One of the topics that particulary interests me, as you may have been able to tell from my May post is transport mode shift. Specifically, a shift away from dependence on private vehicle (e.g. car) transportation for short trips towards "active" modes (walking, jogging, cycling, in-line skating, etc.) is about as close to a "silver bullet" as any Western politician interested in resource limits and promoting healthy citizens could hope for. Most developed countries have problems with economies addicted to oil and many do not like the autocratic regimes and corruption that tend to thrive off oil profits or the pollution that comes out of cars into waterways and the atmosphere. Not to mention that oil is a limited natural resource, and the alternatives to power cars all have their own problems (more on this in a later post). At the same time, developed countries have domestic problems with chronic diseases (cancer, obesity, heart disease) that most medical professionals agree would be reduced with physcial activity. So in effect, more cyclists and less cars means less cancer, less obesity, less financial support for corrupt regimes, more efficient use of oil, less greenhouse gas emissions, social justice and so on... It's actually quite challenging to think of a societal problem that a bit of cycling couldn't help.
So why does New Zealand only discuss this issue when the body count gets high?
To answer this, let's start with some background. New Zealand is a very young and very sparsely populated country. Indigenous Maori populations only arrived about 800 to 1000 years ago - before them it was only the birds and trees. Europeans trickled in begininng in the early 19th century, and today there's only a tad over 4 million people in a country the size of Japan (which has 120 million). Cows still eat grass (though this is changing thanks to global demand for milk).
Both being young and being sparsely populated have strongly influenced urban development patterns. NZ's biggest cities (Auckland, Christchurch) grew in the 20th century, when cars were somewhat common - the result is giant suburbs around a very small city centre. The sparse population provides less conflicts over land use, which promotes suburban sprawl. Compare this to any city in Europe, which developed when transport was either by foot, barge or horse, so the city has a denser urban form.
Hence, in Copenhagen it's very common to travel by bicycle or foot, while in Auckland cars rule the road (we'll leave out public transport for another day). Something like a puny 1% (if that) of trips in New Zealand are taken by bicycle.
Those 1% of trips are concentrated in the cities, where cycle commuting tends to save both time and money (not to mention all the other benefits above) since vehicle dependence results in congestion. Enter the conflict between road users and cyclists. I've left out pedestrians deliberately because, as a recent report commissioned by the Auckland City Council points out, cyclists are the odd ones out when it comes to infrastructure provision. Although the city has since removed this report (I'll try and post a copy here), Auckland has something like 1200 km of road for vehicles, 2200 km of footpaths for pedestrians (though this is a bit misleading since it counts a footpath on each side of a street as two separate paths), and a measly 70 km of cycleways (over half of which are bus-priority lanes that cyclists are allowed to use alongside the buses)! So cyclists are forced to either share footpaths not designed for cycling with pedestrians, or brave the road and share with the cars (or buses).
Some physics shows the true power relationships: bike hits pedestrian, usually the pedestrian ends up worse off, but both can suffer minor injuries. Fatalaties are very rare, indeed, but i'ts quite common for the law to forbid cycling on the footpaths! Now what about bike hits car (or bus)? Now we have some bodies, so let's talk!
The discussion is actually quite amusing, mostly because it avoids discussion of the key benefits of more cycling, and is a great example of unproductive finger pointing and misrepresentation (if only this issue was of global interest, it might challenge the nonsense rabbiting going on in the US healthcare reform process for the supreme BS award).
Take, for example, Forrest from Remuera: "This accident appears to be due to driver mishap but I have little sympathy for cyclists and their requests for more respect from motorists...[cyclists] give the impresion of being arrogant road users who think their wishes are paramount and nobody else matters."
How about SMR from Auckland Central: "If they [cyclists] think their arogance will win against a 2 tonne car, good luck to them."
