Don’t Stop

Written By: - Date published: 6:16 am, June 21st, 2023 - 20 comments
Categories: activism, climate change - Tags: , ,

Superb, powerful and very smart short film from Greenpeace. Well worth the 7 minutes to watch.

This is not your typical charity song. It’s a call to arms, an impassioned plea to take action today, for the sake of tomorrow. Together we can stand up to the fossil fuel industry. Add your name now: https://act.gp/3NaCqhN

Greenpeace UK

20 comments on “Don’t Stop ”

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  1. Ad 1
    21 June 2023 at 8:21 am

    When I get a moment I'll do a post on the depth of cultural addiction regional New Zealand has to cars and their culture. Hopefully without getting too NZGeographic on it.

    • weka 1.1
      21 June 2023 at 10:33 am

      small and medium town and rural sustainable transport is something most people just aren't talking about yet. There is no easy BAU swap like there is in big cities. It will require behavioural and lifestyle change in addition to whether one centres their car or not.

  2. PsyclingLeft.Always 2
    21 June 2023 at 9:16 am

    Lost lines

    As late as 2002, services operated between Auckland and Hamilton, Tauranga and Rotorua, Wellington and Napier, as well as Christchurch and Invercargill.

    20 years later just a handful remain and New Zealand is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world.

    Emeritus professor of sustainability at Massey University Ralph Sims, who has been a lead author on transport for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says rail has a lot to offer.

    "It could take hundreds of cars off the road and that's the key thing because roads are getting more congested, but every car is producing a lot of carbon dioxide, around 50 kilograms for a 300 kilometre journey, just in that time, whereas a train would be a fifth of that," he said.

    "New Zealand is one of the highest car owners per capita in the world, it's also got one of the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the world, particularly OECD countries and therefore there's a good reason why we need to reduce our personal emissions here, our carbon footprint, and getting out of the car is a key way of doing

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/06/road-to-rail-can-nz-get-back-on-track-with-rail/

    Regional Rail

    Certain pundits complain these days that rail isn’t “a possibility”. That the “time has passed”. That “it’s too expensive”. And to that I say: if we’d made changes 30 years ago we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If we’d maintained our lines and services throughout the advent of the car, we wouldn’t be starting from scratch now.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-05-2023/regional-rail-what-is-what-was-and-what-could-be

    • tc 2.1
      21 June 2023 at 2:25 pm

      We also cant maintain the roads like we used to thanks to nationals rons taking up maintenance budgets without extra funding and increased tonnage on trucks destroying shoulders and corners.

      I live rurally and my district council admitted they work on complaints now. What used to be scheduled is now based on who complains the most it seems.

      • KJT 2.1.1
        22 June 2023 at 8:36 pm

        Raising the loading on roads, with bigger and more frequent trucks, without re-designing and rebuilding from the lowest substrait up, tends to have that result.

        As does only renewing the top metal and seal after washouts and damage.

    • Tony 2.2
      21 June 2023 at 6:45 pm

      PL.A Fact check, Ralph Sims says an average car travelling 300 kms will produce 50 kgs of carbon dioxide, even a really inefficient 2 litre car will attain 100 kms per 10 litres of fuel, so 300 kms at 30 litres of fuel which weighs.737kgs per litre equals 22.11 kgs, how on earth can 22.11 kgs turn into 50 kgs of carbon dioxide when most is spent internally and a measure is also carbon monoxide? I am a big fan of Regional rail and used it extensively to explore NZ in the 60s and 70s.

  3. Descendant Of Smith 3
    21 June 2023 at 12:21 pm

    It should clearly be part of our response to an aging population to enable those who will no longer be able to drive to still be able to get around the country – particularly since family often have scattered elsewhere to have good rail transport.

    I certainly know as someone who doesn't drive how less I get around to visit family since the demise of rail. To get to places I used to go in half a day by train has turned into a full day exercise with three connecting buses and the wait times in between.

    I see some retired people already coming unstuck on their just out of town lifestyle blocks as they lose their licenses to drive to stroke, eyesight or dementia. It would be interesting to see if anyone has forecast the potential volumes of non-driving old people.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 3.1
      21 June 2023 at 6:41 pm

      It would be interesting to see if anyone has forecast the potential volumes of non-driving old people.

      Hi, yea I would say this would be seen as a whole other area of Somebody Else's Problem…

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem

      Except its not a problem. "Get an uber" cant be an answer. You and all, are our Community and family.

