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You heard it hear here first

Age story: Save the planet: make a V/Line for the trainI liked the vehicle emissions chart I posted here last week that I included it in Sunday’s presentation.

A journo at the presentation liked it so much he wrote it up for this morning’s Age.

The graph has been published again in full here (it doesn’t have my old Magna, and includes some extra cars) and are also in the slides from the forum on Sunday. It went well by the way — except some of the promotion didn’t hit the mark and the attendance was only about 100 people. David Spratt’s presentation from his book Carbon Code Red was particularly worthwhile, and confronting, painting a “we are in deep crap” picture of climate change which was not very comforting. Subsequent discussion about cycling and PT looked… well, fairly tame in comparison.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

6 replies on “You heard it hear here first”

Well done on your graph being picked up by The Age :)
I don’t think the average Joe Blow needs to be told we’re in deep crap, he/she already knows – it’s the govt and big businesses who need the proverbial boot up their bums to wake them up.

Hi Jayne – I hope you are right about Joe Blow and that ‘he’ will now get off ‘his’ butt and do something about it. Even if only to boot the bums of others, as you suggest. My feeling is he’s in denial and/or has other priorities in life. I suspect the message is only being truely heard by a small percentage of the population. At least that’s what evidence/observation would seem to support.

Daniel – would loved to have been there Sunday. One of those times when three events all happen on the same day. FYI: I just saw this on Peak Oil:

“World crude oil production has topped out at 85 million barrels per day even as demand keeps climbing, helping to drive a stunning surge in prices, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.”
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48854/story.htm

Jayne: I’d love to believe the average Joe Blow knows all this stuff. But I’m not convinced. The politicians like to try and please the general populace, and apart from things like signing Kyoto, and setting decades-away goals, are showing no signs of actually acting to reduce emissions.

Tony: Do have a look at the slides.
http://www.ptua.org.au/2008/05/19/speeding-towards-dangerous-climate-change/#slides

Chris: Bugger, you’re right.

That ‘Climate Code Red’ document http://www.climatecodered.net is an excellent summary of the warming/climate situation. Bit like Inconvenient Truth on steroids.

The kind of stuff that makes one want to rush out and save the world. Or turn up the heating and curl up in front of the plasma screen in denial.

If we all can’t bring ourselves to do the first, then at least we can call our electricity vendor and order 100% Accredited Green Power before turning on the TV. $1 a day.

http://www.greenelectricitywatch.org.au//index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=6&Itemid=32

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