THE ROYAL GREEN ESTABLISHMENT;

the Rootin’, Tootin’, and Shootin’ Set.

i) Charles Windsor.

Charles windsor desperately wants to be king and to preserve the brutish monarchy; he believes in the church and in god; he supports huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’; he encourages his sons and daughters to follow the royal bloodsports’ tradition; he resembles his father who, although president of the worldwide fund for nature, is well-known for his contempt for ‘Animal lovers’; and, finally, he loves cars. He has been known to condemn the car, "It was "staggering" to think that there are now 2 times as many cars in Europe as in 1970. He asked, "Isn't it time to ask how we are physically going to cope with what is rapidly becoming a monster of our own making? Have we not planned our cities in a way that gives succour to such an extraordinary voracious beast?" Nevertheless he still owns a number of cars But, to give him credit, he is one of the few royals who has not been caught and convicted for speeding down motorways.

Although his attitudes are well known they are not often connected to his support for green issues. What gives them political relevance is that over the last few years a number of individuals have started to congregate around charles to create what could be called a royal green establishment. The suspicion is that those greens in charles's orbit are going to end up promoting similar views - monarchy, church, god, infidelity; a love of cars; bloodsports, carnivorism, and contempt for Animals - i.e. rootin’, tootin’, and shootin’.

ii) Jonathon Porritt.

The first figure in the royal green establishment is jonathon porritt. He became one of charles’s spokespersons during the political fighting which broke out during the collapse of charles and diana’s marriage. Jonathon also comes from an aristocratic, and public school, background. His attitudes are not that different from charles’s. In his books he has constantly called for the development of a spirtual side to green politics. It is not known whether he supports the monarchy. He is not a vegetarian. Although he doesn’t participate in the huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ set he has never opposed bloodsports and has not shown much interest in Animal rights. He's also a car owner, "In spite of being a self-confessed radical or ‘dark’ green, he .. isn’t a vegetarian .. and (contrary to some press reports) does drive a car. It’s not even been converted to take unleaded petrol, although he claims it’s going to be." He was also the role model used in an advertising campaign by a so-called green motoring organization.

Many people thought david icke had gone mad when he proclaimed himself the son of god. Porritt seems only slightly less loopy working for someone who believes in the ‘divine right of kings’. The popularity of the green movement plummetted as a result of david icke’s flirtation with god. It fell even further as a result of porritt’s association with someone who has become widely despised. At the beginning of the 1990s the royal family was still held in considerable respect by a majority of people across all social classes. There was so little support for republicanism that the term was hardly ever mentioned in the media. However, after all the revelations about royal affairs much of this respect has been lost and for the first time in centuries there is open talk about the need for a republic. The public is particularly disenchanted with charles, and rightly so since anyone who uses a woman he does not love simply to provide himself with kids is odious. What happened between charles and diana was closer to rape than love. Quite how anyone could trust such a person again is difficult to imagine. Porritt has acted admirably in coming to the aid of a friend but he’s committed political suicide.

iii) Jonathon Dimbelby.

The second figure in this group is jonathon dimbelby who recently proclaimed himself a green.

iv) Jeremy Irons.

The third, and most surprising, member of this group is jeremy irons. Jeremy first came to the mundi club’s attention when he narrated heathcote williams’s poem ‘autogeddon’ shown on bbc2 in 1992. It was pointed out in ‘carbuncle’ that it was a rather strange decision to choose him as a narrator given that he is a motorist, "The Irons' family have two cars, a volkswagen and an audi-quattro estate." Even worse was that irons was quoted as saying, "I need a car in spite of all its negative aspects concerning the environment." The mundi club droned on that audi is a subsidiary of one of the world’s leading Earth rapist multinational car corporations, volkswagen, and that it was appalling that jeremy could finance his appallingly wealthy lifestyle only by wrecking the Earth - and he says he loves his kids and wants to do everything to ensure their future!!!! But, it was asked, how is he going to remain a wealthy, consumer superstar when their ain't any oomans left on Earth? For billions of years the Earth has been generating a fabulous diversity of life-forms but now, it seems, the Planet's got to evolve around Jeremy's career. The mundi club suspect that ironocentrism will never catch on as a major evolutionary process and that the sooner this self-centred, grandiose, oomano-imperialist shit is cut down to size the better the chance of saving the Earth.

