The £2,000 car

[sven360]

Not all Yanks agree with Mr Gore...........................http://www.petitionproject.org/.

Still,what would someone with a degree in science know when it's clear a failed politician knows best

[trabitom99]

Not all Yanks agree with Mr Gore...........................http://www.petitionproject.org/.

Still,what would someone with a degree in science know when it's clear a failed politician knows best

George W. Bush would agree with you

[sven360]

George W. Bush would agree with you

He da man.
Viva la Republic.
Obama is for girls.

[germ]

warming and cooling has happend through out the life of earth, ice ages and so on, when a volcano explodes it pours out soooo many polutents. car emissions are small compaired to "natural" occurences. same goes for things such as radiation.

so really i have no time for this. why stop all/the little fun we get in life now an still end up with with the eventual "over heat"

[Ronnie]

Any trade in scheme is a con - you can always get a better deal if you negotiate hard without landing the dealer with some old banger he doesn't want.

Global warming is a fact - the world is heating up FAST. CO2 is almost certainly a part of the equation and I don't care how unpopular or otherwise that statement is. Look at the data.

Doesn't really matter though, we will have a low carbon economy whether we like it or not. Check out Peak Oil. The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies is a good place to start if you like to read. The Long Emergency is also recommended. The unprecedented economic crash we're in the early stages of right now is, in my opinion, a direct consequence of Peak Oil.

As for conspiracy theories, Tom - you're right. 911 was an inside job. Download the peer reviewed research Here which describes how they found nano-engineered "superthermite" in dust from the fallen twin towers. That's extremely powerful and extremely exotic (i.e. military) explosive.

And, while I have my tin-foil hat on - Apollo missions never got to the moon either. Check out One Small Step?: The Great Moon Hoax and the Race to Dominate Earth from Space. The pictures of the enormous NASA "simulation centre" and the analysis of splash down accuracies of orbital and moon shot payloads should convince you if nothing else. If you don't believe me then read the book and then tell me you don't believe me.

The history of the last 100 years is not at all what it seems.

[workshopmanualman]

Hmm, all gone off on mad tangents here! I'll try and bring it back... Apart from having to buy a new car, one other negative about this type of scheme is that the car has to be scrapped; it cannot be stripped to component parts and sold on. The car has to be crushed in entirity. Made into a little cube. The scheme is designed to get old cars off the road - so all those happy breakers out there who strip the older cars down will find their supplies drying up. So anybody running an older car that requires the use of breakers to maintain their cars [i.e. us lot] will find a lot of our suppliers void of stock. Just look at the number of our European counterparts trawling this site for parts.

But perhaps this rather daft scheme will be short lived; the economics of scrapping every car that is older than 9 years old is just plain daft. The current MINI has a predicted life-span of 40 years for instance. How long before the builders start to complain that we do not change houses soon enough? Or the road hauliers start to moan about their vehicles? Indeed I've been married longer than 9 years, so perhaps my wife should be worried that I'll chop her in for a newer model?

Global warming? Dunno, but I did oceanography a long time back, and it was mooted then that if things do warm up us poor unfortunates here in the UK would suffer as the Gulf stream may well switch off. Instead of being warmed during winter by water travelling North, we would be cooled by water travelling South. At least the Volvo has a decent heater! Pity it'll be in a big cube by then....

[Ronnie]

But perhaps this rather daft scheme will be short lived; the economics of scrapping every car that is older than 9 years old is just plain daft. The current MINI has a predicted life-span of 40 years for instance. How long before the builders start to complain that we do not change houses soon enough? Or the road hauliers start to moan about their vehicles? Indeed I've been married longer than 9 years, so perhaps my wife should be worried that I'll chop her in for a newer model?

I agree - the whole scrappage scheme has sweet FA to do with climate change, and everything to do with stimulating the car industry. There is no way in hell one of those horrible Mini's will last 40 years on the road. 15 years will be pushing it. As for trading your wife in for a younger model, don't even think that within earshot of your Mrs

Global warming? Dunno, but I did oceanography a long time back, and it was mooted then that if things do warm up us poor unfortunates here in the UK would suffer as the Gulf stream may well switch off. Instead of being warmed during winter by water travelling North, we would be cooled by water travelling South. At least the Volvo has a decent heater! Pity it'll be in a big cube by then....

The theory is that if much of the Northern polar ice cap melts due to global warming it will push cold water south, making the Gulf Stream recede and could even switch it off.



The sinking regions will be pushed further South and may become diffuse causing all sorts of unusual effects. The upshot however would be pack ice in our seas, temperatures of -40 in the winter and a short growing season.

Recently scientists have poured cold water on this theory (Geddit?)

http://www.nhne.org/news/NewsArticlesAr ... ikely.aspx

This is why the term "Climate Change" has been pushed in favour of "Global Warming". Even though net global warming is occurring, the planetary system is so complex that localised effects could be any combination of hotter, colder, drier, wetter.