And one of my favourite shillings of BS, duly repeated by Ryansway in Wellington: "Cyclists need to stay off the roads and stop pretending they are motor vehicles. Cyclists don't pay registration fee's so they don't have the same entitlement as a motor vehicle."
Huh?
Actually this behaviour may be easy to explain. Remember those numbers? Only 1% of Aucklanders commute via bicycle. That means 99% of road users have very little actual experience on one side of the debate. On the other hand, most cyclists also own cars or ride the bus (and thus pay road maintenace taxes). One of the reasons why I find Ryansway's faulty logic so amusing is that if one was to follow it further, then we need to start taxing pedestrians, vagrants, tourists and others who touch the roads in order to pay for maintenance and construction caused by stress and capacity demand from 2-tonne cars, big trucks, and buses.
Although I could go on and on debunking faulty logic or presenting amusing anecdotes of my experiences as a commuting cyclist, the main point I want to get across is that here is one issue where action against the popular position (which is clearly pro-car) would significantly improve societal outcomes for all. And in a democracy, where everything that is done must be populist, it's going to be a severe uphill ride in a hurricane headwind to see the benefits of mixed-mode
Now to answer the question posed earlier about why these discussions only occur after horrific events. Like most issues around environmental limits, such as global warming, the benefits and costs require second-order thought and reflection (because many of the costs and benefits are public goods, not private), but people find it difficult to go beyond first order simplifications of cause and effect. And there's no better way of starting some first-order finger pointing than with some horrific event.
For example, a driver "stuck" behind a few cyclists identifies the first-order cause and effect (if cyclists were not on the road, I would save about 10 seconds on this trip), but does not reflect on second-order logic, such as "if these cyclists were not on the road, they're likely to be in their own cars, which would add to congestion, stormwater pollution, air pollution, fuel costs, and car accidents. And if that were the case, not only could my trip still take 10 seconds longer (congestion), the fish I eat would contain an extra molecule or two of toxic metals (stormwater pollution), I'd lose a few nanoseconds off my life (air pollution), my petrol would cost more, and I'll be at a marginally higher risk of injury from a car accident."
27 September 2009
18 September 2009
If this is how we debate intertemporal costs, we're doomed
When it comes to debates, most of us aren't experts in a particular enterprise, line of thinking or ideology. So, to get the views of the masses, things must be simplified. Presenting things as a zero sum game (someone wins, someone else loses) is a common technique for this. And so it's always "the economy" vs. "the environment"
So when the NZ Herald asks "Will [New Zealand's proposed] emissions trading scheme have an effect on the economy?", it's a leading question pointing to a fictitious zero sum game.
The "correct" answer is "of course!". But the answer to the opposite question "Will a scrapping of NZ's proposed emissions scheme have an effect on the economy?" is also "of course!". The whole point of an emissions trading scheme (or carbon tax) - or lack of either - is to affect the economy.
Therefore, the conflict is the effect on today's economy vs. the economy of future generations -- and this is not a zero sum game. Much of the economic argument for closing externalities (via ETS or taxes) from greenhouse gas emissions is because future costs of doing nothing (e.g. international treaty liabilities or other more indirect costs like loss of ecological services, increased environmental refugees or adaptation costs) are much higher than the costs of reducing emissions today. This was the main conclusion of the often-cited Stern Review from the UK. Politicians (who do not balance short-term and long-term needs very efficiently) score points by pushing these costs onto future generations because today's citizens are their bosses.
The real danger is what is shaping up to be the worst outcome, wherein politicans compromise and increase short-term costs in order to gain small reductions in greenhouse gases today (e.g. the 10-20% reduction on 2005 that the NZ government appears willing to agree) that will have negligible effect on reducing the future costs of climate change (the IPCC, an extraordinary collaboration bringing together the best science availiable, says we need 50 to 80% reductions on 1990 levels). So it looks like politics-as-usual is going to deliver a lose-lose scenario for both today and the future.
