by Russel Norman
It seems the International Energy Agency is changing its tune on oil prices and is now predicting price pressures post 2010 as demand increases outstrips supply. Of course that won’t stop the NZ government going on the biggest road building project in the nation’s history, because they think that another cheap energy source like oil will magically appear. Hey presto!
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Thu, July 12th, 2007
Tags: environment
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
So, there’s no time like the present to invest in public transport and clean energy infrastructure – the price will only go up as the oil component of manufacturing becomes more and more expensive. And what does the Labour-UF-NZF-JAP govt do? They build more roads. The Green Party needs to keep the focus on issues that really matter – like climate change and what happens to the less well off when the price of oil goes through the roof – and not get distracted with the likes of vote 16.
Ruth
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Well said Ruth!
respectfully
BJ
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It is a wrong assumption that private transport will be always reliant on oil. Private transport can be horse, bike, feet, a vehicle powered by anything (solar, steam, air, electric?, ethanol, methonal, etc, etc.)
These vehicles, including horse or ox drawn, will need roads so road building is not a waste of time. Roads are a vital ingredient in overcoming peak oil as it allows for private transport alternatives to flourish.
Roads also join wider communites with local ports. So vital when water transport (wind powered) becomes a viable alternative to current heavy road haulage.
We also need new roads because public transport is so slow in being built (have they dug the first hole yet on the electificatin of Auckland rail?)
that we face economic disaster if roads were not built. Public transport is just not happening quick enough.
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Ha. I wonder what our political establishment’s response to this new report will be. No doubt there won’t be one as it will be conveniently ignored.
We can’t expect to sit around waiting for the politicians to provide solutions to our problems. What important reform has the Establishment ever provided without the people fighting for it?
Abolution of slavery?
Labour reforms?
Women’s suffrage?
Freedom from tyrrany?
Civil rights?
I don’t thinks so.
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yeah OK Gerrit, you’re right we do need roads.
but we don’t need: more roads, better roads, wider roads, faster roads.
I don’t really thing that you can say that a new motorway or link road that will shave seconds off a communters™ journey can be justified in the terms that you use as an essential link – I doubt that any of the new planned roads are essential.
P.S. price of oil is a bit high in last week eh? http://tinyurl.com/8c9ab
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I agree with Ruth (linking the major environmental issues with xxxxxxx is criminally selfish).
I think the modern bungalow (all roof and concrete) is also a great lost opportunity> built in poverty.
I haven’t seen much about oil shortages on TV One; although I did see pictures of Bahrain before and after in relation to Invercargill and the Great South Basin… advertising sells in a positive environment… doesn’t it TV One staffers!!
jh
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Rodney’s Smart Fourtwo is described as How Reliable?: Dodgy; How safe: OK According to Dog and Lemon Guide. Fuel consumption 6.1 km/100 liter 6.3/km.
jh
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for instance fwwog, say if the war on Islam ended would that save how much fuel, and like say it 10 per cent of world oil misusage on war, wouldn’t the war end with say a green president of the USA, what do yous think fwwogs,
peterquixote
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Why should the government invest in public transport when, if the price of oil goes up as people say, it will simply be economically efficient for public transport operators to invest in it themselves, you know, how private individuals pay for their own cars and pay for roads? (albeit bluntly)
The stone age didn’t end because the world ran out of stones, phone lines didn’t stop being made out of copper wire because copper ran out, private mobility has been the trend for modern societies since the 1920s – it has just been increasing over that time, and the relative price of car ownership was much higher in the 1950s than it is today, but it just grew. People want to go where they want, when they want with who they want, most people LIKE having a car. This is not going to change.
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Between 2001-05:
1. Traffic volumes on Auckland’s state highway network increased by less than 1.8% per annum.
2. Public transport use increased by 3.8% per annum.
Thus growth in public transport is more than twice than that of growth on the state highway network. This has occurred at a time when capital expenditure on state highways has far exceeded that spent on public transport. In fact the only major PT developments have been Britomart and the Northern Busway stations.
All in all, recent history proves that public transport investment in Auckland has delivered more bang for the buck than state highways.
How say you Gerrit?
Sources:
1. “State Highway Traffic Volumes 2001-2005″
http://www.transit.govt.nz/technical/traffic-volumes.jsp
2. ARTA Annual Plan 05/06
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Some questions coming back at you Mr Liberty:
1. Why should I breathe polluted air caused by other people driving their cars “where they want, when they want with who they want”?
2. Why should I pay rates for the stormwater systems that are overloaded by run-off from roads?
3. Why should I pay rates to clean up our harbour environments which are polluted by the brake particles and oil residues?
4. Why should I have to clean oily black soot from around my apartment windows?
I’m sure you’ll agree that I shouldn’t have to deal with these issues. Unfortunately I do have to because the external costs of vehicles are not covered by drivers. That is, these costs are subsidised by everyone else.
There are two possible approaches to remedy this problem:
1. Remove all subsidies for private vehicles (note that this will mean higher costs for driving in urban environments, to reflect the higher external costs)
2. Subsidise public transport
The first solution is political suicide due to the rabid roading lobby headed by the likes of the AA and RTF.
Thus I support public transport investment in projects that can cover their operating and replacement costs, such as the Northern Busway.
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LibertyScott
“Why should the government invest in public transport when, if the price of oil goes up as people say, it will simply be economically efficient for public transport operators to invest in it themselves, you know, how private individuals pay for their own cars and pay for roads?”
Because by the time its economically “efficient ” it will be too late. Regardless I’ve seen little evidence of private companies investing in needed infrastructure for their customers unless its been expressly demanded or required regulation to force them to do it. They’d rather send dividends back to their “investors”.
TranzRail? Telecom? Air New Zealand?
A high price in oil won’t just affect transportantion costs, it’ll affect agriculture, retail distribution, costs of food, construction, and a myriad of other parts of the economy so there will be less money to invest in infrastructure and I think it will be no different in China, the United States, Japan, and Europe so we couldn’t depend on them for “help” either.
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Stu,
Yep public transport use is up. Great is it . So when will the rest of the public transport infastructure be built?
While we have a transition period between now and building a safe and efficient public transport system, you cannot simply stop building roads.
Hey I’m not moaning about public transport, just wish to heck the regional and national government would hurry up and build the bleeders.
First hole for the electification of Auckland rail been dug yet? Money was in the last budget.
Orders been placed for the rolling stock, the copper wire for the overheads, tenders let for the new railway terminals?
No nothing, so we have to keep building roads until someone in government lets the contracts. They have the purse strings, they let the contracts.
STH,
“Regardless I’ve seen little evidence of private companies investing in needed infrastructure for their customers unless its been expressly demanded or required regulation to force them to do it. They’d rather send dividends back to their “investors?.”
It is not the responsibility of private investors to invest in public utilites.
That is government role.
It does that by raising long term loans to pay for public works. The loans are repaid by successive generations of tax payers during the lifespan of the public utility.
You better hope that your KiwiSaver contributions are invested with someone who pays “dividends”. If not your retirement is going to be very bleak.
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“It is not the responsibility of private investors to invest in public utilites.
That is government role.”
Thats what I was trying to say. I was responding to LibertyScotts assertion that we can trust in private companies to invest in a viable public transport infrastructure, but as I pointed out thats unlikely to be true.
“You better hope that your KiwiSaver contributions are invested with someone who pays “dividends?. If not your retirement is going to be very bleak.”
I’d rather save money now as a result of dividends no longer distorting the price of those utilities and preventing much needed infrastructure investment, rather than taking advantage of compound interest in addition to savings for a retirement that may not ever happen. If only the preceding Labour and National governments happen made such a poor job of privatising New Zealand industries.
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The point was that PT investment is yielding results right now, even without the electrification that you mention.
I have no gripe with building roads in the meantime, as long as they’re providing new links or remedying safety issues, rather than expanding existing road capacity.
We all know that public transport is far better suited to catering for peak traffic than motorways, due to the latter’s relatively low capacity. To put these capacities in perspective, if peak hour trains were run every 3 mins on the southern rail line then this would provide enough capacity for all the people currently traveling on the southern motorway.
Naturally the 20% of commercial traffic is unable to switch, but remove even 25% of the remaining commuter traffic and you will achieve free flow traffic all the way through the central motorway junction.
Ka pai!
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Not to mention the fact that New Zealanders have a well-earned cynicism regarding investment companies making wise choices thanks to the 1987 Stock Market collapse not to mention the recent Bridgecorp self-destruction.
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What are your thoughs on this guys conclusions? I’d advocate a mix of Smart Growth high density and the establishment of energy efficient mixed use, ATN linked suburban Villages.
http://woppit.com/atn/Smart_Growth.html
http://www.communitygreens.org/ExistingGreens/villagehomes/villagehome s.htm
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http://www.advancedtransit.org/doc.aspx?id=1044
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Stu, putting on my devil’s advocate hat for a moment, the figures you give seem to discredit the idea that building more roads will only lead to more traffic. It also raises questions about the value of investing in PT to reduce car traffic. If there were 100,000 journeys by PT in Auckland in 2001 and 900,000 journeys by car then these growth rates result in 112,000 and 950,000 journeys in 2005. An increase in PTs share of journeys of just 0.5%. Not a stellar return on investment for those providing the capital.
Now, putting my systems analyst’s hat on, I would suggest that the main reason for these different growth rates is the rapid rise in the price of motor fuels and RUCs between 2001 & 2005. The government could soften the blow from peak oil price spikes by increasing fuel taxes by up to 20 cents per annum.
There are plenty of ways to spend this money on roads without building “new” roads. Eliminating roading rates, implementing “living streets”, eliminating roadside power poles for improved road safety and security of power supplies during storms, providing footpaths and cycle paths in rural areas particularly in tourist areas, natural disaster proofing existing roads and highways since it is during natural disasters that roads are of real benefit as community lifelines. None of these things feature in LTNZ or Transits 10 year plans. I’m sure you could add to this list.
However there is one type of new better road that we need more of simply because it reduces all of the environmental problems you mention as well as reducing the accident potential. Since a picture is worth a thousand words if you open these two links side by side you will be able to see what I mean.
http://www.petroltax.org.nz/images/welcome-5.jpg
http://zoomin.co.nz/?search/index&type=ADDRESS&q=Hawkswood%20Road%2C%2 0Hundalee%2C%20Hurunui&id=114%3Aa0%3Aa0%3A%3A
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PS, You’ll need to zoom out one click on the map to get the full picture.
