Comments on: Green weekend reading http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/ hopping along the corridors of power Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:21:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: paulh http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6644 paulh Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:33:23 +0000 http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6644 Slightly off-topic cartoon insight. http://www.savagechickens.com/blog/2005/09/good-old-days.html Slightly off-topic cartoon insight.

http://www.savagechickens.com/blog/2005/09/good-old-days.html

]]> By: Aj http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6630 Aj Fri, 30 Sep 2005 07:54:57 +0000 http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6630 Related to US economy, oil etc. Interesting teke. http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/09/great-game.html Related to US economy, oil etc. Interesting teke.

http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/09/great-game.html

]]> By: katie http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6623 katie Fri, 30 Sep 2005 06:16:23 +0000 http://blog.greens.org.nz/2005/09/30/green-weekend-reading/#comment-6623 New Orleans is really a crucible of all of these issues - oil, environment, and social ecology; there is a true sense of seeing the end of an era in the NY Review piece - reminiscent of journalism I read around the time of the Chernobyl disaster. We have controlled our living conditions for so long that the effects of "natural disasters" take us by surprise, yet we have taken little notice of the brutalisation of nature that has been accomplished by our "civilising" urbanisation. I agree with the writer that for a myriad of reasons, New Orleans will rise again, in some form, despite the obvious madness of siting a major urban centre in such a fragile environment. I live in Wellington, where we take for granted that our urban environment is mitigated by fault-lines which would fragment our city in an instant, "when the big one comes"; yet most people are woefully unprepared for that event, and would struggle to find enough water, tinned food, candles, etc, to keep themselves comfortable for days, let alone the weeks that some householders waited out before being removed from their flooded homes in New Orleans. We blindly ignore that our motorway would fall into the harbour, or distort out of recognition, leaving children stranded in after-school care as adults trek from the city to homes in the Hutt Valley or Porirua basin - there are no contingency routes out of the city, everything is stacked against the motorway and if that bet fails, we are all losers as the vulnerable children and elderly will be too distant to reach quickly. Our compassion for our fellow humans has been subsumed to the worship of the almighty automobile, and our city still invests in motorways over other solutions, often in conditions that make engineering costly and difficult to accomplish. Now we are looking at an incomplete inner-city motorway extension, which may be a complete white elephant as the cost of importing oil climbs beyond any precedent. It remains to be seen whether this brings migration into the inner city at the magnitude anticipated by those who have speculated in appartment developments! Green members of parliament have a lot of challenges ahead for the next decade; if coalition partners can begin to understand what we've been saying for so long, then we will be able to provide solutions to some of the issues before they become disasters that are the topic of breakfast/dinner conversations around the world. New Orleans is really a crucible of all of these issues - oil, environment, and social ecology; there is a true sense of seeing the end of an era in the NY Review piece - reminiscent of journalism I read around the time of the Chernobyl disaster.

We have controlled our living conditions for so long that the effects of “natural disasters” take us by surprise, yet we have taken little notice of the brutalisation of nature that has been accomplished by our “civilising” urbanisation.

I agree with the writer that for a myriad of reasons, New Orleans will rise again, in some form, despite the obvious madness of siting a major urban centre in such a fragile environment.

I live in Wellington, where we take for granted that our urban environment is mitigated by fault-lines which would fragment our city in an instant, “when the big one comes”; yet most people are woefully unprepared for that event, and would struggle to find enough water, tinned food, candles, etc, to keep themselves comfortable for days, let alone the weeks that some householders waited out before being removed from their flooded homes in New Orleans.

We blindly ignore that our motorway would fall into the harbour, or distort out of recognition, leaving children stranded in after-school care as adults trek from the city to homes in the Hutt Valley or Porirua basin - there are no contingency routes out of the city, everything is stacked against the motorway and if that bet fails, we are all losers as the vulnerable children and elderly will be too distant to reach quickly.

Our compassion for our fellow humans has been subsumed to the worship of the almighty automobile, and our city still invests in motorways over other solutions, often in conditions that make engineering costly and difficult to accomplish. Now we are looking at an incomplete inner-city motorway extension, which may be a complete white elephant as the cost of importing oil climbs beyond any precedent. It remains to be seen whether this brings migration into the inner city at the magnitude anticipated by those who have speculated in appartment developments!

Green members of parliament have a lot of challenges ahead for the next decade; if coalition partners can begin to understand what we’ve been saying for so long, then we will be able to provide solutions to some of the issues before they become disasters that are the topic of breakfast/dinner conversations around the world.

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