You should see our vehicle market. Amongst the highest sellers are double cab bakkies (what you would call trucks) with Toyota Hilux and Ford Rangers having the biggest market share. Then you have SUV’s like Fortuners, Prados, Jeeps, Everests etc. Stand in the corner of any given South African town or city and be amazed at the number of those driving past you, the vast majority of which will never see anything but tar…
It’s not a new phenomenon here, 4x4’s and SUV’s have become a status symbol many years ago. A somewhat derogotary term over the years is ‘Sandton 4x4’ (Sandton being locally famous for one of the richest suburbs in the country, slap bang in the biggest city in South Africa and one of the biggest in Africa and as far away from being in the bush as one is likely to get).
I feel a bit conflicted though because I have a Ranger now, after many years with a Jeep, because they’re immensely capable off road vehicles and I go off road for at least 40% of my mileage but that also in a leisure sense because I enjoy being in the outdoors. So I’m incredibly dismissive of the school teacher/office manager etc getting into their massive 4x4 to look good while at the same time wondering if I’m so much better, lol.
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Ah off the “shelf” already.
RE the conversions I was discussing this with friends over the weekend. We all have vans with home made camper conversions etc. added. These are our vehicles of choice. Mine is currently off the road and another is having some engine troubles. He’s also an engineer that specialises in electrical power delivery, batteries etc. in vehicles, has worked for Mercedes F1 etc. We were looking at the conversion kits for our vans. Not quite the time but very doable with the advantage of loads of potential battery space as well.
I’m likely to keep an eye on this to be honest. The cost of new vans is utterly bonkers these days, even more bonkers with some degree of rear conversion etc. My 1987 camper is likely to have increased in value over the last 12 months.
Perhaps, but his words would have substantially more weight if his government weren’t actively pursuing the UKs first deep coal mine for 30 years in Whitehaven, considering exploiting the 170 million barrel Cambo oil field west of Shetland and continuing to pump billions of money into fossil fuel extraction in places like Mozambique and Nigeria.
My instinct is that Johnson ‘gets’ the climate crisis but has neither the intellect or the balls to do what is necessary.
This is why I don’t have one, though I occasionally would really like to have the cargo capacity. I’d also like a 4x4 for carrying canoes. But as an urban vehicle, they are ridiculous, as a highway vehicle, mediocre - those two uses cover 90%+ of my driving…and I still go into the bush far more often than my neighbour.
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I think he has both but he also has a bank account. One reason to pay MPs a lot more is to take them above corruption. But then some will always want more I guess.
@wyld.at.hrt our equivalent of the “Sandton 4x4” (an area I’m familiar with!) is the “Chelsea tractor”.
Unashamedly, I’ve been contemplating getting an SUV for a while now. I’d like to go British but currently I’m leaning more towards a Volvo XC90 or XC60 with a hybrid engine.
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If I won the lottery tomorrow, the first thing I’d do is buy an XC90. We had one for 5 years, brilliant piece of kit.
Currently looking for a V8 XC90. One day soon V8 cars will all be scrapped / outlawed. Having one while I can. Will also plant a few trees to compensate 
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Something like this, then. Full-size Ford F250 4x4 van
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Christ, not sure that is something I’d want to see.
might be a better option
Even paused for a laugh from the crowd and then repeated the “gag”. 
This has been going on very clearly for years. In 1990, the Canadian Coast Guard did not have enough icebreaking capacity to sustain Arctic operations except on an emergency basis. A white paper was done assessing which routes the CCG should be capable of maintaining, and what the requisite capacity was. The key variable in that calculation is the frequency of multiyear ice, age, and thickness. An icebreaker cuts through one year ice like a hot knife through butter, it is able to operate at normal cruising speed. At the other end of the extreme, 1000 year ice can stop it completely at times. Anything in the 100+ range reduces it to a crawling speed. The fleet as it stood could not maintain a single route with the resultant average speed.
In the time since that analysis, the CCG has simply stopped seeing 1000 year ice. If there is any left at all, it is in the immediate polar area. Hundred year ice has gone from fairly common to extremely rare, the icebreakers just don’t see it anymore, where 25 years ago it was normal to encounter some. The CCG no longer really has to do estimates of cruising time on the basis of ice field analysis, the vast majority of the ice encountered now is 1-year. Substantially the same fleet (1 ship added) is now capable of maintaining the majority of the desired network.
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Probably on this thread, but credit to Ford as they have done amazing work in electrifying the F150. It is the not just the worlds best selling car, but its sales are more than the sales of entire entire companies like Apple and McDonalds. It is also THE model that best represents the macho, gear head type attitude performance/work vehicles. Yet they have now introduced a fully electric version of it, and announced that the internal combustion engine version is being phased out. Importantly, they are not promoting this in terms of being good for the planet, but in how much better performance you get out of an electric vehicle.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28482314/electric-ford-f-150-prototype-million-pound-payload/
Incremental change is good, but its moves like this help change paradigms.
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What’s everyone’s opinion on wood burning? Obviously it’s not good for the environment or for human health, but I’ll be honest and I do it. Probably my favourite spring task is preparing next winter’s wood pile. Apart from my first year where I paid for someone’s wet wood, I have sourced wood from local tree surgeons who all would otherwise need to actually pay to dump it. This year I came upon a large Oak nearby that the tree surgeons had taken down to let rot.
Free wood that would otherwise end up rotting in the ground and releasing the same greenhouse gases, though at a much slower rate. I’m not suggesting all turning to wood burning is a smart idea, but I do wonder what the environmental impact is of burning wood to offset gas usage, with wood that would otherwise rot.
I imagine most wood burners are fed with wood sourced directly from companies that exist to fell trees to specifically be burned which isn’t great.
so i have a wood heater in the house.
im a chippy by trade so am never shy of a decent bit of hardwood that (just pretend no one else would burn it for a sec) if i didnt burn it, it would end up in landfill…i cant imagine what im doing is WORSE for the enviroment…i stand to be corrected though…
*the best hardwood will always…ALWAYS… be repurposed…too valuable, the good stuff…
I’ve been thinking of buying some woodland as an investment for my kids. Might need to look into what is recommended in terms of ecological conservation. Thinning out trees every so often so that light can get to the undergrowth sure but equally I thought that allowing trees to rot and ultimately decay back into the ground was also a good thing?
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In some ways I suspect it is. Fungi, insects etc. all thrive on dead rotting wood. Plus it provides nutrients for other plants / trees. As a carbon balancing exercise I couldn’t say but it is the “natural” way things are done. Evolved monkeys burning it isn’t
The log burner is a massive dilemma for us. I’ve opened up the old chimney at our house ready for one to be installed when cash allows. Nothing better than a roaring fire at home. Now I read this, it doesn’t make me feel great about the idea.
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Depends enormously on what species of trees, and at what stage of forest development the land is. Our woodlot has a blend and is in a transitional state, because it was largely logged about 120 years ago. So the species mix contains the long-lived maples of a mature forest, mid-stage species such as birch, and lots of the short-lived early state species like aspen/poplar.
The aspen and poplar come down often enough that nutrients are returned to the soil, and those species aren’t great firewood. My method is actually really sophisticated. The beavers fell trees seemingly indiscriminately (hardwood, anyway), they frequently drop the trees in the wrong direction, and they only want the tops anyway. So I cut up the stovewood-sized sections of the species that burn well, and the rest just returns to the soil over time.
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