red diesel goes to appeal

[beejum06]

(re: Red Diesel Goes to Appeal - Practical Boat Owner, October 2006)

I do hope I have this straight: John Harmer and his wife (and many others, it seems) are concerned because, if they are no longer able to buy tax-free red Diesel fuel, they may no longer be able to afford to burn 90 litres of fuel an hour as they flit aimlessly about in their twin 300 horsepower pleasure yacht.

Do the Harmers see no moral issue here? How entitled must one be to ignore the environmental impact of such meaningless mobility? How do they justify paying no fuel tax for this activity?

Shortly after the October issue of Practical Boat Owner hit the stands, your Prime Minister warned of an environmental tragedy 'in our lifetime' because of climate change. If Britain has 'some of the world's most punitive taxes on carbon emissions' (International Herald Tribune, 31.10.2006), how did the recreational use of fossil fuels slip below the radar? Such use should be heavily surtaxed and the owners' carbon deficits logged and publicised.

The mechanics of fuel taxation should be no different than for other commodities: commercial users entitled to purchase at reduced tax rates claim refunds on a monthly or quarterly basis. All others pay full fare.

 

[sarabande]

Another item in PBO suggested that mobos might be driven more slowly, and that the Solent could be emptier.

It does seem a little strategically irresponsible to travel at 40 kts if the boat planes happily at 20. But if we (Europe and USA) can't persuade China and India to rein in on energy expenditure, it could be argued that mobo diesel consumption doesn't matter.

Is it a cultural blind spot by designers, or by owners ?

 

[Talbot]

I always love these anonymous posts where it is not even clear if the poster is aware of taxation regime in UK, or what counry they are from, or even that there is a dedicated forum for this issue.

Personally, I find this impassioned plea to save the planet by slapping mega taxes onto our sport more than a little tawdry, and most people advocating this seem to have some specific axe to grind,

 

[tcm]

i see your point but it is by no means clear cut.

How much tax would you impose? Enough to stop them - or enough to hehe just collect and have more jollies for glyniss and red ken to nip off to the caribbean?

The notion of taxing things but doing with the revenue raised is not to have a tax at all - it's a penalty. How about pealty taxes for people who eat expensive food, buy shoes they don't need, houses with spare bedrooms, three different newspapers - all carbon using just less obvious...

 

[Gunfleet]

<<your Prime Minister warned of an environmental tragedy 'in our lifetime' because of climate change. >>

then he got back in his helicopter.

 

[beejum06]

Nothing vague about it: pulling carbon out of the ground and spewing it into the atmosphere endangers the planet.

We fight SUVs, idling engines; we try to drive smart and find alternate energy sources. Why should all that be undone by the mindless recreational (i.e. 'sport') use of fossil fuels?

Taxing such use would serve to reduce the consumption and fund education.

See the film An Incovenient Truth.

 

[SoulFireMage]

I have the impression that you Sir are possibly behaving slightly Troll like? In which case I'm being very bad in feeding you .

When there is scientific proof that taxation, taxation, taxation solves these issues, I'll support it. It's a load of cobblers and scaremongering. You see, there are interests that abound I believe that benefit from having various big bad wolves to keep at bay. Through the princples of suggestion, re-orientation (spin), partitioning, progression, utililisation and distraction you can quite easily control enough of a population's behaviour to be useful. Incidentally most successful counselling therapies use these principles at their core.

The current wolves are terrorism and the environment. Both hard to refute, both ideal for creating gradually more oppressive (and profitable to some) laws and taxes. It's the only way to create a totalitarian state really now as the other methods have been exhausted now.

Blindly believe or be a proper questioning skeptic, please. We need skeptics big time. Believers in any cause without skeptism are quite dangerous, especially to my blood pressure /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif. Finally, the scientists don't really agree on the global warming issue, so much so that USA and some other countries won't go with the notion (conflict of interests aside). I suspect the truth is on warming alone, we've made no measurable impact. The focus is in the wrong place (again). The focus should be on poisoning (acid rain, river pollution, landfill, deforestation), and dwindling resources among other things. The warming issue is over hyped and an easy peasy tax target. There, said some of my piece on that. Prepared to be spanked for troll feeding.

 

[Frontier]

And which of your environmentally unfriendly activities are you offering to have its price increased by 1000% so that most of the revenue can be passed back as tax.

