Australia Faces Its Demons

[A17]

7 hours ago, Will! said:

Bloomberg: Sydney's New Suburbs Are Too Hot for People to Live In

The photo of those houses is depressing. Literally no space between them or back gardens. Surely with all the space they have there they could have larger lots of land?

[dugsbody]

On 22/08/2020 at 10:15, PeanutButter said:

I have a fundamental problem with regarding human lives in purely economic terms. When we quantify people as units of growth, as producers or consumers, we reduce them down into a financial worth and nothing more. 

That's a misinterpretation (or purposeful misrepresentation) of people being pro allowing people to move around. I want people to be able to move around because it helps them, not because of any tangental benefit.

 

[PeanutButter]

8 hours ago, A17 said:

The photo of those houses is depressing. Literally no space between them or back gardens. Surely with all the space they have there they could have larger lots of land?

And bigger suburbs, and longer commutes, requiring more roads built, more concrete? 

You want depressing? Whatever they do it won’t help. The heat they’re tolerating now is the result of atmospheric emissions from 40 years ago. 

Australia is dying. Wait until all their BTL magnates realise.

[PeanutButter]

3 hours ago, dugsbody said:

That's a misinterpretation (or purposeful misrepresentation) of people being pro allowing people to move around. I want people to be able to move around because it helps them, not because of any tangental benefit.

 

If moving helps one person, but negatively impacts another already there - is it a net good?

 

[shlomo]

7 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

If moving helps one person, but negatively impacts another already there - is it a net good?

 

Use this to work it out

[A17]

18 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

And bigger suburbs, and longer commutes, requiring more roads built, more concrete? 

You want depressing? Whatever they do it won’t help. The heat they’re tolerating now is the result of atmospheric emissions from 40 years ago. 

Australia is dying. Wait until all their BTL magnates realise.

My idea would be vast exurbs, with plenty of green space and decent roads between them. It may mean a longer commute in km, but 15km on a highway will be quicker than 5km in stop start congested urban streets.

[PeanutButter]

40 minutes ago, A17 said:

My idea would be vast exurbs, with plenty of green space and decent roads between them. It may mean a longer commute in km, but 15km on a highway will be quicker than 5km in stop start congested urban streets.

Green space requires water. Brownish red dirt space, now that they can do. How much time have you spent in Aus?

[A17]

5 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Green space requires water. Brownish red dirt space, now that they can do. How much time have you spent in Aus?

True. I've never been to Sydney, but the parts I have visited were either red dirt or tropical swamps.

Green space was perhaps too far, but certainly keeping wide open areas (mini green belts) with the local flora - scrubland, local trees etc. No need for manicured golf courses and lawns.

[mattyboy1973]

1 hour ago, A17 said:

My idea would be vast exurbs, with plenty of green space and decent roads between them. It may mean a longer commute in km, but 15km on a highway will be quicker than 5km in stop start congested urban streets.

These already are fairly vast "exurbs", and quite a drive in (on a freeway) to Sydney, which are usually extremely busy. Sydney's big problem (IMO) is the dire public transport infrastructure (appalling slow trains, extremely limited routes) and over reliance on the car. They were still building and proposing new freeways into the city when I finally gave up on the place - the mentality on transport is stuck in the 1970's. It doesn't really matter how many multi-lane roads you build heading into the city, if they all end up heading to the same congestion point. Similar story driving around the inner areas, especially at the weekend. I don't know what the solution is apart from serious new public transport spending, but not much sign of that happening and, even if they get proposals going now, it will be decades before it is ready.

And yes, those Western suburbs get horrendously hot. Shocked to see how closely they are packing those houses, though, and how small the gardens are.

Edited September 17, 2020 by mattyboy1973

[PeanutButter]

2 hours ago, A17 said:

True. I've never been to Sydney, but the parts I have visited were either red dirt or tropical swamps.

Green space was perhaps too far, but certainly keeping wide open areas (mini green belts) with the local flora - scrubland, local trees etc. No need for manicured golf courses and lawns.

All golf courses should look like Coober Pedy’s. Weird how they can find the billions required to build and mothball (until recently) massive desalinisation plants, but can’t build public transport infrastructure. Then again, Sydney has difficult topology. 

Grey water recycling should be mandatory. 

Unless they find a way of airconditioning half the country, including the livestock, I don’t see a way out of this mess. 

 

[mattyboy1973]

6 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Unless they find a way of airconditioning half the country, including the livestock, I don’t see a way out of this mess. 

They're stuffed with climate change. Away from the coast - even 20 miles inland - and it is already barely liveable in much of the country, and agriculture is predicted to become more or less non-viable within a few decades. It'll likely be one of the worst affected developed nations, and although I'm a citizen now I'm not sure I will ever move back. NZ on the other hand..

[mattyboy1973]

10 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Then again, Sydney has difficult topology. 

Sydney does have a difficult topology for tunnelling (hard rock) and not much room above ground, but it could still have been done. What they really need is a comprehensive underground, extending out to all distant suburbs. However it takes too long and costs too much, so not government has ever had the balls to make it happen.

