Remember how we look back on the 70s, and polyester, and we cringe? In 20 years, this guy will be as much a cultural dinosaur as Andy Gibb. Pay him no mind.

It's worth taking a peek at Paul Horrell's posts on Top Gear blogs - The Green Debate.

The lads have obviously been getting a bit of pressure from the public (and probably also the Beeb itself), and they're doing a bit of thinking:

http://www.topgear.com/blogs/the-green-debate/

Treehuggers in the UK should make their thoughts known loud and strong to the BBC to keep Clarkson and gang on their toes. After all, they need their highly paid TV presenter's jobs to afford fuel for their petrol-guzzling supercars.

I think you will find the Clarkson/Top Gear environmental stance a bit more honest than most eco-journalism. The latest UK Top Gear magazine I have is the "Green(ish) Special" with the Koenigsegg CCXR on the cover. What they do point out is there is a lot of misinformation and selective attention paid to a lot of environmental issues and very often unfairly target motoring. For example: A season of F1 racing burns less fuel than a single transatlantic 747 flight, Ken Livingston (Anti-car evangelist) doesn't have a license but does own a Prius, or even that the damage from nickel mining used in the Prius battery and the resulting acid rain is very damaging to the earth.

Also the green cars reviewed in this issue are:

The Koenigsegg CCXR
Honda SHS
Lexus LS600h
and even the Tesla!

I recently read their special entitled "A to Z of Green." Good stuff.

http://www.topgear.com/content/timetoburn/sections/galleries/other/green_special/01/

Although 90% of your readership have no idea who Clarkson is (or what the word "whilst" means), but still, better to ignore this guy, or catch him with something better. A few tracks in the sand is not a big deal.

Sorry dpitkin but I fail to see how a 1,000bhp monster like the Koenigsegg can be described as green even if you do fuel it with E85. It puts out 500+ g/km in its petrol form and E85 knocks a good 15% off your fuel economy. Ok some carbon will be offset in the growing of the plants for bioethanol but burning spectacular amounts of any fuel is not green!

The LS600h is a 5 litre V8 putting out 219g/km, well over the average of 160 - 170 g/km and the SHS is a concept that's unlikely to see the light of day (but ensures that people carry on believing that the big car companies are shouldering their responsibility and doing something significant to improve the situation when they're not).

The only truly green car there is the Tesla.

There are signs that the presenters of this programme are softening their stance with regards climate change but it's way overdue and barely convincing at the moment. With a global audience numbering in the hundreds of millions their influence is huge.

Sorry dpitkin but I fail to see how a 1,000bhp monster like the Koenigsegg can be described as green

How much horsepower does a train locomotive have?

Clarkson is already bored by cars with 400bhp.

So will everyone else by 2020. There's no upper limit to wants.

Cant we go on the top gear site and complain?

How much horsepower does a train locomotive have?

Come again? How many seats does a train have?

How much horsepower does a train locomotive have?

Errrrr remind me how many seats does a train have?

One of the problems as I see it, is that so many of the opposing camp to the "deniers" act like the electricity for electrically powered vehicles is "free" , that hybrid cars help much, and that aeroplanes are somehow single-handedly destroying the environment.

These are huge fallacies which indeed absolutely don't stand up. As Clarkson said for example the Prius isn't even as efficient as a diesel UNLESS you're working under a certain subset of conditions, a great-deal of braking followed by only gentle acceleration for example.

Unfortunately when hippies and halfwits say these things it allows equally ignorant people from the opposing camp to "ride" these errors all the way to the conclusion that the whole problem is a myth in the first place. This is very sad.

I for one happen to quite like Mr. Clarkson and this means I am even more disappointed with some of his slightly more extreme suggestions about global-warming. He knows next to nothing about science which he regularly pokes (albeit gentle) fun at in reviewing cars.

Without this knowledge he can't claim to be able to interpret the data, nonetheless he does still represent the voice of pragmatism against hysteria and treehuggery, and I'm very sorry, but it should be engineers and well-balanced scientists who possess the "cool factor" and the "common-sense highground".

As long as someone like Clarkson can, by being talented, to be fair funny and quite charming, but nonetheless fairly "ordinary" in his attitudes is able to carry the populous with him, the rest of us need to realise that we appear to be a bunch of whining leftie spoilsports constantly suggesting more tax and more frugality.

I say, push the plenty, security, health benefits, and image-boost Europe can get by being positive, stop whining about what we can't do, start working on better ways to keep doing it, and stop depending, and stop polluting what is after all the place we live in.

S. Harrison
Technische Universiteit Delft

I agree completely that global warming is rubbish, we'll all be dead by the time it makes a difference. Clarkson should be made prime minister and sort out this rotten country.

Bahahahahahaha green cars are terrible, especially hybrids an absolute joke. Personally I have owned an MR2 Turbo, Audi UR-quattro (also turbo and very inefficient) and and a supercharged V8. I assume and i think i may be right here that these cars are more fun than a "green car".

Incidently I assume the Tesla is a plug into the wall type car. Batteris are very expensive/production intensive. And in alot of countries would be charged by coal power plants. When you target internal combustion cars you seem to be conveniently forgetting that CO2 emissions from power stations far outweigh car emissions.