7 ms·

depends shock jocks will blame the greens "for not letting us build more dams" or some other rubbish. greens (like me) will blame poor planning for building c

by fungi 16y ago

depends shock jocks will blame the greens "for not letting us build more dams" or some other rubbish. greens (like me) will blame poor planning for building cities and major infrastructure on known flood plains.

jacques_chester 16y ago
Effects can have more than one cause, my friend.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
hugh3 16y ago
Brisbane has been in its present location since 1825. If the "green" answer to "how can we stop floods in Brisbane" is "well you shouldn't have built a city there in the first place, so nyer" then I don't think that's the kind of attitude that's going to do wonders for the cause of environmentalism. Seriously though, to the extent that there's fingers to be pointed they should be pointed at the folks in charge of the Wivenhoe Dam. But hey, I'm not a dam engineer, so maybe we really do need a second dam.
- fungi 16y ago
  tokyo has a big ass green belt around it's river http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.738057,139.824747&spn=0.004441,0.009903&t=h&z=17 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.738057,139.824747&... edit: for a positive comparison checkout south bank http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.478211,153.023704&z=18&t=k&nmd=20110113 http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.478211,153.023704&z=18&#3... edit2: another example of green belts along rivers is Curitiba in southern Brasil see: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-25.45894,-49.191552&spn=0.00494,0.009903&t=h&z=17 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-25.45894,-49.191552&... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Hydrography_and_Pluviometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Hydrography_and_Pluvio...
  - blasdel 16y ago
    There's also epic flood control stuff on the river north of Tokyo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Underground_Discharge_Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Undergr...
    - fungi 16y ago
      i'm constantly floored by the scale and quality of infrastructure in japan, and not just tokyo even out woop woop they have rail, road, water and telco infrastructure that makes our efforts look feeble. amazing shit you can do when you run public debt at close to 100% of GDP :)
      - wakeless 16y ago
        And when you have population density. It makes economic sense to provide better services when you have x number of people per m^2 as compared to the Australian density. I'm a big believer that Australian cities should be bearing this in mind and building up rather than out.
      - jacques_chester 16y ago
        Japanese public debt is actually at ~200% of GDP. Australia is not seen as a particularly safe bond issuer, we could not sustain that level of debt.
  - brc 16y ago
    Well, the riverside of Brisbane is mostly private property, including the CBD. Unless you're going to forcibly confiscate private property, people are not going to leave of their own accord - and even if they do, others will be happy to move in behind them. So it's a choice of leaving things where they are, or suspending democracy, private property and freedom of choice and doing a dictatorial thing like clearing all the houses and buildings along the river and creating a park. Even if you did it under existing laws, the amount of money required to resume all the properties would be immense. Everyone of those riverfront homes is worth at least a million dollars. The buyout and demolition would far outweigh any reconstruction costs. These people know they live in a flood zone. There are flood markers all over the place and every property purchase inclues a 1974 flood report as to the level of flooding in the particular property. People choose to live in these place of their own free will in the full knowledge the river might one day come and flood them. So a wide green belt along the river might be a good idea. But it's also completely impractical and only good as a theoretical talking point.
Dylanlacey 16y ago
Except for Bob Brown. Who is now widely perceived as being a heartless loony. (For O/S readers, the leader of the Greens party claimed that "The Coal Industry should have to pay for the cleanup as it was caused by climate change, which is their fault" (Paraphrased). This is not only unproven, it's also a cop-out... PEOPLE used that coal Bob, they're to blame as well if we believe your causality logic. It's a good thing there were no floods before this year, and certainly none in the 19th century to disprove your theory that natural disasters only happen to naughty planets whose inhabitants mine coal)
- fungi 16y ago
  privatise the profit, socialise the costs.
  - brc 16y ago
    Serious question now : do you really believe/agree with what Bob Brown is saying? Or are you going along with the support just because you support his political party? He has no facts or even scientific support for his statement. To state that the Australian coal industry has somehow caused major flooding is to indulge in bald-faced lying of the type that only agenda-driven politicians can manage. The one data point of worse flooding in 1893 before the coal industry even existed is case closed for most rational people. Not even the most activist climate scientist is prepared to definitively link the floods to warming temperature, let along the percentage of warming attributed to co2 emissions, let alone the 1% of global co2 emissions that Australia accounts for. About the best you'll get is 'global warming may have contributed to the flooding'. And that's hardly a smoking gun of the type Brown is fantasizing about. If I was a supporter of Bob Brown I would be embarassed by this particular outburst.
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      I wouldn't be. Bob Brown has form on this sort of thing. He blamed the ACT and Victoria bushfires on global warming also. Basically his major supporters at this point must be the forgetful and the shameless.
brc 16y ago
Not just shock jocks. Normal people as well. Your policy response, which can be paraphrased as 'don't build dams, move major cities' is idealogically warped and just wishful thinking. You would find it hard outside of your peer group to find anyone to take you seriously. The cities are where they are. It's not a surprise that Brisbane and Ipswich floods - the very first parts of written QLD history contain stories of immense flooding events. More flood mitigation via Dams is the only sensible and possible response. More dams also has the side effect of more water supplies and possibly more hydro-electric power.
- panacea 16y ago
  "Your policy response, which can be paraphrased as 'don't build dams, move major cities' is idealogically warped and just wishful thinking." I could be wrong, but I think he's suggesting not building on the areas of the city which form the flood plain, not the whole city. We have an accurate record of which areas of the City were flooded in 1974. The areas that flooded recently are a subset of those areas. People were allowed to build in these areas because the Dam was supposed to have mitigated the risk. We could have kept zoning plans in place to deter building in these areas and still had a vibrant city built up around them. More river-front parkland to boot!
  - brc 16y ago
    It doesn't matter if it is 5% of a city or the whole city, it's not going to happen. The areas that were flooded now were mostly populated in 1974. There's a popular meme going around that huge areas of previously-vacant land was built upon. While that might be true in some instances of outer suburbs, in general the flooded suburbs of Brisbane were the same ones as all the previous floods. As I've already stated, if you want to clear the city from the low-lying areas, you'll have to forcibly acquire a large amount of private property, which is either an expensive (if the law is followed) route, or a suspension of the current law. So suggesting the low lying areas be forcibly cleared is clearly unworkable. And it involves acquiring and demolishing the majority of the CBD. If you think that is even remotely possible then I've got the Story Bridge to sell you. Everyone who purchases property in Brisbane is well aware of the 1974 floods. I know, because I purchased a property knowing full well it could be flooded one day as it was in 1974. And last week it was. But I'm not about to sell it or have the government confiscate it because it gets flooded once every 40 years. About the best thing that could happen is something along the lines of a) new developments must have critical infrastructure (electrical circuits etc) about the 100-year flood leve b) flood prone suburbs could have prominent markers, such as bands around power poles to remind people of previous flood heights. There's a popular one in the Breakfast Creek Hotel. c) new housing in flood zones could have a mandate not to use water soluble materials such as plasterboard in lower levels, and could be mandated to have the main living area above flood height. People with older houses often came out with no problems because the old houses were built with floods in mind. This idea of avoiding flood risk by avoiding waterfront areas is silly. By the same token, all residents should abandon Cairns and Townsville because of the cyclone risk. And cyclones in the north happen far more frequently, and with more devastation than Brisbane floods.

