Even with debt & tax shackles of 30% of GDP, Govt has $60b for rebuilding better post-Gabrielle; suggestions include massive solar resilience projects, accelerated mode switch & spongey city shifts
Agree with all but nuclear (not economical, environmentally disastrous, unnecessary with our renewable resource riches), renewable hydrogen for transport (chasing a dangerous silver bullet, energy carrier that requires a ton to energy to produce, only application that may become worthwhile is stationary hydrogen), and Starlink (evil Nazi overlord can change his mind and take it all away at a given moment, see Ukraine). Also don’t see why we should subsidise people to collect their own water, every other sane country charges for excess water use!
What we need more than anything is top soil restoration and moving away from Monsanto soil microbe killers to farming methods that grow the SoilFoodWeb TM. They will also sequester a massive amount more carbon than pine plantations (or even native forests) ever will - and make much healthier food which doesn’t need massive irrigation, fertiliser or pesticide application. Restoring wetlands, marshes and swamps is a must. Also invest in blue carbon projects - sea grass & sea weed restoration and create more and larger marine reserves to increase ecosystems & protected habitats for resilience to climate shocks affecting the ocean the most (like the marine heat waves causing all this disaster).
I still think that the issues around the disposal of the waste & local risks, including fire, quake, tsunami, volcano would add an unnecessary risk given the increasing capability of renewable generation & grid level power storage.
Upgrading the nationwide electric grid network to enable the roll out wind & solar generation from large scale to residential, enabling smart meter/controllers at individual business/residential for local battery/E-vehicle charging/local use & feeding back energy to neighbourhood.
AND doing so in a federated manner to allow real multiple competition solution & supply providers.
Has anyone done the work on costing what free public transport looks like? It would be good to put a figure to the proposal because this is such a simple, immediate, and effective measure.
Does 'full public exposure of (revised) maps of flood zones' have a place on the whiteboard list? Plus principles for sharing the costs of relocation, which is also going to be an issue if redesigned 'walkable neighourhoods' around transport hubs become a reality.
The list and discussion concentrates on 'things', electric this and that, transport networks etc. These are impt, but not as impt as our THINKING about them. The Gov failure that is criminal is a failure to think differently and provide the vehicles (pun intended) to do so. Where are the public discussions? The climate assemblies? The confronting of our expectations with the realities of change - both +ve and -ve (better health, cheaper, more circular, community focused, but less 'stuff'). As Donella Meadows points out, the largest leverage points in a system are at the level of paradigm, not the level of things or even rules. https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
Plan for and invest in moving vulnerable utilities before the event, not just a like for like but including alternatives and redundancies (and non-network solutions) that provide diversity.
Education, awareness, and other incentives to require/encourage demand management rather than 'just build a bigger one'
Apparently wind power on farms or for communities resilience (not in national grid) is in the order of multiple tens of thousands more long lasting and resilient than solar) so I vote for that free power 😂 to cover the country not resurrecting a failed grid we have to pay too much for a number of times and which can be flogged off for profit.
Increasing the numbers of Army, Navy, Airforce personnel seems sensible so long as they have the kit to use. But better in my opinion to do what it takes to increase numbers of Territorial Army ie part time soldiers, who could be trained as service people and available for civil emergencies. And, do the same for Air Force, Navy, and Civil Defence and Fire and Emergency USAR (Urban Search and Rescue ) a long time ago in another century we had robust Territorial Army, Navy and Airforce structures.
It can be done. Indeed, almost everyone's favourite city, Paris, was almost completely rebuilt by Georges-Eugène Haussmann between 1853 and 1870 (although work on his projects continued until 1927).
12,000 mainly dingy and overcrowded properties replaced; 127 km of new streets; a completely new sewerage system; 7,100 hectares of redevelopment; a dramatically healthier population and a city that could support nearly twice as many people in better living conditions. All for about NZ$150bn at today's money.
Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris since 2014, has revived Haussmann's passion for a more liveable city. Less air pollution, a huge uptake in bikes, pedestrian-friendly areas, a far greener Paris.
Vision, on a huge scale (although, tbf, Haussmann did not have to deal with a 3-year election cycle).
Unpopular at the time (Haussmann was eventually sacked), yet today the world loves the City of Light and the City of Love.
I think they will have to focus on a big fast and reliable electric bus fleet and arterial routes upgrade now. All city dwellers should have a “short” walk to these from home, school or work so that will take mapping. I don’t mind city centres having speciality transport outliers. Then move onto spongifying, walk and bikifying the other streets done to maybe one lane with humps so suburbs are less car dominated and beauties with trees spongy drains and cooling. They should just get on with it. Small community owned wind power production and that may include waste disposal and water collection (domestic water tanks are required in Oz). So they some of my suggestions. I’m still thinking about rural areas as the individual travel is huge so kids have always bussed etc. agree with everything else you said fast trains inter-regionally etc would really help. Have just changed my view on solar (too windy here anyway 😂) with decentralised wind power best all over best and not needing huge farms of them.
