Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forDecember 21st, 2006 | back to home

21 December 2006

A while ago I read in The Economist (registration required to read) that,

Transport is the only sector of the economy in which carbon emissions have risen since 1990. It is also the only one in which they are expected to be above that year’s level in 2020″

but “petrol is now 7p per litre cheaper in real terms than it was in 1999” (thanks to the government’s capitulation to petrol protesters). Seems to me there’s an obvious step the government could take. It turns out “Lowering the motorway speed limit to 60 mph, for example, would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by around 18%.”

(In a reversal of the usual practice I am stepping up my posting frequency over the Xmas holidays by posting old posts I drafted but forgot to post!)