|
The Daily Mail reports the Climate Change Committee's (CCC) suggestion that drivers face 'pay per mile' tolls in order to prevent climate change.
Now in its first annual report, the Climate Change Committee says there is a 'good economic rationale to introduce road pricing and thereby reduce congestion' and that 'the Government should seriously consider road pricing'.
It seems that the CCC are confused about whether they are trying to combat congestion or climate change. What is certain is that it wants things to be more expensive.
It wants the freedom to travel - for work, for leisure, and for the normal business of your life - to be more expensive.
When the Government last visited the idea of road-pricing, it suggested that some routes might cost as much as £1.50 a mile. But suppose you had to rush somewhere, perhaps to visit a sick relative living on the other side of the country. Suppose circumstances forced you to travel, and you got caught in a traffic jam. The CCC's proposals might mean that the 200-odd mile trip from Yorkshire to London could end up costing you £300 in tolls if the M1 were congested all the way down - as it often is.
The Mail quote CCC chief executive David Kennedy,
We are not calling for the Government to rush ahead and introduce road pricing, but it shouldn't come off the agenda. It would have significant carbon benefits.
'Significant carbon benefits'? But who really benefits from a de facto car-ban? You? Me? The polar bear? No. Only the likes of the CCC, and the government are likely to see any benefits from this scheme.
Your freedom is a problem for today's power-hungry politicians. They don't want you to have it. If you were able to enjoy your life, it would mean that would have no job to do in rationing it, regulating it, and taxing it.
It would mean that they would have to actually start representing your interests.
This government already wanted to charge people for using roads. But the idea was unpopular, and the government backed down. In the meantime, it has stepped up its rhetoric about the threat of climate change, and set up the CCC.
'Saving the planet' is the ruse for authoritarianism. The Climate Change Committee was established to outsource the task of making unpopular policies look like a sensible response to the 'threat' of climate change. So now we see the CCC recycling the government's policies, giving them a different 'spin', and the appearance of expert authority.
This panel of 'experts' is unaccountable, and unelected. Yet they appear to be making the decisions that affect your life. Read more
|