Ever since the 1970's when the price of oil quadrupled and ruined many economies, people in high places should have thought that this could happen again at any time. We are now over 30 years past that time and the efforts of car manufacturers to come up with alternative energy cars has been abysmal to say the least. We are supposed to be in a technological revolution, but cars don't seem to have benefited that much from it. The price of many of the cars that run on other fuels is way beyond what most people can afford. Also, any saving in fuel costs would be lost on the initial purchase price. Currently, the government is offering incentives for people to save energy on their homes. Why don't they subsidise alternative energy cars?

A necessay option. The sooner these alterative are available the better I say.

I heard someone on the radio suggest that there should be pubs which are for smokers only - of course, non smokers could use them too, but would have to accept it might be quite smoky in there! I am not sure what I think of this idea....in a way, it seems fair - after all, smokers are treated like lepers these days, so perhaps they should be allowed access to somewhere they can enjoy a drink, a fag, and be able to socialise in comfort - at the end of the day, it's their life and up to them if they want to risk their health. On the other hand, we have now gone a long way down the road to protecting the health of the general public form the dangers of smoking and passive smoking, and this is a good thing surely......so are special pubs dedicated to smokers a backward step? other questions are, where will these pubs be, and how many would be needed? who would decide? what ae your thoughts????

There should be some indoor facilities for smokers. It would be up to non-smokers whether they wanted to join them or not. Smokers are getting the blame for nearly all the airborn pollution. You only have to look at places like Bangkok to see the problems caused by car fumes.