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And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about

And the current mayor will probably lose office next month to parties that have promised to remove said restrictions, because in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison. Sadly, being able to take and park cars everywhere seems to be a much higher priority for much of the population (I say this as a Spaniard). My hope is that the EU somehow intervenes and stops them from taking steps back in this respect. As mentioned in the last paragraph of the article, reducing emissions is an EU mandate. The EU has often been the force behind many, if not most of, the anti-pollution policies adopted in Spain.

kzcqt 8y ago
This baffles me. The government is there to serve the people. People are unhappy about what the current mayor is doing, that's why she's getting kicked out. Advocating for the EU to step in and force people to stay unhappy will only increase the anti-EU sentiment, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one.
- MordodeMaru 8y ago
  Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU. Also, it is a matter of who enforces pollution policy: Madrid is a city with limitations, Europe on the other hand is able to dictate directives. On regards to the elections, let's see if she gets kicked out.
  - lazyjones 8y ago
    > Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU No. In the latest Eurobarometer, confidence in the EU is one of the lowest in Spain. 54% of respondents do not trust the EU, vs. e.g. 21% in Lithuania or 31% in Denmark. http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/84930 http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/...
    - Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
      However, in the same document you can also see that Spain is the second EU country with the most positive image of the European Union, second only to Sweden (page 10). When asked about membership in the EU, the answer is also more positive than average, although in a more modest 9th place (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard/eurobarometer/2018/eurobarometer-2018-democracy-on-the-move/top-results/en-one-year-before-2019-eurobarometer-results-annex.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard... page 37). So it depends on how you ask. I would say saying that Spain is the least anti EU country is quite an overstatement, but it's definitely more pro-EU than average. I think the results of the question on trust may be biased by the fact that Spanish people don't trust politicians in general. In page 6 of this Eurobarometer survey (https://ec.europa.eu/spain/sites/spain/files/eb88_nat_es_es.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/spain/sites/spain/files/eb88_nat_es_es.... - sorry, in Spanish, I couldn't find it in English) you can see that while trust in the EU is not very high, it's quite higher than trust in the Spanish government. So most people wouldn't want to leave the EU.
- dingallero 8y ago
  Pretty much any city in EU has now some forms of traffic restriction policies. The same is true for where I live as well. The issue is not really the restriction, but the lack of alternatives. Very few cities have a decent metro zone: these cities are the only ones where I see no objections to stricter traffic policies. Most cities are only served by public _road_ transport services. This doesn't have the same level of service, by a long shot. There's a huge, _huge_ difference between having to plan your move in 1hr intervals and just hop on a platform having to wait no longer than 10 minutes. Not to mention the cost, inevitable delays due to traffic, shorter service hours and so on. I would ban all cars tomorrow and sell mine too if I could get anywhere in a metro. Reality is, this is only feasible for very few selected places. The governments here should make public transport massively better first. The reality is that they just enforce restrictions and provide no alternatives. What do you do then?
  - kzcqt 8y ago
    Yeah, thanks for this comment. That's what makes this matter worse: they restrict private transport, but public transport just gets worse and more expensive every year.
    - kingosticks 8y ago
      This article talks about the improvements Madrid made to its public transport system. Are you guys talking about in general or specifically in Madrid?
    - dingallero 8y ago
      In several places where I lived the public transport road service was subcontracted to the lowest-bidding private company of the region. This in turn creates this shitty illusion of "public" service that nobody wants to use, because: - it's unreliable (delays and strikes are common) - short working hours - poorly planned (or no) interconnections with other public services - abusive service costs to recoup the costs Even factoring all expenses of a car, several bus connections I was forced to take in the past where in the order of 5-6 times the total cost of car ownership. This doesn't even include the grave annoyances I listed above. Sad :(
- josalhor 8y ago
  That is a very complicated statement. People have a very short time horizon as a whole. Politicians that promise to take the short, easy answer are usually ignoring long-term consequences. That leads to a -kind of- populism. Note: I'm not saying I'm in favour or against Madrid's Mayor, nor her policies.
- stfp 8y ago
  The government is also here to take into account the work of scientists & urbanists and lead the people towards a better, healthier and sustainable future.
- amelius 8y ago
  Would you say the same about regulations against smoking?
  - kzcqt 8y ago
    Definitely I would. As a restaurant owner I should be able to dictate who can and who can't smoke in my premises. Having said that, cigarettes should be much more expensive so we can fund healthcare.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Smokers are actually cheaper for the healthcare system because they die early and don't require years and years of intensive medical care during old age.
- chewz 8y ago
  You can't have democracy and consumer capitalism and at the same time save the planet from climate catastrophe. It simply won't work. This is what Naomi Klein is trying to tell us.[1] At more practical level getting financing for better public transport needs providing forecast of revenues. And it does not justify investments in public transport as long as people use cars, ubers, taxis etc. And people will continue choosing personal convenience over the prospect of having grandchildren living on planet Earth. Tough choice for elected politicians. [1] http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2018/08/capitalism-killed-our-climate-momentum-not-human-nature http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2018/08/capitalism-killed...
  - tim333 8y ago
