Here’s what my friend and brilliant commentator Robin Mitchinson has to say about the Volkswagen affair

At the heart of the VW fiasco are the conflicting aims of two groups of busybodies.

In the Red corner we have – surprise, surprise – the Brussels nomenklatura . They are leaders in the climate change-global warming racket that generates enormous profits for „green power‟ companies and manufacturers of wind turbines, subsidized by the taxpayers of Europe, and damaging Europe‟s competitiveness through energy prices treble those of competitors.

Twenty or more years ago they exhorted us to switch to diesel power in our vehicles because its CO2 emissions were lower than petrol power. Of course, LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] would have been more effective, but the UK government ratcheted up the excise duty on that, so it became uneconomical.

The European Union motivation for throwing all this grit into the economic machine was to meet the ludicrous emission targets in international agreements which the major polluters – the US, China, et al, refused to sign up to (the fact that this made the whole exercise pointless and worthless was not, and never has been, a deterrent to the men in suits in the Berlaymont).

In the Blue corner we have various US enforcers (motto: „go forth and multiply‟) which have little interest in carbon emissions, but plenty in nitrous oxide -- which does not contribute to climate change, but does create public health problems.

Now the scheissen hits the airconditioning.

The Yanks discovered that VW had been gaming the emission tests all along (and the fuel consumption monitoring).

It‟s tempting to say: „So what?‟ Although over 50 per cent of vehicles in Europe are diesel-powered, only about 1 per cent of US cars are oilers.

In any case, most nitrous oxide pollution must come from the heaviest users -- heavy trucks, locomotives, construction machinery, ships, oil-fired central heating. Will all these now be subject to emissions regulation? Don‟t be silly!

What we are left with is a contest between two utterly conflicting targets. In the Red corner we have climate change; in the Blue we have public health concerns.

It is a reasonable certainty that there is not a single diesel engine in the world that meets the US emission limits. If the VW TDI puffs out 40 times the limit, this only proves one thing -- the limits are fiction; they are clearly unobtainable. And we don‟t know who fixed them, or on what criteria or scientific proof of health concern.

The last time VW got so much publicity was over their way of keeping the union bosses happy with lavish parties, prostitutes and Viagra.

Much more fun than „defeat devices‟!

David Fuller's view

Here is a PDF of Martin Spring's On Target.