Oxford is a beautiful old university city in England, pop. 151,584, located on the Thames River 56 miles (90 km) north-west of London. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and one of the ten best on earth.
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WEF-pushed “climate change lockdowns”, restricting movement to lower “carbon emissions” proposed in England and across the US
by JdN science and UK correspondent
By now many of you might have happened upon an alarming story that’s been circulating online claiming that the Oxford City Council in England is planning on implementing “climate lockdowns” in the summer of 2024 in order to “combat global warming”.
The posts shared on social media, as well as covered by videocasts like Redacted – hosted by former Fox News correspondent Clayton Morris – claim that the local authority council in Oxford, which lies about 56 miles west of London and governs over 150,000 people,
“will prevent residents from leaving their immediate neighbourhoods without written permission from authorities in order to combat climate change.”
Morris, on his most recent YouTube show, contends that the Oxfordshire council has approved plans “to lock residents into one of six zones” in an attempt to “combat global warming”, and that “electronic gates”, manned by CCTV cameras, will be built “on key roads in and out of the city”….all in the name of reducing carbon emissions.
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Morris believes that these restrictions will literally “keep people confined” and states as much during the podcast.
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The program was so alarming that several right-wing sites in Europe covered the story; it hit social media running; and so “the fact checkers” arrived on the scene to mitigate the damage done by the story.
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Morris added that people wishing to leave their residential zone “will need literal permission from the council” in the form of a permit or pass that will be connected to their vehicle registration number and licence plate – meaning for all intents and purposes that the government will literally have the power to decide “who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t”.
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Sounds mental, but there’s a lot of truth to it.
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The council, like many others in Europe and America, are proposing local climate-change initiatives, and will, in fact, start sanctioning and fining people who try and enter the pearly gates of Oxford City centre as arbitrarily as they see fit.
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Ride a bicycle — you can enter. Ride a 1200cc motorcycle, you’re welcome as well, but drive a Fiat Cinque Cento – which has a mere 500 cubic centimetres (“cinque cento” means five hundred in Italian) of engine displacement, and you can’t….unless you are disabled, work for the council, are an obese, pink-haired, gender-confused paedophilic lesbian 😉 or you can procure a special exemption.
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(Note – The city says it will grant “exemptions on application to emergency vehicles, blue badge holders, health workers, professional and non-professional care workers, and people requiring frequent hospital treatments, as well as the disabled and people with official business in town.”)
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(Note – The city says it will grant “exemptions on application to emergency vehicles, blue badge holders, health workers, professional and non-professional care workers, and people requiring frequent hospital treatments, as well as the disabled and people with official business in town.”)
So an 18-year-old who is an off-duty half-naked nurse’s assistant or hospital aide, heading into town to party hardy and get drunk with her mates, will be granted an exemption due to the fact she is a first responder…. but someone looking to buy something silly like groceries for a sick relative, or wants to talk to a friend contemplating suicide, or travels in to pick up their children….won’t.
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Even if one wants to just drive into town for the sake of burning fossil fuel they legally bought to buy a six-pack of beer and a pack of sharp cheddar cheese and some crusty bread to munch on, or just to go for a drive, there NEVER should be anything preventing them from doing so.
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It’s called FREEDOM. Liberals hate the concept, but it must be protected at all costs.
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Sadly, the elite manning Oxford’s City Council disagree and, commencing mid-2024, they are going to show Oxford’s inhabitants JUST how much they loathe our liberty and rights.
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And make no mistake. Oxford, like most wealthy white American urban environments centred around a university, is run by filthy leftists. Since its founding in 1974, nary a Tory has seen the inside of the council. 🤔
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I wonder what the small business owners paying taxes and “rates” in the city centre think about the proposal? Sole proprietors typically support the Tory party while large multinationals typically support the Left nowadays).
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“Councils will decide how many times per annum one can see friends and family,” the article Morris cited continues. “You’ll be stopped from fraternising with any people who live outside your local area, and if you want a long-distance relationship with a gal in town in the future, forget it. You are confined to dating only those people within a 15-minute walk of your house (unless you are an LGBTQ-alphabet person, I’m assuming.).Then you can come and go and spread the Monkey Pox as much as you please. 😉 ) as Oxford has registered itself as a WEF 15-minute-city.”
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Morris’ claims might seem a tad hyperbolic, but if one looks at the actual facts, it is not all that far from the reality of what has been proposed.
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Requiring people to have a permit that they not only have to pay for, but one that can be rejected by a civil servant, means that people will be restricted.
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Facts.
THE LIKES OF REUTERS AND THE AP THOUGH ATTEMPTED TO COUNTER THE POINTS MADE BY MORRIS AND OTHERS ONLINE BY DISINGENUOUSLY CLAIMING THAT PEOPLE CAN STILL DRIVE IF THEY BYPASS ROADS THAT HAVE THE CCTV CAMERAS OR HAVE A PERMIT.