My thanks to Tom at the WellUrban blog for the ZoomIn link.
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What do you think of the above proposal Kevyn.
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SleepyTreehugger,
That guy assumes that increased population density will only lead to shorter car journeys. If that was all that happened then his conclusions are correct. But if the objective is to increase the number of people living within a comfortable walking or cycling distance from the CBD then he is wrong because the number of car journeys per capita will be reduced.
He is also wrong about the infrastructure economics. Having more people per infrastucture km reduces the cost per person, assuming that there is surplus capacity in the majority of the network and that maintenance is due mainly to the age of the network components. This is definitely the case with local roads and probably the case with most of the power and phone networks.
However, in Auckland’s case the extremely low population density and existence of four CBDs does make the move to higher density more complex. It seems to me that cities with high population densities were either established in the days before any type of private transport became affordable or they are actually clusters of high density towns along rail corridors. The shift to a higher density Auckland will be faster and more affordable if it attempts to emulate these two historic types of urban growth instead of apologeticaly putting “medium” density forward as a token alternative to the quarter acre paradise mentality
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SleepyTreehugger, Your latest link really got me excited. This is brilliant stuff. I’ve always thought the roller-coaster tracks would be the ideal starting point to develope a PRT system. Less shading of the ground below than with a monorail, already has mass production economies and has a proven safety record at speeds up to 100kmh. Just needs a battery-electric car or a linear induction third rail instead of the conventional roller-coaster chain drive system. And a flexible tube design for track switching. Add the sort of intelligent braking systems currently available on a few luxury cars and you have a cost-effective alternative to the car. With all the comfort, privacy and convenience that make the car the dominant transport mode nowadays.
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SleepyTreehugger, Did you follow the link to
http://www.cities21.org/
Nice balance of new technology/behaviour changes.
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That “Sustainable Silver Bullet” looks like a good idea.
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http://www.sptimes.com/News/122699/TURN/Tomorrowland.shtml
This proves my point that we can’t expect our “leaders” and other “experts” to provide us with what we need. We have to DEMAND it.
Maybe even fund/implement it ourselves? Establish a cooperative, spread the risk across a whole lot of people rather than just a few? Just an idea.
http://www.ica.coop/
Just like these guys did with renewable energy generation.
http://www.magazine-deutschland.de/issue/Doerfer_3-07_ENG_E1.php
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This Hamilton research paper touches briefly on PRT, but doesn’t cover it to any great depth.
http://www.ew.govt.nz/regionalservices/planning/documents/HARTS_Stage4 _Report_Rail.pdf
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So… it isn’t feasible to get utility bonds and shares here? The utilities don’t offer public ownership/participation? I didn’t know that… though it seems as I look now, that it may well be true. Unbelievable but true.
BJ
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bjchip.
Apparently yes, but its not very commen AFAIK. If this is what you mean.
http://www.vector.co.nz/news/21/?PHPSESSID=5c0ba827d54562415b4538b0b18 acd5a.
If only our elected officials had half the vision of Jaime Lerner.
http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/bank/idea.php?ideaId=2236
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bj
What are your thoughts on these articles? Any parallels to the New Zealand situation.?
http://www.ethanallen.org/commentary.php?commentary_id=103
http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/kurt/frontpage/PDFs/swiss_electrical_uti .pdf
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Maybe the New Zealand government should start investing in New Zealand infrastructure rather than handing out our money to Transnational Corporations, or even better allow us to spend our money as we wish.
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/96/3givin.htm
http://www.goodreturns.co.nz/article/976488588.html
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With the surplus now at a staggering figure surely just about any PT option is feasable?
We have paid the taxes now lets get building the utilities. Why should we raise even more money through buying bonds when we have been taxed for the provision of the utilities already?
Be interesting on how people see PT options away from the main centres. The Tauranga’s, Whangarie’s, Napier’s and New Plymouth’s, etc.
What their options based on limited population and currently highly depended upon diesel buses.
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Gerrit.
I agree. The problem AFAIK is that the “surplus” is already spoken for. The government will just reinvest it in the “SuperFund”. Even Tim Hazeldine says that the SuperFund is a stupid idea and I agree.
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SleepyTreehugger Says:
July 13th, 2007 at 12:57 am
What are your thoughts on this guys
……………..
Desmond Morris’s quote is interesting but i would balance it with this:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Stage/8922/
There’s a push at the moment to link house prices with the RMA. Whether it is true or not I don’t know, but I dropped my car off to be serviced this morning and walked back through the most unaesthetic depressing urban piece of cheap & nasty flats and infilling in the world (Riccarton -Christchurch ["The Garden City"]). The gap between the number of nice houses and crap houses is increasing dramatically. While we can point to the failures of socialist planning, to me this is an example of a free market failure.
I wonder if we would progress more if it wasn’t for the hype and b/s which comes from Realtors and official spin… More people should look, think and speak, without being seen as being negative.
jh
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jh
I’d agree with the content, but not the conclusions. I think the problem isn’t about the use of technology, but people’s impression that we’re no more than a cog in the giant machine i.e. the “market”, which is further compounded by the anonymity of city life, where people are emotionally disconnected from others around them as apparently humans have yet to become accustomed to living in such densities.
I agree with your sentiment regarding the pitfalls of free-market planning. Just look at those monstrosoties masquerading as housing in downtown Auckland. Little better than the Soviet Bloc housing or British Council Tenements.
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Its illustrated in this documentary that screen a couple of weeks ago.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/1136202.
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Alot of it can be put down to the highly hierachial nature of our political, social, and economic systems and people who are on the lower rungs of the socio-econonic “ladder” quite rightly feel their contribution to society is downplayed and unappreciated and its no wonder they feel discontent.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1538373,00.html
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Saw TV3 tonight re IEA Report then Jeanette Fitzimmons interviewed (instant association). Unfortunately solutions seem to have to come with Locke, Bradford and assorted appendages (up the list and hanging on).
jh
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“But the government says aside from a 900 percent increase in spending on roads over the last seven years the last budget also increased funding for public transport.
“We have committed to spending over $600 million on improvement to public transport in Auckland and Wellington and other centres,? Energy Minister David Parker says” ha ha ha. Typical of Liar-bar to take the credit for someone elses policies. Guess who I’m not voting for next election.
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“For transport in this country it would be an absolute disaster for transport in this country, it would be an absolute disaster. We’d go back to penny farthings and walking shoes, and the fact is the economy would grind to an absolute jolting halt.” Maurice Williamson
Condescending prick. With ignoramouses like this in the National Party and oppurtunistic …..er, people like Helen Clark in Labour, why should we deal with either of them?
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A good exampe of how to utilize the internet and ICT to engage others to collaborate in order to creatively come up with solutions to problems we will have to face in the future.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2007/07/10/alternative_reality_games /index.html
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SleepyTreehugger, Where did the David Parker quote come from? If he actually did claim a 900% increase in funding for roads then he is a bare faced liar. The actual increase is a 75%, equal to the increase in petrol taxes in the same period. Funding for PT has increased 500%.
More alarmingly, in the case of roads the 75% increase in Taxes and spending has not produced any increase in road works in many regions.
This, of course, is why Russell shouldn’t have repeated Cullen’s Fallacious claim of “government going on the biggest road building project in the nation’s history” The most expensive, yes, but only because politicians in the 1940s and 50s ignored the Main Highways Boards advice to buy all the land needed for urban motorways while it was still cheap, even if it meant deferring the start of construction for up to 10 years. The failure to follow that advice has increased the cost of Auckland’s motorway system from less than 2 billion (Pokeno to Warkworth plus triple bypass) to at least 10 billion simply because of predictable increases in land prices. But there were at least 2 elections in the 1950s so it was essential to break ground before 1951 and lengths open to traffic before 1954, 1957 and 1960. Unfortunately 1946 through 1954 was when petrol taxes were under the direct control of cabinet instead of a statutory board. I suspect the many stuff uos with the railways were due more to political decisions than incompetence by railways management.
Anyway, to Cullen in his place here are the results of some previous major road building eras:
Between 1870 and 1900 over 20,000km of bridle tracks were “formed to dray width” and enough bridges were built to reduce the number of deaths by drowning in rivers from 160 in 1869 to no more than 50 in any year between 1885 and 1900. the population increased from 400,000 to over one million in this period.
Between the introduction of highway taxes in 1924 and WWII the Main Highways Board constructed 6000km of all-weather highways and 50km of ferro-cement bridges.
In it’s first decade of operation, between 1954 and 1964, the National Roads Board constructed a further 2000km of sealed highways and another 28km of highway bridges as well as 60% funding 9000km of all-weather county roads and 36km of ferro-cement county bridges.
Transit’s 10 year plan looks pretty pathetic compared with these acheivements, except of course in the cities where Hellen and Michael live and work!!
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In addition to the extra $m220 for PT there has also been a $m280 increase in funding for local roads. This required a rates increases of $m150 for regional authorities and $m280 million from local authorties. Hence my earlier argument to increase the petrol tax to relieve ratepayers of this additional burden as well as the original burden of $m400.
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From here Kevyn. Not sure if its attributed to David Parker or not. http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/Story/tabid/209/articleID/30686/Default.aspx
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SleepyTreehugger,
The source is given as “the government says”. Maybe if we had journalists that bothered to check the facts the government wouldn’t have had such an easy ride for 7 years. No part of the Land Transport Program has increased by 900% or even 90%. But total spending on roads by LTNZ and local authorities has increased by almost $m900 (75%). Inflation will have consumed at least 10% of the increases for both roads and PT in the last 7 years. I think that makes the real increase in PT funding just 450%, and much of that increase was the result of a review by Transfund and regional councils in 98/99 that saw the introduction of bigger subsidies for new passengers rather than an across the board increase in subsidies. Not something that Labour should be taking credit for.
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SleepyTreehugger, I mis-read your original comment. You don’t atribute that 900% comment to Parker. TV3s fault for sloppy journalism.
