I don't know who voted to stay in the EU in 1975, but either way would you have expected this to happen? In a rolling programme of reductions the EU (not the European Parliament, they don't make legislation) are planning to ban cars altogether from cities across the EU by 2050. And I'm sure a few people approve of this as well (possibly until it happens anyway?). Here's the story and probably a sign of worse to come as British Gas just announced a 24% rise in energy prices from August, as despite the wholesale prices dropping over 30% since 2008 the EU green subsidies have to come from somewhere.

Telegraph article

So every city will end up almost completely dead, people will stay out of city centres and shop in malls.

I don't think anyone voted to stay in the EU. We voted on remaining in an economic union - a 'common market' as it used to be called. I don't think we were ever given any indication of the political monster that was planned, or am I being naive to assume that anything was actually 'planned'?

There is no doubt that it was all planned. Edward Heath lied through his teeth, and eventually admitted to having lied. Charles de Gaulle didn't want us to join. We should have listened to him.

Ok, I'll ask the stupid question. How can a government ban cars from a city?

Would be interesting to see if places such as St. David's and Wells would want to relinquish their city status if this was to be the case!

If you read the article, the proposal is to ban petrol and diesel engined cars from cities by the year 2050. I would suggest that the belief is that there will be vehicles with alternative power sources available by that date. It's not about banning cars from cities. Headline writers seem a bit selective about the parts of the news item they highlight.

Because the lawmakers are not elected (ie the European Commission) so they can do anything they like. They are the top of the food chain, unaccountable, and no one can challenge them. If anyone can find a way I'd love to know it. What will it take for them to do before countries are finally urged to leave by their citizens, which is the only known way out? Maybe this, or possibly a future atrocity could act as the final straw or wake up call we desperately need. I can only hope.

As for electric cars, I'd consider the suggestion from anyone who has one and nothing else as well, but the technology is not improving at a rate likely to become close to replacing normal fuel, and currently fuel cells are in a very early stage and quite uncertain as to their future, unless you meant horses?

Don't know much about the EU and how it works, but I'm going to make an assumption, correct me if I'm wrong.

I assume, wherever the EU meets, that it is in a city centre, in a nice building. They seem too "high-end" to ride a bike, or take transit to work with simple "commoners", so won't they still drive their cars every day to work?

So would they be saying that if you live in Chelsea for instance, that you couldn't have a car? So what about Notting Hill or further out?

I'd need to go digging into the details (if they exist) but the general theme is literally a total ban of all fossil fuelled private vehicles from cities. This implies a line drawn around the boundaries of their choosing, and although we could waste our money on an electric car to stop becoming totally grounded, the current ranges are under 100 miles and charging times many hours so can only be used for short journeys and must guarantee we can get home before they run out and not need them while charging. They may improve a little but the actual technology is such that although top speeds and ranges can increase a little the recharging times stop them being used for all but the most limited journeys.

Otherwise if you either live or drive in a city your car will be taken away or stopped as soon as it hits the boundary. I don't know how this can be brought in gradually unless they make the boundaries wider and wider, making the centres become virtual ghost towns if they do. No doubt the actual details have not been released besides the main intentions possibly to stop people trying to find ways round them. We'll know soon enough of course as so far the EU have had no opposition with any of their plans, and where they have they simply push them through regardless as they did with the Lisbon Treaty. But the final result (I may still be here to see it) is the same however they implement it and if they really think non-petrol cars they approve of will magically become viable in a few decades to fill the gap they are dreaming.

If, as you admit, you don't know the details, how can you be so certain of the final result?

Me, I did. And I'd do it again tomorrow if I were asked.

I've just read the White Paper "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system" and it makes perfect sense to me. But then I read it for what it is, a White Paper - that is to say a discussion document. I'm pretty sure that much of it will be changed by the time it gets through the next stages, if it gets through, because that's what discussion papers are for - to find out what's acceptable, practicable, implementable, etc.

On top of that, 2050 is 40 years away. If they haven't sorted out how to make vehicles run on non-fossile fuels by then we're all in trouble. Well, I won't be around, but some of you will be in deep, deep ordure. In the meantime, I shan't lose any sleep over anti-EU scare-mongering by the Daily Telegraph.

As the internal combustion engine has barely changed since Benz in the 19th century there's no obvious development or direction for it to go now. Apart from fuel economy the engines remain as they were and besides electric (as described already) and fuel cells which are in the prototype stage and not yet marketable that's pretty much it. If there was an existing emerging or parallel technology we already knew was likely to work it would be different, but neither of the only two alternatives looks too likely to deliver or even marginally compete with petrol. And why should they? While oil is apparently running out, until they keep finding more, gas and coal are not, and coal can and has been used to make petrol in a shortage. It doesn't even need the good stuff but can be refined on a huge scale from the lower grade coal and also provide jobs around the world doing so, and move the oil production from the OPEC countries to anywhere with coal.

2050 is the 100% point, they want 20, 50 and more long long before then. The Daily Telegraph chose to be the ones to share this new rule, they didn't misrepresent it in any way so can't see what that has to do with anything?

So to save the urban environment, they plan to make the place to use dirty Hydrocarbon fuels the pristine inter-city undeveloped landscape. Sounds more like cutting your nose off to spite your face. If the gasoline isn't used in the urban areas but is still an available fuel source and not banned entirely, its use will be promoted where it is a legal fuel, i.e., the countryside and marine locations. So what is gained?

