Eco-vandals

[C C]

This could get out of hand: :(

Eco-vandals target horse lover's car
08 September 2005

A horse lover is facing a £1,800 repair bill after her 4x4 car was plastered with protest stickers and vandalised by eco-warriors.

Lara Newson, who keeps horses she has rescued in fields in Hitchin, uses her luxury Lexus to drive over fields to feed her beloved horses.

But after leaving her car parked at home in North London for just half an hour she returned to find it had been scratched down the side and dented.

Greenpeace activists had stuck posters and stickers on the car saying that 4x4s are responsible for climate change.

Ms Newson, 34, said: "I was horrified. There were three stickers on the car, including a leaflet under the windscreen, as if the protestors were making some kind of point."

She attacked Greenpeace's Choose Clean Energy campaign, in which workers leaflet 4x4 drivers in London.

"I have supported and donated money to Greenpeace but it is wrong that they attack 4x4 drivers," stormed Ms Newson.

"I've got this car because without it I wouldn't be able to get to the horses I keep."

"Campaigns such as this are blind and offensive and take no account of the reasons for a choice of this kind of car, of which there may be many."

Mechanics have told Ms Newson she will need to have four panels on the car resprayed.

She said: "I just want people to be aware and to find out if others have been similarly targeted."

"This is just wanton vandalism, we all have to leave our cars outside and I don't think anyone should personalise their campaign like this. It's absolutely horrendous and there's no excuse whatsoever for this sort of behaviour."

A Greenpeace spokesman said the organisation condemned vandalism and was not responsible for the attack.

The high-profile environmental pressure group is targeting urban 4x4 drivers because it says they are the least efficient cars on the road.

The spokesman said: "We recognise that agricultural workers and farmers need 4x4s but you often find the vehicles they drive are not so fuel efficient."

"We feel the cars that are mostly in the city are often inefficient and aggressively marketed, solely for city living.

[sulley]

I would want Greenpeace to be paying the bill to sort it out.  They are the bunch of tree huggers ultimately responsible, the stickers represent them, so they pay.

Bunch of planks responsible should be hunted down and charged with criminal damage. Then taken outside and shot.  

[Jim-Willy]

theres 3 4x4's in our driveway.  Do we need em, do we F***.  We WANT then.  I live in a free country (ish), let em touch my truck if they think its a good idea :twisted:  :twisted:

[Xtremeteam]

i have 5 so they can go n swivel,if it wasnt for 4x4's id be on the dole as they are my lively hood,bunch o t***s,i say bust a cap in there ass  :lol:  :lol:

[gecko]

my dad had his dun over by the greens  put it in the defender bit as he has a 110 td5  dont think it was muched like go and have a look

[V8MoneyPit]

It's not a case of liked or not. It's justy that we must be careful of what we put on a public forum. Would you rather the forum was shut down because it was making claims that cannot be proven?

Obviously, Greenpeace stickers slapped all over a vandalised car is pretty good proof, but damage alone is not. Even if we all know deep down who did it.

I'm as angry about this action as anyone else, but in this day and age, you have to be careful what is said in public.

[gecko]

ok i see

[Range Rover Blues]

Basically, reading between the lines, if you want greenpiece to leave your motor alone, make sure it's got knobbly tyres on and is covered in s**t so they know it's being used for the purpose it was built.  Not that their stickers would adhere to a good layer of mud.  Secondly park where there is CCTV, this is criminal damage after all.

And what's this c**p about 4x4s being the least efficient cars on the road?  Well don't let the FACTS get in the way of a good bit of prejudice, that's the greenpiece moto it seems.

[jnoshea]

If it's clean they vandalise it, if it's muddy it rusts quicker and you lower the tone of the neighbourhood.  Shouldn't have to make the choice.  I've done my sums, and since we regularly have 6 people in our discovery so that we take only one car instead of two.  This makes ours probably more efficient than the cars the antis drive  

I'll say it again, anything that burns carbon containing fuel causes climate change.  No point in quibbling over mpg.  It's all bad. 60 mpg is not good enough, 100 mpg is not good enough.  Give us zero emission fuel cell cars now. Oh, and pay for them for us too please.

[Jim-Willy]

100 mpg is not good enough.  Give us zero emission fuel cell cars now. Oh, and pay for them for us too please.

If we used oil seed crops to fuel our 4x4's the carbon emmitted would only be what was taken from the envionment as the crop grows.  As long as we continued to grow it you would effectively not be emmitting more than you were taking out in the first place.

[Kenny]

And with 14 nuclear power stations providing 25% of our nations energy being shut down without any new ones being built I am sure that the greens are really, really happy as more and more fossil fuel will be burnt.

I recently sent Greenpeace an eMail about their 4x4 campaign as on their website they we encouraging people to download and print their poster. I pointed out the amount of trees that would be destroyed if 3 Million people downloaded and printed their posters. Came to about 3,000 I think and all they could say was it was a small Price to pay.

Grrrrrrr

Damian

[Kenny]

And when I eMailed Greenpeace poinitng out that I run my V8 on LPG the response was just as negative.

Damian

[jnoshea]

100 mpg is not good enough.  Give us zero emission fuel cell cars now. Oh, and pay for them for us too please.

If we used oil seed crops to fuel our 4x4's the carbon emmitted would only be what was taken from the envionment as the crop grows.  As long as we continued to grow it you would effectively not be emmitting more than you were taking out in the first place.

True, and we get to keep our diesel engines at the same time.  I still think though that since zero emission vehicles already exist it would be nice if they launched a few of them.

[jnoshea]

And with 14 nuclear power stations providing 25% of our nations energy being shut down without any new ones being built I am sure that the greens are really, really happy as more and more fossil fuel will be burnt.

