The Environmental Transport Association.

Road tax to perdition, and other stories

Here are some green transport items and links to the ETA web site.
Don’t forget, the ETA (tha stands for the Environmental Transport Association) offers discounted membership on breakdown cover for gug visitors.
Click here , and QUOTE 1838 6000.
For each person who joins, the ETA makes a donation to grownupgreen.

Road to Perdition
Things went from bad to worse for the government last week as the issue of retrospective increases in vehicle excise duty (road tax) refused to
go away. It now transpires that the new rates of tax will leave 9 million motorists out of pocket – four times higher the number than previous government estimates. Higher-polluting cars should face some form of punitive taxation, but it’s vital that green taxes are seen as well thought through and fair…Find out how you will be affected by the changes and read more on the story here. See also Backdating VED is a bad policy

DIY car fuel…what a gas
A hydrogen generator – a device no bigger than a fridge and due to go on sale within 2 years – will allow householders to produce their own power for household appliances or an electric car. Read more here.

Pasta-powered pedalling
“We were getting peckish at this point. We had little cash so we decided to eat at food we had in our panniers. Unfortunately, we only had a packet of dry macaroni so we ate that in stages. We did not want to eat it all at once because we thought we might explode once the pasta had absorbed the liquid in our stomachs. There was still no news at Canterbury so we carried on to Dover…”
What’s furthest you’ve travelled under your own steam? More here.

Alternative power
Speaking at the G8 summit in Japan last week, Gordon Brown announced
that by 2020 all new cars sold in Britain will be electric, or hybrid vehicles producing less than 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
It’s a laudable aim, but ETA has no idea how the national grid would cope… Read more.

Conventional fuel
While conventionally-powered cars remain a necessity for most people, the option to offset the associated CO2 emissions is a welcome one. The ETA’s motor insurance includes an annual carbon offset, which could help you
reduce the impact of your driving. Go to IamDRIVINGcarbonNEUTRAL
for more information.

Links
Join the ETA for breakdown cover, earn a discount and the ETA makes a donation to gug. Click here , follow the instructions and QUOTE 1838 affinity

ETA - 12/07/08