Since the publication of ‘carbuncle’ more information has come to light about irons which makes it even more dubious why he was asked, AND GOT PAID, to read out ‘autogeddon’. He admits that, "I’m quite militant about hunting. It requires bravery and nerve, which I think all the best sports do. It can be cruel but one of the things that makes the country the country is hunting. I’m very for it." And then, surprise, surprise, we discover irons’s real attitude towards the Earth, "Movie heart-throb Jeremy irons was fined £120 yesterday for doing 97mph on a motorway." In another article he confesses, "I love driving .. and i like best of all to go fast."

Such attitudes don’t suggest an overwhelming commitment to saving the Earth. Nevertheless he has recently been on the green campaign trail through his involvement in oxford’s first ‘green screen’ festival which also involved rory bremner, jonathon porritt, alan yentob, and francine stock, "At Monday’s launch, Mr Irons gave an impassioned speech stressing the importance of individual action when it comes to forcing the pace of change (over green issues)."

There are many greens who love their cars and are thus keen to promote the transition from fossil fuelled, to solar powered, cars.

THE GREEN ADVOCATES OF SOLAR POWERED CARS.

i) Greenpeace.

Greenpeace promotes alternative energy, primarily solar-hydrogen fuel, for cars, "Vehicles achieve around 100 mpg and are based heavily on solar/wind electric systems and liquid biofuels." Most vehicles will eventually run on hydrogen, "A mix of alternative fuels was assumed. Biofuels meet 10% of fuel use in 2010 and 30% in 2030. Solar electric and solar hydrogen systems were assumed to .. meet 30% of fuel use in 2030 and 80% in 2100. Under these conditions, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels falls more than 40% by the year 2030, and 100% by the year 2100."

ii) Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth support solar powered cars because they cause no vehicle emissions and because there is supposedly unlimited solar energy. In the long distant past the nuclear power industry boasted that nuclear power would be too cheap to meter. These days friends of the Earth advocate ‘Energy Without End’. What’s the ideological difference between these two Earth-rapist organizations? There is none.

iii) The Worldwatch Institute.

"Automobiles will undoubtedly still be in use four decades from now, but their numbers will be fewer and their role smaller. Within cities, only electric or clean hydrogen-powered vehicles are likely to be permitted, and most of these will be highly efficient "city cars".."

iv) Peter Hughes.

Hughes believes that, "Although the car has brought undisputed benefits to a large number of people, its main influence - through pollution, casualities, nuisance and social division - has been to undermine modern society rather than civilize it." This does not prevent him from promoting green cars running on so-called renewable energy .. "electric and hydrogen vehicles charged using renewable energy and heat-engined vehicles running on renewable biofuels."."A programme to develop renewable power sources, in the form of wind, wave, tidal and hydro-electric energy, would facilitate a large scale transfer from petroleum to renewables in the transport sector."

v) Anita Gordon & David Suzuki.

"The real saviour of the north american car culture may be something that’s a long way off; hydrogen fuel."

vi) David Morris.

Morris is so enamoured by the electric car he fantasizes, "Electric cars can eliminate the pollution costs of vehicles."

vii) Fred Pearce.

"Hydroelectric power from the remote north could become the key to the development of a new global energy source .. Hydrogen could be the fuel of the future - a cheap, clean greenhouse-friendly substitute for oil and gas that can burn in cars and home heating systems as well as in power stations. When it burns, it produces mainly water vapour - no carbon dioxide (water vapour is the main greenhouse gas - ed). The key to its development is its large-scale manufacture, which requires passing electricity through water. What better job for a hydro-electric dam, where the water and the power are on tap? In addition .. if the water in the river were converted on site into hydrogen, then there would be no need to store water for conversion into power when it is needed. The storage function would be performed by the hydrogen rather than the reservoir."

viii) Paul Nieuwenhuis, Peter Cope, & Janet Armstrong.