    I think that's over pessimistic - we have lots of environmental laws and mostly fixed the ozone hole and lead pollution. CO2 emissions are tricky as so much of the economy used fossil fuel and the top four emitters being China, India and Russia as well as the US you can't stop it without getting those on board. It's not impossible though.
- gnclmorais 8y ago
  > The government is there to serve the people. I think you could ask twenty people about what does this mean and you’ll get twenty different shades of ‘serving the people’.
- wklauss 8y ago
  The government IS serving the people precisely by putting in place measures to improve air quality. Most of the backslash against Madrid regulations is coming from people that don't live in the center of the city and are using the issue as a proxy to voice their political views against the mayor's political party (affiliate to left-leaning Podemos). Funny thing is that this measure was for the longest time in the previous mayoral team (under control from right-leaning Partido Popular) agenda as well. On the anti-EU sentiment. I think it's important to point out that 62% of Spaniards (and rising since Brexit started) have a favorable view of the EU (according to Pew Research). Eurobarometer is also showing highest support for the EU in 35 years.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  People act against their own self-interest all the time (e.g. the modern Republican Party in America).
- wongarsu 8y ago
  The lifes of the few outweigh the convinience of the many. You are effectively arguing that because the majority wants to freely poison a minority (causing lung cancer and respiratory diseases), the major can't pass restrictions against that. This is a great example why a democracy has to have more principles than "what the majority decides goes".
- ip26 8y ago
  Recalls & reversals generally seem to very selectively incite the fringe. The center figures the matter is settled, and the very edges come in and undo it. So I personally tend to see recalls & reversals especially (except in cases of e.g. corruption, criminality, incompetence) as the will of the fringe, not the will of the masses. Colorado is kind of an example for me. In 2013 the right mobilized over just-enacted gun control laws and recalled a number of Democrats, turning the majority to the right. But then in the general elections of 2018, everything went back to the Democrats again.
- adrianN 8y ago
  When we introduced speed limits, people were protesting. When we introduced catalytic converters, people were protesting. When we banned smoking in busses, people were protesting. When we banned smoking in restaurants, people were protesting. Quite often, the people don't know what's good for them. That's we generally don't have direct democracies.
ekianjo 8y ago
> Air quality in the center has also improved, with pollution falling by 8.9% compared to the historic average for the December-March period, according to measurements taken from the Plaza del Carmen monitoring station, the only one located within the Madrid Central area. 8.9% ? Is a significant difference? Was the previous more polluted air any dangerous to breathe comparatively to all other daily risks people face? What are the absolute values of each pollutant instead of reporting everything in percentages and how do they compare to the usual EU limits for the definition of clean air? How does Madrid compare to Paris, London, Frankfurt, Berlin? There are so many questions to ask before taking action on this kind of things.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  > 8.9% ? Is a significant difference? Yes, but how much of it is due to improvements in newer combustion engines and new EU-wide emission norms?
  - adrianN 8y ago
    The improvements would have to be either massive, or the fraction of new cars on the road would have to be much higher than I'd expect.
- madrileno 8y ago
  And that's the center alone. How much of the traffic that used to be routed through the center is now polluting other regions of the city?
kh_hk 8y ago
That's it, but not all of it. Saying that in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison is just plain defeatist. This map [1] shows 2015 results for the municipal elections in Madrid. The center is just one small part of the whole thing. Sadly, it takes a lot more to convince everyone. There's plenty of people on that map that hardly ever visit the center. [1]: https://e00-elmundo.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2015/05/25/14325548509041.png https://e00-elmundo.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2015...
robertAngst 8y ago
Isn't it interesting how we opinions on the lives and decisions halfway across the world- Despite not living there and understanding the complexity of life. I'm an Environmentalist, but whenever I hear about government imposed solutions, I imagine someone's life is terrible. -Elderly folks have a significantly harder time getting necessities -Emergency vehicles take longer due to traffic I won't go on, because I won't pretend I understand life and culture in another country. This reminds me of the question a Lawyer said they debated- Does the world need a Tyrant to stop Capitalism from destroying the earth, or is Freedom the way?
- kikoreis 8y ago
  See other threads for details on the actual program. The restrictions are pretty moderate and have exclusions for local residents etc.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    That is a cop-out. People from halfway around the world call it 'moderate'.
Jare 8y ago
Carmena is the best thing that has ever happened to this city, precisely because she is always trying to do what's needed not what's convenient. Sadly, there are populists and selfish people everywhere around the world like vultures trading our long term well being for their own short term gain.
- madrileno 8y ago
  Can you name some of the good things she has done, besides her populist large "refugees welcome" sign on a public building and this badly thought plan that essentially moves traffic from the center to more residential areas?
  - andrepd 8y ago
    I don't figure how a "refugees welcome" sign is a populist thing in the current political climate. The opposite phrase would surely be.
    - madrileno 8y ago
      Trying to appeal to a large group on the basis of emotion is surely populism. 1. We welcome you, despite 14.1% unemployment rate in the country (probably higher), whereas a large portion of jobs are part-time and another large portion of full-time jobs pay minimum wage. 2. We welcome you, although we know you'll end up on the streets. 3. We welcome you, although we can't, but might this serve as motivation for your deadly journey ("efecto llamada"). 4. We welcome you, at least we say, so now we can pat ourselves about how good we are. The opposite is reason.

