The motorist and 'Global Warming'

[Sparky]

From Pistonheads.com:

The Association of British Drivers is claiming that recent research shows that global warming has been halted and is calling for road tax and fuel prices to be slashed as a result.

The ABD draws our attention to a recent scientific research paper (Monnin et al, Science, vol 291, p 112, 05 January 2001) which claims that instead of causing higher temperatures, higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually follow rises in the Earth's surface temperature.

Monnin studied temperature changes from the last ice age to the present day using data from the Greenland ice cores, and found that the start of carbon dioxide increases lagged behind the start of the temperature increases by up to 800 years.

ABD Environment Spokesman Bernard Abrams comments: "This is the death blow for man-made global warming theory. As independent scientists had long suspected, we see that hotter temperatures cause increases in carbon dioxide, not the other way round. As a result, global warming lies stone cold dead, with John Prescott's road tax framework and the fuel duty escalator alongside it in the mortuary."

"Under these now discredited policies, private and business car drivers have seen the cost of motoring go through the roof, with further rises in the pipeline. And now, as we can see, for no good environmental reason."

The Association of British Drivers has pointed out previously that another piece of research, by Butler and Johnston (Journal of Atmospheric Solar and Terrestrial Physics, 59, 1225) demonstrates clearly that changes in the output of the Sun are the cause of subsequent climate changes.

ABD Chairman Brian Gregory commented: "Gordon Brown might as well tax the Sun for shining, and John Prescott's impression of a carbon dioxide King Canute can be seen for the sham that it is. Climate change is a scientific phenomenon arising naturally, global warming was a political phenemenon designed to excuse crippling taxes on transport and industry. We are pleased to be writing its obituary."

What do you think? Although I'm probably preaching to the converted here, (I think we're all car-nuts!) Do you feel that the private motorist has carried the burden of being solely responsible for the world's atmosheric deterioration for too long, or are the claims about ozone and pollutants wholly justified?

What are your thoughts? Do you feel guilty 'enjoying' your car?
Do press releases like the one above do us justice, or do they make us look like a bunch of selfish uninformed fools?