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THE AP WROTE, “The city and county emphasized in a joint statement that the traffic restrictions will not “be used to confine people” to a given area. “Everyone can go through all the filters at any time by bus, bike, taxi, scooter or walking,” the statement added.
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As I wrote earlier, some vehicles like vans and motorcycles will be exempt from the new rules. Disabled drivers and first responders will likewise not be affected. And people will be “allowed” to enter the city (it feels deeply disturbing to write “allowed to enter the city” but that is where we are at this juncture) but they will only be able to do so “by bus, bike, taxi, scooter or walking”.
Not. By. private. car.
The “fact check” goes on to write that “Drivers who lack a permit will also still be able to access all of the city without being fined. They “might just need to use a different route or drive through the ring road to avoid the traffic filters,” Smith wrote.”
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A ring road is one that bypasses the city, adding tens of miles to the journey. It never at any point enters the city limits.
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Therefore if one wants to, let’s say, travel to a stadium the other side of the city, one has to drive around the city. If they want to travel into the city, they will have to find a way in other than by using their car. Let that sink in.
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You can access the city, but only by coming in on one of their (government) vehicles, or by walking or biking in….or figuring out an alternate route that they’ve not stuck cameras on yet. Madness.
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In a series of emails exchanged with Reuters, a spokesperson for Oxfordshire County Council claimed the Redacted story, as well as the one shared by Vision News via their Facebook page, had “misrepresented its traffic-filter initiative”, which the council claims has been part of Oxford’s Transport Strategy since 2015 and aims to tackle traffic congestion and reduce pollution.
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On that I also call total BS.
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Here at johndenugent,com we do our own fact-checking. It doesn’t take a degree in journalism to see that Reuters, the AP and the Oxford council are LYING.
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Mandating a permit to drive into a city that is not available to everyone for free, or at an affordable cost, is a gross violation of liberty. You are for all practical purposes being locked out.
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The claim that these rules go back to the year 2015 is also a blatant lie. Yes, it does appear that the council has been working on various policies to reduce traffic and vehicle congestion since 2015 – like encouraging bicycle use by constructing bicycle lanes, as well as charging more for parking within the city limits to supposedly reduce traffic (couldn’t be about making money 😉 ), opening up bus and taxi-only lanes. But the idea of requiring permits is entirely new, and was certainly not on the government’s books prior to the Covid-19 lockdowns.
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The council admit as much themselves, writing:
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“Starting in 2024, a half dozen so-called “traffic filters” are to be tested for six months around Oxford’s city centre. The filters will regulate traffic between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. This means that by 2024 the local government will literally require private cars to have a permit to drive into town.”
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AP claimed that this statement was different than simply locking people in, but is it?
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Firstly, the notion of literally fining people for driving into the centre of town or too far from where their vehicle is registered is obscene — and a blatant overreach of government power.
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If permits cost a fortune and you risk losing your vehicle if you do not pay for permission or for fines imposed, if you choose to drive in without having had a permit issued – a permit that you aren’t even necessarily entitled to – aren’t you for all intents and purposes locked out of the city? Even if you have the right to walk in after you leave your car outside the congestion zone, the restriction in my opinion is so egregious, it should be illegal.
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That parking costs upwards of £40 for the day in the parking lots outside of town means people will simply not be able to travel in unless they take public transport that generates the city ££. That’s shocking.
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And what if you, a licensed driver using your insured and already taxed vehicle, dare to venture into the city without a permit?
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“Drivers using the filters, who do not have a permit or are not exempt and attempt to gain access, will face a penalty charge notice of £35 [=US$42], which will increase to £70 if it is not paid within two weeks.”
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That’s 5 hours of work and a week’s groceries for some people and A LOT of money. And money that they WILL collect.
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But don’t worry, the council has that covered, telling (lying) the AP that people will still be able to enter the city.
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“Everywhere in the city will still be accessible by car, although some private car drivers may need to use a different route during the operating hours of the traffic filters,” the spokesperson said. They didn’t say how far out of the way drivers will have to travel from their desired route or where these “free” entry points that bypass the “watched” “filters” will be. Just that there will be access points…..for now.
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Personally, I don’t believe they are being honest on this score.
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If the congestion zone filter is applied, as it has been in cities like London, that means that people will NOT be allowed to travel in unless they do so on foot, by bike or public transport. In the London congestion zone, there is literally NO way to enter the city unless you pay for permission. At first there were ways in but a decade on, there is NO way in that I know of.
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The London congestion zones
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And again,
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if people try to enter without a permit, they will be fined.
