"Dave Baker" wrote in message
...

"Mike G" wrote in message
news:AumdnRfQzPKQDb3VnZ2dnUVZ8qKvnZ2d@plusnet...

"Zimmy" wrote in message
...

"Dave Baker" wrote in message
...

"Doki" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Going rate for an 8 year old Focus looks like £1-2k. I
recently picked up a 5 year old 406 HDI estate for £2.5k.
If
you avoid the German makes, the depreciation is pretty
vicious and the cars end up damned cheap for what they are.

The speed of depreciation on cars always surprises me. My
Focus 2.0 ESP is 7 years old in June, hasn't gone wrong in
the
4 years I've had it, does everything just as well as a new
car
but is worth only a tiny fraction of the price. High
depreciation makes more sense with cars that rust badly but
the Focus doesn't do that. If the government really wanted
to
do something about the environment they'd make it more
financially attractive to keep running older cars rather
than
squandering resources building new ones.

How about no road tax on cars over 10 years old?

That would put the cat amongst the pigeons as far as the car
manufacturers were concerned.
I think any measures taken to promote the idea of making
products
that last longer, and that encourage consumers to have things
repaired
rather than simply replaced if they do go wrong, is far
greener than
advising we use things like fluorescent bulbs, or switch off
low
volt adaptors, phone chargers etc, when not actually in use.
Mike.

Whenever governments get involved in things like the
environment A) they cock it up and B) they run into big
business interests which generally don't want things changed.
Numerous examples spring to mind.

Whatever the richer western countries do to reduce environmental
pollution is going to be more than offset by the polution
produced by the emerging economies of countries like China,
India, Brazil, and even Russia.
The poor of those countries are not going to be satisfied with
anything less than a comparable living stds to the one we enjoy
now, and with a market runnng into billions of potential
consumers, any green efforts we make will be like a drop in the
ocean.

Personally though, I think the climate can take care of itself.
There seems little proof that any global warming is not due to
natural fluctuations.
Historically global temperatures have gone through periodic
colder or warmer cycles ever since records began. The present
rise in temperature is nothing unusual, something that hasn't
occured in the past, and those in the past were not caused by CO2
emissions, industry, or any human activity at all.
Mike.