So when the NZ Herald asks "Will [New Zealand's proposed] emissions trading scheme have an effect on the economy?", it's a leading question pointing to a fictitious zero sum game.
The "correct" answer is "of course!". But the answer to the opposite question "Will a scrapping of NZ's proposed emissions scheme have an effect on the economy?" is also "of course!". The whole point of an emissions trading scheme (or carbon tax) - or lack of either - is to affect the economy.
Therefore, the conflict is the effect on today's economy vs. the economy of future generations -- and this is not a zero sum game. Much of the economic argument for closing externalities (via ETS or taxes) from greenhouse gas emissions is because future costs of doing nothing (e.g. international treaty liabilities or other more indirect costs like loss of ecological services, increased environmental refugees or adaptation costs) are much higher than the costs of reducing emissions today. This was the main conclusion of the often-cited Stern Review from the UK. Politicians (who do not balance short-term and long-term needs very efficiently) score points by pushing these costs onto future generations because today's citizens are their bosses.
The real danger is what is shaping up to be the worst outcome, wherein politicans compromise and increase short-term costs in order to gain small reductions in greenhouse gases today (e.g. the 10-20% reduction on 2005 that the NZ government appears willing to agree) that will have negligible effect on reducing the future costs of climate change (the IPCC, an extraordinary collaboration bringing together the best science availiable, says we need 50 to 80% reductions on 1990 levels). So it looks like politics-as-usual is going to deliver a lose-lose scenario for both today and the future.
25 May 2009
Bridge Crossing: Whatever you do, don't do what the people want
Yesterday, I joined what the media now claims was approximately 2000 "protesters" in a leisurely cycle ride across the Auckland Harbour Bridge. For those of you unfamiliar, downtown Auckland City is separated from its northern suburbs by an arm of the Hauraki Gulf (the Waitemata Harbour), and in 1959 an iconic bridge (rather resembling the one in Sydney) was erected for motorists. Cyclists and pedestrians are banned from using the bridge (the only exception being the annual Auckland Marathon), and instead must pay $5 for the ferry or embark on the 50km detour around the harbour to reach the northern suburbs.
In an effort to secure cycle & pedestrian access to the bridge, a grassroots effort, GetAcross, has lobbied politicians to include such access in future infrastructure plans. Having received the cold shoulder after multiple meetings with the bridge's owner, the national highway agency, they organised a gathering in honour of the bridge's 50th birthday. This comes after the highway agency cancelled their own plans for a similar event to mark the occasion, citing "too much interest".
So I understand when politicians ignore grassroots movements when the cause isn't very populist (the "loud minority" phenomenon). Hence the 10 or so protestors frequently outside the Chinese embassy in Wellington demanding China "Free Tibet" aren't likely to change anything soon - New Zealand's economic free-trade agreement with China is a tad more important in politicians' eyes. But, in modern Anglo-American democracies, I have never heard of grassroots causes to be ignored because they were too popular!
To prepare for the gathering, the highway agency spent a bunch of money putting up a fence around the park adjacent to the bridge, while ensuring that the police and their bridge employees were there to ensure a safe closure of the bridge, and then promptly screamed "NO!" in to a megaphone when the organisers offically offered them one last chance to change their mind and allow an hour or two for safe access. Then six cyclists simply rode on to the bridge from the adjacent on-ramp and the police and bridge employees did the smart thing and closed the bridge to allow safe access for all.
Enter the politics, since we wouldn't want to show that such "law-breaking" (even though, technically, only those 6 cyclists broke the law) was harmless, eh? As mentioned earlier, the highway agency doesn't seem to have a problem closing the bridge for the Auckland Marathon, which sees 9000 or so runners jog across over the course of 2 hours on a Sunday morning while traffic flows freely in both directions on the bridge (the bridge is actually 3 bridges, so they only need to close one). But for some reason, probably to ensure that the media focuses on disrupton caused by the protest, rather than the message of the protest, the highway agency directed the police to close all northbound lanes (e.g. closing 1 and a half bridges). So traffic was stopped and the media captured some angry motorists that became the focus of later reporting, since anger appears to sell more papers and capture more viewers than discussing the reasons behind why the highway agency spent more money on resisting the crossing rather than on accommodating it without vehicle disruption.
