The engine is running low, so are the ideas
Our prime minister is on the record saying that hope is not a strategy, so why is this government using hope as their strategy for future clean energy and reduced reliance on erratic fossil fuels?
Pumped hydro electricity was kicked into touch until recently revived by private enterprise. Of course it’s ideologically unacceptable to use even good ideas from the opposing team.
Encouragement for people to convert to EVs? Dead as a petrol-fuelled car at an empty service station.
Nicola Willis stated she didn’t want to subsidise the wealthy from Snobsville to purchase EVs while in reality at the time there were over 200 secondhand EVs on one website alone for under $20k.
Encouragement and subsidies for home owners to pursue solar or wind energy? A climate change denier induced big fat zero. (Apparently it’s ugly).
Subsidising public transport to help save fuel reserves? Empty.
Not to mention the deluge of industries shutting down partly because of gutless governance in the electricity supply sector.
As for any sort of positive result regarding Iran, with the least credible leader on the planet running the show? You would be a fool to bet on it.
We are right up the creek and the outboard motor is starting to splutter.
Hope appears to be our only strategy.
Measuring emissions
When discussing climate change and emissions it is imperative to understand the jargon, how things are measured and what are the parameters of the research.
A Nissan Leaf EV is advertised as zero emissions.
This does not mean no emissions were created in its manufacturing (13 tonnes) or in the delivery maintenance and recycling. Similarly, solar panels produce emissions.
Christchurch Airport says it is "carbon neutral" — if you don’t include emissions from aircraft that use the airport.
To establish Dunedin’s "gross emissions" surely should calculate emissions prior to European settlement.
This is our zero emissions point. Any emissions from here are our gross emissions.
Emissions locally and worldwide are primarily produced from economic activity. If everyone reduces their contribution to this activity worldwide emissions would decrease.
The wealthier you are the higher your carbon footprint and so possess the ability to reduce carbon emissions more effectively and faster than someone with a lower footprint.
It is also bearing in mind that although reducing air particles in Dunedin will have positive benefits to our health it will have zero, no effect on reducing global warming.
If I lived in South Dunedin and wanted to mitigate the impact of climate change on me, I would raise the height of my home by one metre.
Booze issues
MP Nicola McKee remonstrates with the ODT editorial (Opinion "Getting the booze balance right," 24.3.26).
She alludes to the relativism of gross v net, and of bars being safe, regulated spaces.
The next day, on the regions page, came a report of a man being sentenced after drunken abuse and assault of women during a Queenstown bucks' night.
Buck's fizz. Perhaps regulate the thematic victualler.
So, just who is the Earth setting on exactly?
Looking again at the Earth from the Moon and thinking about Apollo 8 you can't help looking at us all floating through infinite space on our biosphere without asking who are we now?
I would sum us up as a ball of confusion and contradictions, assimilated children of countless empires and traders trying to survive as best we can.
Thanks to extraction technology we have more than doubled our human population since the famous "Earthrise" photo was taken but somehow we look a bit dusty and sad.
Artemis II's photo has been referred to as "Earthset" which is sadly ironic because space has got our junk floating in it now and space travel might become too dangerous in 60 years’ time for humans with cameras.
Also, from the deranged superpower posturing down there?
Just stop it
Once again Dunedin City Council is having to spend money on legal fees due to Cr Ong's failure to familiarise himself with council protocols and heed advice. He's a waste of space, time, and money.
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