Climate Change Thread

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#3109006 28-Jul-2023 10:19

Senecio:

Its been pointed out earlier in this thread, but its unfair to point the finger at China when a large part of the emissions they produce go into exports.

We will never make progress until we accept that it is a global problem. Where the emissions are generated is largely irrelevant.

We are totally incapable of pulling together and acting globally.

When people fight over a patch of land somewhere that I wouldn't even bother to s**t on, claiming God gave it to them, I know there is no future for us.

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SaltyNZ

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#3109012 28-Jul-2023 10:23

cddt:

The volume of cheap tat which people buy these days is astonishing. Despite my best efforts to discourage it, various friends and relatives still show up with arms full of cheap plastic crap for the kids. They would be perfectly happy with a quarter as much of the toys they have.

Zuru founder Nick Mowbray donated $250K to the National Party and $100K to the Act party. I am sure that this is simply because he is personally a big fan of democracy, and not at all because he expects a NAct government to be friendly to his cheap plastic shit empire.

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MikeB4

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#3109019 28-Jul-2023 10:34

The attitude of "we cannot do anything", It's someone else's problem" I relate to the European colonial policies, take take take and when its all gone, oh dear, how sad, never mind and bugger off to repeat it elsewhere. The elsewhere is the nightmare future the incredibly selfish attitude is gifting our mokopuna and tamariki.

cddt

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#3109054 28-Jul-2023 12:03

MikeB4:

The attitude of "we cannot do anything", It's someone else's problem" I relate to the European colonial policies, take take take and when its all gone, oh dear, how sad, never mind and bugger off to repeat it elsewhere. The elsewhere is the nightmare future the incredibly selfish attitude is gifting our mokopuna and tamariki.

The problem is there is no (or minimal) support for people who want to take action to minimise their own emissions.

Walking in the rain for miles carrying your shopping to prevent the burning of a litre of petrol is all well and good the first one hundred times you do it - but eventually even the hardiest soul says "bugger it, I'll drive today".

The entire system is set up to make a high emissions lifestyle the easiest and hence the default for most people. Making sacrifices so you reduce emissions is all well and good when you're young and without dependents - but as soon as you run short on time and energy it doesn't work anymore.

I lived without owning a car for seven years in my 20s, and commuted with public transport for many years beyond that, but nowadays I can't imagine putting up with the inconveniences and vagaries of the bus system when the reality is I need to get home ASAP.

evilengineer

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#3109058 28-Jul-2023 12:16

Geektastic:

It’s true. I’m always surprised by the assumption that we must do all we can to ensure humanity survives. I can never work out why it particularly matters in the grand scheme of things really. There’s no guaranteed right the Universe has given us to exist for eternity.

Well in the context of the uncaring universe nothing matters.

The sun will run out of hydrogen fuel, become a Red Giant and take out the Earth as it expands.

And eventually we'll get to either the heat death of the universe or a reverse big bang.

In the meantime, the same biological imperative to pass on our DNA to future generations also implies that it would quite nice for those future generations to have an environment that allows them to do the same.

johno1234

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#3109063 28-Jul-2023 12:37

Senecio:

Its been pointed out earlier in this thread, but its unfair to point the finger at China when a large part of the emissions they produce go into exports.

We will never make progress until we accept that it is a global problem. Where the emissions are generated is largely irrelevant.

Yet, in the avalanche of public messaging, there's not been one single message about consumer consumption. It's just about energy consumption - something most Kiwis are not in a position to do a lot about *, and farm animal emissions which by the current argument should be addressed by the consumer, not producer (especially if some producers have a lower emission rate).

* Most of our electricity is renewable already, most Kiwis cannot afford a BEV and most are reliant on personal vehicle use.

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#3109076 28-Jul-2023 13:13

johno1234:

* Most of our electricity is renewable already, most Kiwis cannot afford a BEV and most are reliant on personal vehicle use.

Yet every time a new shared cycle/walkway and or cycles lanes are proposed there is cries and tears galore. Whenever alternatives to cars such os Lightrail, new passenger rail, bus services proposed there are cries and tears galore. These are probably the same folk who claim they have to use their car. It is easy to achieve nothing if nothing is all you are aiming for.

SaltyNZ

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#3109086 28-Jul-2023 13:29

Hear hear!

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johno1234

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#3109365 28-Jul-2023 17:14

MikeB4:

johno1234:

* Most of our electricity is renewable already, most Kiwis cannot afford a BEV and most are reliant on personal vehicle use.

Yet every time a new shared cycle/walkway and or cycles lanes are proposed there is cries and tears galore. Whenever alternatives to cars such os Lightrail, new passenger rail, bus services proposed there are cries and tears galore. These are probably the same folk who claim they have to use their car. It is easy to achieve nothing if nothing is all you are aiming for.

It is as impractical for me to commute by bicycle as it is for you. It is too far, and I am not willing to carry the things I need to carry to and from work on a bicycle. It is also too dangerous, and the weather is too inclement. Commuting by cycle is a complete pipe dream for many or most Kiwis. It might work in some flat, small areas but completely hopeless in places like Auckland and Wellington unless you are lucky enough to live near work.

Depending on where I am working, PT can take between 15 minutes and an 90 minutes depending on directness. That 90 minutes would be 30-45 by car. PT can also be unreliable or cancelled or late.

Light rail goes nowhere near the locations required by most Aucklanders and is insanely expensive. I will take a bet with anyone that it will never be built. The people in charge can't even tell us if it will cost $8billion or $30billion. Even at the extremely unlikely lower guess it would be cheaper to buy a fleet of 200,000 BYD Atto3s give them away. At the higher end of the ALR price range you could give almost every household in Auckland a free BEV car!