Perhaps your PC? Full of the worlds most valuable resources. If you didn't pay £5k for it you are responsible for pollution and irresponsible use of resources.

Perhaps your internet connection? Using power and electronics. I hope you are paying £200 per month for it, that's probably its environmental cost.

I have a 14 year old boat its only done about 300 hours on it's two engines over that time, many boats are like that. THAT is why it does not come up on your radar!!

The climate is going to change even if we stop everyting we are doing right now, and the little we can do wont make any difference, its just an excuse to tax us.

There is a lot of evidence that climate change would be a good thing, but they couldnt tax that could they, so it gets no coverage. IMO /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Powersalt]

We could all take a major step to help the world by refusing to buy chinese and indian goods until they clean up their act.

Oh but that would cost money to us all. Not politically acceptable. So lets just tax tax and tax to a few that makes no impact

 

[Mike21]

Tax-free deisel, where?

Perhaps you should actually look at how red deisel is taxed, or the reasons it has a lower tax rate, something to do with non-road use maybe?
Try checking your facts before posting such inaccuraces

As for our illustrious leaders comments, looks like he's a film buff as they were almost exactly the same words used in the film " The Day After Tomorrow "
Plus since Iraq is nolonger the epitath he wanted when he retires, looks like he's now looking to the enviroment, but it gives Brown another excuse to increase taxes.

Isn't also great how these enviromentalists and scientists lead by example, running around in their cars or diesel powered ships , flying to meetings and telling us we need to emit less carbon dioxide.

As for global warming, maybe you can explain why since september and october in UK were the warmest since 1911, why it's taken almost 100 years for the temperature to recover, surely if the scientists were correct, the temperatures would be steadily increasing.

As for forcasting the weather they rarely get the 5 day forecast right . /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[oldharry]

The threats facing the Planet from climate change are real, make no mistake about that. Whether they are actually the result of our pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is questionable. The motives behind Blairs demand to deal with it by applying the 'worlds most punitive taxation' to the softest possible targets is even more so..

Do Politicians REALLY believe world climate problems can be resolved simply by grubbing more of our money? Is Blair so naive he believes taxation solves anything at all except his own financial problems? Or that we can not see his environmental arm waving for waht it is - a feeble excuse for raising more revenue?

I cannot afford to live where I work, and there is no work I can do where I live. There is no public transport between the two places, and it is too far to walk or ride a bike.

I use around 1200 litres of diesel a year. I am told to reduce this, or pay higher taxes. In the ferry port ten miles away there is a high speed ship which I am told burns around 50,000 litres of diesel PER TRIP - 2 round trips per day. 200,000 litres per day!

I will not burn that much fuel in a lifetime, yet if they paid the same level of tax per litre I have to...... and all so that people can make the crossing in 4 hours instead of 6. A newly developed Italian fast ferry burns 38,000 litres of diesel AN HOUR.

I just can not see how my using a few litres more or less will make any difference. Yet listening to TB you would think it was yours and my little cars that are ruining everything - but then its so much easier to rob the man in the street than to tackle the REAL issues of Climate change, and put some REAL money and effort into researching alternative renewable power sources, and developing a transport system that is cheap, efficient and effective in enabling us and our goods to get where we need to, when we need to.

Do THAT, Mr B, and I might just accept that increasing tax to make me use my car or boat less might have some benefit, other than filling your government coffers.

 

[beejum06]

There are some interesting replies here and, for the most part, they focus on the issue of taxation and very little on the environmental concerns.

I have no axe to grind. I have a grandson for whom I wish sufficient dry land and food to ensure a good and full life. Climate change will threaten that, as it will the Gulf Stream that warmly washes the western shores of your land.

I am skeptical about the vehemence of your need to defend and protect your activities. I am saddened by the denial of what is already happening in climate change and by what I am accused of - a closed mind.

We seem to agree, however, that excessive use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming. If taxation is so deplorable - and such taxation would help fund R&D in alternative renewable power sources - how would you go about reducing unnecessary consumption?

 

[cliff]

[ QUOTE ]
how would you go about reducing unnecessary consumption?

[/ QUOTE ]Ban the sale or use of any motor vehicle not capable of at least 40mpg, Tax air travel to the point where people think twice about flying off to the "costas" for their holidays. promote the use of renewable fuels by having a zero tax regime on their sale, ......

