Is that picture from the Netherlands, Hans? Norwegian police would go bonkers if they encountered something like that on the road <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
Tad, I understood that the last line of the post that made this thread ignite was an attempt at humour. But I did not think it was especially funny. Growing up with the Soviet Union in your backyard during the cold war, serving three years in a first line armoured unit and later working together with people from eastern Germany and other USSR countries tend to give you a bit of perspective on communism. First post and later argumentation comes across as a blind eyed justification for keeping your lifestyle. Knowing that we both are going to see large changes in our environment due to global heating and increasing amounts of Co2 in the atmosphere is not much fun. What you say sounds very much like the typical hardcore right-wing PR I see in american media daily.
We europeans dont want to force you to change your lifestyle, but the free market and clima changes will. We are just now beginning to see the effects of market economy and consumer demand in China. India is coming online as well, and other contries are following suit. The oil market is growing every day, and we have perhaps already seen peak oil (I dont know about peak oil, I think those theories are too radical). Either we come up with some new ways to fuel our cars, or transportation will become very expensive in a while. Methanole is one way around it, as is bio-oil. Here in scandinavia we have lots of woods, so they are researching ways to quickly produce methanole and ethanole from wood. This might be a good solution for a densely populated area with economic cars like scandinavia, but you in the U.S have a real problem coming with your car pool and mentality. Efficiency is good, both in cars and boats.
It will be a sorry day when we can't get our oil based mylar sails anymore and must go back to flax or cotton. (this was for you Robi <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> )
