One could very much argue that people are forced into driving here, as decades of under-spending on public transport (coupled with huge spending on roads) means that we have an incredibly unbalanced transport system. For example, the best option suggested by the Maxx Journey Planner for me to get from my home to my work at peak hour is a 1 hour and 55 minute walk!

Are Aucklanders just a weird form of humanity that loves their cars more than other places around the world? The huge increases in public transport patronage over the past 6-8 years might suggest otherwise… where we’re given a decent alternative to the car we will use it.

One of the biggest obstacles to developing a coherent response to global warming is the refusal of Green change advocates to grasp that our current car-centric culture exists because in a market economy CONSUMERS LOVE THEIR CARS. Note love – not a mild flirtation, or a dilatory dalliance – a full blown ongoing love affair exists between the consumer and the motorcar. The implications for developing public policy in a democracy are obvious, yet the Green’s just don’t want to get it. But in black and white, here it is. In a democracy, you will never win substantial power on an anti-car platform. All the high minded commitment to a Green new deal will count for nothing if you are not on the treasury benches because your policies are for ideological reasons permanently in diametric opposition to something very close to most voters’ hearts.

So firstly it seems to me the correct approach for a Green new deal, at least in the medium term, is to give up the demonisation of the motorcar as a symbol of western consumer excess and accept the car is here to stay and seek technological alternatives not to the car in general but the internal combustion engine in particular.

Secondly, accepting the public love affair with the car should lead to a more realistic approach to developing a public transport infrastructure. Accepting that you will only force people out of their cars by prising their cold, dead hands from the steering wheel means you can make the obvious case for things like draconian congestion charging at peak flows, and accept that public transport can’t be simply an inconvenient and time consuming option that you really should do because it is good for the planet and all, but it has to be frequent, swift, reliable and CHEAPER than the car to attract sufficient ongoing and willing patronage.

Anyway, that is my little comment for the day.

Hence now it’s returned to normal.

It probably will happen again, but it’s besides the point.

People don’t use our shitty public transport system, because it is just that. The way New Zealand is, the public transport system doesn’t work for most people. You are going to have to accept that. Unless you want to start pouring billions in to the redesign of cities. Yeah, how long is that going to take?

It’s about being realistic. Public Transport, on the scale you guys have been talking, is not realistic in the time it’s going to take to build, the money that would have to be spent nor would it be realistic for most people to use. It’s really self evident.

Please look in to the electric car movement. Funny how GM is about to start pushing their electric cars in to mainstream production this year eh?

Where would the power come from? Could divert that money from public transport in to building more power infrastructure

If New Zealand wants to stand around burying its head in the sand we’re going to get totally hammered in terms of our international reputation. Even if right-wingers don’t believe in climate change surely they are worried about our international reputation. 100% Pure, Clean & Green New Zealand doesn’t cut it if we’re one of the handful of international countries pulling back on climate change talks. Just look at the hit Australia and the USA’s reputations took when they weren’t involved in the Kyoto Protocol.

Infused….. tell me what’s the average age of a car in New Zealand? How much more expensive are electric cars than normal cars? What does one do about issues relating to the scarcity of battery components? By the time electric cars become affordable for the majority of us it’ll be decades into the future. In winter last year when petrol was $2.20 a litre traffic volumes across Auckland were down by 5-10% while public transport was bursting at the seams…. why wouldn’t that happen again?

They have been saying that as long as I can remember. It is like fusion energy – always 20 years away. Sounds like you’d prefer to live in faith rather than reality.

Tell you what, lets test your hypothesis. Put up the price of petrol to say triple the current values and see what happens. Perhaps they can magically get around their fundamental issues in electricity storage technology, like rarity of the types of rare earths required for the best storage systems.

In the meantime, there are well known efficient public transport systems that available now – like rail. All you have to do is to start putting in infrastructure early enough.

But wait, you elected a moronic government. They can be compared to Russia and the Ukraine for their touching inability to understand basic science

Now, please learn to keep up with the facts.

This is a load of shit. US is full of hot air. They are going to do nothing.Key is right for not putting anything forward.

And shut the hell up about highways. Electric cars will become mainstream over the next 5 years. What are we going to drive them on, railroads?

And here are the graphs derived from that and other data:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Occasional periods of cooling are just natural variation, look at the trends, all of the trends, over decades…

Remenber, this is from NASA, James Hansen’s baby not some right wing thinktank funded by dirty oil.

Yes, and this is what NASA say about their data:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/rosenzweig_02/

A vast array of physical and biological systems across the Earth are being affected by warming temperatures caused by human activity. These impacts include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia; and shifting of the oceans’ plankton and fish from cold- to warm-adapted communities. Based on an analysis of aggregated data, we recently published a study which is the first to link observed global changes in diverse systems to human-caused, or anthropogenic, climate change.

The study found that humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and that the warming world is causing impacts on physical and biological systems attributable at the global scale.

Remenber, this is from NASA, not some deluded right wing blog troll.