"A truly clean fuel seems impossible, but does in fact exist."

ix) William Ophuls & A Stephen Boyan JR.

.. "solar hydrogen is virtually inexhaustible and pollution free."

GREEN CONCEPT CARS.

i) The Green Super-Car.

I: Amory Lovins.

Amory lovins, one of the world’s leading supergreens, is promoting a lightweight, fuel efficient supercar which uses a flywheel to conserve the energy lost when motorists use their brakes. "A complete supercar, able to run at 200-300mpg, lighter than a modern executive style motorcycle and as simple to service as a computer, is looming. According to Amory Lovins, "We could be about to embark on one of the greatest adventures of industrial history. Ready or not here it comes. What could be on offer is not something which sacrifices other attributes for efficiency, but something far more safe, peppy, pollution free, reliable, durable, quiet, comfortable and beautiful than existing cars, yet priced about the same or less.""

One of the drawbacks to supergreen cars is that they encourage motorists to accelerate vigorously and to travel at high speeds. The greater the speed and the harder that motorists brake, the greater the energy stored in the flywheel, the greater the energy which is available to accelerate away again at high speed.

Lovins believes that just as the microcomputer industry was once dominated by ibm and was then over-taken by small scale companies producing bargain basement computers so the same will happen to the world's giant car-makers, "If supercar entrepreneurs are half as smart as their computer counterparts and structure their operations radically, they could slash car dealer support services, sell directly to consumers, assemble cars immediately and locally, and save up to a quarter of current car costs. Car companies .. go to heroic lengths to adapt engine capacity rather than retool. Their strategy is to postpone change and hope their competitors don't act faster."

The idea that it is possible to produce pollution free cars is absurd. The next green car concept to roll off the supergreen science fiction production line is probably going to be something like a gravity-free car.

ii) The Green Countryside Car.

I: Paul Nieuwenhuis, Peter Cope, & Janet Armstrong.

These authors celebrate the car because, "We should not forget that the access that the motorcar provides has also made many city dwellers aware of nature." But what exactly do these authors mean by aware? Do they mean aware of the vital role of Forests as the basis of the Earth’s life support system or aware that there are green and pleasant areas for huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’, or as an escape from urban smogs? If motorists were "aware" of the importance of ‘nature’ then they wouldn’t be driving cars and they wouldn’t be driving them into green areas where the pressure of tourism will quickly lead to the spread of restaurants and car parks. Trying to defend the car on such a miniscule point only reveals the bankruptcy of these authors’ ecological awareness.

iii) The Green Rural Car.

I: Ken Jones.

Ken jones outlines a dispute between green radicals and environmentalists concerning rural transport. What is so unusual about this dispute is that it is the so-called radicals (such as ken jones) who are in favour of cars and roads whilst environmentalists are anti-car and anti-road, "They (the green radicals) persuade the environmentalist campaigners to hold their fire, to accept a more open-ended local dialogue, to consider the need for 'first aid' road improvements .. The radicals also persuade them to modify their obsession with public transport in an area of scattered dwellings where, even with neighbours sharing lifts, cars are essential, and where the rationing by price of a carbon tax is unacceptable unless combined with a rationing by need scheme favouring areas such as this at the same time as certain classes of individuals. Thus the need is for simple, limited range, electrically powered runabouts connecting to public transport points. (Dulas Engineering, a small firm in West Wales, is in fact developing a rural car)."

It has to be suggested that any attempt to meet the transport needs of rural communities is futile. It is impossible to provide a decent rural public transport system even with large subsidies. Even where everyone in rural areas has their own car it is still highly expensive providing roads and all the ancillary services. The fact has to be faced that it is far more expensive for people to live in the countryside than it is for them to live in urban areas and that if they insist on living in rural areas then they ought to be responsible for providing their own services. If a few people decide they want to live in the middle of Wilderness areas they have no right to expect those people living in urban areas to subsidize them by providing them with gas, electricity, water and transport. Rural communities should be abandoned and the people moved into urban areas so that parts of the ‘countryside’ can be Reforested to counter global warming and other parts allowed to revert back to Wilderness for the exclusive use of Wildlife. In the short term where there are such a huge numbers of humans on Earth, it is possible to meet people’s transport, and energy, needs in an ecologically benign way only in high-density cities.

