Shaken Down by Gordon Brown
I'll be traveling to London in a couple of weeks, and after my miserable 20-hour plane flights to/from Australia, I thought it might be nice to treat myself to a business-class upgrade. So I called up Northwurst and burned a large number of my frequent-flyer miles to get a seat that reclines more than 2 inches and food that doesn't completely suck.
To my surprise and disgust, I was informed by the ticket agent that in addition to those miles, I would also be required to cough up an additional $160, thanks to a huge increase in the UK Air Passenger Tax, which took effect last February; this is essentially a "Carbon Sin Tax", which is predicated on the questionable assumption that since I'm taking up more room in biz class, I should be penalized for creating more greenhouse gases.
Now I'm no "Global Warming Denier", as some of the more quasi-religious environmentalists I know like to put it, and if given the option to voluntarily purchase some sort of offset, such as the ones various airlines like Quantas offer on their website, I'd happily contribute, but this tax really fries my crumb because it completely ignores the reality that sending me to the UK to teach allows my 9 British students to avoid having to travel to the US in order to take my class, so instead of making an oversized contribution to climate change, I'm actually helping to reduce it!
Gordon, let me share a little secret with you: taxes like this will only hurt the UK in the long run. Businesses are going to get sick of your stealthy pickpocketing and tell you to go get stuffed while they transfer their high-paying jobs to countries like China and India that don't give a rat's ass about carbon emissions. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'm going to be in a meeting, suggesting to my company that we move our future training classes to the Continent.
It's bad enough that I have to put up with shitty, 3rd-world airports like Gatwick, overpriced British food, and cities full of drunken, belligerent yobs. You should pay me to fly to your crappy little island.
Comments
Although where else are you going to get a good spotted dick?
Posted by: Max "Bunny" Sparber | January 25, 2008 12:07 PM
"good spotted dick"
These words do not belong together.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 25, 2008 12:52 PM
Fabulous, just fabulous!
Posted by: The Cartoonist | January 25, 2008 2:43 PM
Cheers, Ralf.
Anger is a (creative) energy.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 25, 2008 6:37 PM
Thats right can you imagine the Chinese doing anything about carbon emissions...Haha yeah right every other household has a damn coal burning stove.
Theres a wind vector that brings that shite right over Seattle on a daily basis.
Wheres the solution? There is no solution.
Posted by: Fritz | January 25, 2008 6:56 PM
The solution is the same as what created this mess in the first place...technology, and the free market. Sticking it to working stiffs like me doesn't do anything but make us resentful of fucking hypocrites like Gordon Brown who travel exclusively in private jets and ride around in fleets of gigantic, gas-guzzling, armor-plated limousines.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 25, 2008 7:03 PM
I agree but what technology?
Al Gore wants to save the planet but how?he offers no solution.
This is a situation that yearns for a magic bullet born of brilliant technology but where is it?
At this point it exists only as a dream.
All present options including your Mr. Brown are Nothing but Nobs of Narcissistic Nothingness.
Posted by: Fritz | January 25, 2008 7:31 PM
"Nothing but Nobs of Narcissistic Nothingness"
Spiro, is that you?!
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 25, 2008 10:20 PM
Many European countries have some form of green or enegery taxes for some time. Did the world end?
Sure it's harder for businesses with added costs - but on the other side Europe leads in many environmental technologies and initiatives. Without these inconvenient taxes this wouldn't have happened ...
Posted by: orangeguru | January 28, 2008 10:37 AM
Dude, did you actually read my post? Having me fly to the UK produces far less greenhouse gases than requiring my students to fly to the US. This wonderful tax (which my company does not reimburse me for, btw) does not take that into account at all, but instead, penalizes me for it.
"Europe leads in many environmental technologies and initiatives."
Then please explain to me why the oh-so progressive EU is failing miserably to meet their Kyoto targets? It's the US's fault, no doubt...:-/
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 28, 2008 11:08 AM
Oh, and by the way, I just found out that the actual tax is even HIGHER than I originally thought! It's actually $240...not $160.
Posted by: MrBaliHai | January 28, 2008 11:33 AM
"those silly british bed-wetting types. i fart in their general direction."
sorry, had to inject some pythonian levity.
Posted by: johnny dollar | January 29, 2008 10:09 AM
Yeah, I did read the posting. ;-)
Well, all these new schemes like Carbon Trading and emission controls have serious flaws, because nobody has done it before.
For example all the official CO2 numbers are mostly guess work, hard numbers are still ... hard to come by.
The EU is certainly missing most of the Kyoto protocol goals - but mostly because politicians and the industry are not willing to REALLY do it. For example many big energy producer got high carbon caps for free - instead of paying for it. But still there handed down the 'expense' to the consumers.
It's all a big chaos - and I guess it will take a time to develop 'proper' procedures and standards.
And I agree it makes more sense to fly one Cocktail Banana to the UK instead of many spotted Dicks to the US.
Posted by: orangeguru | January 29, 2008 1:22 PM