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# SleepyTreehugger Says:
July 14th, 2007 at 2:51 am
From here Kevyn. Not sure if its attributed to David Parker or not. http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/Story/tabid/209/articleID/30686/Default.aspx
…………………….
I wonder when, if, TV One will run this story…. Bad news doesn’t sell advertising.
jh
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interview ……., with Claude Mandil, the head of the IEA…….
How do you analyse the domination of the markets by producing countries?Consuming countries are largely repsonsible. They do not want to launch energy saving policies – despite the fact that these are the cheapest available. It’s an absolute priority. We need to take tough measures in the transport sector, such as stiff taxes on large cars, limitations on SUVs and speed limits…
http://www.energybulletin.net/31963.html
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SleepyTreehugger Says:
July 13th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
jh
I’d agree with the content, but not the conclusions. I think the problem isn’t about the use of technology, but people’s impression that we’re no more than a cog in the giant machine i.e. the “market?, which is further compounded by the anonymity of city life, where people are emotionally disconnected from others around them as apparently humans have yet to become accustomed to living in such densities.
……………….
I can’t agree as as the article states it is modern technology; specialisation, the division of labour that means that we don’t know our neighbors.. the sort of things that distance us from a nurturing “tribe” (and from nature).
jh
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jh.
I can’t agree as as the article states it is modern technology; specialisation, the division of labour that means that we don’t know our neighbors.. the sort of things that distance us from a nurturing “tribe?
I agree that what you’re saying is a component in what ails people today, BUT I think our lack of interaction with our neighbours mainly stems from the notion of “private property” and our “fencing our selves in” or rather “fencing other out” that results from it.
It engeanders within us a distance from our neighbours and a selfish attitude of, “I own this land, what I do with it is my business and I don’t give a flying f**k what you think”, regardless of our actions within our “property” affects others. I don’t have a problem with private property per se, but with anything in human nature, the concept has reprecussions beyond what the originators would have envisioned. The law of unintended consequences.
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jh
I agree that what you say is a component of what ails people today, BUT I believe the lack of interaction with our neighbours stems from the notion of private property, because as result of us “fencing ourselves in” or rather “fencing others out” we become both physically and emotionally distanced from each other. It also engeanders a selfish attitude of, “I own this land, what I do on it is my business, and I couldn’t care less what you think,” regardless of the impact of your actions within your “property” has on your neighbours.
I think private property is beneficial, but there are certainly downsides too.
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SleepyTreehugger, Re the Maurice Williamson quote, I presume he was refering to GP transport policies. However it is also a bleak summation of the impact of peak oil. Peak oil could very easily see a return to walking, cycling, horses and bullocks as the mainstays of the transport system. But that wont remove the need for good roads. They wont need to be as good as motor roads but the public will still demand all-weather dustless sufaces. And rural realignments that remove steep gradients are possibly more important to a future with horse drawn heavy vehicles.
While peak oil may return us to the general lifestyles of the 1920s we should be doing the utmost to capture the best advantages of the heavy machinery age while we still can, by investing our remaining mechanized road building capabilities in rural highway improvements. Improvements to urban roads need to be veiwed in relation to the future needs for tramway and railway corridors. In the long run it will be easier and cheaper to utilise existing road and motorway corridors rather than having to aquire tthe same land at future high-density urban land prices.
http://energybulletin.net/25643.html
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Kevyn
I don’t think thats what he meant at all. It was intended as an insult to the Green Party, implying that we’re neo-luddites who hate technology and if we were to get Cabinet positions, we’ll destroy the economy.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/607773
“While peak oil may return us to the general lifestyles of the 1920s we should be doing the utmost to capture the best advantages of the heavy machinery age while we still can, by investing our remaining mechanized road building capabilities in rural highway improvements.”
I agree, but the government are investing mostly in urban roading in Auckland and Wellington with little perceivable benefit, particularly with the upcoming oil crisis. Theres going to be LESS urban personal transport in the next five years so why build more roads? They’re building to reduce congestion, but its going to get reduced anyway as a consequence of high fuel prices, won’t it? Isn’t that what happened in the 1970s during the “Oil Crisis”?
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Kevyn.
re land prices.
Won’t land values contract in the future. I don’t see the current state of the property market to be sustainable, do you? Have a look at this for what we’re likely to face in the not so distant future.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00208.htm
The reprecussions for our economy are likely to be far worse, because we’ve got far more proportionally than the American’s investmented in the property market.
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Is no one personally responsible for anything, anymore?
Too much debt? It’s the banks fault. How about not buying stuff on credit in the first place, and paying off your house as quickly as possible?
>>Won’t land values contract in the future
Depends which bits of land you’re talking about.
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>>investing mostly in urban roading in Auckland and Wellington with little >>perceivable benefit, particularly with the upcoming oil crisis.
The Romans built roads, and it had nothing to do with oil, and everything to do with the fact roads are useful.
There will still be cars. Only the power-plant changes. Yes, we have high-performance electric cars now, and production will ramp up as quickly as the oil prices increase.
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Howdy Folks, I haven’t been here for ages and it all seems rather confusing, the number of links and stuff and the wide ranging ideas, and I can’t really see much about peak oil and the prices. I’m not a chemist but what I have gathered is that we use oil for just about everything. Oil and steel,copper and aluminium… oops, and a fair amount of silicon. Anyways oils been the easiest to become totally dependant on. I think just about all the plastics we use are oil based which has huge ramifications. As for roads I’m pretty sure that the tar we use to hold the stones together on our road surfaces is a by-product of the oil industry. Well, after looking it up, tar – as well as bitumen and asphalt, it seems likely that our road making sticky stuff is in fact the stuff left at the bottom of barrels containing crude oil – bitumen, so the whole road making debate is based on using the crude to make roads before it gets too expensive. Did you all know this or haven’t I read enough of the above?
I’ve recently been on a business course, they- winz – decided to chuck me off the dole, and in my business plan I decided to bring up the law of conservation of energy when discussing my ability to make a profit. My gist was that I can never ever make a profit – unless I take or appropriate from somewhere else – The energy I put in must equal, less losses, the amount of work I get out. I can only get that profit because I decided that something around me, which I choose to use, has a recognised value less than it’s cost.
Also, while I was doing the course I decided to start reading Alvin Toffler’s book “the third wave” and this allowed me even more perspective on the realities of modern life in the first world.
As well, I’ve been looking at the arguments for hydrogen as a fuel, I think I found the original link here, and it’s absurd how much active work is being done by industry to replace one inefficiency, oil, with another, hydrogen. To me the simple fact is that theres only so much energy available to us and we’ve been using far too much of it and got far too used to it.
So the government is going to give me some money to start a business and I need a vehicle to do this but I haven’t got much money. What’s available to me? Everybody’s off loading the big cars cheaply and the prices are going up on the little cars because they are scarce. I actually have the ability to build my own car, given the surfeit of wrecks in the junkyards with good motors and rotten bodies – well not even that so much as they’ve been junked because parts are more expensive than buying a new one – but the laws for registering a hand built vehicle are overly complicated, expensive and therefore almost totally prohibitive to a small cottage industry set up to start making small and basic vehicles. Not to mention that China’s need for steel is so great that old cars aren’t able to be kept in good condition because all the junkers are being sent back to the region they basically came from… for the same inefficiency to be created all over again.
Just yesterday I was thinking about the idea, in mathematics, that a negative multiplied by a negative equals a positive – and why is this so. It just feels wrong somehow.
If you’ve got three people who owe fines to someone (-3) and they all owe 10 dollars (-10) you can have both a negative and a positive answer. The sum total of money owed by the people is thirty dollars. Negative 30 simply because it’s owed and unable to be a positive amount, for reuse, but it becomes a positive amount because the person owed the money can use it as collateral – even though they don’t have it yet.
Now I know this is kinda silly but to me I have an instinctive feeling that one of the reasons we have problems in modern society is silly little rules like – x- = +. It’s almost as if it’s a fundamental flaw in our reasoning. By the same token I remember back in intermediate when I argued with my maths teacher that any number times zero equaled zero. I am adamant to this day that any number multiplied by zero actually equals that number of zeros. Taken by itself, mathematics, as a singular discipline then any number of zero’s will always be zero but relative to life it is silly. If you have a community where none owe money nor have money then mathematically you have zero so the size of the community is irrelevant. Zero is the start, zero is the point and in it is all potential. But for us, and our modern maths until we have profit or loss from this start or point it is valueless. I suppose what I’m saying is that until we, as societies and economies, realise the wholeness of things and cause and effect outside narrowly defined parameters then we’re going to keep having the same kind of problems and sooner, if not later, nullify our ability to exist.
I thought I was finished but I suppose this odd ranging diatribe needs some clarification… or does it? Do you get what I’m saying? Most would I think… and hope. Should I then spend the time clarifying what I’m trying to say. I could say that I have this idea that the modern paradigm has been built up in a way that we hold to be true and exact – these are our modern sciences – but I think we’ve missed out the unquatifiable, the yet to be measured and captured, and because of this we’ve ended up very close to having the whole thing work anymore. The compound interest accrued through our inability to accept the unquantifiable.. It’s really hard to explain and I’m not even sure what I want to put into words ever could be. It’s kinda like Schroedinger’s cat except at the moment we are both inside the box and outside it. We are the cat in the box and our assuptions of truth are the compounds that may kill the cat but we are also outside the box and able to await and speculate about the outcome.
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PeterExitsLeft.
“Too much debt? It’s the banks fault. How about not buying stuff on credit in the first place, and paying off your house as quickly as possible?”
Aren’t you a business owner PEL? Don’t you depend on credit for your business to run?
Oh? You’ve discovered a magical way of buying a house without getting a mortgage? Ooh tell me, tell me! Whats the secret? How else are you going to buy stuff without credit if you don’t have the money? How are businesses going to invest in capital and resources without credit? How is a business supposed to make money if no one buys its stuff? How is someone going to eat, have shelter, or buy clothes if they don’t have a job in a business that sells stuff?
The problem isn’t just restricted to the actions of the individual either. Just look at the current state of the OCR and interest on mortgages. At the moment a person wants to buy a house and discovers that he has to pay 9% interest on already overvalued property.
