EVUK's Jim Carluccci posts ZEV/solar-power message to Greenfutures, BBC
Radio 4&5 etc....in "ROVER and 'Environmental Amnesia'...":
Hi,
I am just writing to ask how I can get hold of Jan/Feb edition of
magazine (Number 40)...but also thought you might like to glance at this
latest e-mail that I've blasted off in last few days to a whole series of
newspapers, phone-ins, Radio News and current affairs programmes(latest
being Edwina Currie, Radio 5). As I have communicated to Dr
J. Leggett in the past , I really feel that it is only the prospect of
actually being able to charge up their long-range electric CARS that will
persuade consumers en masse to invest in solar
power/photovoltaic(PV)systems - by contrast the ability to power their
fridges, cookers, TV's etc. just fails to excite most people. But freedom
from petrol station tyranny..well that IS something worth buying into. Any
possibility of a report into this 'PV-system-on-house-roof plus
electric-car-in-the-drive' energy model? Hollywood actor and Clinton/Gore
buddy Ed Begley Jr is possibly most active and well-known believer
in
this concept:
Hi Edwina/assistant...
How's about this "Dream-Team" trio of guests to bring some 21st
Century vision and hope to British manufacturing and its many victims
languishing in the those good 'ol oil-economy 'dole'-drums:
-
Dr.Jeremy Leggett (inspiring previous guest of yours),
- Hermann Scheer, 1999 Alternative Nobel prizewinner (held evry December in Sweden on day before 'main' ceremony) for his vision of economic prosperity and
sustainable new industries esp. solar power and
- Amory Lovins/Hawken - often lauded by Gore/Clinton for their
similar REALWORLD sustainable business solutions, as expounded most
recently in book "Natural Capitalism". Incidentally, when will carmakers
stop refusing to produce Zero Emission cars like the 373
mile-per-charge(3.50 pounds to charge) 5-person Solectria Sunrise as
described by Leggett in your last interview? Many of us would love the
liberation from petrol-station tyranny this could bring
I attach e-mail sent recently to BBC's "TODAY" programme:
Sir/Madam,
The media's collective hatred of the dreaded "E" word - the "Environment"
has been even more depressingly evident than usual. Those oh-so-tedious
and unsexy subjects of Global Warming and inner-city pollution - caused
largely by stop-start vehicle gridlock - suddenly these 'big picture'
topics seem to have been expurgated wholesale from news reports, current
affairs and phone-in programmes etc. - as if these irritating 'green'
issues have become some sort of long-forgotten fiction.
The media love to bemoan the perceived lack of 'joined up' government -
yet, uniquely, when it comes to the car industry (coincidentally the
media's biggest advertising sponsor ), it is instead 'joined up' JOURNALISM
that takes a back seat or is thrown out of the window altogether:
'pollution denial' and 'environmental amnesia' kick in and take over.
Mask-wearing cyclists, pushchairs with air-filter canopies, asthma and
bronchitis victims, 25,000 unnecessary or premature deaths a year, MTBE,
massive melting icebergs - who cares?
When will the world's carmakers, and the UK's carmakers in particular, at
last give up their almost religious devotion to the hopelessly outdated,
dirty and noisy Internal Combustion Engine? When at long last will
carmakers stop the endless procrastination and bring Zero Emission
high-tech, electric and/or fuel-cell alternative vehicles to the country's
car-showrooms - as has already long been the case in the USA and California
in particular. In the States petrol/gas STILL costs less than a pound a
gallon, and yet a wide choice of long-range, high performance and VERY
cheap-to-run Zero Emission Vehicles can be hired leased or bought.
So why all this talk of REPLACING car-manufacturung with jobs in other
high-tech industries - why on earth, even in their death throes, do
carmakers steadfastly refuse to bring 21st Century state-of-the-art,
emission-free technology to car-manufacturing ITSELF? When will they give
up this King Canute act and at long, LONG last say goodbye to this Infernal
relic of the Industrial Age?
