Well, since
I wrote that original piece there have been developments haven't there? That
bit of dodgy VW software I mentioned was not the only malpractice
going on.
Now we see that diesel emissions are dirtier than we thought (or were
led to believe as some say). But let's be clear: all cars pollute.
There's no point in shopping for a pollution free car. There isn't
one – yet. Remember the point I made in my last piece: electric
cars, given present generating methods, move the pollution somewhere
else; they don't, as the slipshod talkers promoting them claim,
abolish it. So we seek to find a car with as little polluting effect
as possible. Well, I bought my diesel car four or five years ago, and
it might be worth looking at how I made the decision.
I
knew then that diesel cars pollute at point of use, that there are
particulates and SO2
etc. It's not new knowledge. Also, I knew that their polluting effect
is at its worst in the warm up period after starting from cold –
which takes longer I believe with diesel than with petrol.
My
car journeys are almost always long distance and away from dense
populations. I judged that, on the kind of journeys I make, the
pollution would be scattered away from urban areas where the effect
is most damaging. I also judged that, as diesel is far more
economical, I would be using less carbon fuel. And I felt that, being
a less refined product, diesel would be going through fewer
polluting processes during its manufacture than petrol.
As
with all complex decisions in life, it's a case of making a judgement
based on the information you have at the time. There are seldom
perfect solutions based on Absolute Truth. My final conclusion was:
for long journeys away from population centres – diesel; for urban
use where a quick warm up to optimum efficiency is needed – an
economical modern petrol engine. So in my case go for diesel.
And
you know what? I'm not sure that, in the current circumstances, even
with the 'new' information, there can be a different decision for a person with a limited budget.
As Greenpeace said recently,
'Diesel
and petrol are like a rock and a hard place with air pollution on one
side and climate change on the other.'
As
you will know if you have read my earlier post on this subject, I am
enthusiastic about electric transport. As yet we don't have the
production and distribution infrastructure to make it pollution free.
But it's happening. I get my domestic power from a supplier called Ecotricity
which, as the name suggests, gets its electricity and some of its gas
from sustainable sources. Ecotricity is also leading the way in creating a
car charging network. This is very exciting, upbeat and constructive. I urge you to read about it, here:
I
am eager to embrace electric transport. It's out of my reach now but
I feel it'll happen sooner than I used to think – it's coming on
fast. But I remain concerned about the generation aspect. If more
electric cars means building more coal fired power stations, that's
not going to solve our pollution problems is it? We need to get behind enterprises like
Ecotricity and help them lead the way towards cleaner generation.
(Update: Apparently, there's some good news on this - even if the electricity comes from coal fired stations, it's still greener. See my post of 2019, One Liners Again )
Diesel
is under fire because of the local pollution aspect:
it's nastiest when concentrated into urban areas where we are forced
to inhale its fumes. But it is the ubiquitous engine fuel of our
planet. Mighty container ships, tractors, construction machinery, buses and
trains depend on it. The emissions are still polluting even if not many people are nearby sniffing them. So converting cars away
from diesel (and petrol) is to win a battle, not the war. There are
big R and D and investment challenges ahead.
As
a student of urban history I know that urban transport's
localised pollution in the days before the internal combustion engine was utterly disgusting. Wading through horse-shit
was a part of everyday life. The stink of horse-piss was up
everyone's noses. Those scrapers you see by the doors of old houses
were for scraping the cack off your shoes before going inside.
Crossing sweepers would clear a path through it for you if you tipped
them. The horseless carriage with its internal combustion engine was
the clean new transport of its time.
And
here we are again, facing problems with the effluent of the transport that replaced the horse. As it was then, so it is now: time for the next
step towards getting clean.
____
And
now, in a time when tribal chanters line up and gurn at each across
the media, shouting their binary banalities, I am not happy with Greenpeace's recent contribution to this issue. Whilst I agree in general with their position, I regret that they are adding to the mess of lazy tropes that wash around us.
As
a long term paying supporter of Greenpeace I got this in an email
from them recently:
'The car companies conned us all. They’ve been selling us diesel vehicles that they claimed were the “green” choice. But they lied. They manipulated emissions tests and sold us diesel cars that emit far more toxic fumes than they are supposed to. As a result, they have made air pollution worse.The only way to have clean air for us all to breathe is to ditch dirty fuels like diesel - and petrol - completely.Tell the car companies to ditch diesel and switch to 100% electric.'