The reason for both is that the baby boomer generation sees the “end of the tunnel” coming up fast and suddenly realise that they must start doing something to save for retirement and at the moment the least risky and most lucrative way is to invest in property taking advantage of the LAQC and the lack of a capital gains tax, the more properterties the better and banks are only too happy to oblige. AFAIK 200,000 New Zealanders own and renting out on average perhaps 2-3 houses each. A conservative estimate. That takes alot of supply out of the market, which as a consequence increases property values, doesn’t it? What this does also, it allows people to leverage this equity in order to live beyond their means.
The moral of the story is people who act responsibly are being unfairly adversely affected by others who are acting irresponsibly. Not to mention the poor are doing the same in order to “Keep up with the Joneses”. Its no suprised as the commercialized media continuously blasts messages of “buy my stuff, buy my stuff.”
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“The Romans built roads, and it had nothing to do with oil, and everything to do with the fact roads are useful.
There will still be cars. Only the power-plant changes. Yes, we have high-performance electric cars now, and production will ramp up as quickly as the oil prices increase.”
I know that people will still use roads in the future, PEL, but I don’t think the current reliance on Personal Transport will be able to continue as petrol prices continue to rise. Some people will be able to afford to change to modes of transport. More power to them. But as prices of oil continue to rise the vast majority of people will become dependant on more people dense modes of transport like bikes, walking, buses, trams, or trains, because regardless of what the means of propulsion i.e. electricity, hydrogen, biofuel; none of them have the energy density, EROEI, scalability or cheapness of production as oil does. Regardless of what we’re going to replace oil with, we will not be able to afford to continue as we are and anyway the “alternative” infrastructure will require lots of oil to build. Every facet of our economy will have to become more energy efficient otherwise it will be at risk of collapse.
What are we going to produce that allays the increased cost of fuel? Grow more cows? Both agriculture and the means of production will get more expensive too as fuel prices rise. If we are unable to our Current Account Deficit is just going to get bigger and bigger.
My original point, though was whats the point of building roads to relieve urban congestion when its going to be relieved in the future anyway.
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artyone
I agree with you on so many ways. Good to have your input.
“To me the simple fact is that theres only so much energy available to us and we’ve been using far too much of it and got far too used to it.”
That about sums up the world’s biggest problem is that they’ve gotten too accustomed to the cheapness of oil, have taken it for granted, and have assumed that it will continue forever when it won’t. Unfortunately many people and institutions will find the “transition” very difficult.
“Also, while I was doing the course I decided to start reading Alvin Toffler’s book “the third wave? and this allowed me even more perspective on the realities of modern life in the first world.”
If you’re as interested in making better use of resources as I am. Look up
http://www.factor10-institute.org/seitenges/Factor10.htm
http://www.simplylean.co.nz/
http://www.natcap.org/
http://www.wupperinst.org/FactorFour/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
Our current economic system has the perverse effect of rewarding waste thinks to economies of scale and bulk discounts and allowing companies to “externalise” costs to others.
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I rode my bike to work today, on the way home, Bob Jone’s comments on green buildings came to mind. He said that : “they put in bike racks but people don’t ride them …it’s too dangerous”.. Anyway I was hightailing it down Waimari Road when all of a sudden I was sprawling across the road.. the victim of a boulder that had (possibly) fallen from a truck.. If a car had been following I could have easily been run over… It makes me angry, that people are forced to drive cars given the risks….
Yours Madly
jh
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jh
Ouch nasty. Just as well there WASN’T a car behind you.
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PeterExitsLeft Says:
July 14th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Is no one personally responsible for anything, anymore?
Too much debt? It’s the banks fault. How about not buying stuff on credit in the first place, and paying off your house as quickly as possible?
————-
That’s true but you also have to figure in that our values have been influenced by continual brainwashing (advertising).. and consumption, looking cool etc is the norm.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;
There will still be cars. Only the power-plant changes. Yes, we have high-performance electric cars now, and production will ramp up as quickly as the oil prices increase.
———————-
Except that other things won’t be equal. Electric tractors, excavators… aeroplanes… this is where economics meets ecology: thermodynamics; energy flows and the size of a population in an ecosystem (human economy). Etc
Hopefully their will be a paradigm shift in the right direction, but responses could vary.
jh
jh
jh
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I live in Auckland, the west, Aucklands layout is haphazard as developers have aquired land for suburban development gobbling it at an alarming rate, down steep gullies and over old rubbish tips now if you know auckland well you will notice that the traffic crush is starting to spreadout across the day starting at 6.20am waning off at about 9.30ish am, for 5 anda half hours you get relative free flowing movement til 3.00 pm then you get the buildup starting again til bout 7.00pm.
I’m all for hybrid and full electric but can these vehicles sustain prolonged traffic crawls as we suffer in auckland? what about stopping and starting on hills and gullies? and when you do get to work where do you plug in for recharge? and what bout those of us that flit from one job to the next sometimes from one end of auckland to the other twice in one day on a regular basis? i know i can’t carry my tools with me on the train so is there an equivalent of a lite commercial van that can carry the equivalent of say 300kgs of tools and materials like i do? What about land freight? 15tonne linehaulers that run up n down the country, delivering fresh produce to the paknsaves, foodtowns and countdowns, what about the cattletrucks, the milktankers, and the refrigerated units? is there a truck that is hybrid or electric that can handle the varying weight that a linehauler pulls everyday? what happens when you can’t get fresh tomatoes anymore?
So what if you realise what might happen and start concentrating on building up instead of building outwards across vast distances? concentrating the populace into a smaller area to minimise traveling distance? maybe even breaking up the city into it’s four parts and start building big appartment blocks in each area hoping the trend will be a movement towards living in a zero maintenance abode that is recyclable?
but you still need more roads because the populace is growing and congestion is rife but a solution is long way off because changing the comfort zone of a nation takes time, i live there and am in the trades so i see how cheap the houses are made from ever increasing cheaper made materials. Think twice before you buy brand new.
Can someone help me on these questions? has anyone thought that private transport should take second place to commercial for without it how are you gonna get your steak for the barbie? or milk for the breakfast cereals? should’nt we stockup our oil supplies for essential services like power generation? Has anyone thought bout lining our new roads with heat channeling mesh that channels the heat over blah blah blah to generate a small wattage of power? what about iontelligent paint molecules that gets them all excited and produces a small output that can be added to a cars recharging process? farfetched i know but hey atleast they are ideas.You guys better start growing you vege gardens if you remember how.
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what are we to do with our petrol vehicles? is there a way to convert them?
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Amon, You ask a lot of questions so i’ll keep my answers really brief which might make them sound a bit smart ass. Treat them as kernels of ideas, something to think about and expand on.
“…can these vehicles sustain prolonged traffic crawls…?” Yes, this is actually where they perform best.
“what about stopping and starting on hills and gullies?” Electric motors have an almost flat torque curve, they’re better at hill starts than petrol motors.
“when you do get to work where do you plug in for recharge?” Into the coin-op recharge terminal. Installing these will be the hottest new business.
“…is there an equivalent of a lite commercial van that can carry the equivalent of say 300kgs…?” Yes, any four-seater hatchback can carry that much weight, remove the back seats so you can legally use commercial vehicle loading zones.
“what about the cattletrucks?” Replace drivers with drovers.
“the milktankers?” build many small dairy factories instead of a few small ones.
“is there a truck that is hybrid or electric that can handle the varying weight that a linehauler pulls everyday?” Yes, it’s called a locomotive.
“what happens when you can’t get fresh tomatoes anymore?” Grow your own, you can even do this on an apartment balcony.
“still need more roads because the populace is growing and congestion is rife” Numerous European and American cities have demonstrated that the easiest way to reduce congestion is to narrow the roads and widen the footpaths.
“to generate a small wattage of power?” Yes, London is evaluating traffic powered traffic lights, although I think thats an electro-mechanical system.
I think modified wind speed measuring devices mounted along the tops of motorway median barriers would work well. Peizo-electric paving would be wonderful if it wasn’t so expensive.
“petrol vehicles? is there a way to convert them?” Remove the windscreen so you can hold the reigns.
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Amon, We need to face the harsh reality that with peak oil we definitely will be going back to many of the ways things were done before we had trucks and cars. This needn’t be such a bad thing as they tend to be more labour intensive than the modern ways. It should keep most of the unemployed mall staff off the dole.
And we will have the advantage of much better roads than we had 80 years ago.
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Frog. Can you upload my post. Must have gotten stuck in the spam filter thanks.
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hehheh yeah man i’am full of questions and your answers are pretty much on the ball, it’s just that i caan’t see new zealand able to survive without the linehauler, the logging truck, the transporter how else are we to transport goods from the factories to their distribution points like the “Warehouse” or get the imported goods to their bonding warehouses, considering that if that section of industry goes down then guess who will fill the dole que’s then? a vast chunk of new zealand. your right that we have to face what’s coming there’s no avoiding it i’m glad im not part of todays younger generations that has never actually seen a vege garden. A train can’t go where a truck can go nor deliver it the next day i was hoping someone would say yes there is a heavy transport that can handle heavy loads and be electric and i need a van bud not a car what i carry daily changes sizes aswel. it’s all very well toting the doom of our own making and telling the rest of the world to wakeup and prepare it’s another thing actualy getting down to the basics and playing with peoples money, as ugly as it seems that’s what it will come down to. take out the truck and you’ve just chopped off one of the legs of our infrastructure, and those unemployed mall workers will be joined by their bosses as there was no way to get the product onto the shelves anyway by that time ships would have stopped coming here as it would be an inefficient waste of fuel to get here. where would the 30.000 people that tramp through paknsaves doors everyweek go to get their weekly essentials?, don’t get me wrong man i know what you are saying but remember we are not talking about a rural community we are talking about 5 million people can you apply what you are saying to that?
hey kev you got a link to that peizo electric thingy sounds interesting
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A train can’t go where a truck can go nor deliver it the next day i was hoping someone would say yes there is a heavy transport that can handle heavy loads and be electric…..
http://hyperblimp.com/
http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/cargolifter/
We to transport goods from the factories to their distribution points like the “Warehouse? or get the imported goods to their bonding warehouses….