Ken jones is a self-confessed green radical who supports cars. He also seems to have a bit of a thing for roads, "All ideology solidifies useful contingent ideas into articles of faith .. And even half a mile of tarmac, no matter how good the reason, can arouse an outburst from the green fundamentalist so violent that it's clearly coming from somewhere beyond just concern about road building." It doesn't seem much to ask does it - another half mile of tarmac? But ken not only does not attempt to give an ecological reason for this extension he fails to explain how good this reason is. Is it of the order of "If we don't build this road then the Earth's life support system will collapse"? As far as is known the construction of roads does not boost the Earth's life support ystem.

This pathetic wheeze, "It's only another half a mile of road" is the same excuse being used by 6 BILLION humans around the world and when these little extensions are added up they cause a vast scale of ecological destruction.

What ken displays in this view is his total ignorance that this country is living far beyond its ecological budget and that if every country around the world had similar ecological debts then the Earth's life support system would be on the point of collapse. Ken, give is a good example of the fact that the green movement is dominated by people who nothing about the Earth's geophysiology.

iv) The Socially Just Car.

I: Brian Hanson.

Many lefties, usually with the most superficial understanding of ecological issues, are extremely worried that environmentalists’ demands to curb the car will lead to a huge rise in petrol taxes which will have a considerable impact on low income motorists. According to brian hanson, "While many "greens" might welcome a modest additional fuel levy to help finance better public transport, others on the left may view a price rise on the scale proposed as socially unjust. It would also be grossly inflationary and completely unnecessary." In order to avert social injustice for motorists hanson proposes, "The real answer to the transport crisis, as for other environmental problems, lies with grasping the nettle of effective energy conservation .. such could provide the essential catalyst needed to transform the car-culture into one of universal acceptance of green values." Anyone who believes that energy conservation could prevent an ecological catastrophe is an ecological ignoramus who has little understanding of just how close humans are getting to a geophysiological disaster. His proposed energy conservation scheme is, "An equitable system of vehicle fuel "Allocations" (which) would offer a workable and socially just alternative to higher fuel taxes." Just in case this proposal might sound somewhat threatening to the country’s motorized eco-nazis he immediately attempts to allay their fears, "Such a policy would not preclude new environmentally justified roads nor would it anathematise car ownership." Well thank goodness his proposal won’t stop the spread of car ownership. For a moment there we thought he was beginning to sound like one of those cranky, bunny-loving, car hating environmentalists. And what was that again, "environmentally justified roads" uhm what a fantastic new concept that is. One wonders quite how he managed to think up such a fantastic idea - perhaps he drifted off in some adrenalin haze whilst driving down the motorway when it suddenly hit him - yes, roads give people access to Wilderness areas therefore roads can be environmentally friendly.

The fundamental error which this green crackpot makes is that he doesn’t start from the Earth’s perspective. He doesn’t indicate the fact that this country is up to its neck in Carbon debts because over the last couple of centuries it has exported vast quantities of Carbon pollution and cut down nearly all of its Forests. Today nearly 20% of the country is covered in tarmac and cement. Only when this country has repaid its Carbon debts and thus helped to prevent a global warming disaster is it going to be possible to create a sustainable transport policy. This country has got to pay off its Carbon debts by Reforesting large parts of the country and digging up a significant number of the country’s roads and car parks. Energy conservation schemes such as those proposed by hanson are not going to do anything to help this country repay its Carbon debts and they are not going to do anything to avert a global warming disaster. Quite the contrary, there are increasing numbers of Earth-rapists posing as greens who are putting forward energy conservation schemes simply as a diversion to prevent discussions about the radical policies needed to protect the Earth. Fuel allocation policies are designed solely to save the car not the Earth.

