Environmentally trendy
Further to the last post, in which the National Party discovered that New Zealanders care deeply about the environment and decided to use this fact to start poaching votes from the Greens, evidence of just how strongly we feel about environmental issues is available online using Google’s new toy, Google Trends, which provides information about how many people search for what on Google, and from where.
For example, a regional breakdown of people Googling “Peak Oil” reveals that New Zealanders are more likely to search for the term than users anywhere else. Same with “climate change”, “Kyoto Protocol”, and “whaling”.
Go us.
Hat tip to DG for this idea.
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May 15th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
See also exclusive brethren
May 15th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
maybe the fact that NZ and USA are the top two countries for peak oil searches is related to the fact that NZ and the USA are the top two countries for car ownership, both with very cheap petrol by world standards - it’s just because drivers are scared their way of life is coming to an end!
May 15th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
hey hey cool tool, you can compare phrases too, and restrict by country
what about comparing the four major parties in NZ searches only…
or how about global warming versus climate change
which shows that global warming is by far the more popular term so we shouldn’t read too much into what climate change shows, but also NZ is a leader in global warming searches as well.
More importantly this only in the english speaking world. I bet in Sweden and Denmark and Holland et al they search for global warming and climate change much more than us, but in their own language so we appear at the top of the table.
Anyway its time to stop searching and start acting.
May 15th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
stuey,
nice search technique ideas…
led me to: no demonstrable hits for ecofeminism; time us females got ourselves in print!!
Being a non-car-owning, occasional driver, I guess Google wouldn’t have much interest in what I have to say about peak oil and the global market in slightly dowdy vehicles (now if we could get this trend report in Japanese, there might be a linkage; middling-aged ecofeminists favour second-hand imports from land of rising sun…..)
Actually, Google doesn’t show any trend report for “feminism,NZ,2006″, either, so the whole Louise Nicholas media frenzy hasn’t made it past the filters in their system; says a lot about GIGO filing these days….
just a thot from my essay writing block
enjoy!
May 16th, 2006 at 12:54 am
Wot, no reaction to the Bleinhem biodiesel project?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0605/S00030.htm
When I read the quote
“We expect to produce at least 1,000,000 litres of bio-diesel per year from Blenheim”
I did a double take, and a couple of sums on the back of an envelope, and frankly I would have written it off as a hoax or a bunch of dreamers…
… but it’s Barrie Leay who’s saying it. Vicki Buck is also on board. These people are not flaky freaks.
Of course, you need to know more about the economics, and especially the energy inputs, of their process, but if it’s viable it’s a bleedin’ miracle.
Bearing in mind that Bleinheim has about 35000 inhabitants (and assuming that they are all hooked up to the sewers), that represents something like 300 litres of diesel per year from every man, woman and child! (DON’T throw that nappy in the rubbish… scrape it out carefully into the toilet!)
And with 300 litres of diesel per year, with a suitable small efficient diesel car consuming say 2l / 100 km, we’re looking at a seriously interesting post-peak-oil transport option.