by fungi 16y ago

jacques_chester 16y ago

Effects can have more than one cause, my friend.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

hugh3 16y ago

Brisbane has been in its present location since 1825. If the "green" answer to "how can we stop floods in Brisbane" is "well you shouldn't have built a city there in the first place, so nyer" then I don't think that's the kind of attitude that's going to do wonders for the cause of environmentalism. Seriously though, to the extent that there's fingers to be pointed they should be pointed at the folks in charge of the Wivenhoe Dam. But hey, I'm not a dam engineer, so maybe we really do need a second dam.

fungi 16y ago
tokyo has a big ass green belt around it's river http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.738057,139.824747&spn=0.004441,0.009903&t=h&z=17 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.738057,139.824747&... edit: for a positive comparison checkout south bank http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.478211,153.023704&z=18&t=k&nmd=20110113 http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.478211,153.023704&z=18&#3... edit2: another example of green belts along rivers is Curitiba in southern Brasil see: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-25.45894,-49.191552&spn=0.00494,0.009903&t=h&z=17 http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-25.45894,-49.191552&... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Hydrography_and_Pluviometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Hydrography_and_Pluvio...
- blasdel 16y ago
  There's also epic flood control stuff on the river north of Tokyo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Underground_Discharge_Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Undergr...
  - fungi 16y ago
    i'm constantly floored by the scale and quality of infrastructure in japan, and not just tokyo even out woop woop they have rail, road, water and telco infrastructure that makes our efforts look feeble. amazing shit you can do when you run public debt at close to 100% of GDP :)
    - wakeless 16y ago
      And when you have population density. It makes economic sense to provide better services when you have x number of people per m^2 as compared to the Australian density. I'm a big believer that Australian cities should be bearing this in mind and building up rather than out.
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      Japanese public debt is actually at ~200% of GDP. Australia is not seen as a particularly safe bond issuer, we could not sustain that level of debt.
- brc 16y ago
  Well, the riverside of Brisbane is mostly private property, including the CBD. Unless you're going to forcibly confiscate private property, people are not going to leave of their own accord - and even if they do, others will be happy to move in behind them. So it's a choice of leaving things where they are, or suspending democracy, private property and freedom of choice and doing a dictatorial thing like clearing all the houses and buildings along the river and creating a park. Even if you did it under existing laws, the amount of money required to resume all the properties would be immense. Everyone of those riverfront homes is worth at least a million dollars. The buyout and demolition would far outweigh any reconstruction costs. These people know they live in a flood zone. There are flood markers all over the place and every property purchase inclues a 1974 flood report as to the level of flooding in the particular property. People choose to live in these place of their own free will in the full knowledge the river might one day come and flood them. So a wide green belt along the river might be a good idea. But it's also completely impractical and only good as a theoretical talking point.