I recently sent Greenpeace an eMail about their 4x4 campaign as on their website they we encouraging people to download and print their poster. I pointed out the amount of trees that would be destroyed if 3 Million people downloaded and printed their posters. Came to about 3,000 I think and all they could say was it was a small Price to pay.

Grrrrrrr

Damian

I don't think the government can afford this plan for too long.  My guess is that we will certainly build more nuclear power stations in the near future as a short term way to halt climate change while we sort out the rest of the problems. This by the way, I strongly approve of.

[C C]

Nuclear power is the only short-term solution. The sooner the government accepts this and starts building more power stations the better for us all.

[jnoshea]

Nuclear power is the only short-term solution. The sooner the government accepts this and starts building more power stations the better for us all.

Absolutely CC. Modern nuclear power station are self-regulating so they're 'power-off' state is to shut down and make safe.  We still have the radiactive waste to deal with, but this is trivial compared to the predicted climate change problems.

[Stormin]

But what about the virtues of wind power and wave power? :?  How about harnessing all that power from the rivers :?  Water wheels by the hundred. Sorry! It's the Jack Daniels I've been on since 4 o'clock.  :roll: And I've got to attend an eviromental awareness lecture at work in the morning. :(

[Manicminer]

Nuclear power is the only short-term solution. The sooner the government accepts this and starts building more power stations the better for us all.

The government can't afford to decommission the ones that we have shut down at the moment without building more. The companies who ran the old powerstations paid a % of the profit to pay for decommissioning but the last Government spent it on other things.

[muddyweb]

How about just taking a more global approach and stop using as much power !!??!

How about *not* building so many new "efficient" cars which take MASSIVE amounts of energy to produce ?   How about encouraging people to keep their cars longer... it uses less energy.

How about *not* transporting food all over thre country and promoting the use of good quality, well produced domestic produce ?   Transporting 1Kg of Lamb from New Zealand produces something like 37Kg of CO !

How about *not* pandering to the hype-laden, tabloid-driven mentality that seems to exist in this country, and letting our politicians know that there *are* people out here that understand the issues and take a whollistic view to energy consumption and that they don't need to take knee-jerk, headline grabbing responses.

Make your voices heard !!!

[jnoshea]

How about just taking a more global approach and stop using as much power !!??!

How about *not* building so many new "efficient" cars which take MASSIVE amounts of energy to produce ?   How about encouraging people to keep their cars longer... it uses less energy.

How about *not* transporting food all over thre country and promoting the use of good quality, well produced domestic produce ?   Transporting 1Kg of Lamb from New Zealand produces something like 37Kg of CO !

How about *not* pandering to the hype-laden, tabloid-driven mentality that seems to exist in this country, and letting our politicians know that there *are* people out here that understand the issues and take a whollistic view to energy consumption and that they don't need to take knee-jerk, headline grabbing responses.

Make your voices heard !!!

Absolutely agree with you Tim.  My MP knows how I feel and he seems to take a similar whollistic view of the problem.  He agrees that quibbling over a few mpg is pointless.  The problem is that people don't want to put themselves out at all, so they pick someone else to blame and say "I'm not going to sort out my inefficient home until he stops driving a Land Rover".  It makes them feel better about not actually helping the problem. It's not just individuals but whole countries too.  The UK thinks it's pointless changing until the US stops driving gas-guzzlers.  The US won't cut fuel use until China puts out its underground coal fires.  On so it goes on...

It's all very sad indeed.

[V8MoneyPit]

Spot on Tim!

Most of our meat is local, ordered before the animal is slaughtered. We choose chickens while they are still running around  :lol: Our fruit and veg comes from the local farmers market where we know the farmers by name. Heck, even the beer I drink is brewed in the local town!

Whats best of all is that is all tastes better than the supermarket rubbish and, contrary to popular belief, it's cheaper too. And it polutes less because of the shorter journeys it makes in the back of a truck.

As James rightly says, people need to sort out their own bad ways before they start laying into others.

[BRO]

The whole global warming thing is just a red-herring to divert our attention from other political matters!

96.5 % of all CO2 produced in the world is natural - that leaves 3.5% of the total shared between 6 billion people on this planet - some contribute a greater share than others obviously ;) but really what is the point of being upset beacause some one else drives a vehicle that uses 50% more fuel per mile than yours does...

I just don't understand it!  :roll:

Mick

[woody]

i read somewhere that the official urban fuel figure for a discovery (30tdi i think) was 24.9mpg
the official urban fuel figure for a Mini Cooper 24.3 mpg
if this is true (can anybody confirm)
then they should stop attacking Land Rover and start on BMW,
i would hate to think what their larger cars do around town

[muddyweb]

The data needs updating a bit, but there are a few interesting figures here :

http://www.4x4prejudice.com/environment.php

[woody]

The data needs updating a bit, but there are a few interesting figures here :

http://www.4x4prejudice.com/environment.php

interesting many sports cars are less economical and a lot faster than the Discovery
trouble is 4x4's are more visable

[jnoshea]

The whole global warming thing is just a red-herring to divert our attention from other political matters!
Mick

I don't think it is.  I am a lecturer in Physics at the University of Nottingham and keep up with the scientific literature on the subject of climate change.  The overwhelming evidence is that global warming is very real, and this is the general consensus amongst the scientific community.  I know that you are sceptical and have read some opinions from certain people who hold a slightly different view.  There will always be those who deliberately hold a different view and they often have to shout louder as a result.  This can be helpful in promoting debate but usually these people voice their particular brand of scientific opinion in order to support their own agenda.  In this particular case, it tends to be goverments who don't want to change their energy production, or groups who don't want their hobbies curtailed.  Ignoring climate change is not helpful.