Hanson's argument that a fuel allocations system is needed to protect the poor is irrelevant since, in general, the poor do not own cars .. "in a workshop devoted to road pricing, consultant Keith Buchan said the equity argument was bogus. The National Travel survey showed that poor people don't own cars and that car use by exceptionally wealthy people was relatively limited. The people most affected by road pricing would be those in the lower half of the middle-income bracket, who do a lot of driving. We lived in a society where both food and housing were rationed by price and there was absolutely no reason why car use should not be too."

II: Simon Fairlie

Supports fuel vouchers and thus the continued mass use of cars, "Petrol taxation also offers a solution (to restraining traffic) that is far simpler to apply than road pricing. But petrol taxes, although convenient, are inequitable. Petrol quotas, an alternative to petrol taxation, could represent each citizen's annual allocation of petrol and could be tradeable on the open market.. They are an easily enforceable mechanism with the potential to spread the costs of traffic reduction more equitably than taxation and according to the laws of supply and demand ..."

v) The Bit on the Side Car.

This section refers to those greens who have ended their love affair with the car but can't put behind them all the happy times they once had together and, as a consequence, end up having an occasional affair.

I: Rosamund Kidman Cox.

"Most of us on the magazine (bbc wildlife) cycle to work, and others walk or use public transport. I gave up my car (well, it gave me up, really) six years ago after Chris Baines convinced me that, in a city, you can manage without one. But you do need taxis. I also hire cars - and have to admit i enjoy driving them. And when i drive, I use the motorways and the bypasses. The fact is, it's impossible to escape the car culture."

To many people, especially motorists, such a confession 'i enjoy driving cars' may be all too understandable. Many might even sympathize with motorists who have given up driving cars. Even those opposed to cars might find such a statement inoffensive. And yet such a confession is far from being acceptable since it covers up the vast social, communal, political and ecological destruction caused by cars. If someone confessed that the love bonking long-legged blondes with large chests dressed in stockings and suspenders but no longer engaged in the practice, they wouldn't receive any similar understanding, let alone sympathy for their decision. They'd probably be condemned as being an obnoxious sexist and would instantly be ostracized for the rest of their life by a whole range of car-owning feminists, feminist sympathizers and anti-sexist lefties. And yet bonking long-legged blondes is nowhere near as murderous, poisonous, ecologically destructive or ecocidal as driving cars. Anyone who confesses to enjoying driving cars is legitimizing the vast clouds of poisonous fumes which are ruining the health of tens of millions of people all over the world and causing a vast scale of ecological destruction around the Earth. A value system which condemns someone for confessing that they enjoy bonking blondes but sympathizes with a person who confesses to enjoying cars is utterly perverted.

Perhaps it would be better to draw an even more contentious parallel in order to emphasize the point. There is no doubt that driving cars is pleasurable but then for many men so is raping women. The issue is not whether driving cars or raping women is pleasurable but whether such a confession is acceptable. A society in which it is acceptable to confess that driving cars is enjoyable is as perverted as a society in which it is acceptable to confess that raping women is nothing but a bit of good harmless fun.

Believe it or not, there are anti-car individuals around the country. Not many it is true but some. Even more amazingly not many of them are green. And why is this? Because green car-owners are a fraud.

ANTI CAR INDIVIDUALS.

i) Non-Green Anti-Carists.

I: Richard Gilbert.

"The most important thing that anyone can do about the environment right now is to sell his or her automobile."

II: Phil Goodwin.

"I don't have a car."

III: Neil Gerrard.

Walthamstow mp neil gerrard .. "revealed that he doesn’t drive, doesn’t have a car and gets everywhere by walking or public ransport."

IV: Keith Waterhouse.

"Not driving is a wonderfully liberating experience and I wonder why more drivers don’t do it?"

V: Mike Woof.

.. "until we give up our dependence on cars, we will continue digging our own graves, whilst exhaust fumes keep us coughing into the coffin."

ii) Green Anti-Carists.

I: Trashing Greenpeace's Car.

.. "last month a Greenpeace publicity car was driven to the M77 road protest in Glasgow. It was promptly confiscated and burnt by other activists."

II: David Icke.

.. "the phoney war of green nuclear power, green consumerism and green cars."