joined: 05 Sep 2007, 16:36
- Location: here
-
RenewableCandy
- Posts: 12777
- Joined: 12 Sep 2007, 12:13
- Location: York
Dunno about 5 but my 2 small people got their heads round Save Energy/WeMightNotAlwaysHaveThis at about the age of 9.chubbygristle wrote:i'll tell you something.
...trying to raise serious issues with these people is like sitting down and trying to explain peak oil to a bunch of 5 year olds at infant school.
The difference with adults is that unlike kids they put up walls. Uncomfortable information gets blocked by the wall. Feelings don't. All these characters who drink, fall over in the streets and make themselves ill, what do you suppose they might be drinking for? My bet is: to forget debt/nasty surroundings/difficult or unpleasant work/the feeling that something, somewhere, is seriously amiss. I bet there are a lot of people out there who have a gut feeling about PO-and-related, but can't put it into words.
chubbygristle, I wouldn't let the blog entries on petrolprices.com get you down too much. I don't think that the people blogging there are statistically representative of the wider public. Some internet blogs tend to attract the kind of person who would previously have called phone-in programmes to voice their strongly held but poorly informed opinions. I have an aunt like that. She is very quick to blurt out the first half-baked received notion that comes into her head with virtually zero intervention from severely out-of-condition brain muscles before it reaches her speech centre.
The majority of people just want and expect life to get easier and easier (= more and more energy services). That is what the majority of people in the UK have had for many decades. Most of the people on petrolprices.com seem to be more agitated by the fuel tax and by the injustices they feel they have had to endure courtesy of the government.
The majority of people just want and expect life to get easier and easier (= more and more energy services). That is what the majority of people in the UK have had for many decades. Most of the people on petrolprices.com seem to be more agitated by the fuel tax and by the injustices they feel they have had to endure courtesy of the government.
I was talking to a woman at my local sustainability group the other day who is very clued up on what corporations and big oil get up to, and when I mentioned the nature of some of the responses to our PO comments on PetrolPrices.com she assured me that many companies employed people to sit online all day writing comments on environmental/PO/GW websites in favour of that businesses interests. I am not sure if this is true or not, it could be that there are just some incredibly stupid wankers out there. Dunno.
They're out there Chris. They mainly target news sites where they will gain greater coverage. The Oil Drum wouldn't be a good target as they'd get shot down in flames very, very quickly. The same with Real Climate, for example.clv101 wrote:I like to know her evidence for that. Nothing I've come across would suggest that really happens. Paid for articles in newspapers/magazines... but not comments on blogs.
The Old Drum is one of the biggest such blogs that might be targeted and I don't think it's every happened.
Here's an article from PC Magazine about corporate sock puppets and here's one from The National.
It seems to be a mainly US centered thing, but US net users are increasingly aware of the problem, so I fully expect it to be exported.