      We need to become a caring, sustainable place. For all. From that, much good will grow…..

      Transition towns. 20 Min Cities. Some parts of our Earth embrace this. Can we?

  4. PsyclingLeft.Always 4
    22 June 2023 at 8:18 am

    Professor Susan Krumdieck. Transition Engineer. (amongst others)

    I rate her highly.

    In the movies, when there’s a mission to save the Earth, we know who the hero is and we trust that failure is not an option. But right now, we are losing the battle to prevent destructive global climate change, and we’re losing big. Our backs are against the wall.

    We are not losing because we don’t have enough solar panels or wind turbines, or because we haven’t made enough biofuel. For the past 50 years, we have placed our hopes in green technologies as substitutes for fossil fuels, but sustainable energy alone is not a realistic way to achieve our mission — and now we are out of time. The reason we are losing is because the world is consuming 100 million barrels of oil every day. Fossil fuel is used for everything: providing our food, making our stuff, getting to work and having fun.

    The rational options are to redesign, redevelop, regenerate, redo, rebuild, reorganize everything.

    The parameters of our mission are simple, obvious and doable, and failure to tackle climate change is not an option.

    https://www.the-possible.com/energy-transition-climate-change/

    This is all….absolutely Possible. The answers are there. And…completely Rational. The alternative…our Earth burns/freezes/dies.

    • weka 4.1
      22 June 2023 at 9:15 am

      that's a great quote. I've been saying for a while now that the blocks to climate action aren't technical or technological, they're political and social. The biggest block right now is the power vested in a relatively small number of people and companies. Oil companies being an obvious example. Some of those people are clueless, some are in denial, and some don't care and rate money and power above life.

      The problem in that problem isn't the oil companies. It's in the public who either feel helpless or who don't want to change either. This is most obvious in NZ where we have a Green Party in parliament who have costed plans for transition and who also have the deep understanding of the issues and the vision of how to get us through this mess. That's absolute gold. Yet NZ voters keep them on 8 – 10%. Worse, some on the left undermine them often.

      Most people are still clinging to the idea that we can just replace fossil fuels with green tech and carry on our merry way. That door has closed. We're now on the backfoot and having to adapt at the same time as mitigate and it's just not possible to do both of those with BAU. We have to be willing to change, in our own lives, all of us. Government and business change is a given as well, but without that individual willingness to change, people will not vote for the Greens or other parties who know the way forward. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines complaining about big business and government's failure to lead. That's the sticking point.

      • PsyclingLeft.Always 4.1.1
        22 June 2023 at 9:55 am

        We have to be willing to change, in our own lives, all of us

        I (as you probably also) changed decades ago. Small things for a start….and the biggest change ? Thinking. What is possible ? What could be possible?

        I found that a lot of Possibles….became Doable. (word : )

        Could I bike (rebuilt bikes)….most places, instead of a car ? Yes !
        Can I reuse/refill containers at "supermarket" Alternatives? Yes !

        As we know, a lot of this….is not Recycling..but ReThinking.

        Many others… : )

        I def support Greens also. Their new Economic Transition also just makes sense. A great Possible. Can be Doable : )

        Oh re Prof Susan..(sad loss for NZ..but still working for our Earth albeit in Scotland ! )

        Her very cool book : "Transition Engineering Building a Sustainable Future"

        Is now an Open Access download courtesy of Canterbury University NZ. Many thanks !!

        https://www.transitionengineering.org/abode/getCategory.do/_categoryId__6252/_siteId__56/method__getCategoryProducts

        • Phillip ure 4.1.1.1
          22 June 2023 at 11:57 am

          @ pla..

          You left out the major change achieved by stopping eating animals and their bye-products..

          My annual polluting rate is 4.3.tonne…the oecd average is 18 tonne…nz is 24 tonne..

          A useful exercise to undertake is to do one of those polluting surveys..(many available online .)

          Key in accurate answers the first time..

          Then do it again..answering the diet questions as if a vegan…

          And be amazed…!

      • Tony Veitch 4.1.2
        22 June 2023 at 11:24 am

        It's in the public who either feel helpless or who don't want to change either.

        Nobody, nobody is going to be more surprised than Joe Bloggs when climate change bites him on the bum!

  5. PsyclingLeft.Always 5
    23 June 2023 at 10:11 am

    https://forestandbird.org.nz/climateshift/

    Ten Point Plan. And all Doable.