Dave,
I never mentioned global warming. It may be that I don't give a damn
about global warming. I actually agree that holding tanks are probably a
waste of time and effort. I am simply trying to say that the society in
which we live is becoming increasingly intolerant (yes, intolerant) of
certain aspects of life which it regards, rightly or wrongly as being an
assault on the environment. That is just a fact, scientific or
otherwise. My views don't come into this. It may be that one day
leisure-based use of fossil fuels will be outlawed altogether. But in
the meantime the world is becoming a much more environmentally concerned
place, and no-one bats an eyelid when smoky coal or plastic bags are
banned. I happen to believe that if the IWAI continues to tolerate
and/or promote the use of jetskis on the Inland Waterways then
non-boating regulators will ban all fast craft. This isn't a wildly
imaginative proposition. It's already happening. I am suggesting that
fast-craft owners, the majority of which are perfectly reasonable
people, would be wise to dissociate themselves from the jetskis.
Incidentally, my own objection to jetskis is not their danger, or use of
fuel, but the noise pollution in an otherwise fairly quiet environment.
There are a number of studies on why the noise is so much more
irritating than other engine noise, with reasons including the facts
that the machines tend to be used only on calm days when the noise
travel further, that the users tend to stay in one place for hours on
end, and that the pitch of the noise is constantly changing, punctuated
by the banging of the hull on the crafts' own wake.
Garrett
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