Also Wayne Brown quite rightly pointed out the new large expressways if required are supposed to be placed, designed and built lower to become rivers in floods to divert water away. Certainly the IRB’s driving down the Napier expressway looked like it worked that way. Big projects like that probably shouldn’t be needed everywhere if rail is used properly for freight. Trucks do no good to our kiwi roads at all. Agree some things just aren’t worth resurrecting.
Ooh such an exciting initiative, I love a good whiteboard session. I like all the ideas so far except nuclear on the basis of accident and leak risk in our shaky isles. To help pay for this I would like to accelerate the speed of removal of free carbon credits for our biggest polluters (this will incentivise Fonterra and Genesis to reduce coal burning pronto), and I would like the carbon price to be unleashed from it's artificial shackles, yes petrol will go up but that will help speed the transition to public transport and EVs. I would remove subsidies for hybrid cars, as research has confirmed they are barely better than ICE. I would renationalise Air NZ, all public transport providers and KiwiRail and build a truly comprehensive public transport system without any profits going offshore. I would prevent any more pine trees being removed from steep slopes and leave those to revert to native bush/hold the hillsides up, paying the owners a carbon dividend instead. I would also like to renationalise the power companies so that they work in the best interest of NZers not their shareholders. I also like the idea of Kainga Ora acquiring safe land in our inner cities and building apartment blocks on bus/cycle routes with cafes and offices on the lower floors to accommodate climate refugees from all over. Keep the suggestions rolling everyone!
So many of those things need to happen, but I'm most in favour of Richard Whatman's comment on here.
And separately - when I see the artist's impressions of how to do an inner city, town, whatever I see no old people, no 'disabled' people. When I started out as a young OT back in the 60's one thing we focused on was accessibility. In the years since it has become a mainstream concern. Now that I'm much older I can't leap blithely from bus to bus to bike to quick sprint. I must be meant to stay home. Just so I don't feel too unsuitable for the climate though, I've found something good I can do. In Seattle there has been a new kind of business set up that composts us when we're dead. Google it. I squirmed a bit at first but ... I do want to help.
Require councils to allow professional arborists to maintain trees on berms
https://thekaka.substack.com/p/ask-me-anything-about-the-week-to-f6d/comment/12852462
Agree with all but nuclear (not economical, environmentally disastrous, unnecessary with our renewable resource riches), renewable hydrogen for transport (chasing a dangerous silver bullet, energy carrier that requires a ton to energy to produce, only application that may become worthwhile is stationary hydrogen), and Starlink (evil Nazi overlord can change his mind and take it all away at a given moment, see Ukraine). Also don’t see why we should subsidise people to collect their own water, every other sane country charges for excess water use!
What we need more than anything is top soil restoration and moving away from Monsanto soil microbe killers to farming methods that grow the SoilFoodWeb TM. They will also sequester a massive amount more carbon than pine plantations (or even native forests) ever will - and make much healthier food which doesn’t need massive irrigation, fertiliser or pesticide application. Restoring wetlands, marshes and swamps is a must. Also invest in blue carbon projects - sea grass & sea weed restoration and create more and larger marine reserves to increase ecosystems & protected habitats for resilience to climate shocks affecting the ocean the most (like the marine heat waves causing all this disaster).
As potentially interesting as the development of Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-smrs
I still think that the issues around the disposal of the waste & local risks, including fire, quake, tsunami, volcano would add an unnecessary risk given the increasing capability of renewable generation & grid level power storage.
https://twitter.com/NZheretic/status/1627518503262756864
Upgrading the nationwide electric grid network to enable the roll out wind & solar generation from large scale to residential, enabling smart meter/controllers at individual business/residential for local battery/E-vehicle charging/local use & feeding back energy to neighbourhood.
AND doing so in a federated manner to allow real multiple competition solution & supply providers.
Has anyone done the work on costing what free public transport looks like? It would be good to put a figure to the proposal because this is such a simple, immediate, and effective measure.
Does 'full public exposure of (revised) maps of flood zones' have a place on the whiteboard list? Plus principles for sharing the costs of relocation, which is also going to be an issue if redesigned 'walkable neighourhoods' around transport hubs become a reality.
The list and discussion concentrates on 'things', electric this and that, transport networks etc. These are impt, but not as impt as our THINKING about them. The Gov failure that is criminal is a failure to think differently and provide the vehicles (pun intended) to do so. Where are the public discussions? The climate assemblies? The confronting of our expectations with the realities of change - both +ve and -ve (better health, cheaper, more circular, community focused, but less 'stuff'). As Donella Meadows points out, the largest leverage points in a system are at the level of paradigm, not the level of things or even rules. https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
Appreciate the solar narrative, but why not domestic wind generation as well?
