> But if your predictions were true, the steps the Greens are proposing
> wouldnt be appropiate, much stricter measure had to be taken. So it seems
> not even the Greens ( at least here in Germany ) dont believe in it. In this
> context the flooding of Northern Europe gets the opposite of science. Its
> sheer ideology and obscurancy justifying another tax burden on the working
> class and making the use of cars a privilege for the rich.
It may be flooding, or it may be asphyxiation, all we know is that dumping vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is going to do something, somehow, to future generations of people and to the ecology as a whole, and that by the time we start seeing the results of our ecological follies, it'll be far, far too late to do anything about the situation. Unlike the Wall Street rentiers, I am not willing to gamble with the lives of future generations, let alone the other species we share this planet with.
Germany today has ferocious traffic jams, way too much pavement, toxic air and vegetation-damaging ozone levels every summer; the total ecological and social cost of untrammeled motorization, in terms of road subsidies, pavement projects, noise, pollution, oil spills, and CO2 and NOX emissions runs into the hundreds of billions of DM a year. Cars are also terribly expensive to run and maintain, so in terms of burdening the working-class, you're better off funding mass transit and encouraging people to use bicycles. Even the argument about saving time doesn't hold water; driving takes constant attention and concentration, while mass transit allows you to chat with the neighbors, see the sights, read a paper or whatever.
The Euroleft has to soak the rich and spend on the whales *as well as* us working people.
-- Dennis