You cannot do your family shopping or take the kids to sports using buses or trains. Commuting on PT is fine if you and your work are in the right place that's why 270,000 PT trips are taken every day in Auckland. However for the rest of us, where a car ride is 30min and a PT ride is 90min it is simply not feasible.

Our emissions are not too bad if you exclude farming *which we should). Most of the G7 emissions are already below 1990 levels so diminishing returns there now. China's emissions are not peaking until 2030 at the earliest. Oh and China has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords.

There's little we can do about it in NZ. Our transport emissions are already small and there's nothing you and I can do about our agricultural emissions other than transferring them to higher emitting producers.

cddt

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#3109384 28-Jul-2023 17:35

johno1234:

Light rail goes nowhere near the locations required by most Aucklanders and is insanely expensive. I will take a bet with anyone that it will never be built. The people in charge can't even tell us if it will cost $8billion or $30billion.

Inexplicably the price estimates for light rail in Auckland are an order of magnitude higher than the actual cost of light rail deployments in other countries. Mostly because they have decided to dig a very expensive tunnel rather than run surface rail, all in order to save a few carparks on artierials which shouldn't have them in the first place.

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#3109393 28-Jul-2023 18:17

MikeB4:

Yet every time a new shared cycle/walkway and or cycles lanes are proposed there is cries and tears galore.

Cycleways are not a cost effective way to reduce transport emissions. The money would be better spent electrifying the remainder of the bus fleet, or improving uptake with better public transport services.

One very simple thing that the Wellington City Council could do to encourage walking is to do some proactive enforcement of footpath parking in suburban areas. Unfortunately they won't do it because they are ideologically obsessed with bicycles despite the fact that pedestrians massively outnumber cyclists.

Benoire

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#3109396 28-Jul-2023 18:31

johno1234:

It is as impractical for me to commute by bicycle as it is for you. It is too far, and I am not willing to carry the things I need to carry to and from work on a bicycle. It is also too dangerous, and the weather is too inclement. Commuting by cycle is a complete pipe dream for many or most Kiwis. It might work in some flat, small areas but completely hopeless in places like Auckland and Wellington unless you are lucky enough to live near work.

Depending on where I am working, PT can take between 15 minutes and an 90 minutes depending on directness. That 90 minutes would be 30-45 by car. PT can also be unreliable or cancelled or late.

Light rail goes nowhere near the locations required by most Aucklanders and is insanely expensive. I will take a bet with anyone that it will never be built. The people in charge can't even tell us if it will cost $8billion or $30billion. Even at the extremely unlikely lower guess it would be cheaper to buy a fleet of 200,000 BYD Atto3s give them away. At the higher end of the ALR price range you could give almost every household in Auckland a free BEV car!

You cannot do your family shopping or take the kids to sports using buses or trains. Commuting on PT is fine if you and your work are in the right place that's why 270,000 PT trips are taken every day in Auckland. However for the rest of us, where a car ride is 30min and a PT ride is 90min it is simply not feasible.

Our emissions are not too bad if you exclude farming *which we should). Most of the G7 emissions are already below 1990 levels so diminishing returns there now. China's emissions are not peaking until 2030 at the earliest. Oh and China has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords.

There's little we can do about it in NZ. Our transport emissions are already small and there's nothing you and I can do about our agricultural emissions other than transferring them to higher emitting producers.

I've bolded this bit at the top. I live in Titirangi Auckland, I commute to ATs HQ in the viaduct. I commute by ebike. I do ~40km round trip and it takes me ~35mins each way on average, by car its 50mins each way including the walk from the car park and PT is 1.5 hours each way inclduing the walk. I ride in all weather and have wet weather overclothes for bad weather and lights/helmet as normal. I have two panniers that carry a change of clothes and my work gear. I ride on a mix of cycle facilties and mixing with traffic... I wouldn't go back to the car and I rarely use PT. My experience is a bike is easily capable of giving you the commute you need and is efficient and can be used for other things. I still have a supercharged v6 at home (but sold by BMW 550i as it was sitting on the driveway unused) so I still need a car but I need much less.

Light Rail does go through a working population of 200,000K people with an analysed catchment that works and then with the wider networks that are possible it picks up even more... just remember that increased PT usage and saturation creates a freer road for HGV and those that need their car.

Our emissions are small but there are a quite a lot of countries like us that make up 1/3rd of the emissions of the planet and a small bit of influence can set of a cascade of change in similar nations.

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#3109404 28-Jul-2023 19:12

cddt:
johno1234:

Light rail goes nowhere near the locations required by most Aucklanders and is insanely expensive. I will take a bet with anyone that it will never be built. The people in charge can't even tell us if it will cost $8billion or $30billion.

Inexplicably the price estimates for light rail in Auckland are an order of magnitude higher than the actual cost of light rail deployments in other countries. Mostly because they have decided to dig a very expensive tunnel rather than run surface rail, all in order to save a few carparks on artierials which shouldn't have them in the first place.

So it is explainable then?

MikeB4

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#3109407 28-Jul-2023 19:35

The time to procrastinate what is the most cost effective alternatives in order to reduce carbon has long passed. We sat on our collective butts too long and we no longer have the luxury of time.

The cost of inaction is going to cost orders of magnitude more.

morrisk

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#3109409 28-Jul-2023 19:44

MikeB4: The time to procrastinate what is the most cost effective alternatives in order to reduce carbon has long passed. We sat on our collective butts too long and we no longer have the luxury of time.

The cost of inaction is going to cost orders of magnitude more.

It is already costing us more .

We need to stop burning oil, gas and coal now. Not looking to some target in 10 years or whenever - stop now.

The words from the Secretary General of the United Nations say it all - we are moving from climate warming to climate boiling.

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