ANY COLOUR YOU LIKE AS LONG AS IT'S GREEN…

26-07-2006

Land Rover, home of the gas-guzzling 4 x 4, tried grabbing a few brownie points last week when it announced a new “tax” on car-buyers.

Or maybe that should be greenie points …anyway, the point is that if you've got more money than sense and decide to splash out on one of their fuelaholic vehicles, the company will divert £165 towards making your purchase “carbon neutral.”

In other words, they'll plant a few trees to salve your conscience, and you can merrily carry on in your road-hogging way believing that you're not actually contributing to global warming.

The news came just as Ford were unveiling plans for a £1 billion research centre in the Midlands to explore more environmentally-friendly motoring.

But it was only when the Bishop of London said at the weekend that choosing a big motor was a sin that the car industry was revealed in its true colours - and none of them are green.

The RAC foundation - not normally known for its interest in theological discourse - said the church should stick to what it knows best.

Er, excuse me for asking, but isn't clarifying what is and isn't sin precisely a Bishop's job?

The motoring organisation also claimed that car buying was a “practical” choice, not a moral one.

Ah, yes, but practical for who?

Certainly not the millions of people worldwide who will never drive at all but whose living conditions will become dramatically worse through climate change.

And not for the tens of thousands of Britons too poor ever to own a car, but who still endure the pollution and environmental consequnces of those who do.

The truth is that “green” and “motoring” are a contradiction in terms and always will be.

Never mind the fumes and toxic emissions - building roads is in itself a destructive process, from the quarrying of the raw materials used to build them to the natural habitats that are destroyed along the way.

Now I'm not a Luddite - I drive too - but let's be honest about this; the only thing car manufacturers are (ahem) driven by is the ever-rising price of oil, and noxious PR which is starting to put off ethically-mind consumers.

The answer to the problem they are seeking to solve requires many fewer cars on the road - not simply a Focus that can do 70mpg.

Persuading us to use more buses, trains and trams will take millions of pounds of investment - and maybe even a few restrictions on what we've come to regard as our "rights" as "free citizens."

Scary perhaps - though not as scary as the apocalyptic alternatives being predicted by some scientists.

It may be that without radical changes to the way we travel around our towns and cities, the Bishop won't be the only resorting to prayer.