It's certainly about time someone began to explore and quantify the intrinisic and indirect monetary value of this planet's finite natural resources.

http://tinyurl.com/ke3z3

" ... a landmark 1997 study, published in the journal Nature, concluded the world's ecosystems were worth $33 trillion -- almost double world gross national product at the time. "The estimates we used were conservative," he said.

...

"Current measures of economic wealth ... do not reflect the total economic value of ecosystems and mistakenly treat nature's goods and services as free to use and limitless in abundance," ...

As we have seen in the UK taxing fuel does not work, apart from the abboration of the fuel tax protests (which were enacted by quite a small minority) we just go on using our vehicles. Whilst from personal experience, train and bus stikes have a greater and longer lasting effect on getting us off public transport and into our vehicles.

The London congestion charge does appear to work, as inner London traffic has been drastically reduced, however what does not appear to be clear is whether this is a general reduction in vehicle use or a case of moving through traffic elsewhere.

As regard alternative fuels, there have been various new dawns many of them accompanied by government subsidies. However most of them have required the retro-fitting of equipment onto vehicles, invalidting the manufacturers warranties. Also there is the issue of fuel availablility and the lack of a fully nation network of filling stations carying these fuels. The is a catch 22, people wont convert their vehicles until the petrol sations have the pumps and the fuel companies wont put in the pumps until there are enough people using the fuel to make them economic.

What does seem to be working is the blending of traditional fuels (petrol and diesel) with biofuels which can be used in unmodified vehicles. Whilst this gets us away from using fossil fuels it does not reduce our general level of fuel consumption.

Governments and lobby groups seem to be fixated on big issues, such a nuclear power verses wind etc, rather than looking to make us more fuels efficient. I have lobbied my MP, and the chancellor for changes in the law which would make having an 'OFF' switch switch on all electrical equipment a requirement. It is all very well to be told to unplug it, but more often than not you then have to spend half an our reprogramming it so that you can use it. My suggestion is that the government place a heavy tax on all electrical goods which don't have an 'OFF' button, this is a win, win, win solution. It raises revenue, it discourages people from buying it, it encourges manufactures to design equipment that can be turned off. The is also the issue of building regualtions, it is perfectly feasible to build homes so well insulated that they need minimal heating and cooling, but there is a reluctance on the part of the construction industry to build such homes, and on the part of the government to change the regs to force them to build such homes.

I took my malfunctioning VCR into a TV repair shop. He told me the EPROM had become corrupted by me turning the device on & off. Yes - I unplugged it after noticing that the "off" switch left it in "standby" mode, clearly still giving off heat. I had read that I would save power and CO2 emissions by unplugging such devices. The repair bill for reprogramming was £40, plus all the hassle & fossil fuel I burned taking it in to the TV shop.

My Digital TV last week gave me instructions to leave it on standby for the next 24 hours (don't turn it off) for a software update. {And this seems to be yet another layer of standby, 'cos if I unplug it for more than an hour.. I have to get out the startup manual} I read recently (New Scientist again) that the UK Government got worried by the projected growth in use of of Plasma screen TVs: the power they consumed when in standby mode, projects a need for four power stations by date X to cope with the demand. Just heating the room..... However when doing a search on their site I only found references to 1998:

29 August 1998 : "about half of all consumer electronics energy is used in stand-by mode. This costs American consumers $1 billion a year in wasted energy."

And this from 14th Feb 1998
"An analogue TV receiver consumes little power when it is on passive standby. Only a few circuits are working, such as those that detect the signal from a remote control. But digital receivers incorporate a computer. This needs regular software updates to control the programme guide, the list of channels and the software that controls access for pay-as-you-view programmes."