Action plan has merit, the time to act is now
The several plans put forward to mitigate the flooding risks of South Dunedin are most welcome.
Climate scientists across the globe recognise that climate change poses existential risks to all communities whether they be on floodplains or at the top of slippery slopes physically and metaphysically.
Doing nothing is not an option. All plans which entail action have merit.
Previous city planners who set aside land for green spaces have created spaces which perpetuate as sources of wellbeing for the environment and its people. Those who argue that council should stick to core infrastructure such as pipes and roading are also those who enjoy commuting through green spaces or live in leafy suburbs.
My only concern with developing a plan which involves re-creating the area’s status as a lagoon for wildlife and humankind is that there seems to be no contingency as yet for where the displaced households may be rehoused.
Dunedin city is also in need of a significant number of new houses.
South Dunedin communities are growing in social fortitude. Its residents value having flat land. The uncomfortable dilemma of where the South Dunedin community might be re-established is an equally important discussion to have now.
People need time to get their heads around what will dramatically change their daily lives.
Bike rack ban
Since the "temporary" bike rack ban was put in place last November, the regional council has taken no publicly visible measures to address the underlying safety concern raised by the NZTA (around the possibility that some bike racks may be obscuring bus headlights). This apparent inaction is an ongoing source of deep frustration. My daily bike commute is around 36km, and most days I spend half that commute lugging home groceries in my backpack. I’d love to see those responsible for the lack of a timely solution get on a pushbike (not an e-bike), and bike from town to Broad Bay when a nor’easterly headwind is raising strong whitecaps in the harbour. I’d love them to experience what I have to put up with, so they can better understand the toll this ban is taking physically and in terms of increased commuting time. When will it end?
Incalculable impact
Dennis Wesselbaum (Opinion ODT 11.3.25) can believe climate change may not cause more frequent and intense storms; he is an economist, and as everybody knows if all the economists in the world were joined end-to-end they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
Weather is the climate system moving energy around, and our GHG emissions have put extra energy into the atmosphere and oceans. That's important because it is heat in an ocean that fuels hurricanes.
Surely Dr Wesselbaum is familiar with the work of Dr Friedericke Otto at World Weather Attribution? A 3.7°C increase in mean global surface temperature would mean vast areas becoming too hot for humans and others going under water as the ice melts.
No need to calculate the impact on the economy — there wouldn't be one. Here or anywhere.
But there might be dinosaurs on Antarctica again: two-legged ones.
School lunches
When you Seymour, you get less.
Handy cut-out-and-keep guide for councillors
Here's an idea for a farsighted philanthropist: Teach every councillor in New Zealand how to avoid wasteful spending.
Imagine the powerful effect you would have on our struggling economy ... all those grateful ratepayers who would retain more of their own money to spend the way they wish.
Re-educating profligate councillors may sound like wishful thinking, but Hilary Calvert has made the impossible possible. Her brilliant article (Opinion ODT 13.3.25) supplies precise, step by step instructions. So, dear philanthropist, please consider arranging to have a laminated copy of her article sent to every councillor — not just in Dunedin where the advice is desperately needed, but to every other councillor, too. You could also arrange for all incoming councillors to receive a copy as well.
No landslide
I would like to introduce a little perspective to the views of Joyce Yee-Murdoch (ODT 12.3.25) who repeats the claims of several Trump supporters that he won the 2024 election "in a landslide". Trump won 49.8% of the vote while Kamala Harris won 48.3%. A gap of 1.5% is hardly a landslide. Further, since only 63.9% of eligible voters actually took part this means that only 31.8% of all such eligible voters supported Trump.
Extravagant promises are nothing new
My first impression when the stadium was mooted, more than a decade ago, was that it would be a great idea, provided all sports were catered for, but then I began to process some of the "promise'’ it was to bring.
Really? "Intimate views with great sightlines’' of rugby, combined with hints, (no promises mind), of an eight-lane running track surrounding it? It just did not add up, as did so many other of the extravagant claims being made in support of the scheme.
More than a decade down the track, entrepreneurial elements in our city are still trying to find justifications for this ambush of Dunedin's ratepayers, by promoting ever more events which would be better spread around Dunedin's existing concert venues, including our town hall with its excellent acoustics. One might also query, why Wellington is dropping this Festival of New Zealand Talent, if it could promise so much for Dunedin. In rugby terms, just another hospital pass in the making?
We once had a very successful Festival Week which Dunedin and Otago people looked forward to each year. It featured a multiplicity of events, not a few sessions of the rhythmic thuds and amplified caterwauling which will be the lot of many Dunedin people, including, on still evenings, those directly across the harbour trying to get to sleep
I can see nothing in the scheme now being aired (ODT 14.3.25) which would suggest that for most Dunedin people, a festival would be anything more than yet another imposition on the city's already far-from-affluent ratepayers.
[Abridged — length. Editor]
Watch your eggs
I grow swan plants and advise people to monitor how many eggs are on the plants. Too many eggs equals too many caterpillars and the end result is no food. Any eggs are now on plants should be wiped off because it will be soon too cold for new caterpillars to survive.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
