A straw in the wind

Is environmentalism becoming a serious political proposition? The Independent reports on putting the boot into Chelsea tractors:

"Road tax should be dramatically increased to £1,800 a year for the most polluting cars, a cross-party committee of MPs say in a report published today.
The Labour-dominated committee criticised the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, for not going far enough in his last Budget, which introduced a new higher rate of £210 of vehicle excise duty (VED) for the cars with the biggest engines, such as 4x4s, which produce the mostCO2 emissions.
The MPs on the Environment Audit Committee, chaired by the MP Tim Yeo, said that the Chancellor's duty rate on "Chelsea tractors" was too low to be effective and should be replaced by big increases in tax on motorists as suggested by the Sustainable Development Commission.
Work for the committee showed that when the purchase price and the CO2 emissions were taken into account, the VED on the biggest cars was proportionately about half that paid on the smallest cars."

This would seem to me to be a no-brainer. The gas guzzlers cause pollution and they can afford to pay more; why not hammer them? We would thus combine social and environmental responsibility with the moral delight of sticking it to the bloated capitalists and their yummy-mummy wives taking the kids to school in their 4x4s.

But then, I would say that, wouldn't I - as I don't have a car...