Solving pollution through visual shame

Can't remember if I've mentioned this idea before. Apologies if I have.

Most of our most disgusting, polluting and selfish behaviour doesn't look that damaging at first glance. It's easy to ignore. This is certainly the case with motor vehicles. The roads are packed with unnecessarily massive vehicles powered by inefficient, oversized engines designed solely to make inadequate men and women feel important. They pump out huge amounts of poisonous fumes and lead directly to illness and early deaths.

But of course the driver thinks that he or she is unaffected. The air conditioning is on, and there's no obvious sign of the fumes. My first solution to this would probably be impractical: route just enough of the exhaust back into the vehicle's cabin so that the driver and passengers are left with impaired breathing and skin that permanently reeks of burning fuel.

As a poor second choice, how's this? Add a harmless coloured and fragranced dye to the exhaust outlet. A 4x4 would pump out thick clouds of black smoke, stinking of toxic substances. Or perhaps dog shit. A mid-efficiency car would produce greyer, slightly less voluminous clouds flavoured with brussels sprouts, chip fat, kippers or something equally unpleasant. Highly efficient cars would produce gentle blue or pink clouds fragranced with pine or apple scent. Emissions-free cars would merely exude an air of smugness. And perhaps recorded applause.

This way, drivers would be forced to see the consequences of their behaviour in an immediate fashion, and we'd all know which people and vehicles to avoid. It would work because most of the beautiful cars are also the most poisonous - Rolls, Ferrari, Range Rover, Porsche, Aston Martin. If we add smoke and stench, the drivers are forced to confront the hypocrisy of cocooning themselves in luxury while making others suffer.

(Another road-safety plan I have is to make anyone with points on their licences display large stickers of small children in crosshairs, like fighter pilot aces had tallies on their planes. One for each point as a public service warning). And Jeremy Clarkson should just have a photo of him on the bonnet so we all know he's around.

Tony Hayward's Silver Tongue

Tony Hayward, you may remember, was the CEO of BP until today. Following the sterling work of Lord Browne (abandoning renewables, tightening the financial ship by cutting back on safety and investing in disgusting shale recovery, before being forced out for committing perjury in a bid to hide his sex life - now hired by the Tory Scum to sack thousands of civil servants), Hayward oversaw BPs forays into outsourcing, negligence, safety violations and explosions, before triumphing with his conversion of the Gulf of Mexico into a greasy, dead pit.

Early on in the unfolding drama, he muttered 'I want my life back', which coincidentally may have been the last thoughts of several million fish, birds and other lifeforms. Then he was photographed out yachting while local fishermen were confined to port.



Finally, he resigned.
Not, one should add, with good grace, but with a quite incredible degree of chutzpah - or brazen cheek, supported by his successor (qualification: American):

I think BP's response to this tragedy has been a model of good social corporate responsibility.

His exit was in the best interests of BP because he had been demonised by the Gulf accident, he explained, adding that he might be "too busy" to attend future US hearings into the disastrous Gulf oil spill.

Too busy, we gather, spending the £11 million he's walking away with. 

It's a Gas…

This is utterly shocking. Neal sent me a video of a new and expanding energy source: pump chemicals down into the water table to extract natural gas. Pay people to do this on their land. Pollute their water supply for ever. Poisoned people, poisoned land.

Watch out for 6.40 minutes in when the guy lights the water coming out of his tap.

Watch the full episode. See more NOW on PBS.

Live in London - save me money!

Despite the constant stream of greenwash, the UK is repeatedly proved to be the dirtiest country in Europe. Despite having abolished heavy industry, coal fires and mining, London in particular breaks all EU regulations about clean air, thanks to its citizens' demand for Chelsea tractors and its political leaders' inaction. After several years of warnings, unlimited fines are about to be imposed.

 A study (pdf) commissioned by Boris Johnson, mayor of London, calculated that more than 4,300 deaths are caused by poor air quality in the city every year, costing around £2bn a year.

But on the plus side, I'll be able to stop sending birthday cards and presents to my sister, cousins and friends a couple of years earlier.

Another catastrophic BP spill

I may as well give up

Yes, David Mitchell not only shares my opinions, he writes about them much better. This week's column was on cricket, holidays and air travel - I don't disagree with a single word, though I'd be a little harsher in the selfish bastards who think that unrestricted air travel is their right. Being a fan of the 1930s, I've no compunction about consigning people into camps and I regularly fantasise about using grenade launchers on SUVs.

Neal (posting there as Manuelelo for some reason) makes the reasonable point that it's the frequent long weekenders who cause the damage rather than a worn-out family taking the kids away once a year (a point Cynical Ben has made too), though he also thinks that encountering new cultures makes us empathise more. Really? Neal: I give you the British Empire, and any of the other empires you care to mention. I also reference the British in Spain - tucking into fish and chips, watching Sky, speaking English and STILL hating foreigners…

I may visit Germany in August: I shall be taking the train, and considering the journey as part of my holiday.

Environment saved

I was keeping this for Radio 4's Genius program, but the need is too urgent to wait for a new series.

I think that most of the drivers I know don't care about the damage they're doing to the environment and to the lungs of pedestrians because they're insulated from the immediate effects. Likewise, the exhaust fumes disperse and we don't really notice it any more.

So the way to shame people into driving less or driving cleaner cars is to increase the immediate effect of the pollution. I have the answer. Add harmless black dye to the exhaust so that each vehicle pumps out a foul black cloud proportionate to the pollution produced, so that everybody can see whose cars are poisoning them, and gains a visual index of the degree to which our air is polluted. Link it to another pump which exudes a revolting but harmless gas into the vehicle's cabin - I suggest the eggy deliciousness of human flatulence - in proportion to the engine output (for SUVs, I'd prefer to link the exhaust pipe to the air conditioning, but apparently that counts as murder).

Before long, the selfish bastards in urban SUVs will be rushing to buy Prius's as their clothes stink of bottom and passing pedestrians lob bricks at the filth factory speeding past. It won't cost drivers any more, it doesn't penalise people who have to drive for work, it simply emphasises the costs of how we run our society.

Blogging - an odd medium

I've mentioned this before, but it's strange what people respond to. Quite a few posts on favourite books - but no response to my suggestion that polluters be summarily executed. I assume that silence = consent.

Read Swift's A Modest Proposal?

A solution to our excess consumption

In conversation with Neal, I had a brainwave not unconnected to watching Logan's Run recently. Give everyone a carbon ration at birth. When they've used their ration, it's execution time. After all, polluting kills people, at home and abroad. If you shorten somebody else's life, you should have yours shortened. We could all have a little electronic card with a countdown which cuts years off every time you fill up your SUV (I hate that term: what sport is it?) or take a flight. No trading allowed. This scheme will be retrospective, so all the wankers with Audi SUVs driving round Wolverhampton should report to the football stadium for 'processing' tomorrow morning.

The mode of execution (the 'quietus') would be asphyxiation by Range Rover exhaust pipe. It seems just and appropriate.

A lot of poorer countries won't be affected but the West will be depopulated - and therefore cleaner and emptier for occupation by said poorer cousins. Some people might opt to live a short and fun-packed life, and that would be fine. I'm very boring, so I'd be happy with a long, carbon-poor life.

Your comments?