(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE!!

Not that she'll ever read it, but it's sixth_light's little sister's birthday today, so, yay! :)

Also, it's April Fool's Day. Um, I can;t think of anything clever, so I won't say anything. (Dave, if you try that trick again I will GUT YOU. ;) No, not really.)

Also, in the paper today thre's one of those, you know, little interview things with half a dozen people asking them how they feel about the petrol tax hike. You know what frustrates me? One of the guys in the article said that it was unfair because "Using a car is the Kiwi way of life, it's just what we're used to." And you know what else? The only person who said she's try to use the bus more was the one person who needed a car: the mother who used her car to take her daughter to kindergarten in the mornings.

*annoyed* Now, I don't drive, so I appreciate that the hike isn't going to affect me much and I do sympathise. But hang on a second, people, when we drive we burn petrol, which pollutes the atmosphere, releases CO2 and is just generally bad. Why are we so annoyed that we keep having to pay more to do this? Because we see it as a sort of divine right, the ability to drive. Of all the people who were surveyed, most used their car to drive to work- one woman used it for her shopping, and one for her kid. Those, IMO, are good reasons to use a car. "Just crusing around town"? NOT a good reason. Maybe the petrol hike will STOP that, which, yeah, so it'd be annoying, but maybe it would also be a good thing.

Cause we wouldn't, like, die of pollution, or something?

yeah.

Comments

Unicorns!

[rysade.livejournal.com]

Well in that case, have you heard of the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

Re: Unicorns!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

... No!

*mocks gently* :D

[kitsunerei88]

ugh, and that just contributes to global warming. . . and the estimates are that at best, the climate will rise by one degree by 2050, and at worse, it'll rise some 13 degrees by the same time. And the glaciers and ice sheets are melting, making the ocean levels rise and they'll rise at from 1 to 3 metres by 2050. And a whole bunch of stuff like that. . . And all the little islands will get swallowed. . . nyow.

I hope NZ is part of the Kyoto Accord. . . I know Canada is, and we are so not going to ratify it by the time it says we should. The government is issuing a "One Tonne Challenge" to Canadian to hopefully reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. . . but it's not working.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we are. Our government is generally good like that.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Orson Scott Card rants a bit about Global Warming on his website (http://www.hatrack.com).

I thought some of his points were interesting. That the tendency of the planet is to be covered in ice and in that way Global Warming is a good thing that protects humanity's hanging around.

I know I haven't seen huge amounts of scientific reports that agree with each other on what's happening, which tends me to beleive that we can't reach too many conclusions (of course, without being certain we should be playing it safe).

But I think his biggest problem is that he feels the Kyoto Protocols will not cause as much good (he says some admit it won't do anything really) as bad, particularly to the US.

Comments?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

:-/ I don't know- I only skimmed it, but what he seems to be saying is that the US economy is more important than, like, ANYTHING OMG, and going on about how if the US economy collapsed, so would the rest of the world's. (Also bitching about how it's giving China and India "a chance to catch up." Sorry, that's a _bad_ thing?)
Hello, Earth to Orson: the US economy is practically in a state of collapse as it is??

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he definately has a whole US centric thing going on (we need peace, we need a good economy, nothing else trumps our needs).

I was more pointing at him talking about getting all the data in one place and actually figuring out what it could mean. I see stats all over but I'd like to see scientific reports, y'know what I mean?

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Cause we wouldn't, like, die of pollution, or something?

No, that's what the aircon in the 4WD is for, dummy.

Geez, no wonder we wouldn't let you drive.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Oh.... I get it now!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Er, that was meant to be sarcasm, but I just looked at it and it doesn't sound very sarcastic. ;P

[mandor700.livejournal.com]

Cambell says weve got 50 years left you know, and he should know... he has large ears.
But anyway, I hate cars in general except for this one dutch one I saw on a show... but thats beside the point. Wellingtons got one of the best public transport systems in New Zealand if not most of the world, and it's so compact! You can walk prety much anywhere you want to go in the central city (tho you may get slightly pufed on hills but thatll keep you fit) and people still feel they need cars?
Anyway rant over, how long u up here with us cool people in Welly for?

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

50 years? :( Bad bad bad.

My birthday? Good good good. ;)]


Me? Not good with words right now.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah. Not till tomorrow, though, right?

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

That's right :)

[kuril.livejournal.com]

MMm.. and you know what else would be good? Charging toll fees for the major arterial highways in New Zealand like they do in S. Korea. Unless they already do that -- I hadn't read anything to that affect.

1) People who use cars will pay to keep these roads in good condition
2) People who use cars will pay to keep the environment around the roads in good condition
3) People who use cars will pay to invest into the rest of their country's environmental health
4) People who use cars will help pay for their country to invest in economical mass transportation for those that don't drive (who will also help pay for such means of transportation through tickets, GST (I'm not sure what GST funds... any pie charts on this one? :-) and other taxes)

In any case, eventually the goal would be to destroy private ownership of vehicles and have a system in place whereby any one person can get to any one place with minimal fuss. It'd be a social revolution and also a political revolution at the same time for such a shift in cultural thinking.