We’ll just have to produce and distribute goods locally rather than merely process what others make, just like us Greens have always campaigned for. Ironic eh?
i need a van bud not a car what i carry daily changes sizes aswel.
http://www.envirocar.co.nz/
You’re a builder right?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0308/S00191.htm
Where would the 30.000 people that tramp through paknsaves doors everyweek go to get their weekly essentials? Urban gardens. http://www.greentreks.org/allprograms/roughterrain/urbangardening/inde x.asp. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Heh!
Don’t worry mate, our grandparents survived the Great Depression, World War II, and the 1970s Oil Crisis and they turned out ok. It may be a hard transition for some, but we will adjust.
http://www.energybulletin.net/31880.html
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Amon, Try these two links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectric
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Piezoelectric
I’m confident Designlines turbine-electric hybrid bus technology could be used for trucks. If someone can design a robust electric motor to fit inside truck/trailer wheels then I think the all wheel drive feature would be a crucial extra selling point. The regenerative braking from a big rig would be enormous, especially on New Zealand roads. The noise reduction would be a major plus for buses and rubbish trucks.
Ships can be changed to wind, it’ll just need more forward planning by importers and exporters. Planes will be the big problem, cos no planes = no foreign tourists.
Essentially everything will move slower but they will still move. That means overnight delivery systems will be history and shops will reduce their floor space to increase on-site storage, a simple reversal of what has happened over the last 40 years. Multi-modal will become the new buzz phrase. More goods will be sourced locally and we’ll import less cheap junk from China.
Auckland dominates the import/national retail distribution part of the economy so that is where the biggest shock will be felt. The other regions will be less badly hit because the collapse of the warehouse and progressive ent. will give them more economic autonomy provided the small businesses that have been squeezed out by the giants are able to re-establish fairly quickly. Such rapid and dramatic change is going to cause economic turmoil for some time but since it is a change back to the way we used to be the recovery should be much faster than a change into the unknown.
We can expect the tarseal on our roads to last up to 20 years before resealing becomes essential. By that time the new economy should be strong enough to cover the existing roads with portland cement which would gaurantee an all-weather surface for the next 50 or 100 years depending on the speed of the remaining traffic. We can’t afford to go back to having communities isolated every time there is a decent amount of rain.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand cockies. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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Frog, Same request as SleepyTreehugger.
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Amon, In the meantime try these two links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectric
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Piezoelectric
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Hi artyone, welcome back! I think that you have rightly commented that many things, including externalities, are difficult to quantify and model. It is something that policy people are aware of. There have been debates about how to weight future impacts as compared to present impacts using discount rates, etc. In some cases, I think it is probably still worth trying to do calculations, provided that the relevant people are aware of the assumptions that go in, and are prepared to change them as appropriate. This process itself can help clarify the thinking behind decisions, provided people are open to that. (On the other hand, one might ask whether the process might always be blind to some important assumptions that noone has even thought of yet. We don’t know what we don’t know.)
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Big trucks?
Those are EASIER than cars… I have absolutely no doubt at all I could gin up a steam rig for a truck and fire it with wood pellets. Could also fire it with liquid methane derived from farm waste and then there’s bio-diesel, for the heavy truck consumption isn’t as large as the rest. Freight on rail will become more economic, and we can electrify rail further into the country and build sidings where freight cars can be loaded and unloaded in many places where we used to do years ago… The economics of transport will change but these are solvable problems.
Cars however, will take some more difficult changes. No point to having a horse pulling all that metal, nor of having high speed tires on a horse-cart. For local traffic I still favor the air-car referred to earlier, and for longer hauls a bigger van and/or better mass transit. The key will be whether we can accommodate the suburban sprawl we currently have. I think that electrics and compressed air provide the ability to manage without completely breaking the bank, but existing vehicles smaller than vans will not be easily converted. We are going to need the Aluminium too, as weight is a real problem for all such vehicles.
The traffic problem is solved in some places, by separating the pedestrian stream from the vehicle stream as well. In many places I’ve been the subterranean footpath provides additional store frontage, a dry place to cross the street, and an intersection without two-legged obstructions.
All these things are solvable if there is energy available… not petrol, just energy of some sort. We have the ability to generate enough energy, sustainably, for all of the people here in NZ. That is not something that can even be contemplated in other parts of the world.
Just to make another point… the USA is NOT preparing for this… and it is going to get caught out… in contrast with the IEA report there is another… the NPC report…
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN1338954720070713?s p=true
…and I’ll let you guess who Cheney & company will listen to publicly, but it is likely that they know the truth.
…and the location of 140 thousand US Soldiers indicates the course of action that they decided to take with respect to that truth.
respectfully
BJ
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>>Oh? You’ve discovered a magical way of buying a house without getting a mortgage? Ooh tell me, tell me! Whats the secret? How else are you going to buy stuff without credit if you don’t have the money?
Get a mortgage, pay it down quickly, and/or use the tax system to your advantage.
If you don’t have the money, save harder. I saved for years before I bought my first house, and continue live well within my means.
When it comes to wealth, look at what most people do, and do the opposite.
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[You can see the comment at the following URL:
http://www.rodneyhide.com/index.php/weblog/comments/illicit_picture/
Henry,
Let's assume that everything in that TV3 article is correct - and that is
an assumption.
Now lets look at what the article says...
"demand driven by exponential growth will outstrip supply within 3 to 5
years."
Note, demand > supply. China, India and other developing countries are using
exponentially more oil and the demand is simply growing quicker than supply
(and is expected to catch up soon).
However, this has nothing to do with Oil running out. As demand approaches
supply, prices will go up which will help to reduce demand. Then, as the
price goes up, it becomes financially viable to extract oil from more
difficult/expensive locations (that were previously not financially viable
at lower price levels).
Oil will never completely run out because, as we get closer, the price will
rise and demand will shrink. As prices increase, alternative energy sources
will become more attractive and people will move away from using oil (just
as we moved away from coal in the past). Even if some people still want to
use oil, prices will continue to rise and oil will become completely
unaffordable.
Anyway, shouldn't the greens be welcoming the reduced supply of oil and
resulting higher prices?
]
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Wheres the bit about piezos? I’ve played with piezos mostly as audio recorders, you know electrical voltages to mechanical air pushers. I measured one once and it was about fifty volts DC at a couple of amps which turns into about a hundred watts, and that was from one in a lighter.
The trouble with all electrical stuff is storing it. Batteries are very very inefficient – chemical ones. Things like flywheels, though are very efficient storage units. The heavier the mass the greater the energy stored. If you develop a chemical medium that increased in mass as increasing gravitational forces were applied you’d then have a great way to use flywheels in vehicles. I thought of something years ago whereby wheels had weights on the shafts, from the hub to the rim, which would be held towards the centre with springs at stationary then as the wheel rotated the weights would be forced along the shafts towards the rim thereby creating the flywheel effect and storing energy in the wheel and increasing it’s inertia. Trouble then would be stopping and losing the built up energy but a clutch mechanism could be used to transfer the stored energy to another inboard flywheel or now that I think about it the wheel itself – the one contacting the road surface – would be as light as possible and connected to a drive shaft, with a clutch, to an inboard flywheel.
Really, Oil has made us stupid and almost completely inefficient. Tapping into it’s energy without it’s real value in a proportional relationship to it’s actual cost made us completely blind to developing the myriad other factors involved in making transportation efficient.
A case in point is the types of vehicles created by the Axis powers who lost out in the second world war. They all had their industrial and economic bases destroyed but still had to rebuild an infrastructure and ended up building incredibly light weight vehicles with very small motors. Micro cars and trucks were an incredible achievement within the German, Italian and Japanese economies in the decades following the war.
The we could look at the Lada which was some eastern block country deciding to buy all the tooling from Fiat for one model of car and then taking it back to their homeland to build that car as transport for their people.
Theirs even our own trekka which was built of imported mechanicals from the Czech republic and bodies built here.
Now if we add the possibilities of modern production and materials usage we in New Zealand could be producing our own vehicles within years for a fraction of the money we spend importing the useless hunks of ego gratification we currently spend much of our money on. It’s completely senseless but given globalisation and the IMF, etc, which can only exist with cheap resources like oil and cheap labour in developing countries it would take a very enlightened government to start looking in these kinds of directions. Or an economically bankrupt one…
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Hey Prim, thanks for your answer. I realise now that what I was saying… wasn’t actually said… but it kinda was.
I’ve had experiences in my life where I haven’t been able to impose an idea on something but have had to take my time and let what I wanted to achieve happen over a much longer period. Having seen what then develops I’ve come to a conclusion, open ended of course, that taking more time to do something and having to do it with lots of restriction means that more time is spent ruminating as well as being open to other possible outcomes. It seems that a process like this is more adaptable and far seeing in the sense that ideas become less, how shall we say, pragmatic and more intuitive. It’s like… I don’t want to go airy fairy here, but I’ve personally found that I make decisions about what I want to do and instead of doing it I forget about it and then wait for answers to appear. It may even be that answers don’t so much as appear as manifest. I use the word appear in the sense that realisation comes at the beginning whereas with manifest realisation might not come till the end – or even later.
This way of doing things has become such that at the end what ever has evolved not only answers the questions I wanted answered at the beginning but also answers the questions that where raised during construction as well as questions that came after the construction ended.
I’ve tried to figure out whats actually happening and the nearest I can get is a vague set of ideas that revolve around the concepts of imposition, the baddy to be avoided, and empathy which is goody stuff.
The problem is though that empathy only seems to work well with a close proximity to the problem to be solved. It can make it work in my life because I deal with my problems. But the further I am removed from the problem the more empathy I need to resolve it. It becomes reciprocal in nature. If I am 8 units away from the problem then I can only have 12pc empathy.
One could then say that a society that trains it’s people in specialisation and centralises those specialisations then it has to be imposing in nature.
Case in point was one made in Alvin Toffler’s book which said that when we moved from the agricultural paradigm and into the industrial paradigm it became necessary to break up the roles of consumption and production. In the agricultural society we consumed that which we produced and therefore were empathic between the two – we had to be. But with the coming of industrialisation the two roles were defined as differing from other so our ability to be empathic was replaced by a need to impose – having an ability to be empathic when one produces one thing and consumes another can only be ever be after the fact.