There are a lot of questions there mehaul, and unfortunately mainly only answerable by the European Commission. Of course their main plank is to outlaw fossil fuel as they want us to believe it affects the climate, which I deal with on its own thread. As now over 1000 equally qualified scientists have both signed and added explanations on a site casting huge doubts over how the idea even became accepted in the first place this should scream at 150DB to everyone that they do not agree, and unless they can not just agree but physically demonstrate the planet is both warming dangerously and it's our fault then all actions claimed to stop it are based on an unproven hypothesis. I do not claim to originate the material myself, but as a jury member (as we all are) can't dismiss the same quotes from scientist after scientist, often with clear data, which tell me something can't be right with the theory.

Once you exclude that motivation we are lost. As I said, coal can be used to make petrol as it was in the 70s during the oil crisis, and now the oil price is so high it's now actually cheaper to do so unlike then. So peak oil is not relevant, and harking back to Soviet Russia the standard policy there as with all communist countries was to restrict the travel of the citizens. Permits for everything, rationing, questions and form fillings before you went anywhere beyond a certain distance, and we all sat here in the free world feeling very sorry for them, and every now and then one or two would escape on a sports or musical trip and tell us all about what an empty and hopeless life they had there. If you keep everyone on a short leash and under scrutiny then it's much easier to keep them under control. Although politicians are elected to look after us in theory the aspect of control has to grow as they gain more and more power- mass surveillance, massive tax raising potential, subsidies, restrictions on freedom of speech, new privacy laws, you name it they are growing, in the name of restricting terrorism, protecting family life, whatever excuse works, all going against Ben Franklin's prescient quote "He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security".

Of course so far none of this has happened, so no one has the direct experience of what is in my mind the ramblings of a mad person (the same reaction of one of the British road organisation heads when interviewed), and I would pretty much put my head on the block and say everyone who actually has a car is going to have the quality of their lives destroyed. How do you get your heavy shopping from the station or bus stop to your house? How do you go to three different places within five miles when the buses do not? You can spend a fortune getting minibuses to travel weird and wonderful routes but each will require a paid driver and never manage to cover every obscure possibility. Many people would just leave the cities altogether if they can, businesses will as well, and as always with Soviet style social engineering, will find the actual reality and consequences are nowhere near what they thought. Presumably cities will become obsolete, and houses and businesses will have to be spread more evenly across the countries, with the choice then being whether to ban the use of cars throughout the country (the likeliest result) which will then simply bring back the old fashioned pre-industrial community as most people are likely to restrict their travelling to a minimum. How would you like to go five miles to collect granny, get her to the bus stop and go another five miles across town to take her to the friends a mile from the bus stop at the other end? You would have houses and businesses crowding round railway lines where people would have to make sure they can get to the stations and work in one go, and anyone requiring to make multiple trips for work as many do would presumably be allowed a business vehicle which could not be used outside work. The possibilities make me imagine 1984 and the apparent support for this policy I've come across is not so likely to remain if it happens as I've already claimed.

By the way, they have now confirmed electric cars create as much CO2 as petrol ones if that's their criterion so even if we could all have a GWhiz outside that could do more than two trips to work without needing a long rest it would have absolutely no effect on the emissions at all. Fuel cells generate more energy themselves so may be an answer, but that's a very long way off and has a lot of serious problems to overcome before it could become usable.

(Tongue in cheek) Why not do some scientific measurements so any decision could be based on acquired facts? I propose that the medical good/bad methodology of testing be used. Some cities get real pollutants while some are placed on placebo pollutants, randomly assign the participants and use Australia as a control specimen. Bring on the placebo pollutants!

All this pollutant business is old hat and well recorded throughout the last century. London had fog, Los Angeles had smog. London/Britain brought in the Clean Air Act in the 50s, and like magic when they had to produce smokeless coal the fog lifted, and as far as I know in LA they didn't and presume they still have their smog. Now we also have catalytic converters and annual vehicle emission tests that won't allow a single one on the road if it's over the limit. And next year although that test is approved throughout the country already London is going to ban all commercial vehicles with emissions way below the legal limit, already putting thousands out of business. Although our air has actually been pretty good since the 60s. Go figure. (I have, 'figure' is the apparent driving force, £ wise).

My uncle (who actually is a rocket scientist!) sent me an interesting email the other day. I found it online here: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread726320/pg1

Summarized, it basically says that the volcanic eruptions have effectively negated everything we've done so far to curb greenhouse gasses.

Yay!! Whoever discovered that should really get the Nobel Prize! (I was told on a global warming site recently if anyone could disprove the theory they deserve one, it shouldn't be long now).

That article's scenario omits homage to Krakatoa and an eruption that caused not global warming due to increased carbon in the atmosphere but whose shading (cooling) ash resulted in "the year without summer", a type of 'nuclear winter' caused by volcanoes rather than bombs. The article fails to identify which Icelandic eruption it is basing its opinion on. There have been two major eruptions in the past two years.

It is only a proposal, but is presented as a scare story ... Most of the press can be relied on to be thoroughly irresponsible.

I really hope you're right Bloomsby, but from past history when the EU make their announcements they tend to be after the deals are done rather than like governments when they are simply testing the water. The EU have the power to do more or less what they like with no voters to unseat them, so are not subject to focus groups let alone elections, and was just reading how the common fishing policies are made behind closed doors with no records or names mentioned. That represents how business is done in the EU, and you can be sure of one thing, if they want cars out then that is their current position and will now be working in that direction however they finally end up carrying it out.