[volvosneverdie]

Im going one record with a fact.

Things will get worse.*

You can quote me on that.








* they always do.

[Chris_C]

Recently scientists have poured cold water on this theory (Geddit?)

At the risk of stating the obvious... I wonder why

This is why the term "Climate Change" has been pushed in favour of "Global Warming". Even though net global warming is occurring, the planetary system is so complex that localised effects could be any combination of hotter, colder, drier, wetter.

Also to do with the fact that the climate has never been short term stable. The only reason that the current trend looks to be pushing higher is that we don't have accurate records past 100 years or so which in the grand scheme of the planet is naff all. We really don't have enough evidence to prove in any way what is happening or will happen, 99% of the scientists won't make a call it's only the daily propaganda trying to read things into the results.

Surely anyone with some common would be working out contingency plans to keep our infrastructure working no matter what happened to the climate, rather than trying to predict if we are screwed or not. I very much doubt there is enough computing power made yet to even start contemplating all the factors that effect the current climate, otherwise the Met office would be able to actually get the weather forcast predicted correctly for more than 24hours ahead.

[workshopmanualman]

...I did add the disclaimer that I did the oceanography course years ago! Perhaps I should read something other than magazines with pictures of cars in them. But I did learn that many scientists aren't really the thinkers they claim to be - they jump on bandwagons like the rest of us. Just 'look' at the dark matter debate; is it there or isn't it?

The only thing I ever read about global warming that made any sense to me was by Bill Bryson. I can't remember his exact phrasing, but it was something along the lines of: if we over consume now, have some fun then our children will have to pay for it. However by then we'll be dead, so f**k 'em!

As for the MINI lasting 40 years, so long as Foxton's exist then so will the MINI.

[workshopmanualman]

...not to mention the loss of jobs in the classic car trade as the smaller garages go out of business. Magazine sales will suffer; would we buy a publication called Practical Moderns for instance? Then there are the breakers who cannot break. The list goes on.

[jtbo]

There was a time when Gulf stream did flow bit different, it was era of Inka, scientist believe that one reason of destruction was that Gulf stream changed direction and their climate did change. There were lot of Inka, but there were little of food. I guess it was National Geographic where I found out that one.

Our situation is of course different, but if something similar happens, what if Africa will become world largest food producer? It can change climate in middle east too.

Maybe US knows something we don't and reason for war is not oil, but something else...

I will not scrap any car, no matter how tempting their offers are, I'm against all scams and they are just trying a scam with their offer, too bad majority is lured to dark side

[volvosneverdie]

I will not scrap any car, no matter how tempting their offers are, I'm against all scams and they are just trying a scam with their offer, too bad majority is lured to dark side

No good comes from needless destruction.
Like wars to bring peace and freedom to foreign lands.
Package it up in spin however you like.
It still makes no sense.

Which I think is one thing we all agree upon.

[MJ]

Any trade in scheme is a con - you can always get a better deal if you negotiate hard without landing the dealer with some old banger he doesn't want.

I guess the idea of this scheme, is that the government will give the dealer the £2,000, so it won't make any difference to them, so most of the saving would be passed on

So anybody running an older car that requires the use of breakers to maintain their cars [i.e. us lot] will find a lot of our suppliers void of stock. Just look at the number of our European counterparts trawling this site for parts.

Now that's a good point, not only will new car sales increase because of cars scrapped under the scheme, but also because of cars scrapped later due to lack of parts - I'd not thought of that.

Its also going to hit motor factors and small independent garages hard if there are less old cars on the road needing spares and repairs - as the new replacements are likely to be more reliable, or need specialist parts from a dealer. I hear Halfords are suffering, but the bike side of the business is helping them out.

Away from the current scheme, I heard from the owner of a small coach operator a year or two back, that they're no longer allowed to break vehicles themselves, and apparently the law also related to other businesses, like farmers. Whereas before if a vehicle reached the end of it's life it could be stuck in the corner and raided for parts as needed, now it has to be sent to an authorised breaker/scrapyard.

[foggyjames]

In my opinion...the sooner we get the majority of people into substantially more environmentally friendly cars, and "classic" cars recognised as a valid thing to have on the road as both a hobby and as part of our heritage (say via a limited mileage scheme...and how many cars are we really talking about anyway?! Not many!)...the better!

I would actively like to drive something more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly if it was a) affordable, and b) a truly viable alternative. The fuel cell car James May drove on Top Gear last year looked very promising, and Jay Leno's comment in that report hit the nail on the head for me...something along the lines of "you do your 20k a year in your fuel cell car then jump in your 70s Porsche 911 for a bit of weekend fun".

I think there comes a point where the number of being using a mk1 300 as a daily beater becomes negligible. At that point, it's purely a plaything for most of the remaining owners, and the 'normal' rules really don't apply.

cheers

James