Who's afraid of…patio heaters?

The EST’s figures might sound shocking: patio heaters use the same amount of energy as driving for 167million miles. But then, when you consider that cars in Britain drive a total of 250 billion miles a year, you can see that patio heaters would represent just 0.07 per cent of the energy used by the cars, never mind all the other energy we use throughout the year.

Funny that. We're being told to not buy patio heaters (aren't they just a slightly more high tech and less dangerous version of old fashioned braziers anyway?) - turn off items on standby - use those expensive florescent light bulbs - but aside from the evil 4x4 owners - no one's mentioning motorcars. Oh, we still *need* them. Need them to get to and from work everyday - drive out to the giant out of town superstores - whatever. But drastically cutting down on our reliance on cars is pretty much the one thing would have the most beneficial impact - it might even help to get the obesity levels of a lot of people down. Heck - less cars would mean not having to have all these dodgy wars in the Middle East to ensure the oil keeps flowing. But it barely gets a mention. It's probably seen as too difficult and expensive to do the wholesale restructuring of just about everything that would entail. Despite the grim fact the oil is going to start running out very soon anyway and that we might as well get a head start on re-organizing things while we've still got the resources to do. But - nah, that's never gonna happen. The human race is wedded to the process of just lurching from one crisis after another -while reacting blindly...

Well locally - we even get the opposite where Stagecoach (my local homophobic and geriatric-disdaining bus company) has decided that the free bus pass system for the elderly is just too popular and is losing them money so they're cutting bus routes. (Thus proving my theory that greedy profiteering private companies are not the best thing to be providing what should be seen as a vital public service, and that we have a singularly rather gormless central government). Way to go to put even more cars on what are already overcrowded roads guys.