My mother always told me to be vary wary of anything the ‘man in the pub’ tells me, because she had a lifetime of her dad saying “the man in the pub” (who of course was an expert in his field) “told me that…”
Ever since then, I’ve tried to avoid the ‘man in the pub’ and stick to the facts, or as close to the facts that science and geography can present these days. Relevance? Well once again the ‘man in the pub’ is getting their seemingly over democratic voice heard at the hearings into the plan change necessary for the stadium to go ahead. Democracy is a great thing, it allows all manner of weirdos, wackos, CAVES (citizens against virtually everything) and the ‘man in the pub’ to have their voice.
Well it seems that at Tuesday’s hearing, the pub was shut and they were all lining up to have their say (much of which was beyond the scope of the hearings). The funniest line thrown about by the anti-stadium brigade is that Global Warming is going to make the area useless and we need to defend the coasts (like the old war cry against the Japanese).
Scott Willis stated
“something that could be “useless” if the latest scenarios on sea-level rise proved correct.”
This was reiterated by Emeritus Prof Jocelyn Harris (of English)
“there were many more important projects to spend money on than a stadium, when a more than 1m rise in sea level was expected in the next 50 years. “This is no time for business as usual.” Expanding cycleways, building light rail, assisting with insulation and encouraging home gardens were just a few of the things that could be done with the money that was being spent on the stadium.”
Several points.
1) What models are these people looking at? Even NIWA’s predictions are less ‘doomsday’ than these.
2) Insulating houses and getting people gardening are not within the scope of the hearings, stop bloody wasting everyone’s time and money. Continue reading
What if? Dunedin... 