Now you might think, from what I’ve said, that I’m all for empathy over imposition and take that to mean I am for a return to an age where agriculture and living on the land, hand to mouth, is where we should all be headed but I am a realist as well as an idealist. I do see the need in life to make choices on a tight schedule, to impose myself on situations, and live by those decisions. So if I draw out the metaphor of agricultural paradigms versus industrial paradigms I would say that the family unit is mostly empathic and “agricultural” – we consume that which we produce – and the society as ruled by governments as imposing and “industrial” – we can only consume a fraction of what we produce.
Now to make a long story short, if only! – we need as individuals, within empathic family units, to be able to impose more of our ideas and directions on government while conversely governments need to be more empathic. In that sense family units need to collectivise into bigger more economic units while governments need to de-centralise into more “un-economic” units
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Amon
I’m confident Designlines turbine-electric hybrid bus technology could be used for trucks. If someone can design a robust electric motor to fit inside truck/trailer wheels then I think the all wheel drive feature would be a crucial extra seling point. The regenerative braking from a big rig would be enormous, especially on New Zealand roads. The noise reduction would be a major plus for buses and rubbish trucks.
Ships can be changed to wind, it’ll just need more forward planning by importers and exporters. Planes will be the big problem, cos no planes = no foreign tourists.
Essentially everything will move slower but they will still move. That means overnight delivery systems will be history and shops will reduce their floor space to increase on-site storage, a simple reversal of what has happened over the last 40 years. Multi-modal will become the new buzz phrase. More goods will be sourced locally and we’ll import less cheap junk from China.
Auckland dominates the import/national retail distribution part of the economy so that is where the biggest shock will be felt. The other regions will be less badly hit because the collapse of the Warehouse and Progressive Ent. will give them more economic autonomy provided the small businesses that have been squeezed out by the giants are able to re-establish fairly quickly. Such rapid and dramatic change is going to cause economic turmoil for some time but since it is a change back to the way we used to be the recovery should be much faster than a change into the unknown.
We can expect the tarseal on our roads to last up to 20 years before resealing becomes essential. By that time the new economy should be strong enough to cover the existing roads with portland cement which would gaurantee an all-weather surface for the next 50 or 100 years depending on the speed of the remaining traffic. We can’t afford to go back to having communities isolated every time there is a decent amount of rain.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand cockies. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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jh
“The price will rise and demand will shrink.”
The problem with this assertion is that the poor will be the ones who will be disproportionately affected by these “rationalizations”. Where are the alternative means of transport available to them?
“The price will rise and demand will shrink.”
The problem with this assertion is that the poor will be the ones who will be disproportionately affected by these “rationalizations”. Where are the alternative means of transport available to them? If
“Alternative energy sources will become more attractive and people will move away from using oil (just as we moved away from coal in the past).”
Regardless of what the means of propulsion i.e. electricity, hydrogen, biofuel; none of them have the energy density, EROEI, scalability or cheapness of production as oil does. All of them are merely derivatives of oil. The construction of alternative infrastructure and the production of alternative fuels will require lots of oil in any case. I think that the usage of oil will only increase as everyone seeks to minimize their dependancy on oi. This is what is required and what the Greens have been campaigning for years. Like I have said the Establishment is implicitly reactionary and only take action to avert or respond to crisis events.
“Lovins said that Richter was understating energy efficiency gains. Lovins expects the market to reach 2050 targets 75 percent through efficiency and 25 percent through supply.
It will be self-defeating to seek to acquire an equal amount of energy by substituting one type of energy for another kind regardless of how much more “environmentally friendly” the energy source is. Its a bad idea to shelter the currently inherently inefficient and wasteful economic structure.
Thats why I believe sheltering people from the affects of inflation through the manipulation of the money supply by a central bank is a bad idea. It not only encourages, but rewards waste.
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0607-nuclear_debate.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1997/03/hawken.html
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artyone, since you’ve played around with piezos you’ll have no problem understanding how they can contribute to the electrcity supply. Search Google for piezo-electric or parasitic power. Seems like one of those interesting concepts awaiting a serindipitous moment to connect it with the right application at the right cost.
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Amon,
I’m confident Designlines turbine-electric hybrid bus technology could be used for trucks. If someone can design a robust electric motor to fit inside truck/trailer wheels then I think the all wheel drive feature would be a crucial extra selling point. The regenerative braking from a big rig would be enormous, especially on New Zealand roads. The noise reduction would be a major plus for buses and rubbish trucks.
Ships can be changed to wind, it’ll just need more forward planning by importers and exporters. Planes will be the big problem, cos no planes = no foreign tourists.
Essentially everything will move slower but they will still move. That means overnight delivery systems will be history and shops will reduce their floor space to increase on-site storage, a simple reversal of what has happened over the last 40 years. Multi-modal will become the new buzz phrase. More goods will be sourced locally and we’ll import less cheap junk from China.
Provided the small businesses that have been squeezed out by the giants are able to re-establish fairly quickly. Such rapid and dramatic change is going to cause economic turmoil for some time but since it is a change back to the way we used to be the recovery should be much faster than a change into the unknown.
We can expect the tarseal on our roads to last up to 20 years before resealing becomes essential. By that time the new economy should be strong enough to cover the existing roads with portland cement which would gaurantee an all-weather surface for the next 50 or 100 years depending on the speed of the remaining traffic. We can’t afford to go back to having communities isolated every time there is a decent amount of rain.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand cockies. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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Amon (& bj)
I’m confident Designlines turbine-electric hybrid bus technology could be used for trucks. If someone can design a robust electric motor to fit inside truck/trailer wheels then I think the all wheel drive feature would be a crucial extra selling point. The regenerative braking from a big rig would be enormous, especially on New Zealand roads. The noise reduction would be a major plus for buses and rubbish trucks.
Ships can be changed to wind, it’ll just need more forward planning by importers and exporters. Planes will be the big problem, cos no planes = no foreign tourists.
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And,
Essentially everything will move slower but they will still move. That means overnight delivery systems will be history and shops will reduce their floor space to increase on-site storage, a simple reversal of what has happened over the last 40 years. Multi-modal will become the new buzz phrase. More goods will be sourced locally and we’ll import less cheap junk from China.
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PeterExitsLeft.
Sorry about my previous.
“Get a mortgage, pay it down quickly, and/or use the tax system to your advantage.
If you don’t have the money, save harder. I saved for years before I bought my first house, and continue live well within my means.
When it comes to wealth, look at what most people do, and do the opposite.”
I can’t argue with the wisdom in what you say in regards to advising an individual how to manage his finances, but what if our whole society did that? It would collapse!
I was describing the inherent flaws in our financial and economic systems and you just proved my point!
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And,
Such rapid and dramatic change is going to cause economic turmoil for some time but since it is a change back to the way we used to be the recovery should be much faster than a change into the unknown.
We can expect the tarseal on our roads to last up to 20 years before resealing becomes essential. By that time the new economy should be strong enough to cover the existing roads with portland cement which would gaurantee an all-weather surface for the next 50 or 100 years depending on the speed of the remaining traffic. We can’t afford to go back to having communities isolated every time there is a decent amount of rain.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand cockies. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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And,
We can expect the tarseal on our roads to last up to 20 years before resealing becomes essential. By that time the new economy should be strong enough to cover the existing roads with portland cement which would provide an all-weather surface for the next 50 or 100 years depending on the speed of the remaining traffic. We can’t afford to go back to having communities isolated every time there is a decent amount of rain.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand farmers. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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Auckland dominates the import/national retail distribution part of the economy so that is where the biggest shock will be felt. The other regions will be less badly hit because the collapse of the warehouse and progressive ent. will give them more economic autonomy Provided the small businesses that have been squeezed out by the giants are able to re-establish fairly quickly. Such rapid and dramatic change is going to cause economic turmoil for some time but since it is a change back to the way we used to be the recovery should be much faster than a change into the unknown.
I think we can look forward to a brave new/old world. The adjustment wont be much worse than the rogernomics revolution.
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And finally,
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand cockies. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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And finally,
We have always been much more urbanised than we would ever like to admit. We have always been a nation of townies basking in the reflected glory of a few thousand farmers. The truth is most New Zealanders think the countryside is a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.
The fact is we got by without linehaul trucks and supermarkets and malls in the past and we can do it again. We will probably have to pay a bit more and wait a week for our instant gratification but realistically I can’t see the end result being any worse than that.
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Sorry for posting like that. Wanted to find out what was being censored. Turns out it was an inoffensive coloquial reference to farmers, to whit, cow-co**ies.
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What do you do for a living Kevyn? I seem to remember you saying, “….now I’ll put my systems analyst hat on.” I think theres alot of oppurtunity to come from this upcoming energy crisis. Have a look at this website.
http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid7.php
I’d be interested in talking with you further, beyond this blog if you’re interested. And that goes for anyone else as well.
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Artyone
Some deep stuff there, mate. Plenty of thoughtful provoking ideas. Thanks for your input.
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SleepyTreehugger, Well, I used to work as a systems analyst but it became obvious most managers were only going through the motions when they employ systems analysts. They will use your analysis if it supports their preconceptions otherwise it gets filed away or buried in the appendices. Since money and status aren’t important to me I now work with my hands in a stress-free environment and save my brain for my spare time and my web site. When I’m not in the vege garden that is.
Thanks for the link. I’ve got a lot of respect for Amory.
If phil will look the other way for a moment I will tell you what I do for a living. I work in a sheepskin tannery and one of my duties is boiler attendant. Not, on the face if it, a very environmentally friendly job. But actually a godd example of an industry that has cleaned up its act compared with 100 years ago. The original reason for locating the tannery next to a river wouldn’t even be considered nowadays.
You can contact me directly at research@petroltax.org.nz
or http://petroltax.blog.net.nz/
I chose petroltax because it meets the criterea for a good web adress, short and easy to remember.