If they don’t pay their fines they can lose their cars and/or property, as Britain still permits bailiffs to seize property when money is owed to the State.
This is how it is in London, and this is how it will be in Oxford – a place where there is a fraction of the traffic of London and even less possible entry points.
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Background on London’s congestion charge scheme from carwow.co.uk
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“Local authorities have been placing restrictions on drivers for some time now. London’s Congestion Charge zone, introduced in 2003, was the first such scheme in the UK, originally charging drivers £5 if they ventured into the centre of town during peak hours.
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Now a £15 levy, the Congestion Charge was joined by London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2017. The ULEZ charges drivers of older, more polluting cars an additional £12.50 to drive into its area, and first occupied the same small, central space as the Congestion Charge Zone before expanding in 2021 to take in all locales within the North and South Circular roads. A further ULEZ expansion, taking in almost all areas inside the M25 orbital motorway, is also under consultation for a potential 2023 introduction.
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The principles behind the ULEZ – namely that drivers of non Euro 6 diesel cars (generally pre-2015) and non Euro 4 petrol (generally pre-2006) must pay to enter the zone – have already expanded well beyond London’s borders, though.”
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The Oxford Council added that, “Everyone who lives in the city of Oxford permit area, where the filters are to be located, will be eligible for one free, 100-day permit a year, which will mean “unlimited travel through any of the six filters for the whole day” on up to 100 days per year. Each household will be eligible for a maximum of three permits.”
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What about non-residents? People who live just beyond the city limits? Unsuspecting day-trippers travelling in for the day?
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These people wont be allowed to drive in, drop off their friends and family, shop etc. They won’t be able to see the millennia old sights because of….“climate change”.
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Besides, why should people have to literally apply for permission to use roads they already paid for with their taxes, their car tax and all the other tax they pay when filling up their tanks with petrol etc.? It’s not only obscene and downright troubling, but in my view illegal.
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To that the AP wrote: “Residents with a reason to travel into the city who are based outside the city limits but within Oxfordshire will be eligible for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 25 days a year”.
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With a “reason to travel”? 25 days a year? That’s twice a month!!
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This sounds an awful lot like the sort of two-tiered system one hears about in China and Israel, or how things were for blacks under Apartheid. (Weren’t lefties against that?) Although restrictions in South Africa during the 1980’s and the barbaric rules imposed by Israel on the Palestinians are based on race, these restrictions will be based on something far more arbitrary – like if the council likes you, you can convince your doc you have a bad hip or I assume, if you are in some way “marginalised” or an ally of the “marginalised” with a high social credit score.
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You KNOW this is where it’s all headed.
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And this is not just a Euro and perhaps a Chinese problem. In fact, I’d say, apart from not having the right to bear arms, we are typically far freer in Europe than you are in America. Apart from speech critiquing the “holocaust” in Germany, I feel infinitely safer expressing my beliefs here in Europe than I would if I was at a MAGA rally in DC.
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The AP and Reuters “fact checkers” tried to soften just how utterly despicable Oxford Council’s behaviour is by referring to policies already in existence in the US. and elsewhere. They wrote that “New York City officials are examining the possibility of charging motorists an extra fee for entering its most congested areas” and already incorporate Green taxes onto bridge and tunnel tolls entering Manhattan.
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“The practice is commonly referred to as congestion pricing” and has been used in cities including London, Singapore and Stockholm. Major cities worldwide have also experimented with closing streets to car traffic as a way of encouraging residents to walk or bike. In one recent U.S. example, San Francisco in April voted to make a road through its famed Golden Gate Park permanently “car-free””
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I feel better now, knowing Sodom (San Fran), little Gomorrah (Stockholm) and Babylon (NY) have similar policies in place….
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Dark days ahead….
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Oh, and before I conclude this piece….. Since writing this story, it has come to my attention that Oxford has already piloted a So-called ‘Zero Emission Zone’ in the dead centre of the city which only fully electric vehicles at present can travel though without paying a fee. This area is less than 1% the size of the proposed congestion area and pretty much already pedestrianised.
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Here’s the story from the Oxford Alumni Association, run last winter, on the new Zero Emission Zone. Although the Alumni Association are even “greener than the council,” they fairly point out the issues electric cars also have. It’s not just about carbon to people genuinely interested in combating pollution. It’s aerosolised particulate that’s also emitted by electric vehicles. I’d like to think there a few people left who are genuinely concerned about pollution on the Left, and not just trendy fools and charlatans peddling the climate change con.
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For the councils, though, it is just about more control and getting more £££.
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Two last bits of info to conclude my musings for the week. Follow the science? This same council, and Western governments in general that now wants to BAN diesel engines were encouraging people buy diesel instead of petrol (gasoline) cars less than two decades ago due to them getting better gas mileage.