Dylanlacey 16y ago

Except for Bob Brown. Who is now widely perceived as being a heartless loony. (For O/S readers, the leader of the Greens party claimed that "The Coal Industry should have to pay for the cleanup as it was caused by climate change, which is their fault" (Paraphrased). This is not only unproven, it's also a cop-out... PEOPLE used that coal Bob, they're to blame as well if we believe your causality logic. It's a good thing there were no floods before this year, and certainly none in the 19th century to disprove your theory that natural disasters only happen to naughty planets whose inhabitants mine coal)

fungi 16y ago
privatise the profit, socialise the costs.
- brc 16y ago
  Serious question now : do you really believe/agree with what Bob Brown is saying? Or are you going along with the support just because you support his political party? He has no facts or even scientific support for his statement. To state that the Australian coal industry has somehow caused major flooding is to indulge in bald-faced lying of the type that only agenda-driven politicians can manage. The one data point of worse flooding in 1893 before the coal industry even existed is case closed for most rational people. Not even the most activist climate scientist is prepared to definitively link the floods to warming temperature, let along the percentage of warming attributed to co2 emissions, let alone the 1% of global co2 emissions that Australia accounts for. About the best you'll get is 'global warming may have contributed to the flooding'. And that's hardly a smoking gun of the type Brown is fantasizing about. If I was a supporter of Bob Brown I would be embarassed by this particular outburst.
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    I wouldn't be. Bob Brown has form on this sort of thing. He blamed the ACT and Victoria bushfires on global warming also. Basically his major supporters at this point must be the forgetful and the shameless.

brc 16y ago

Not just shock jocks. Normal people as well. Your policy response, which can be paraphrased as 'don't build dams, move major cities' is idealogically warped and just wishful thinking. You would find it hard outside of your peer group to find anyone to take you seriously. The cities are where they are. It's not a surprise that Brisbane and Ipswich floods - the very first parts of written QLD history contain stories of immense flooding events. More flood mitigation via Dams is the only sensible and possible response. More dams also has the side effect of more water supplies and possibly more hydro-electric power.

panacea 16y ago
"Your policy response, which can be paraphrased as 'don't build dams, move major cities' is idealogically warped and just wishful thinking." I could be wrong, but I think he's suggesting not building on the areas of the city which form the flood plain, not the whole city. We have an accurate record of which areas of the City were flooded in 1974. The areas that flooded recently are a subset of those areas. People were allowed to build in these areas because the Dam was supposed to have mitigated the risk. We could have kept zoning plans in place to deter building in these areas and still had a vibrant city built up around them. More river-front parkland to boot!
- brc 16y ago
  It doesn't matter if it is 5% of a city or the whole city, it's not going to happen. The areas that were flooded now were mostly populated in 1974. There's a popular meme going around that huge areas of previously-vacant land was built upon. While that might be true in some instances of outer suburbs, in general the flooded suburbs of Brisbane were the same ones as all the previous floods. As I've already stated, if you want to clear the city from the low-lying areas, you'll have to forcibly acquire a large amount of private property, which is either an expensive (if the law is followed) route, or a suspension of the current law. So suggesting the low lying areas be forcibly cleared is clearly unworkable. And it involves acquiring and demolishing the majority of the CBD. If you think that is even remotely possible then I've got the Story Bridge to sell you. Everyone who purchases property in Brisbane is well aware of the 1974 floods. I know, because I purchased a property knowing full well it could be flooded one day as it was in 1974. And last week it was. But I'm not about to sell it or have the government confiscate it because it gets flooded once every 40 years. About the best thing that could happen is something along the lines of a) new developments must have critical infrastructure (electrical circuits etc) about the 100-year flood leve b) flood prone suburbs could have prominent markers, such as bands around power poles to remind people of previous flood heights. There's a popular one in the Breakfast Creek Hotel. c) new housing in flood zones could have a mandate not to use water soluble materials such as plasterboard in lower levels, and could be mandated to have the main living area above flood height. People with older houses often came out with no problems because the old houses were built with floods in mind. This idea of avoiding flood risk by avoiding waterfront areas is silly. By the same token, all residents should abandon Cairns and Townsville because of the cyclone risk. And cyclones in the north happen far more frequently, and with more devastation than Brisbane floods.