Cutting out unnecesary air travel would have a greater impact on the environment then taxing red diesel even more than it already is.
--------------------

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>

 

[Superflid]

[ QUOTE ]
If taxation is so deplorable - and such taxation would help fund R&D in alternative renewable power sources - how would you go about reducing unnecessary consumption?

[/ QUOTE ]

There's the problem, and thus the reluctance to agree to extra taxation. The revenue raised will never be used in that way.
R&D into alternative power for private transport is only going to come from the manufacturers - funded by the car-buying public! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

My suggestion for reducing the road fuel used is less public transport. Where I live the buses to town run every 15 minutes from around 6am to 11pm, for most of the day they will be carrying 3 or 4 passengers. Sometimes, after holdups, they will be following eachother along the road!
They, of course are using subsidised fuel!

 

[bendyone]

Taxing it more is not ging to stop me using my boat neither is it going to make me use it less.

 

[Graham_Wright]

There is no doubt in my mind that discouragement taxation is merely a means of raising extra revenue. If it could be shown that the proposed surcharge on air travel were going towards developing hydrogen powered flight, I would happily pay more than the £5 (5%?) suggested.

On a positive note, how about zero rating biodiesel? Then we can all roar about the ocean at whatever consumption we like knowing that we are "carbon neutral".

 

[fireball]

Can someone put the volcanoes out please? They produce more carbon emissions than the human population do....

I do agree with reducing energy wastage - efficiency is just common sense - but the notion of taxing people into using less is just ridiculous. Today people in the UK have more free money than before - money that they can go and spend on leisure - more often than not it ends up being something that uses energy (flying off to costadelsunburn, driving the length of the country with a caravan on the back of the car, or going out boating) ...
So - what will putting up tax on red diesel actually do? It will have such minimum impact on boat usage that it will have negligible effect on the environment. For the (unlucky) few who can't afford to burn the money it will reduce the use of their engines, but there is no shortage of people with enough money to buy new boats - which cost far more than the fuel bill.
Personally it will make no significant difference to my sailing - I'll just try and use the engine less to reduce my fuel bill from the proposed £100pa to nearer our current £50pa ... oh - is that the difference - bugger it then - it won't make any difference at all.

 

[Birdseye]

[ QUOTE ]

As for global warming, maybe you can explain why since september and october in UK were the warmest since 1911, why it's taken almost 100 years for the temperature to recover, surely if the scientists were correct, the temperatures would be steadily increasing.

As for forcasting the weather they rarely get the 5 day forecast right . /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Easy enough to explain. It goes like this - the climate varies considerably year to year. If you take a given day or month, you could draw a distribution curve of the temperature variations over the years concerned. What global warming does to that is to increase the mean and to increase the extremes.

To illustrate - people get taller as the years go on through better nutrition. That doesnt mean everyone gets to the height of Peter Crouch. There are still some people (like my daughter) who get to a dizzy 4ft11inch. But the number of Courches increases year by year as he gradually turns from an extreme into an average.

But then I guess you know all this anyway, and are just having a Meldrew at the idea of paying more tax.

 

[capt_birdseye]

When this matter of 'rebated' fuel was raised with the Treasury about 6 years ago, there logic was that ' A marine vessel is classed as an Off Road Vehicle '. Work that one out !
If a vessel is used in legitimate business work, as in bona fide fishing vessel registered with the Board of Trade, then they should be able to claim the rebate at the same time as the VAT. All other 'Pleasure' craft should have to pay the same as the beleagured motorist, or take up SAILING !

 

[rogerthebodger]

If you or the govement is concerned about carbon emissions there are some fantastic machines that can solve the problem of all the CO² in the atmosphere.

They are called TREES. They convert CO² to Oxygen.

The biggest destroyer of trees is the poor in the third world. Plant more trees and stop the burning of the forests and one will reduce the CO² being created and allow the trees to start to reduct it.

When you don't know where you next meal is comming from the last think on your mind is climate change.

Taxing does not stop people using it, people just find a way to afford to use it. (Tax on cigerette smoking has not stopped it use, maybe in some, me included 35 years ago.

Climate change has been happening for a lot longer than humans have been around and we have only been studying the climate for about 150 -200 years at the most. The climate is incredibly complex and we DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND IT, thats why we can only give a max 5 day forcast.

So this "we can effect climate change" is C**P and mother nature is far better at it than we are "She has had alot more practice than we have"

These people who spout the PC C**P are just after their 3 minuites of fame.