But as usuall the Swedish politicians “Iwannabebestintheworld”-ambitions will be paid by us the people. Worked into poor health and then taxed to death…

In the end, the decision of driving with fossil fuels or not will be decided by the market price of oil. Right now oil has become cheaper due to the chaos in financial markets. But just wait when asian countries puts in the second gear in their economies and we will see oil prices around 150-200$….then whining about fossils or not will not be a option

The oil will run out. So alternatives are needed. And I think saab are on the right track and have been since they introduced “Biopower”. Here in sweden 90% of the saabs I see have the Biopower badge on its trunk, and the rest are Aeros or Turbo X =)

Anyway I cant understand how people can be so afraid of filling their car with something else than gasoline, you won’t die, you will _proboably_ just do something good.

About the original subject: “Centerpartiet” here in sweden won’t be ruling much longer anyway _proboably_, however its a good goal, but it is not possible to reach to 100%. It’s better to aim high and get an OK result, than aiming lower and not get anywhere at all. (Until it is to late?)

Yes media is most likely (or maybe not?) hyping the “environmental threat”, but how would you otherwise reach all the narrow-minded politicians and the huge mass?

Oh btw, Trollhättan is as close to the north pole as mid/north Canada, the only reason we have such “mild” climate is thanks to the Gulf Stream, if it changes we will have another ice-age here in northern europe and the Saab era will be over…

I will think of you Canadians the day it is -30°C here and filled with ice, and I will be happy for your sake…

Nothing personal.

The reason why the ice on the north artic is melting is because there is a hole in the ozone layer = more heat is getting in. Guess why.

Wimpbeef and Saabyurk: Shame on you for high-fiving such rudeness.

As for the real issues at hand, how can thoughtful people overlook the demonstrable lack of global temperature rise over the last ten years? World population and economic activity have increased at breakneck speeds during this period, so how come there’s such a disconnect? Yes, indeed, we now have quite a large world population, but earth’s climatic history has proven time and again that massive temperature shifts occur regardless of population size or economic activity. Turning the argument on its head, what happens if the man-made global warming argument is true, but is trumped by the much-better documented history of non man-made global warming? Going one step further, let’s recall that the last time we had very high levels of C02, earth was ruled by giant herbivores (who had no need of cars or nuclear weapons) and plant life flourished like no other time in history. So let’s have a bit of circumspection and humility, OK?

Finally, getting back to common ground, air pollution is a bad thing and we should do all we can to limit it. If Sweden wants to ban certain forms of transportation in favor of other forms, fine. It’s happened before (good riddance to urban horse-drawn vehicles and their droppings!) It may or may not work out, but there’s no reason why Sweden can’t experiment. However, what more than a few here find suspect is the linkage between grand schemes and taxation. Is the real purpose to achieve clean air or simply to tap a new revenue stream which can easily be diverted to fund unrelated pet programs? Here in the States, highway taxes are routinely diverted away from highway maintenance, just as “education” lottery revenue is diverted away from education. By offering tax credits instead of taxes to achieve the same goals we can negate such governmental conflicts of interest.

I think you need to check your sources.
We don’t build any new nuclear powerplants, but the ones we got work just fine, thank you very much, and produce like 50 % of the energy we need.

Anyway: of course we need to ban fossil fuels in vehicles, since otto and diesel engines are absolute crap and a total waste of energy. Put the fossil fuels we have left to use were it counts (for example in producing electricity for plug-in cars), not were 70 % of the energy is not used at all.

Think about that for a second. For every liter of gasoline you pour into your vehicle, only 3 deciliters (maximum!) are actually used to move car. An electric car would use more than 9, in comparison.

Have you really noticed any of the CO2 taxation?

Here in Norway, they changed the way they tax new cars, to reflect the increased focus on CO2.

Now, you would think this would help my SAAB, which I so far have mostly fed E85 (Ethanol). In a way it did, because they gave me a $1500 rebate. But the darn thing is still twice as expensive here in Norway, compared with Sweden! $1500 is just a drop in the sea — meaning I could afford the radio! Whohooo!

Now _that_ is something to complain about.

Didn’t California try to regulate the car industry? Did it work? I seem to recall a lot of muttering by the SUVidians?

We love the people of the Netherlands.

So my post was a bit tongue-in-cheek but I didn’t say there was no global warming but instead my point that it is over hyped and is being used to scare people and as an excuse to tax them even more!

We should do all we can to reduce pollution and be efficient but controlling the climate?? I don’t think we humans can do that. We will just have to adapt if the climate does indeed change significantly. Which is what humans are very good at doing anyway.

And to change what car manufacturers built – just change the regulations. Don’t tax the people.

Let us say you are 100% right: There is no global warming, and if there was, the effect would be beneficial.

There is still a valid concern that it will be harder and harder to pump enough oil to meet demand.

In _that_ light, there is no downside to give car manufacturers an ultimatum to come up with altnernatives _fast_. They have been told nicely for fifty+ years. Now it is time to put some force behind those nice words.

However, global warming trends are not necessarily a bad thing. Warmer climate for Canada means less home heating fuel being burned = less consumption and less pollution. It means huge tracts of land, millions and millions of hectares currently frozen wastelands, becoming available for agriculture and industry. And millions more hectares being able to support forestation. For Canada this would be a golden age where our economy, wealth and population would grow exponentially as would the standard of living for our people.

So bring it on, we are waiting.