kzcqt 8y ago

This baffles me. The government is there to serve the people. People are unhappy about what the current mayor is doing, that's why she's getting kicked out. Advocating for the EU to step in and force people to stay unhappy will only increase the anti-EU sentiment, but I guess the cat is out of the bag on that one.

MordodeMaru 8y ago
Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU. Also, it is a matter of who enforces pollution policy: Madrid is a city with limitations, Europe on the other hand is able to dictate directives. On regards to the elections, let's see if she gets kicked out.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  > Spain is by far the least anti EU country in the EU No. In the latest Eurobarometer, confidence in the EU is one of the lowest in Spain. 54% of respondents do not trust the EU, vs. e.g. 21% in Lithuania or 31% in Denmark. http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/84930 http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/...
  - Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
    However, in the same document you can also see that Spain is the second EU country with the most positive image of the European Union, second only to Sweden (page 10). When asked about membership in the EU, the answer is also more positive than average, although in a more modest 9th place (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard/eurobarometer/2018/eurobarometer-2018-democracy-on-the-move/top-results/en-one-year-before-2019-eurobarometer-results-annex.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard... page 37). So it depends on how you ask. I would say saying that Spain is the least anti EU country is quite an overstatement, but it's definitely more pro-EU than average. I think the results of the question on trust may be biased by the fact that Spanish people don't trust politicians in general. In page 6 of this Eurobarometer survey (https://ec.europa.eu/spain/sites/spain/files/eb88_nat_es_es.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/spain/sites/spain/files/eb88_nat_es_es.... - sorry, in Spanish, I couldn't find it in English) you can see that while trust in the EU is not very high, it's quite higher than trust in the Spanish government. So most people wouldn't want to leave the EU.
dingallero 8y ago
Pretty much any city in EU has now some forms of traffic restriction policies. The same is true for where I live as well. The issue is not really the restriction, but the lack of alternatives. Very few cities have a decent metro zone: these cities are the only ones where I see no objections to stricter traffic policies. Most cities are only served by public _road_ transport services. This doesn't have the same level of service, by a long shot. There's a huge, _huge_ difference between having to plan your move in 1hr intervals and just hop on a platform having to wait no longer than 10 minutes. Not to mention the cost, inevitable delays due to traffic, shorter service hours and so on. I would ban all cars tomorrow and sell mine too if I could get anywhere in a metro. Reality is, this is only feasible for very few selected places. The governments here should make public transport massively better first. The reality is that they just enforce restrictions and provide no alternatives. What do you do then?
- kzcqt 8y ago
  Yeah, thanks for this comment. That's what makes this matter worse: they restrict private transport, but public transport just gets worse and more expensive every year.
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    This article talks about the improvements Madrid made to its public transport system. Are you guys talking about in general or specifically in Madrid?
  - dingallero 8y ago
    In several places where I lived the public transport road service was subcontracted to the lowest-bidding private company of the region. This in turn creates this shitty illusion of "public" service that nobody wants to use, because: - it's unreliable (delays and strikes are common) - short working hours - poorly planned (or no) interconnections with other public services - abusive service costs to recoup the costs Even factoring all expenses of a car, several bus connections I was forced to take in the past where in the order of 5-6 times the total cost of car ownership. This doesn't even include the grave annoyances I listed above. Sad :(
josalhor 8y ago
