Government rejects calls for taxes on travel polluters

While Blair is correct in encouraging individuals to take home pollution checks (see here), the government's refusal (along with Easyjet's comments) are a typical response from a capitalist society unwilling to make the changes and sacrifices required to protect the environment (see here).

The fact is, the poor aren't responsible for rising air travel - it's us, the middle classes, who take five or six foreign jaunts a year who need reining in. Surely a tax that hits people in the one place they feel it (the pocket) would encourage us to cut one or two of this holidays and stay in the British Isles? Even if it had no effect, at least people would find themselves having to pay for the privilege of pumping yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.