Here's some data on what was orignally planned to be a rather celebratory crossing by foot and cycle, but turned into a political statement by the uncooperative strategy adopted by the highway agency:
1. An estimated 318,000 people (over 25% of metropolitan Auckland) would have wanted to cross the bridge.
2. It would take 6.5 hours, so that means approximately 50,000 people can cross safely in one hour.
3. The daily average number of cars crossing is 154,000.
4. New Zealand's average vehicle occupancy rate is something around 1.2 persons per vehicle, so that means only around 184,000 people would have crossed by car on that day.
That means that for the celebratory day, the demand to cross by foot was about double than that by car! (And, since it was a Sunday, the figure wanting to cross by car is probably exaggerated, since weekends in May probably see below average numbers of cars crossing)
In an effort to secure cycle & pedestrian access to the bridge, a grassroots effort, GetAcross, has lobbied politicians to include such access in future infrastructure plans. Having received the cold shoulder after multiple meetings with the bridge's owner, the national highway agency, they organised a gathering in honour of the bridge's 50th birthday. This comes after the highway agency cancelled their own plans for a similar event to mark the occasion, citing "too much interest".
So I understand when politicians ignore grassroots movements when the cause isn't very populist (the "loud minority" phenomenon). Hence the 10 or so protestors frequently outside the Chinese embassy in Wellington demanding China "Free Tibet" aren't likely to change anything soon - New Zealand's economic free-trade agreement with China is a tad more important in politicians' eyes. But, in modern Anglo-American democracies, I have never heard of grassroots causes to be ignored because they were too popular!
To prepare for the gathering, the highway agency spent a bunch of money putting up a fence around the park adjacent to the bridge, while ensuring that the police and their bridge employees were there to ensure a safe closure of the bridge, and then promptly screamed "NO!" in to a megaphone when the organisers offically offered them one last chance to change their mind and allow an hour or two for safe access. Then six cyclists simply rode on to the bridge from the adjacent on-ramp and the police and bridge employees did the smart thing and closed the bridge to allow safe access for all.
Enter the politics, since we wouldn't want to show that such "law-breaking" (even though, technically, only those 6 cyclists broke the law) was harmless, eh? As mentioned earlier, the highway agency doesn't seem to have a problem closing the bridge for the Auckland Marathon, which sees 9000 or so runners jog across over the course of 2 hours on a Sunday morning while traffic flows freely in both directions on the bridge (the bridge is actually 3 bridges, so they only need to close one). But for some reason, probably to ensure that the media focuses on disrupton caused by the protest, rather than the message of the protest, the highway agency directed the police to close all northbound lanes (e.g. closing 1 and a half bridges). So traffic was stopped and the media captured some angry motorists that became the focus of later reporting, since anger appears to sell more papers and capture more viewers than discussing the reasons behind why the highway agency spent more money on resisting the crossing rather than on accommodating it without vehicle disruption.
Here's some data on what was orignally planned to be a rather celebratory crossing by foot and cycle, but turned into a political statement by the uncooperative strategy adopted by the highway agency:
1. An estimated 318,000 people (over 25% of metropolitan Auckland) would have wanted to cross the bridge.
2. It would take 6.5 hours, so that means approximately 50,000 people can cross safely in one hour.
3. The daily average number of cars crossing is 154,000.
4. New Zealand's average vehicle occupancy rate is something around 1.2 persons per vehicle, so that means only around 184,000 people would have crossed by car on that day.
That means that for the celebratory day, the demand to cross by foot was about double than that by car! (And, since it was a Sunday, the figure wanting to cross by car is probably exaggerated, since weekends in May probably see below average numbers of cars crossing)
28 April 2009
"Swine Flu" vs. Global Warming
Just a little workout for your brain tonight. Imagine if all the media headlines about the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico (the US and a few other countries, including NZ) replaced the words "swine flu" with "global warming". Would the world react similarly?
Of course not. But why?
Even though it seems likely at this stage that swine flu may have been especially virulent in a few Mexican cases, the majority of "confirmed" cases seem to have been diagnosed after the patient has already fully recovered. Swine flu, in its human form, appears to be nothing much different from existing human influenza. The students infected in New Zealand thought they had just been suffering the effects of Montezuma's Revenge - not the latest global health scare.
Surely global warming must be slightly more alarming, given years of research findings released two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
The main point is that this is a good example of one type of systematic irrationality that is preventing coordinated action against threats that are not immediate. Namely, most of us can identify with a killer disease, as it would affect us direclty (rather fast). Global warming, however, requires second-order thinking, namely because it does not affect us immediately like a killer disease would. Instead, one would have to imagine the personal impact of, for example, sea levels in Bangladesh rising, which means millions of refugees, who then may flood into your country. Or the disruption of agriculture, which would mean higher food prices.
So even though a swine flu-type response would do a lot to mitigate global warming (or focus on appropriate adaptation measures), don't expect to see this type of coordinated action until those Bangladeshi refugees show up at the border.
Of course not. But why?
Even though it seems likely at this stage that swine flu may have been especially virulent in a few Mexican cases, the majority of "confirmed" cases seem to have been diagnosed after the patient has already fully recovered. Swine flu, in its human form, appears to be nothing much different from existing human influenza. The students infected in New Zealand thought they had just been suffering the effects of Montezuma's Revenge - not the latest global health scare.
Surely global warming must be slightly more alarming, given years of research findings released two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
The main point is that this is a good example of one type of systematic irrationality that is preventing coordinated action against threats that are not immediate. Namely, most of us can identify with a killer disease, as it would affect us direclty (rather fast). Global warming, however, requires second-order thinking, namely because it does not affect us immediately like a killer disease would. Instead, one would have to imagine the personal impact of, for example, sea levels in Bangladesh rising, which means millions of refugees, who then may flood into your country. Or the disruption of agriculture, which would mean higher food prices.
So even though a swine flu-type response would do a lot to mitigate global warming (or focus on appropriate adaptation measures), don't expect to see this type of coordinated action until those Bangladeshi refugees show up at the border.
03 April 2009
What this is all about
The key challenge facing human society, if it values a future in the year 2400 and beyond that does not resemble the dystopia of George Orwell (1984) or Aldous Huxley (Ape and Essence), is a social one. Society is too distracted with technological optimism (the belief that science and technology will enable unlimited growth in human wealth), putting self- or group-interest ahead of public-interest (rather than alongside it) and "solving" short-term "problems" to take note of the limits to the system in which we live.
While this may sound like a re-hash of Limits to Growth, a 1972 thesis by a group calling themselves the "Club of Rome" which warned society not to breach unknown ecological system limits in pursuit of [what would ultimately be short-term] wealth, I'm interested in a wider scope of system limits. No doubt that ecological system limits are both (a) being breached and (b) not well measured/known, but there are also numerous limits that society values as a collective. These are things like equity, fairness (justice), freedom, safety, human rights, and a diversity of cultural expressions (such as traditions and beliefs).
I hope to comment on occasions where pursuit of what we do not wish to limit: wealth, prosperity, development, for example, threatens to cross key limits. Or occasions where we see massive trade-offs between limits in order to raise a limit: for example, forgoing a tradition in the pursuit of fairness.
Pursuing wealth, prosperity or development is not bad, but more and more, I see these pursuits as systems whereby designers (businessmen, policymakers, communities) seek to toe the limiting line. Any margin of safety would be "economically inefficient". Let's just hope that the designers know the limits.
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