Boris Johnson, whom posterity will show to have been the greatest statesman of this or any other age, gets all steamed up about the Tesla electric sports car.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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Boris Saves The Planet
- Date:
- Tuesday, 10 Mar ch 2009 - 12:27 UTC
Once again I marvel at the man’s ability to turn science and technology into sheer bloody poetry.
Check this:
- It has no exhaust pipe. It has no carburettor, and it has no fuel tank, and while every other car on that motorway was a-parping and a-puttering, filling the air with fumes and particulates, this car was producing no more noxious vapours than a dandelion in an alpine meadow.
and this
- there were people in living rooms for miles around whose lives were filled with the noise of billions of tiny explosions, as the fossilised remnants of ancient forests were detonated in the cylinders of internal combustion engines.
and this
- Every other car on the M40 was guilty – yes, even the Priuses – of contributing directly to the great billowing clouds of CO2 that are rising and quilting the planet in the tea-cosy of doom.
Now, one might cavil that a dandelion in an alpine meadow does produce carbon dioxide, and probably a lot less than a Tesla; and that the fossilized remains of ancient forests get turned into coal, not oil, which is more likely to be formed from the fubarized remains of ancient plankton and algae, but I elect to ignore such minor details. So, Mr Johnson – if you’re out there, and/or one of your entourage is reading this, please please write a science blog for NN.
Last updated: Tuesday, 10 Mar 2009 - 12:27 UTC
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Comments
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If BoJo had read Ecologic he would also know that on a motorway, a Prius is less green than many ordinary saloons – so it probably wasn’t a good comparison. And, of course, there’s a heck of a lot of CO2 emissions in its manufacture to offset before it’s really green. However, I too share your inclination to forgive the loveable mop top and request his presence on NN.
PS I’d like a Tesla too, Father Christmas please note.
And, of course, there’s a heck of a lot of CO2 emissions in its manufacture to offset before it’s really green
Indeed. Probably so much so that it is probably in fact greener to keep my thirteen-year-old 2.5-litre eVolvo gas guzzler on the road until it falls to bits, rather than scrapping it now and buying an eco-Car.
I have to say that the Tesla has a lot more shiny Clarkson-appeal appeal than other eco-Cars so far produced. The G-wiz looks like an invalid carriage, and the Prius just looks – there is no other way to put this – smug.
Well, that’s lovely. Have alpine meadows got dandelions?
I do like the tea-cosy. Also the parping. Am less impressed by the billions of tiny explosions, though, as I did that one for 6th-graders, and I recall much agonizing over whether in fact they were explosions, and what indeed constituted an explosion. (I mean you don’t want to tell them Wrong Things. Nevermind that the same book had a quantum teleportation piece that was all about “beam me up”.) Though I do like the fact that the people in question are sitting in living rooms.
There was also the discussion of retaining an older, functional vehicle, rather than buying a new hybrid – in the context of The Gee family’s Volvo, I think. I decided to hang on to my 2001 Honda Accord, Kiji, for a few more years, as a more environmentally friendly strategy (and my friends in Cambridge suggested that I make more of an effort to take the bus to work once or twice a week as well). The thing about the Prius is that you know it’s a hybrid, from a long way off. For other hybrid vehicles (e.g. the Honda Civic hybrid) in the US, there are superficially identical non-hybrid versions, and so your environmental awareness and green superiority are not immediately apparent, as they are with the Prius.
There’s an episode of South Park that mocks Prius drivers … it’s called “Smug Alert”.
Also, London bus options were tested for Boris Johnson in an episode of Top Gear, but perhaps in not a very real-world, scientific manner. Quite the opposite, in fact.
You people! By focusing too closely on whether scientific facts support Boris’ prose, you’re missing the big picture. What really matters is how he uses pseudo-scientific concepts to reach an entirely new level of public speak bullshiting that none of his fellow politicians could possibly aspire to emulate. Or does anyone remember any of Ken’s speeches, by any chance? Me neither.
Hang on – I thought I heard an irritating buzzing noise. No … it’s gone.
quilting the planet in the tea-cosy of doom
I’m lost for words- brilliant (I feel gently smothered and overheated as I read it).
I rather liked this from a comment below the article:
“petroleum was discovered in
1859; first, in an oil well near
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA”
Very prescient of those early drillers, no?
Regardless, I quite like Boris. May we borrow him? Our own guru seems to have moseyed off to Crawford.(But then I suppose they weren’t as prescient as the Alsatians; who had built a refinery for the as yet undiscovered product two years previously.)