Green tax revolt: Britons 'will not foot bill to save planet'

[phantom power]

They sound remarkably like Americans, actually.

More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.

The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-green-tax-revolt-britons-will-not-foot-bill-to-save-planet-poll-shows-819703.html

[Sweet Pea]

1. Smart people n/t

[truebrit71]

2. Taxes are already extremely high in the UK as it is...

...

[Nihil]

3. Strangely enough ...

... a lot of this ...

> The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s ...
> have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour

... came about as a direct result of Blair's "greening" of the car tax
being used to fund the illegal oil war in Iraq ...

:grr:

[Briar]

4. Despicable

but no unexpected. This is a consequence of the "greed is good", "me first" culture introduced by Thatcher and continued by Bliar. Under their rule, taxes have been portrayed as the work of the socialist devil - in American terms, in other words. But taxes are the means by which complex societies are able to provide humane living conditions for their members. From the national health service to good drainage, taxes are central and vital. They are the dues we pay to live in a civilised community. And never more so than now, when the entire planet is threatened by our appalling greed and selfishness.

This was a strain of capitalist callousness which Johnson tapped into - he's a climate sceptic on top of his other rightwing libertarian follies, and will doubtless start to dismantle London's attempts to turn the pollution tide soon. In other words - we are incapable of solving this problem. Londoners voted him into office knowing all this. Our own nature is against our survival.

[tom_paine]

5. "We could have saved it, but we were too lazy and cheap."

That was the epitaph Kurt Vonnegut Jr. proposed to be carved into letters 100 feet high on the Redwall of the Grand Canyon to be left for the alien antrhopologists who will most likely (if they exist and if they are interested in our infantile shortsighted self-destructing) come down in five or ten millenia to pick over the remains of the human species.

I like it. It's short, succinct, to the point, and most importantly true true TRUE.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at us upright primates. We are a foolish species that is not likely going to be around 5000 years from now, maybe a lot less.

EVERYBODY and I mean virtually EVERYBODY is going to feel the same as the Brits. Plus our global finanical system has lately become criminalized to such a degree that even finding the funds amid the rampant thievery would be a chore.

Everybody will feel the same, and nobody will do anything substantial. Nighty-night, humanity. I used to think that our impending ewxtinction would do no service to the universe, but lately I am not so sure.