That is a very complicated statement. People have a very short time horizon as a whole. Politicians that promise to take the short, easy answer are usually ignoring long-term consequences. That leads to a -kind of- populism. Note: I'm not saying I'm in favour or against Madrid's Mayor, nor her policies.
stfp 8y ago
The government is also here to take into account the work of scientists & urbanists and lead the people towards a better, healthier and sustainable future.
amelius 8y ago
Would you say the same about regulations against smoking?
- kzcqt 8y ago
  Definitely I would. As a restaurant owner I should be able to dictate who can and who can't smoke in my premises. Having said that, cigarettes should be much more expensive so we can fund healthcare.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Smokers are actually cheaper for the healthcare system because they die early and don't require years and years of intensive medical care during old age.
chewz 8y ago
You can't have democracy and consumer capitalism and at the same time save the planet from climate catastrophe. It simply won't work. This is what Naomi Klein is trying to tell us.[1] At more practical level getting financing for better public transport needs providing forecast of revenues. And it does not justify investments in public transport as long as people use cars, ubers, taxis etc. And people will continue choosing personal convenience over the prospect of having grandchildren living on planet Earth. Tough choice for elected politicians. [1] http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2018/08/capitalism-killed-our-climate-momentum-not-human-nature http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2018/08/capitalism-killed...
- tim333 8y ago
  I think that's over pessimistic - we have lots of environmental laws and mostly fixed the ozone hole and lead pollution. CO2 emissions are tricky as so much of the economy used fossil fuel and the top four emitters being China, India and Russia as well as the US you can't stop it without getting those on board. It's not impossible though.
gnclmorais 8y ago
> The government is there to serve the people. I think you could ask twenty people about what does this mean and you’ll get twenty different shades of ‘serving the people’.
wklauss 8y ago
The government IS serving the people precisely by putting in place measures to improve air quality. Most of the backslash against Madrid regulations is coming from people that don't live in the center of the city and are using the issue as a proxy to voice their political views against the mayor's political party (affiliate to left-leaning Podemos). Funny thing is that this measure was for the longest time in the previous mayoral team (under control from right-leaning Partido Popular) agenda as well. On the anti-EU sentiment. I think it's important to point out that 62% of Spaniards (and rising since Brexit started) have a favorable view of the EU (according to Pew Research). Eurobarometer is also showing highest support for the EU in 35 years.
inferiorhuman 8y ago
People act against their own self-interest all the time (e.g. the modern Republican Party in America).
wongarsu 8y ago
The lifes of the few outweigh the convinience of the many. You are effectively arguing that because the majority wants to freely poison a minority (causing lung cancer and respiratory diseases), the major can't pass restrictions against that. This is a great example why a democracy has to have more principles than "what the majority decides goes".
ip26 8y ago
Recalls & reversals generally seem to very selectively incite the fringe. The center figures the matter is settled, and the very edges come in and undo it. So I personally tend to see recalls & reversals especially (except in cases of e.g. corruption, criminality, incompetence) as the will of the fringe, not the will of the masses. Colorado is kind of an example for me. In 2013 the right mobilized over just-enacted gun control laws and recalled a number of Democrats, turning the majority to the right. But then in the general elections of 2018, everything went back to the Democrats again.
adrianN 8y ago
When we introduced speed limits, people were protesting. When we introduced catalytic converters, people were protesting. When we banned smoking in busses, people were protesting. When we banned smoking in restaurants, people were protesting. Quite often, the people don't know what's good for them. That's we generally don't have direct democracies.

