Robert LePage, Cygnet.
DO YOU EVER get frustrated when you are in a solid mass of cars going down the Southern Outlet? Maybe trying to cross the bridge and late for work, can’t find anywhere to park when you do reach the city?
You mutter that it is about time that the authorities did something about it. Maybe widen the road, add extra lanes, build a bypass but please just find some way to make the traffic flow again.
You have may have seen the film, Inconvenient Truth and think that there is be something in all this talk about global warming after all, but it is too hard for you to do anything about it.
You know that it is not good for the environment to have cars belching CO2 into the air but you have to get to work, do the shopping, take the kids to school and so on.
Things that demand you jump into the trusty jumbo jeep and head off using litres of expensive petrol, which has to be imported now at great cost.
Now what if we had a government that actually did something about all this? One that was not afraid of the polls, the corporations that financially backed them or any other outside lobby groups demanding their pound of flesh.
They could then take a big step in the right direction and fearlessly enact legislation that would solve in one swoop all of these problems, for a while at least.
The immediate cure would be to legislate that all privately owned cars with odd ending numbers to used one day and even numbers the next. It would immediately cut car numbers by half. It would mean half of the CO2 emissions, half of the petrol required with less oil imported and a huge cut in overseas spending.
Suddenly traffic would flow again. There would be plenty of parking in the city.
Roads would not have to be widened or bypasses built with an enormous savings in taxpayer’s money that could then be spent on the health system and schools.
We would be reducing a large amount of CO2, helping to save our climate.
You would also save about half the cost of petrol, which is only going to cost more and more because of something called peak oil, which is irreversibly pushing the price up higher and higher.
OK but what would happen to the people who could not use their cars that day?
Surely there would be space in the cars that were being used? How many cars do you see with only the driver?
Are you so totally without friends and acquaintances that could share their car with you?
You could take them the following day. You might get to like them and having company.
It would be a small price to pay for such a big saving in fuel, money, environment and stress.
Who would be the loser in this new regime? The oil companies would be most unhappy; they would be back to making only an enormous profit instead of a gigantic one.
Car sales may drop a bit because your car would last twice as long.
Car salesmen could maybe retrain as bus or taxi drivers. Service stations that are privately owned would feel it, but a large percentage of petrol is now sold by the big supermarkets, the writing is on the wall that they will have all of the petrol sales one day.
As with any change, there will be the losers and people who do not want to change but it is inevitable in the long run whether we want to do this or not. Surely it would be better to do it on a voluntary basis than have it forced on us by escalating climate change and rising oil prices.
It would be doing a lot more for the environment than changing a few light globes.
It would also do a lot for our stressful way of life. Maybe no more road rage?
Tasmania is considered to be backward by the mainland states. Perhaps we could lead Australia if this was introduced here and showed itself to be a success.
Now which government would have the strength and integrity to introduce this?
Robert LePage, Cygnet.
