Kevyn Says:
May 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

> Americans have a “bigger is better� fixation.

Certainly the American car market bears that out. But I’d be interested to know if it also means that they don’t have the fetish for smaller and smaller cellphones that New Zealanders seem to have (though I suppose what we tend to go for is smaller in size but bigger in features).

Personally, I have a bit of a fixation about small cars. I look at a Ford Ka or a Fiat Bambina, and marvel that they managed to fit all the bits of a car into such a small space.

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If you’re going to compare the medal count between one country and another, a per-capita basis is clearly more logical than a per-country basis. what’s really wanky is taking personal pride in the number of medals won by an olympic team you weren’t even a member of, whether on a per-capita basis or a per-country basis.

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I am glad you found my bit of pop psychology hilarious. That was my reaction to yours too. Well, as an experienced systems analyst I know it’s not a stupid statistic. That honour belongs to the agregate medal count since that ignores the number of competitors from each country which, all else being equal, determines the medal count. Although, to be perfectly francis, what sort of person needs to get excited about Olympic medal counts anyway?

Next thing you’ll be telling me that New Zealand is about as significant as New Mexico

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Kevyn haha, might be time for you to get out of NZ or at least see someone you are suffering from large New Zealand syndrome.

She laughed because its s stupid statistic and your claim that it isn’t only reforces my point that new zealanders see themselves as this important country on the world stage.

Oh I just showed her your post now she’s laughing even louder so am i. Sorry about that cause I know you actually believe your self which is quite scary.

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Samiuela,

We aren’t saying we shouldn’t reduce C02 emissions what we are saying is we shouldn’t get involved in these silly schemes, if you are going to reduce C02 emissions then you need to do it for real.

Also what is the green party going to do about goods made overseas and shipped into NZ. Lets imagine I as a local New Zealander create a product which has a much smaller carbon footprint. What protection do I recieve from the New Zealand government to stop the Chinese from shiping the same good into New Zealand with a super high carbon footprint. Either the New Zealand government will need to give me a subsidy or they will need to impose a tarif on the chinese product. Good luck with that samiuela the China free trade agreenment doesn’t allow it

So if we can’t impose a carbon tarif on imports then all that will happen is New Zealand business will not be able to compete with overseas business and they will go out of business.

You need to take the blinkers off and focus on the bigger picture so before we try and build policy to handle C02 emissions we need to revisit every free trade agreement and our involvenment in WTO. Any effort needs to come from the WTO as the WTO is the only organisation that can do anything since the only real way to handle this is to apply a carbon tarif on all goods which reflects the good’s carbon footprint, only the WTO organisation can do this. I haven’t even heard you talk about this elephant in the room.

Oh and btw I am going to vote green but I guess you want me to stay home not that it matters as I vote from overseas so I’ll be mailing my voting papers from home anyway.

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Turnip28,

You are partly correct that nations are a fundamental unit which human society operates on. However, it is incorrect to say that CO2 reduction should be focused on nations alone. Here is an example why not: China is a major CO2 emitter, yet it is also the most populous nation in the world. China’s per capita emissions are much lower than New Zealand’s. Why should a Chinese person have to suffer cutbacks when someone in NZ doesn’t?

All the people here who say NZ is insignificant … you are mostly correct. But using that same logic, why do you bother to vote? After all, your individual vote is insignificant, and won’t determine which party forms the next government.

So I put this challenge to all you who are arguing along the lines that NZ shouldn’t do anything to reduce its CO2 emissions, because it is insignificant: this election, stay at home and don’t vote, after all, your vote won’t count.

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turnip, It’s hardly surprising that your American girlfriend laughed when you presented the per capita stats. That’s a fairly standard nervous response when people are threatened by the possibility of being pushed out of their comfort zone. Americans have a “bigger is better” fixation. Epitomised by their “might is right” approach to diplomacy. American industry’s focus on quantity before quality pretty much explains the demise their automotive and home electronics industries. Hence when you presented your girlfriend with a sophisticated understanding of reality she was lost for words and had to respond with a non-verbal ad hominem attack. In essence you experienced the American version of the tall poppy syndrome, aimed at the intellectually sucessful rather than the financially successful as it would be in this country.

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fwog,
I am naive, I told you before, be part of the next Government
NZ GOVT 2008 NAT GREEN

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SleepyTreeHugger, thanks for that reply. I will take your word on all that – would seem to bode well for the other EU countries if they can follow Sweden’s lead, one would think?

Notably, Sweden has committed to shutting down all of its nuclear power plants by 2010, though there are some issues surrounding that. Only ONE minor political party wants to build new ones!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out_in_Sweden

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Agreed – and I think that it could be too pricey for the Greens to take a fall for it – given that it achieves less than the energy efficiency strategy for the first Kyoto period, and will hopefully be scrapped therafter for a carbon tax.

So the Greens need to go for the lot or not support it. If Helen is serious about it she will have to concede – if she isn’t, there is no money and it will fail anyway, then the Greens will have to let it die.

National is out to increase the profit margins of its cronie puppet masters in the business round table and all their sham NZ institutes. New Zealanders rate as pawns and serfs to them.

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McTap,

“With National not supporting the ETS The Greens have a significant chance to extract some improvements out of the government.”

Problem with your reasoning is that Labour are not supporting the ETS either. Did you see provision for it in the budget? A budget which is going to cut state spending by a 1/4 billion every year for the next 4.

So where the Greens then?

Especially if National forms the next government.

