Robin's Diary

Zero emission or not?

Last week, the Advertising Standards Agency banned adverts for electric vehicles for claiming they are Zero Emission, in spite of several agencies using Zero Emission as a term for zero tailpipe emission cars, including gov.com and TFL? 

I think everyone understands there will be emissions connected to manufacture, shipping and charging, but once in use, the cars themselves don’t produce tailpipe emissions- but unless you are fairly stupid, I think you’ll know that. Is this just another case of trying to remove any form of common sense?

Surely, we don’t need protecting from the most obvious, and we have to rely on some degree of common sense. I’m sure green energy, wind farms etc still require considerable emissions to build them, which we all understand, so, if we apply the same rules, how green are they? Like Electric cars, they are probably much greener over time, and generate power without emission, but from production to the scrap pile, is anything zero emission? 

"Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius." - Josh Billings