Scope for UDS to factor in oil prices ?
From:
Brian Sandle
Date:
Jul 08 01:09 UTC
Short link
John S Veitch (OFL) wrote:
> Hello Andrew,
>
> I don't imagine that there is any planning for economic decline. The
> rapid change in the way we move about the city, is not on the main
> agenda. Those who have been talking for years about what is now
> beginning to happen have been sidelined, if not silenced. Bigger and
> better has been our objective.
>
In the followup to the UDS - the RPS change process pre-hearing
meetings, I asked team leader Laurie McCallum whether any development of
new technologies was factored in, and he replied it was based on things
going much as they are at the moment.
> Against urban planning as usual, is the higher cost of fuel, falling
> real incomes, increasing cost for heating and energy and higher prices
> for almost everything. There is the continuing economic decline in the
> USA, now obvious and I'm predicting it will get much worse in the next
> two - three years. The USA is much more fuel dependent than NZ,
> financial corruption is rife, the political system is inflexible. The
> Democrats might come to the Whitehouse, but in America nothing
> fundamental will change, until there are riots and city burnings. The
> economic flu from the USA will add to our troubles, but we've seen that
> coming for years, so hopefully most of our investments are already
> partly decoupled from that situation.
>
> New Zealand is much better placed, we've already suffered a major
> restructuring,
Our dairy farming is more efficient but what happens when other
countries bring up their efficiencies? I don't think it will be
advantageous to continue relying on dairy.
John goes on to talk about a lot of ice we have to break. That is before
this so-to-speak ice age gets worse than it is already. Which reminds me
that Irinka was asking about any coming planetary ice age, related to
global warming, wasn't it?
Many of us save with super for our retirement. Not all get to use it.
Maybe we should be putting a bit of our GDP aside for ice age
preparedness, even if we personally do not get to use it.
We might first have a lessening of available land as sea levels rise.
When you have ice in a drink it holds the temp cool till it all melts,
then it suddenly starts to warm. Does anyone know much about the under
ice-shelf melting of the ground-sitting Antarctic ice-sheets?
http://www.niwascience.co.nz/news/mr/2002/2002-03-22-1
is an interesting article wondering about icebergs coming to NZ. It was
written 4 years before they did come. What happened to them by the way?
"The presence of icebergs in the Southern Hemisphere coincides with warm
periods in the North Atlantic Ocean, where evaporation of the ocean
surface produces water that is saltier than normal. The density of this
salty water – known as North Atlantic Deep Water – causes it to sink and
flow south. It eventually reaches Antarctica and may contribute to the
melting and breaking up of the ice shelves."
The shelves are the floating ice. If the ground-sitting sheet ice is
melting, too, underneath, that will lower sea levels, until big bits
start to break off., causing sudden rise.
Same as we need a way to think about alcohol problems we need a way
think about possible planetary change.
Once the Bering Strait was blocked with ice. Pressure of the northern
ocean build up behind it burst the ice away, affecting oceanic heat
exchange. Though there are rhythms in planetary warming and cooling
there are many unpredicatble factors. We have been able to co-ordinate
on fluorocarbons and the flimsy ozone layer. Maybe we can do some more
with any affect we are having on our planet, as well as preparing for
what we cannot avoid.
.