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yeah kev i’ve seen a doco(you can get atr the warehouse) bout modern weapons it showed two hybrid vehicles, one a scout the other an apc very large and very low to the ground zero powerplant as it’s in the wheels moving at over 60k’s ugly thing but too small to pull loads, now don’t know whether to believe it or not but it’s pretty convincing.
sleepies right it’s still gonna take oil to run any alternative system(right interpretation?) unless we get our hands on that new nano-lubricant that someones developing somewhere? that’s why i was saying leave the oil to the commercial and essential services while we the public take the hit now. just this morning a friend of mine was commenting on how cheap cars are becoming and was thinking of buying a commodore, i said buy oone of those lil frog-sirions instead, should of seen the look he gave me, the sad part is it’s still gonna take trucks to get the products from the factories to the train yards, no trucks no jobs for the factoryworkers, no trucks no rubbish pickups every monday, no powertechnicians able to respond to emergency blackouts from our new weather. still got to look at those links kev, will do it now.
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Amon, I don’t think we’re in disagreement on the importance of short-haul trucking. This is where hybrid or full electric has the most potential if recharge/refuel facilites are provided where trucks queue at ports and railyards. The key thing is intermodal or multimodal thinking, using the mode that best suited for the distance. Trains have the advantage of being convertible from deisel-electric to full electric. People movers can only achieve the same feat by changing vehicles from cars to trams.
The first heavy vehicle regulations were introduced in the 1880s, before we had motor-trucks. What changed was the motive power, which then changed the top speed and maximum gross weight. You were on the right track with your Commodre/Sirion comment. I just think we can apply the same conceptual thinking to trucks as well and the picture doesn’t look as bleak.
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are any of you factoring in the (already made) plans for the militaries of the various countries to compete/seize the ever-dwindling supples..?
and then to fight each other for them..?
(think iraq..writ large..)
(america vs. china..?..any other bets..?..america vs russia is also on the cards..)
and that ‘need to be able to fight/defend’ being the rationales for the seizures in the first place..
instead of talking about ‘peak-oil’..(which has already passed..)..
what we should be talking about/planning for is oils’-end….
which (going on current signs..and barring that ‘miracle technological-breakthrough’ so many are hanging their hats on)..
..will come upon us suddenly..
and within a single-digit number of years..
the earlier suggestion of popping the front windscreen on the suv so the reins can be passed through..
will be..for some..their reality…
(workhorse-breeding/horse-futures will be sunrise industries..)
the elites/rich and the pollies will be ok..in the short term..
but that won’t last long..
phil(whoar.co.nz
(um..!..is anyone else imbued with an air of urgency about all this..?..yet..?
if so…what to do..?..if anything..?
is it too late..?
is it time to join the ’survivalists’..?..and ‘go bush’..?
once again..a faux/short-term-only solution..
eh..?
time to get cracking/serious..?..doyareckon..?
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i’ve been trying to tell people for years to buy bambina’s i had one once when i was a kid i miss that lil smashupmobile.a lot of people i know don’t see cheap running but cheapper bigger models that was once out of their money reach. would a transport system say overhead system running above the motorways with outlying areas linking up withit be feasable? you.ve got the space except for the bridge heights theres more than enough room, the existing could be left for freight, probaly not, probaly cost 10 billion for auckland alone, you could even construct them from peizo-materials?
what i’m actually hoping is that the government subsidisers those small commercial firms out there when they are forced to change so atleast that if? they have to go towards smaller lighter transport of goods they will do so stil operating and people won’t go hungry. do you think they will charge an RUC on the hybrids?
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and hey..!..
how about letting your words breath a bit..eh..?
i know i over-indulge the claustraphobia of my written words..
but sheesh..!..
i just can’t face diving into a page/post/comment of dense/cluttered/jammed-up words..
(some of you are running ‘word-factory-farms’…
poor little oppressed/abused words..!..
jammed into their (double-whammy) sentence/capital-letter constricting cages.!.)
let them run wild..!..(free-range..?..)
(can i suggest trying to write as you would speak..?
and ‘word-breathing’ is also a good exercise..
..and the odd paragraph break..just as a starter …?..y’know..?)
gizzabita white-space..!..eh.?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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and if anyone dounts my war-for-oil scenario..
that is what the japanese attack on pearl harbour was all about..
(no..they weren’t just ‘evil-bastards’ who woke up one morning..and decided to attack america..on a sorta whim..)
cos’..y’see..at the time..america had been running a sea-based oil-blockade of japan..
..stopping any oil tankers from getting through..
and when japan actually retaliated/lashed out..
by attacking pearl harbour..
that ‘oil-imperative’ was top of their list of motives/drivers..
(hey..!..the victors always get to write the history..!..eh..?..
and this (little-known) pearl harbour fact/reason couldn’t be a clearer example of this in action..
so..we’ve already had our first oil-world-war..
and the one certainty is..
is that it won’t be the last..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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then phil what can we do about it? we do have supposed oil sitting just off our shores don’t we?
I’ll try it your way,
it’ll only take one aegis class warship to bring us to our knees aye?
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Amon
“We do have supposed oil sitting just off our shores don’t we?”
Good point. Maybe we’ll have to nationalise the oil production infrastructure if we become desperate. I don’t see why not. Brazil, Venezuala, Libya, Iraq, Iran etc all did with varying degrees of success and efficiency.
“Then phil what can we do about it?”
We educate ourselves and our friends, family, and neighbours. We hold our political, financial, and business establishments accountable. We use our remaining oil resources productively rather than profligately wasting it like we are currently. We’ve got five years in which to prepare.
You’re a builder aren’t you?
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~eeh/EEH.htm
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http://www.boklok.co.uk/
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its good here in sleepy hollow, Christchurch
we got this committment from incoming Mayor Bob Park here
he build 4 lane highwaqy from Sumner to Pegasucks,
good news,
peterquixote
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If I were a religious man I’d be praying they’ll find nothing but dispair in the great south basin. More rationally we can hope for a bit of “Thunder Horse” treatment. Trouble follows oil.
But then again what small semblance of sovereignty we still have will eventually be usurped for our water and soil resources. Whom shall be the hegemons of our agri-serfdom? Or will genocide be easier?
Discussing transportation ‘fixes’ gives a pleasant feeling of warmth to some, and indeed the great majority are blinded by this aspect. To my peculiar way of thinking the crux of the matter is that hydrocarbon depletion is a global problem which will manifest itself as a collision between rising overpopulation and declining food supply. I would wager War and Famine will ride again in the West.
I too now work with my hands… and save my brain for the wonders of comphrey, tiger worms and saprophytic fungi.
“Some of the happiest people I know have dropped out only a short distance. They still live in the city and have jobs and pay rent, but they’ve done something more mentally difficult — and mentally liberating — than moving to some isolated farm. They have become permanently content with no-responsibility slack jobs, low-status, modest-paying, easy jobs that they don’t have to think about at home or even half the time when they’re at work. Yes, these jobs are getting scarce, but they’re still a thousand times more plentiful than the kind of job that miserable people cannot give up longing for — where you make a living doing something so personally meaningful that you would do it for free.” – Ran Prieur.
http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html
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# phil u Says:
July 15th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
> and if anyone dounts my war-for-oil scenario..
> that is what the japanese attack on pearl harbour was all about..
I’ve also heard it suggested that part of World War 1 was about oil, and in fact about oil in a way that’s far more familiar to people today than that example….
The suggestion is that part of why the British Empire and the Turkish empire were fighting was that the British wanted to kick the Turks out of Iraq and get control of the Iraqi oil fields. Certainly the British did end up kicking the Turks out of Iraq and getting control of the oil fields. And if the Anzac troops had been more successful in gallipoli, that would have helped to weaken the Trukish empire, thus making it easier for the British to take Iraq.
And the other reason for invading was to make the Turkish colonies in eastern Europe ‘free’ so that the British and French governments could foist ‘free trade’ agreements on them. And the excuse for all this fighting was in response to Serbs and Croats massacring each other in Sarajevo. All sounds frighteningly modern, really.
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i was but dropped out to try other trades am thinking of diving into ac installation as my work partner is a “q” ac engineer from urugauy
he told me one of his best mates has just returned from antartica(hes argentinian) pilot in the argentine airforce flies their base people down there regularly
flies hercs i think anyway my mate said his mate says from the air you can see the rubbish buildup along the coastlines
and he said with all the fishing traffic down there and the advent of tourist ships coming in close it’s just getting worse.
love to go there if someone said i’ll fly you there if you pickup the rubbish then sweet because it isn’nt going to there long
my mate is going to ask jis mate to vidcam the next flyout over the ice maybe we’l be able to throw it up
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kane9″If i were a religious man”
i’ve always believed there is a moving force behind all that has/is /and will be, but i don’t push it upon others as it is personal.
i got my hands on a avi. that makes you think twice and i.ve been looking over some sites
basically it’s bout a war going on between the worlds leading microbiologists and geneticists
one side for “evolution” the other for “intelligent design”well i’m for the later as it’s arguments are to powerful to dismiss.
i don’t know how to throwup links as i’m knew to this but heres a name “Dr Stephen c meyers” “intelligent design”
it will make you think twice bout where we are today
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Yep, and Monty didn’t kick Rommel’s butt in Libya just to liberate the locals from the Nazis.
And Hitler wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to invade Russia if he didn’t think the Japanese had their eyes on Siberian oil. Seems he misjudged the Americans in exactly the same way he misjudged the Brits.
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PQ, Bob Parker hasn’t been elected Mayor yet. The current (Labour) Mayor has been appointed to the board of LTNZ. The road from from Sumner to Pegasucks is State Highway 74. The old Mayor will decide if 4-laning gets funded and built, not the new Mayor.
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Where is this road going? Over the estuary through Brighton???
jh
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jh, All that is being proposed is to complete the motorway from Saltwater Creek to the QEII expressway and to then duplicate the expressway to Tunnel Rd. It’s not in Transit’s 10 year plan and it’s not in Hellen’s electrate so it probably wont happen in any of our lifetimes.
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A five-year-old girl miraculously survived a crash after a train ploughed into a car, killing her parents, in the central North Island yesterday. Ohingaiti locals said the crossing was notorious and there were frequent accidents, though not fatal.
The crossing at the distinctive S-bend on SH1 at Ohingaiti is due to be realigned within the next year, with an overbridge planned.
This is the sort of new roads our petrol taxes were being spent on before the motorway folly began.