Question will be if Natioanl do then bring out a ETS that better suits New Zealand economic needs, will the Greens support it?

To early to say I guess. But dont hold your breath for Labour to race into a ETS anytime soon. There is no money in their budget.

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Thanks firstly to the bluefans for sharing their ideology, its awesome to have your counterpoints.

I agree that emissions trading is a crock, and just as I want to eliminate speculators from distorting food and house prices, we need’nt give John Key’s mates another market to play.

This morning I read that railway lines we built in the use using the same tools for building horse drawn carts. The width of a track is based on the need for horse drawn carts to avoid the wheel ruts created by Roman chariots on the roads that the romans built in Britian.

Subsequently, when NASA built the space shuttle, the width of its rockets were constrained by the tunnel built to accomodate the train, built to drive on the tracks, spaced to avoid the ruts caused by the wheels of roman chariots spaced two horses a*ses apart.

Who will be the horses a*rses if the greens end up supporting an ETS that subsidises polluters, diverts taxes, and stifles our transition to a low carbon economy? (low fossil fuel pastorial and arable production of high quality food products? value added timber products (e.g. laminated streesed beams)? wind and sail technology?)

The greens?

I think it will be those that opposed the original carbon tax, instead of trying to improve it as the greens are now trying to improve the ETS. Our tunnel is that we have a short time period to get into line as a country with international best practice on tackling our CO2 emissions. Otherwise our products will not be desired in the EU, as highlighted by StephenR’s link, and we won’t be one more country adding to the weight of the seesaw to get all countries on the same wagon.

Unless we can can the ETS and put together a workable carbon tax system in an election year?

With National not supporting the ETS The Greens have a significant chance to extract some improvements out of the government. Sure it is election year and the bluefans will be kicking up a stink, but they can only fund so many smear campaigns with the EFB. I think the Greens could at least get the dairy industry in? They wern’t going to vote labour anyway so why pander to their lobbists?

Greens – don’t let the gov’t buget bribe soften you up! If the ETS gets a green stamp the Greens will suffer its short comings – not the Govt!

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# dbuckley Says:
May 25th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

> Airships have to be a distinct possibility, but I suspect for many purposes, ocean going ship will be more cost effective.

yep, but airships have the advantage that they can go where there is no sea. For getting logs out of plantation forests they would be much more efficient than trucks.

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Airships have to be a distinct possibility, but I suspect for many purposes, ocean going ship will be more cost effective.

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Not to mention Monbiot on airships.

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dbuckley

How about the ships of the air er. airships.?

Its a misconception that airships are dangerous, because of the Hindenburg disaster. Most of the people who were killed or suffered major burns did so because they jumped or fell from the airship or got burnt by the diesel fuel not hydrogen. Not to mention the fact that the skin of the balloon was highly flammable, being composed of dark iron oxides and reflective aluminium paint. How about this one?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,533281,00.html

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@Turnip28 “I think I can see New Zealand being one of the first countries in the world loosing International Air Travel in the future. What would be the effect of that on New Zealand society.”

I’m old enough to have travelled to and from New Zealand before the era of the 747. I expect that era to be over within my lifetime. I was 10 on my last trip from NZ to England, and can remember many happy times on the seven weeks of ship voyage.

I can assure you that ocean liner is the only way to travel. As future generations will discover, as sail power makes a resurgence…

Given that NZ is very dependent on tourism and international trade, the end of cost effective air transport for both people and goods is going to have a dramatic effect on just about every aspect of NZ, in a way that many less isolated countries will not experience. This is part of my reasoning behind why buying the train set was a good idea, and why we shouldn’t attempt to exploit what oil and gas reserves we have yet, as a quick buck now will be a bigger loss later on.

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StephenR,

Its inappropriate to compare the performance of Sweden’s economy to ours because we don’t meet certain conditons that has provided a favorable economic environment that we can’t hope to match. a) a close integration with a powerful political bloc (E.U.) that has provided substantial institutional and financial aid to Sweden b) integration into a powerful trading bloc that provides a environment conducive to trade and development and access to a massive market on favorable terms and
c) nuclear power fills a substantial part of their energy production

http://www.snee.org/filer/papers/368.pdf
http://www.eurout.hu/webset32.cgi?Eurout@@HU@@75@@GOOGLEBOT
http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/ene_cou_752.pdf

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dbuckley I was just thinking that in the future when i’m like 70(31 right now) years old. I’ll be telling the young people about climbing Mayan ruins in the Belize jungle and none of them will probably get a chance.

How is the aviation gas price affecting Air New Zealand I know the US airlines are suffering and many people are starting to talk about not being able to afford to fly anymore. Is the New Zealand government going to have to bail Air New Zealand.

I think I can see New Zealand being one of the first countries in the world loosing International Air Travel in the future. What would be the effect of that on New Zealand society.

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BJChip: “…fly to my kids to Disneyland for their birthdays…”

This poses a difficult dilemma to me.

It is true that flying anywhere for any reason is environmentally not the smartest thing to do.

On the other hand, the smiles on the faces of kids and the lifetime of memories that a trip to Disneyland brings to a family is hard to exaggerate.

I saw the file The Bee Movie a few moths ago. There was a general humorous reference in there to theme parks in general, and other than my daughter, no-one in the cinema laughed. I remember at the time thinking that because NZ is a low wage economy, all these kids have been deprived of that theme park experience.

Before many years are gone, commodity airline travel will be but a memory, and future generations of kids will not get to visit Orlando, Florida, a place that has more than its fair share of the magic. And thats really sad.

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