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And was I right, or was I right, when I wrote last month that most virtue-signalling westerners have no clue where Ukraine even is. Even my child pointed out that the wheat (yellow) should go below the sky (blue)… 😉 Enjoy…. (Is that the mulatto Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan Markle? 😉 )
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From Oxford University Alumni Association website:
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“Close inspection shows that the pilot ‘Zero Emission Zone’ trial covers streets mostly barred to cars already, such as Cornmarket and Queen Street (see above: the green central part is the pilot).
However, the scheme sets a national precedent because it will be the first such scheme anywhere in the UK where you will be charged for driving any vehicle that isn’t fully electric.
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In the lead-up to the pilot in February, City and County Councils announced sweeping changes that will roll across the city soon after the pilot, to try and tame Oxford’s notorious gridlock and poor air quality.
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They announced their intention to implement a workplace parking levy across the city, strategic traffic filters on half a dozen core entry points to the city, and finally a dramatic scaling up of the ZEZ [Zero Emissions Zone] by autumn 2023.
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Councillor Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Travel and Development Strategy, says:
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‘Oxford has always been a leader in innovation and these new plans will help us move towards a zero-carbon transport system in the city, while making Oxford a safer, cleaner and better place for people who live and work here and for those who visit.’
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The University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Resources, Dr David Prout, says:
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‘Traffic in Oxford has been an issue for as long as anyone can remember. My father was a great advocate of the ring road through Christ Church Meadows. Thankfully that was not given the go ahead..These proposals mark a significant step forward radically to reduce congestion and pollution, improve public transport and improve the walking and cycling environment. These should always be seen as a package. Without one the others will not work, but on the basis that it is a package the University has supported these proposals.’
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For now, the only streets inside the pilot zone where you might theoretically take a car and have to pay the levy are Ship Street, St Michael’s Street and New Inn Hall Street, suggesting that parents dropping off students to St Peter’s College may need to pay the fee unless arriving in an electric vehicle. But the City Council has not included Turl Street and the whole approach to the Covered Market, where most delivery vehicles are still diesel-powered.
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The new Zero Emission Zone will impose different charges on different classes of vehicle, and goes beyond London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) by charging even ultra-low emission vehicles (defined as emitting less than 75g CO2 per kilometre) £2 per day, doubling to £4 per day from August 2025.
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The majority of vehicles will be charged £4, rising to £8, while pre-Euro 4 petrol and pre- Euro 6 diesels incur a £10 charge doubling to £20 in August 2025.
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Buses are all exempted, even though many of them are still diesel-powered.
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The University position on the scheme is broadly supportive, although the scheme appears to pick a technology ‘winner’ by equating zero emission at the exhaust with zero emission, whereas science shows that electric cars are NOT zero-emission.
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Sustainable Transport Manager for the University Adam Bows explains,
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‘EVs [electric vehicles] are heavier than internal-combustion-engine [“ICE”] cars and still emit non-exhaust particulate emissions from tyres, road surface wear and brake pads, meaning total fine particulate load is at least 50% of an ICE vehicle.’
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The climate aspect is also more nuanced than it may appear.
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‘Electric vehicles have high embodied carbon, as shown by a variety of life cycle analyses. They still pose road danger to pedestrians and cycles in Oxford – being both heavier and quieter at low speeds.’
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The University’s own position has for years been to encourage walking and cycling and non-car commuting. It operates its own fleet of electric vehicles, charging them overnight.
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Later this Spring the city will see the roll-out of a national pilot ‘super charging hub’ at the Redbridge Park and Ride on Oxford’s Abingdon Road, where 40 rapid- and ultra-rapid charge points will cater to commuters who need to arrive in Oxford by car but would not necessarily need to continue to the city centre.
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……JdN: My comment
Car control — and travel control — are the same as with “gun control”….
The motive is to control the goyim.
And the electric cars the MSM now praise can just be switched OFF by the government.
As can electronic money.
Every new limitation on our freedom is gradual, and because of an “emergency” and “for our own good.”
Just like the clot shot.
The heiress to the throne of Thailand: died suddenly at 44
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The jews learned a lot from the explosion of outage over the case of the jewish rapist-strangler Leo Frank. They had been heavy-handed in 1913. The lies and the bribes were too blatant.
The people rose up, grabbed Frank, and in 1915 they hanged him.
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Today the same race of liars tells smoother lies; it is all for your health and safety that we take away every freedom you once had.
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My prediction is that there will soon be a war between us Whites and the Jews; and in this war the Jews will kill a great many of us, but we will kill ALL of them.
Margi once calculated that while there are about 500 million true Whites in this world, there would be a billion today had there not been all these jew wars.