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Imagine a bridge across the Harbour and a new suburb on the slopes of Mt Herbert…
http://static.flickr.com/41/109639317_97d1810027_b.jpg
jh
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this answers the question..can you eart meat..and be an environmentalist..?
http://www.brook.com/veg/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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A program espoused in “Diet for a small planet” back when I was still a rebellious youth and dinosaurs walked the earth
respectfully
BJ
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http://www.independent.ie/national-news/why-does-it-always-rain-on-us- 1037809.html
Blame it on the greens? if you have a sense of humour.
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Well, all I can say Phil u, is that the man is preaching to the converted – and amongst all of it is some good information about diets.
Friend of mine was mostly vegan with an egg or two thrown in occasionally but he’s been homeless for the past few years and now eats out of bins. I’m sure he’ll be glad to know that his new eating habits constitute a category.
My god, I’m mostly vegetarian myself, except when I eat meat. I do get the arguments and I do agree mostly but I really do dislike the tone used by these dietary vigilantes. These people are angry and being angry always does far less good than being understanding.
I also realise that the whole food shops in Auckland always seem to have a fair proportion of SUV’s parked outside them. It all looks good on paper but when you see the whole picture it not quite what one would suppose.
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um..yes artyone..and only one of our green mp’s dosen’t eat animals..
(’tis a long journey ahead of us all..eh..?..)
and artyone..in defence of those ‘dietary vigilantes’..and their/our ‘anger’..
when you are sitting watching this government pimping dairy..
and poisoning/polluting the/our land in the process..blinded by the export dollar..
and the green mp’s too ’scared-to-offend’(?)/personally compromised(?)..to do what needs to/must be done..?
it can cause the anger/frustration to well up..
you’ll note the subjects never raised by frog..
(cannabis-law-reform/medical marijuana being the classic/obvious no!-no! )
and the list of ‘forbidden subjects’ most certainly do include this one..
the preference here is that we discuss wrapping hot-water cylinders..
and the placing of some import restrictions on second-hand car imports..
and of course..stop ge..
(all of course ‘worthy’..
but really..!..does anyone really think this is ‘enough’..?..)
(i have referred in the past to the subjects i used to bring up to the auckland greens that used to cause studied indifference/their eyes to glaze over..
this was one of them..
our upcoming battles with the dairy industry..
(and the economic upheavels this would cause..)
the anti-ge’ers/alliance refugees..leavened with the odd mp wannabe..
(who ‘checked out’ all the other partys first..and thought his ‘best chances’ lay with the greens..(!)..that’s a direct quote..)
..those who successfully colonised/took over the auckland green party some years back..
just couldn’t get their heads anywhere near that one..let alone ‘around it’..
not that much seems to have changed in the interveening years..
eh..?
(and of course the real ‘killer’ for the dairy industry..
will be when the explanations for our world-beating rates of some cancers are definitively linked to our world-beating rates of dairy consumption..)
when those lines are strongly drawn/finally proved..
it’ll be bye-bye dairy industry..
(boy..!..will we be embarrassed..!..
eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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This is related to the issue of high fuel prices. Some of you may be aware of, or have seen, the controversial documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, which has screened in the UK and Australia. One of the arguments against renewable energy put forward in the documentary is that renewable energy is too expensive for the developing world, and forcing carbon dioxide reductions on poor countries will condemn them to eternal poverty.
I have just read an interesting press release from the Tongan government which seems to refute the idea that renewable energy is too expensive for developing nations. One of the problems facing Pacific Islands is the high price of fuel. In the case of Tonga, renewable energy (in particular solar electricity) is seen as a way to reduce the costs of energy, not increase them as the “Great Global Warming Swindle” argues. Here is the link:
http://www.pmo.gov.to/artman/publish/article_460.shtml
Whether or not substantive action will be taken is another issue, but the press release does imply that renewable energy is cost effective for many developing countries right now.
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“this answers the question..can you eart meat..and be an environmentalist..?”
Yup – check out just about any traditional sustainable society and you’ll find meat eating. Most of the environmental arguments against meat eating are actually arguments against certain forms of production – vegetables produced in large-scale capital intensive mono-cultures are equally bad for the planet (for example, every kilo of the Aussie wheat we make our bread out of has cost 7kg of soil gone down the river, not to mention all the pesticides and fertilisers thrown at it).
Traditional small scale meat production generally relied on having animals to use up surpluses and waste products – hence the popularity of goats, chickens and pigs. My suggestion is to take up hunting – eat a goat for the planet.
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Sam raises a valid point. Tim Flannery, an Australian environmentalist, pointed out in one of his books that eating kangaroo meat was probably more sustainable than eating Australian grown wheat. Of course, you know which food item is most controversial.
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The early phase of war on Iran will soon begin guys.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0707/S00206.htm
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Sleepy
I hope you are right.
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SleepyTreehugger, The full story adds this line:
The message Lieberman said the NATO and EU officials conveyed to him is that Israel should “prevent the threat herself.?
Sounds more like NATO and EU told them to bugger off and Lieberman interpreted their words with a commendable degree of creativity even for a politician.
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Kevyn
There’s more to this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/lieberman-lays-the-ground_b_560 93.html
“Predictably, the Lieberman measure passed 97-0. But it’s not the reporting requirements themselves that are dangerous – it’s the amendment’s language. It lists a hodgepodge of undocumented and inflammatory accusations before stating that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable and unacceptable act of hostility against the United States by the foreign government in question.” (See “Update,” below.) These are words that invite an act of war against Iran, even in the absence of clear evidence of involvement.”
Can you say “Gulf of Tonkin” ?
Lieberman is a cagey operator and no friend to peace…. and the war powers act remains a toothless doormat for the administration to use as it pleases.
respectfully
BJ
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Excellent link bj, alarming.
It’s time to paraphrase George Santayana: “Those who would ignore current events are doomed to repeat them.” It’s not too late to prevent a disastrous attack on Iran, but time is growing short. And current events may repeat themselves very soon.
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http://www.voltairenet.org/article146942.html
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There’s a discussion on about peak Oil at Kiwi Blog. It is a doozey as it has bought several hairy beast out of their lair
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/07/peak_oil.html
jh
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BB.
You’re not the only one happy about a proposed invasion of Iran as the linked article demonstrates, but I’d suggest you read some of the responses from Iranians who are actually living there. Bear in mind that some of those people may be killed, mutilated, and/or lose loved ones as a result of American military “intervention”.
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=30fb483e 534a69e297a79006b0fd3f21
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Interesting comment on Kiwiblog:
Simo Says:
July 16th, 2007 at 11:45 am
“TV3 ran this story on Friday last with the usual falling icebergs, they need a phone call, the news editor needs a bullet, and John Campbell needs a decent set of heels to mimick the trash that eminates from his gob”
Makes ya wonder doesn’t it?
jh
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Sleepy
As soon as the Muslims care about the carnage they are causing in the western world (in the name of their god) I will start to care about the Iranians, until then I want the western leaders to take a pro active stance with these madmen.
Should innocent people die you can guarantee that we in the western world will not be dancing in the street in celebration unlike our eastern “friends”
In short I could not care, I want a world free of Islamo terrorists, it is about time that the west started fighting fire with fire.
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I read some statistics saying that a large majority want iran to vow not to try to possess nuclear weapons in excange for foreign aid, and something like 70% want a peafeful dialogue with the west. If america invades iran like it did iraq, then that majority is gonna go downhill, fast.
“What conservatives say when they think the liberals aren’t listening”
http://www.alternet.org/stories/57001/?page=1
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BB
The people behind the terrorist attacks are both extremists not representatives of mainstream Muslims and supported by Middle East Governments who are generally dictatorships in order to redirect their peoples aggrevation over social, political, and economic problems. Typical tactics of demagogues who seek to retain their hold on power.
For most Muslims the acts of the terrorists are about as representative as those of the Unibomber and arbortion clinic bombers are of anarchist and Christians.
Oh you mean these celebrations?
http://www.answers.com/topic/celebrations-of-the-september-11-2001-att acks
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BB
The people in Iraq are doing just that, fighting fire-with-fire. Oh wait, you mean for the WEST to start bombing the cr@p out of innocent people? Well the USA would have to STOP before it would be able to start… it seems sometimes that our number one export is expensive high-explosives air freighted directly to their destination. The address for delivery is unfortunately, coming out of a corrupted database.
This problem that should never have been, became as big and nasty and ugly as it is because it is a coming together of two memes. The first is the need/greed for oil on the part of Cheney & co. They want the oil the unfortunate people of Iraq happen to live on top of. The second is the real desire of Osama Bin Forgotten to foment a state of war between Islam and the West, bringing Islam together against a common enemy.
After 9-11 the correct strategy was not the grammatically perverted “war on terror” but a pursuit of criminals. This MAY have necessitated the actions in Afghanistan and indeed the world saw some justification for removing the Taliban and trying to bring that government up to scratch. Failing to pursue that effort is basically criminal negligence on the part of the USA.
It never EVER justified invading Iraq and indeed the treatment of the Iraqi people is one of the reasons that Iran shifted back into the control of the Mullahs.
Pursuing criminals, according people their proper civil rights and holding real trials would have been longer and more drawn out. It would have also saved over a hundred thousand lives, prevented Iran from troubling the West with a nuclear option, quite likely would’ve captured Osama Bin Laden and would have prevented the polarization that the current policy has created both internally and globally.
All that the “war on terror” got us was a photo-op of Bush in a flight suit as though he knew something about war.
respectfully
BJ
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At the moment an argument can be made (is being made) that peak oil is off on a distant horizon. Predictions are based on a lot of unknowns. Right now OPEC (say’s it) has spare capacity, but there is a lack of refineries.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4125442a6026.html
Not finished
jh
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Pimping Dairy! that’s good Phil. I do agree. The dairy and sheep farms our country is covered with are an open sore. The lands de-nuded and made to into meat factories. I so wish the abattoir aristocracy would realise that trees always look better on land than grass.
Yeah man, the truth of politics. My father always said that politics is merely the art of the possible but over time I’d have to say that politics is the art of the fallible.
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Until we have firmer evidence it will be business as usual.
jh
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artyone, Sadly, comparing Canterbury and the West Coast reveals what would have become of this country if we hadn’t replaced trees with pastures. No people and no money. Too bad if you’re one of those people dependent on that money, and who of us isn’t, ultimately, inthis country today?
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