Clarkson on: the environment
Swampy he is not
IT’S NOT easy being green… especially with Jeremy Clarkson around. The environment and Clarkson go together as well as a Norwegian Fjord and a tanker of oil. Here are some Clarkson quotes on the topic of environmentalism.
In the olden days there was even a car show on the television. There were Lamborghinis whizzing hither and thither and McLarens at full chat in Italian motorway tunnels. But that’s gone too now, and when it comes back you can be fairly sure it’ll be full of handy eco-Milibandy hints on how to get more miles to the gallon from your hybrid.
“Today we live in a part of the world where miles per gallon has surpassed miles per hour as ‘the thing that matters’”
“Environmentalists make out that the planet is some kind of wondrous, self-sustaining entity and engineering has ruined it. They look at the gun, the car and the jet engine as instruments of Satan, but the mosquito has killed more than all three put together.”
On the Toyota Prius hybrid: “Toyota knows that no one wants to be a quiet ecomentalist. Greens want everyone to realise that they are making a sacrifice for the greater good. So Toyota didn’t fit the technology to a normal car, because then other road users would have been unaware of the owner’s sanctimoniousness.”
“A man called Swampy had taken up residence in a tunnel just outside Newbury in Berkshire and started talking about something called “the environment”. Now there had been lots of anti-state, anti-system Swampies in the past, shouting about workers’ rights and peace and communism, but none had gained any traction with the middle classes. [Now] Leninism had a new face. It was the face of a drowning polar bear. And everyone seemed to like it.”
“Writing last week in The Guardian, the mad old eco-fool George Monbiot went even further, saying that the Lake District is a chemical desert, devoid of wildlife and that the tradition of hill farming — the very thing the people with titles and CBEs want to preserve — is responsible. Because the sheep are eating the trees and the mountains and causing floods. Earthquakes, too, I should imagine.”
“You may think the reason people spit at 4x4s these days has something to do with Greenland’s blanket of ice. It isn’t. It’s because you’re well off. And that’s not allowed.”
On hybrids: “How can a car with two powerplants possibly be good for the planet? It can’t. These cars — they’re tools for fools.”
“There are pure electric cars, too, such as the Nissan Leaf. But the less we say about those, the better. Because let’s be clear. They are interesting to write about, but . . . They. Do. Not. Work.”
“Whenever the car is stationary in traffic, the gearbox is in neutral and your foot is off the clutch, the engine cuts out. The idea is that you get a thank-you letter from Johnny Polar Bear and you save fuel. This is true. You will save fuel. In fact, I reckon that if you have a particularly sticky commute to and from work each day, the savings could amount to as much as 15 or 20p a year.”
“I have this advice for Scotland’s eco-ists. Don’t try to manage nature. Embrace it. Make it a part of you. Eat it.”
“Science fiction is thriving; only today it’s all being written by global warming enthusiasts.”
“Those people who sit outside public buildings with banners. Have you smelt their armpits? It’s as though they’ve been using them as the final resting place for every dead rodent in Christendom. And their breath and their hair? Utterly, utterly disgusting.”
After advising an Oxford-based friend to buy a Range Rover: “It is far more eco-friendly to buy a car built just 50 miles away, even if it is a massive off-roader with a turbocharged V8, than it is to buy a Toyota Prius, the components of which have covered half a million miles before they are nailed into the vague shape of a car and shipped to your front door. However, as eco people are not very bright, I fear my friend’s neighbours may not see it this way.”
“For about 40 years cars have inched along, getting a little more refined and a little easier to use with each generation. They have been evolving at about the same rate as the trees in your garden. But, in part because of the lawmakers in Brussels and the need to meet tough rules on what comes out of the tailpipe, we are about to witness a seismic shift. The meteorite has landed, and if the species is to survive, it needs to change.”
“Rabbits ruin trees, poison the soil and eat so many crops that each year it’s reckoned they cost the agricultural industry more than £100m. But, of course, if you shoot a bunny-wunny between the eyes, a million vegetablists are going to jump up and down claiming that you are a fascist and should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher as a blunt instrument she could use to bop Arthur Scargill and his sooty miners over the head.”