Plan for and invest in moving vulnerable utilities before the event, not just a like for like but including alternatives and redundancies (and non-network solutions) that provide diversity.
Education, awareness, and other incentives to require/encourage demand management rather than 'just build a bigger one'
Apparently wind power on farms or for communities resilience (not in national grid) is in the order of multiple tens of thousands more long lasting and resilient than solar) so I vote for that free power 😂 to cover the country not resurrecting a failed grid we have to pay too much for a number of times and which can be flogged off for profit.
By our darling Governments..
Increasing the numbers of Army, Navy, Airforce personnel seems sensible so long as they have the kit to use. But better in my opinion to do what it takes to increase numbers of Territorial Army ie part time soldiers, who could be trained as service people and available for civil emergencies. And, do the same for Air Force, Navy, and Civil Defence and Fire and Emergency USAR (Urban Search and Rescue ) a long time ago in another century we had robust Territorial Army, Navy and Airforce structures.
It can be done. Indeed, almost everyone's favourite city, Paris, was almost completely rebuilt by Georges-Eugène Haussmann between 1853 and 1870 (although work on his projects continued until 1927).
12,000 mainly dingy and overcrowded properties replaced; 127 km of new streets; a completely new sewerage system; 7,100 hectares of redevelopment; a dramatically healthier population and a city that could support nearly twice as many people in better living conditions. All for about NZ$150bn at today's money.
Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris since 2014, has revived Haussmann's passion for a more liveable city. Less air pollution, a huge uptake in bikes, pedestrian-friendly areas, a far greener Paris.
Vision, on a huge scale (although, tbf, Haussmann did not have to deal with a 3-year election cycle).
Unpopular at the time (Haussmann was eventually sacked), yet today the world loves the City of Light and the City of Love.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/31/story-cities-12-paris-baron-haussmann-france-urban-planner-napoleon
I think they will have to focus on a big fast and reliable electric bus fleet and arterial routes upgrade now. All city dwellers should have a “short” walk to these from home, school or work so that will take mapping. I don’t mind city centres having speciality transport outliers. Then move onto spongifying, walk and bikifying the other streets done to maybe one lane with humps so suburbs are less car dominated and beauties with trees spongy drains and cooling. They should just get on with it. Small community owned wind power production and that may include waste disposal and water collection (domestic water tanks are required in Oz). So they some of my suggestions. I’m still thinking about rural areas as the individual travel is huge so kids have always bussed etc. agree with everything else you said fast trains inter-regionally etc would really help. Have just changed my view on solar (too windy here anyway 😂) with decentralised wind power best all over best and not needing huge farms of them.
Also Wayne Brown quite rightly pointed out the new large expressways if required are supposed to be placed, designed and built lower to become rivers in floods to divert water away. Certainly the IRB’s driving down the Napier expressway looked like it worked that way. Big projects like that probably shouldn’t be needed everywhere if rail is used properly for freight. Trucks do no good to our kiwi roads at all. Agree some things just aren’t worth resurrecting.
Ooh such an exciting initiative, I love a good whiteboard session. I like all the ideas so far except nuclear on the basis of accident and leak risk in our shaky isles. To help pay for this I would like to accelerate the speed of removal of free carbon credits for our biggest polluters (this will incentivise Fonterra and Genesis to reduce coal burning pronto), and I would like the carbon price to be unleashed from it's artificial shackles, yes petrol will go up but that will help speed the transition to public transport and EVs. I would remove subsidies for hybrid cars, as research has confirmed they are barely better than ICE. I would renationalise Air NZ, all public transport providers and KiwiRail and build a truly comprehensive public transport system without any profits going offshore. I would prevent any more pine trees being removed from steep slopes and leave those to revert to native bush/hold the hillsides up, paying the owners a carbon dividend instead. I would also like to renationalise the power companies so that they work in the best interest of NZers not their shareholders. I also like the idea of Kainga Ora acquiring safe land in our inner cities and building apartment blocks on bus/cycle routes with cafes and offices on the lower floors to accommodate climate refugees from all over. Keep the suggestions rolling everyone!
So many of those things need to happen, but I'm most in favour of Richard Whatman's comment on here.
And separately - when I see the artist's impressions of how to do an inner city, town, whatever I see no old people, no 'disabled' people. When I started out as a young OT back in the 60's one thing we focused on was accessibility. In the years since it has become a mainstream concern. Now that I'm much older I can't leap blithely from bus to bus to bike to quick sprint. I must be meant to stay home. Just so I don't feel too unsuitable for the climate though, I've found something good I can do. In Seattle there has been a new kind of business set up that composts us when we're dead. Google it. I squirmed a bit at first but ... I do want to help.