ekianjo 8y ago

> Air quality in the center has also improved, with pollution falling by 8.9% compared to the historic average for the December-March period, according to measurements taken from the Plaza del Carmen monitoring station, the only one located within the Madrid Central area. 8.9% ? Is a significant difference? Was the previous more polluted air any dangerous to breathe comparatively to all other daily risks people face? What are the absolute values of each pollutant instead of reporting everything in percentages and how do they compare to the usual EU limits for the definition of clean air? How does Madrid compare to Paris, London, Frankfurt, Berlin? There are so many questions to ask before taking action on this kind of things.

lazyjones 8y ago
> 8.9% ? Is a significant difference? Yes, but how much of it is due to improvements in newer combustion engines and new EU-wide emission norms?
- adrianN 8y ago
  The improvements would have to be either massive, or the fraction of new cars on the road would have to be much higher than I'd expect.
madrileno 8y ago
And that's the center alone. How much of the traffic that used to be routed through the center is now polluting other regions of the city?

kh_hk 8y ago

That's it, but not all of it. Saying that in Spain hardly anyone cares about breathing poison is just plain defeatist. This map [1] shows 2015 results for the municipal elections in Madrid. The center is just one small part of the whole thing. Sadly, it takes a lot more to convince everyone. There's plenty of people on that map that hardly ever visit the center. [1]: https://e00-elmundo.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2015/05/25/14325548509041.png https://e00-elmundo.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2015...

robertAngst 8y ago

Isn't it interesting how we opinions on the lives and decisions halfway across the world- Despite not living there and understanding the complexity of life. I'm an Environmentalist, but whenever I hear about government imposed solutions, I imagine someone's life is terrible. -Elderly folks have a significantly harder time getting necessities -Emergency vehicles take longer due to traffic I won't go on, because I won't pretend I understand life and culture in another country. This reminds me of the question a Lawyer said they debated- Does the world need a Tyrant to stop Capitalism from destroying the earth, or is Freedom the way?

kikoreis 8y ago
See other threads for details on the actual program. The restrictions are pretty moderate and have exclusions for local residents etc.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  That is a cop-out. People from halfway around the world call it 'moderate'.

Jare 8y ago

Carmena is the best thing that has ever happened to this city, precisely because she is always trying to do what's needed not what's convenient. Sadly, there are populists and selfish people everywhere around the world like vultures trading our long term well being for their own short term gain.

madrileno 8y ago
Can you name some of the good things she has done, besides her populist large "refugees welcome" sign on a public building and this badly thought plan that essentially moves traffic from the center to more residential areas?
- andrepd 8y ago
  I don't figure how a "refugees welcome" sign is a populist thing in the current political climate. The opposite phrase would surely be.
  - madrileno 8y ago
    Trying to appeal to a large group on the basis of emotion is surely populism. 1. We welcome you, despite 14.1% unemployment rate in the country (probably higher), whereas a large portion of jobs are part-time and another large portion of full-time jobs pay minimum wage. 2. We welcome you, although we know you'll end up on the streets. 3. We welcome you, although we can't, but might this serve as motivation for your deadly journey ("efecto llamada"). 4. We welcome you, at least we say, so now we can pat ourselves about how good we are. The opposite is reason.