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Europe Plans To Ban Petrol Cars From Cities By 2050
thecarchik writes "Can you imagine a future — thirty-nine years from now — where there are no engines humming, no exhaust smells, no car sounds of any kind in the city except the presumably Jetsons-like beeping of EVs? The European Commission can, and it has a transportation proposal aiming to do just that by 2050. Paris was the first city to suggest a ban on gas guzzlers in their city core, but this ban takes it to whole different level by planning to phase out all petrol cars completely from the city streets. While Paris was motivated by reduced pollution, the EU has broader aims of reduced foreign oil dependence, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, increased jobs within the EU, and improved infrastructure for future economic growth."
It's easier to replace 2 coal power plants than 100k privately owned cars.
There's a lot of this going on in Europe and to a lesser extent, N. America. Make a commitment, but put it so far off into the future that you can take credit for being "green" or visionary without having to actually do anything or make any hard choices. If the technology works out, you get to take credit for it. If the technology fails, then it's some other person who gets to repeal the law, but you'll be long gone by then.
Good stewardship of our natural resources is a good thing, but the problem with environmentalism is it has become a movement which can do no wrong and knows no self-criticism. Any inconvenience or failure is either a misunderstanding (stupid people), or poor implementation (the people are too stupid to to it right, so we have to make it simpler). So the EU will go on mandating Ethanol-based fuel additives which deplete the rain forests, energy-saving lightbulbs, which contain mercury and need to be properly disposed of, etc.
Who ever said regulations had to be rational?
Wouldn't it just be better to keep tightening the emissions requirements on new cars until only electric cars qualify?
If everyone were forced to drive 100mpg cars or cars with near-zero CO2 output, wouldn't the result effectively be the same -- but without having to resort to a "ban"?
That way, people don't have to buy new cars immediately and we don't end up with landfills full of perfectly functional cars.
Works for lightbulbs. Dispite the popular ramblings of the internet, neither the EU nor US have actually banned incandescent bulbs - they just set efficiency standards high enough that no incandescent can achieve them.
Just because you don't use the word "ban", doesn't mean it's not really a ban.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano