Arguments for mall's return to cars seriously dated

Arguments behind calls for the re-opening of Shepparton’s Maude St Mall to cars are understandable, but are well past their use-by date.



Shepparton's Maude St Mall



The city we enjoy today will be vastly different from the Shepparton of tomorrow and so everything we do should be aimed at creating an infrastructure that is more, rather than less, walkable.

Armed with the misleading belief that the world’s finite supply of oil is inexhaustible, towns and cities are being created and structured to answer the wants and needs of car-bound communities.
Reliable research illustrates that the world’s oil reservoirs will be empty in about 30 years and as oil is the foundation upon which everything else stands – from beer to beans and clothes pegs to communication – we need to be creating a built-environment, and that includes our mall that will serve the city in a low-energy future.
Considering that, the debate is not in essence about the commercial realities of doing business in the mall today, rather it’s about doing business in the mall as we head down that bumpy road to the end of oil.
This, however, poses a rather pressing, and understandable, dilemma as those businesses already in our mall want to be profitable, and successful, right now.
Business plans do not allow for an income hiatus as Shepparton abandons what once worked and then moves to embrace what will work in the evolving 21st century.
Considering that, it seems that any workable financial panacea will only emerge from a city-wide social change orchestrated by a City of Greater Shepparton Council that rigidly controls the placement and development of infrastructure within the city to ensure walkability and, more extensively, our public bus services.
Curitiba, with its 1.6 million residents, provides the world with a model in how to integrate sustainable transport considerations into business development, road infrastructure development, and local community development. Shepparton could learn from the success of this burgeoning Brazilian city.
Our mall needs people who live there; above and behind the businesses, and in going about their daily lives they inadvertently become the passive eyes that deter anti-social behaviour.
We need people to build a civil society, not cars.

Carbon tax will be irrelevant, but we need to prepare

Proposals for Australia to introduce a carbon tax have dominated public discussions.

Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Australians, and anyone else for that matter, is intimately connected to consumption, meaning, simply, that the more we consume the more carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere.
That elementary fact was clearly illustrated during the recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC) – with the world experiencing a cash crisis, consumption and subsequently production slowed resulting in a measurable decrease in our emissions.
The GFC saw the economy escape and bolt free, but a carbon tax is about tackling global warming with some discipline and imagined control over the mysteries of the economy.
However, something else is happening, something that will easily surpass the impact of both the GFC and the argued about carbon tax. We are running out of oil!
Everything our industrial world exists because of oil and rather than argue endlessly about a tax we yet don’t understand, we should be apply the ingenuity we are using to win or lose that debate to prepare our communities to live in a low-energy and “oil-less” world.
Life as we know it today and as it will be tomorrow will be as different as a blink and a wink – strikingly similar, but decidedly different, both in intent and purpose.
Rather that waste time piecing together something ultimately useless, our efforts, from the Prime Minister down, should be aimed at understanding how we can live well in a low-energy world.
The road from here to the end of oil in about 30 years will be exceedingly bumpy.
Much needs to be done, but the absolute first priority is to psychologically prepare people for what will be a transformative revolution to life styles.
Discussing life changing events, the late Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said we go through five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance.
The end of oil, that will resolve any need for a carbon tax, will see whole communities experience all those paradigms articulated by Dr Kubler-Ross.
The proposed carbon tax is a divisive distraction that will be both irrelevant and unimportant when the oil runs out.

Personal lifestyle suggests denial of looming difficulties

Human induced changes to our climate, oil depletion, famines arising from both issues, and waste, along with the increasing difficulties of a booming population illustrate the certain difficulties ahead.

However, like so many others in the developed world, my lifestyle suggests denial.
Many are either in denial or ignorant and some simply don’t care as they live for the moment, which I can’t criticise except to say that we must understand that while present activities might be pleasant, they can create difficulties for those who follow.
Having listened to many world authorities on climate science, oil scarcity, famine, various professors, and read many books written by them and their peers, any questions or doubts I had about the coming difficulties have been erased.
However, understanding what was being said and written, I continue to live as if in denial, but it’s not that as like many others I’m caught-up, or psychologically trapped, in a way of life that has evolved over the past 200 years and has been built around easily accessible fossil energy.This is a pleasant, rewarding and satisfying life, but those of us in the developed world are living in a style the world cannot support and our burgeoning numbers suggest we need to be thinking carefully about our fertility.
Being conscious of and sympathetic to emerging dilemmas is not enough to help our world as it limps toward catastrophe, but like many in the developed world my addiction to the bounty of the fossil fuel-rich world is going to be difficult to break.
Shepparton climate change campaigner, John Pettigrew, has said many are conscious of global warming, but most are unsure of what to do and that confusion breeds inaction.
But, there is more – most of us unable to absorb the complexity of what is needed and so can’t understand where to even begin making the necessary lifestyle changes.
We need to be empowered – our leaders can do that or we can do that and a start can be made by listening to and watching the work of the Tatura Transition Town – more details about Tatura TT from Ross Musolino at sandalino@iinet.net.au.