It is still without doubt my favourite city in the world, but I couldn't live there any more unless I won the lotto.

[PeanutButter]

1 hour ago, mattyboy1973 said:

NZ on the other hand..

Yes that reciprocal agreement is worth keeping. There’s a reason the tech billionaires bought bunker mansions in NZ. 

I won’t go back to Aus again, probably not even for a holiday. But hope to live long enough to see them request asylum elsewhere. 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Strong language ...😅

 

[mattyboy1973]

Nice one. They really are a bunch of cuts down there. What has gone wrong with Western (Anglosphere, specifically) governments worldwide over the last decade?

[TheCountOfNowhere]

 

Nice one. They really are a bunch of cuts down there. What has gone wrong with Western (Anglosphere, specifically) governments worldwide over the last decade?

Bankers.

Hand corrupt psychos unlimited amounts of money and they can buy a lot of power.

[24gray24]

Towns: you can't solve anything unless you increase density enough for people to be able to get places by walking? ( If you build large lots, you get endless suburbs and endless commuting). Plus when oil runs low we won't be able to drive. 

2. No sign of real collapse in Australia yet then?

[Saving For a Space Ship]

The great unravelling: 'I never thought I’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse'

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/15/the-great-unravelling-i-never-thought-id-live-to-see-the-horror-of-planetary-collapse

Edited October 15, 2020 by Saving For a Space Ship

[BoredByTorque]

 

Yes that reciprocal agreement is worth keeping. There’s a reason the tech billionaires bought bunker mansions in NZ. 

I won’t go back to Aus again, probably not even for a holiday. But hope to live long enough to see them request asylum elsewhere. 

I think it will be you Brits looking for refuge out of that asylum called the UK 😂

[PeanutButter]

 

I think it will be you Brits looking for refuge out of that asylum called the UK 😂

Ahem. I'm a dual citizen thank you very much. Next I need a passport for the ISS. 

Edited October 15, 2020 by PeanutButter

[Panda]

I'm a dual citizen.

Not been back for a few years now.

Was planning to return one day. But NZ looks a better option.

 

See how this Asylum plays out here. It's nice to have a get out clause just in case.

Being able to live in NZ as a PR has it's advantages as an Ozzy passport holder.

The state pension is also quite generous..

 

[PeanutButter]

Oz is a dead country, they just haven’t realised it yet. 7C isn’t unthinkable. I smh at those Relocation in the Sun shows. 

Tell you what though, air conditioning companies are going to rake it in.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/15/the-great-unravelling-i-never-thought-id-live-to-see-the-horror-of-planetary-collapse

During Australia’s Black Summer, more than 3 billion animals were incinerated or displaced, our beloved bushland burnt to the ground. Our collective places of recharge and contemplation changed in ways that we can barely comprehend. The koala, Australia’s most emblematic species, now faces extinction in New South Wales by as early as 2050.

 After everything this year, what we hear when we listen to birdsong has changed

Rebecca Giggs 

 

 

Read more

Recovering the diversity and complexity of Australia’s unique ecosystems now lies beyond the scale of human lifetimes. What we witnessed was inter-generational damage: a fundamental transformation of our country.

Then, just as the last of the bushfires went out, recording-breaking ocean temperatures triggered the third mass bleaching event recorded on the Great Barrier Reef since 2016. This time, the southern reef – spared during the 2016 and 2017 events – finally succumbed to extreme heat. The largest living organism on the planet is dying.

 

 

With just 1.1C of warming, Australia has already experienced unimaginable levels of destruction of its marine and land ecosystems in the space of a single summer. More than 20% of our country’s forests burnt in a single bushfire season. Virtually the entire range of the Great Barrier Reef cooked by one mass bleaching event. But what really worries me is what our Black Summer signals about the conditions that are yet to come. As things stand, the latest research shows that Australia could warm up to 7C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. If we continue along our current path, climate models show an average warming of 4.5C, with a range of 2.7–6.2C by 2100. This represents a ruinous overshooting of the Paris agreement targets, which aim to stabilise global warming at well below 2C, to avoid what the UN terms “dangerous” levels of climate change.

[shlomo]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/china-australia-tensions-ban-on-coal-could-cost-australia-15-billion-a-year/2V7LW2YUXGPKLDW6RLYVXVKUZI/

China-Australia tensions: Ban on coal could cost Australia $15 billion a year

 

[shlomo]

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3105751/china-targets-australian-cotton-escalating-trade-dispute

Australia’s US$750 million cotton trade with China targeted, with mills ‘discouraged’ from purchases

 

• Cotton Australia and the Australian Cotton Shippers Association confirm reports of a verbal directive for Chinese spinning mills to stop using Australian cotton
• It emerged at the weekend that China had also verbally told steel mills and power stations to stop buying Australian coking and thermal coa

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Australian property bubble hasn't yet burst, but can house prices keep rising amid the pandemic?

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-06/property-bubble-burst-coronavirus-pandemic-house-prices/12852854