[Sign the Petition]
Here's a comment from another paying
Greenpeace supporter:
'Come on Greenpeace, this is a ridiculous petition. It is also about 5 years late and shows significant naivety in understanding of the issues.
1) Who exactly is “the car industry”? It is not a homogeneous conglomerate of conspirators but a collection of self-interested companies. So why are we campaigning in such an unfocused way when most car manufacturers are already spending money on R&D to design electric cars and are also preparing to produce them at scale! 2) Have you forgotten that governments told us Diesel is safe – why are we not picking on them? 3) This issue has already been addressed by the market. Greenpeace should have been campaigning about this 5 years ago when it was at least controversial – not when the direction of travel has already been decided by market forces. As a paying supporter of Greenpeace, I would ask you to spend money on tackling real issues, rather than climbing on the bandwagon of things that are already happening without Greenpeace’s help.' [My italics]
I tend to agree. But I think the bit about 'governments telling us'
is getting close to conspirator-trope again.
The guy does a nice rational criticism of Greenpeace's clumsy conspiracy theory. Then, almost as if he were uncomfortable without the support of a conspiracy theory, substitutes another one: we, the innocents, were duped by 'Governments'. Well I don't remember that. Back in the day there was stuff coming from all sorts of directions, including no doubt governments, in favour of diesel. It was a muddle of good and bad intentions, well-meaning people and assholes.
Here we have a case of The Curse of Binary, a post-industrial thinking-disability where issues can only be conceptualised as consisting of two opposing forces, Goodies versus Baddies, with me being of course on the Goodies side and a victim of the Baddies. It plays well in the media. And that's what makes me uncomfortable with Greenpeace's approach. Binary is a thought process of the tribalist of whom I have spoken before. The thing to bear in mind, Greenpeace, is that tribal chanters don't ever convert anyone. Ever. They make like minded chanters feel good about themselves and look like an off-putting stereotype to the rest.
The guy does a nice rational criticism of Greenpeace's clumsy conspiracy theory. Then, almost as if he were uncomfortable without the support of a conspiracy theory, substitutes another one: we, the innocents, were duped by 'Governments'. Well I don't remember that. Back in the day there was stuff coming from all sorts of directions, including no doubt governments, in favour of diesel. It was a muddle of good and bad intentions, well-meaning people and assholes.
Here we have a case of The Curse of Binary, a post-industrial thinking-disability where issues can only be conceptualised as consisting of two opposing forces, Goodies versus Baddies, with me being of course on the Goodies side and a victim of the Baddies. It plays well in the media. And that's what makes me uncomfortable with Greenpeace's approach. Binary is a thought process of the tribalist of whom I have spoken before. The thing to bear in mind, Greenpeace, is that tribal chanters don't ever convert anyone. Ever. They make like minded chanters feel good about themselves and look like an off-putting stereotype to the rest.
Right
now we should hunt down punish and deter those motor trade assholes
who deserve it, while getting on with cleaning up our transport act.
____
You can see the Greenpeace petition here, along with the comment I quote:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/time-to-clean-up-car-industry-20170321
Update, early May 2017:
Well, VW are really going for the Assholes of the Year award aren't they? I've been about to publish this piece twice before, and had to modify it because of the emergence of dodgy behaviour from them. Now it looks like their correction of the original emissions problem isn't going too well:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/mar/25/vw-volkswagen-audi-skoda-seat-emissions-fix-left-car-undriveable
A Confession:
I own a big smelly old-school diesel engine! I love it. It powers my canal boat. There is a touch of magic about it. Unlike a petrol engine you don't have to set the fuel on fire with a spark to make it go. You squeeze it. And after the first time it goes on squeezing itself, with no input other than the fuel, like a kind of perpetual motion. To make it stop you have to intervene by decompressing it. It's like it's alive.
In my defence can I plead that, as I have a good solar electric supply on board I don't have to use the engine to generate power for my domestic arrangements? I only need it to move the boat about. And I don't use an enormous lot of fuel for that: around 50 litres a year (that's right, 50, it's not a typo). There are electric power units on the market now and it would be nice in future to fit one. They are almost silent and it would be lovely to noiselessly slide through the countryside with only the sound of rippling water and the birds. But I would miss my big mid-20th century air cooled chugging diesel. Perhaps I should put it on a plinth and just look at it and polish it once in a while.
