Earth Hour in Auckland

As the first country in the world to mark Earth Hour on Saturday 27 March, it would have been a perfect opportunity for New Zealand to set an exemplary standard of participation. Sadly, I found Auckland's contribution a bit disappointing. Here's the crowd at Auckland's official event at Britomart:

For a city of over a million people, I think it's fair to say that there was a pretty low turnout. But, things may not be as disappointing as they seem. People might have chosen to participate in Earth Hour at home or with friends, rather than coming all the way into the centre of the city. Earth Hour did, after all, take place at 8.30 pm on a Saturday. WWF, the organisation behind Earth Hour, will carry out a poll to establish national participation, the results of which should come out in a couple of weeks.

It was cool to see Auckland's iconic Sky Tower switch its lights off for the hour, along with some of Auckland's other prominent high-rises, although there were plenty of lights still glowing on the skyline. But at the end of the day, it's not really about how many people spent their Saturday night sitting with candles on the Britomart lawn, or how many buildings turned off their lights for the hour. It's about how many people heard about Earth Hour, and thought about what they could do to reduce their energy consumption and their impact on the environment. Judging by how many billboards, TV commercials, banner ads on websites and stories in the media I saw, I'd say a lot of people.

Go By Bike Breakfast

This morning I dusted off my helmet and rode down to Auckland's Viaduct for the Go By Bike Breakfast (run by the Auckland City Council as part of Bikewise Month). It's been so long since I rode my bike in Auckland city that I was apprehensive about the traffic. But, as soon as I set off I realised I'd forgotten the thrill of a city bike ride. No driver rage today, phew!

The Viaduct had been transformed with rows of trestle tables and clusters of tents around the perimeter.

The Council's Go By Bike Breakfast team were on duty serving up fresh fruit, yoghurt, muesli and muffins. There was also freshly squeezed orange juice and Sierra coffee on offer. Good on you Sierra; I think it's so admirable when a big commercial operation shows up to give away its product for free at community events like the Go By Bike Breakfast.

The was a positive vibe in the crowd. I could sense that a lot of people were proud of the fact that they were doing something good for themselves and the environment by biking to work. The attendees were a diverse bunch including lycra-clad road racers, the Urgent Couriers Ponsonby Rugby Club boys, the Epsom Girls Grammar cycle team and a handful of unicyclists. A new bike was given away to the best dressed participant. It went to one of the members of the frockilicious Frocks on Bikes - no surprises there!

My pick for best accessorized cyclist

Next month pedestrians get their celebration, with the annual Walk2Work breakfast taking place around the country on March 10. I've volunteered to help out with it, and will post more details closer to the time.

Got your own photos, stories or thoughts from the Go By Bike Breakfast? Please share them in a comment.

More about:
Bikewise Month
Frocks on Bikes
Sierra Coffee

Planet A March for the Climate

Yesterday hundreds, possibly thousands, of Aucklanders met in Albert Park in the CBD for the Sign On Planet A March for the Climate. Families, groups of teens, young professionals, middle-aged couples and seniors gathered together and donned placards with hand-painted messages requesting real commitment to tackling climate change at next week's COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

Fabulous frontwoman Robyn Malcolm addressed the crowd with the message that this was a positive march - a step to show our leaders that they have support to push for an ambitious target in Copenhagen. And the atmosphere was incredibly positive. This was a march where people chanted with smiles on their faces; and the message was 'we can'. The march up Queen St, Auckland's main street, ended in Myers Park with a free concert for supporters by some of New Zealand's favourite local acts (including hilarious Sign On poster-boy and MC, Rhys Darby).

Robyn Malcolm keeping the crowd positive

Next week is an incredibly exciting time for the world. Will our leaders come together in Copenhagen and commit to taking action to avert the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming?

They got across!

On Sunday morning I denied myself my usual sleep-in to join the multitudes at the Curran St carpark, in the shadow of that famous piece of infrastructure: the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The crowd of thousands included families, young activist types, lycra-clad middle-aged men and just about every other kind of person you can think of. And there were road bikes, mountain bikes, choppers, unicycles, skateboards, scooters and wheelchairs. They were all there with one purpose in mind: to get across. getacross is an organisation of individuals who think it's stupid that cyclists and pedestrians are unable to cross the iconic Harbour Bridge. These sustainable forms of transport are currently unavailable to many thousands of people who make the daily commute to the city from the North Shore. Apparently 78% of Aucklanders are in favour of being able to walk or cycle across the Bridge. But the NZ Transport Agency doesn't want a bar of it. So, the people at getacross thought, 'why not show the Transport Agency just how many people's preferences they're denying?'

Although the getacross people had been organising the demonstration for ages, even that morning they still weren't sure if the Transport Agency would let the people cross. The Harbour Bridge is part of the motorway, so it's actually illegal for pedestrians and cyclists to go on it. But getacross had requested special permission to access the Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of its construction. After hyping up the crowd with speeches from councillors, politicians and activists, they herded us all over to the on-ramp to ask the head of the Transport Agency, Wayne McDonald, to let us onto the Bridge. Apparently he said no, but that was lost in the excited crowd's enthusiastic chanting. Then all of a sudden the police barrier parted and people streamed onto the Bridge. It wasn't until I saw the TV coverage last night that I realised that permission had never been given, and some poor motorists were held up at the bottom of the Bridge for over an hour. 

The media coverage was surprising. There was talk of "an unruly crowd storming the Bridge". From my position amongst the throng, a more accurate description would be "a cross-section of New Zealand society trying to get in touch with their environment, and, more importantly, trying to get the people with the power to change things to listen to their point of view". Apparently the action hasn't changed the Transport Agency's position on pedestrian and cycle access to the Bridge one bit. Whether that holds true long term remains to be seen. But, what the gathering achieved straight away was to make a huge proportion of New Zealanders aware of what getacross and other organisations are trying to achieve. That in itself seems like a success to me.

350

Today I was inspired by Bill McKibben, founder of the global 350 movement. He gave a free public talk in Auckland about 350 and how New Zealanders can get behind it. The 350 movement aims to put pressure on governments to set carbon emission targets that will reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm). There is growing scientific consensus that 350 ppm is the "magic number" that we need to reach to avoid catastrophe. Currently the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at 387 ppm and rising. Scary stuff! The good news is we have a window of opportunity to avoid catastrophic and irreversible damage to the Earth, so long as we act quickly and dramatically. Unfortunately all of us switching to environmentally friendly lightbulbs won't cut it. We need to think big.

The 350 movement has deemed October 24 2009 as the day to show the governments of the world that we want them to take big steps to bring their carbon emissions down so that we can reach 350 as soon as possible. After Bill had shared anecdotes like how he and some friends mobilised 1000 people in the US State of Vermont to march for five days to their state government buildings and convince all of the state government candidates to pledge to fight for strict carbon emissions targets if they were elected, I was convinced to sign myself up to help organise activities for October 24th. You can too at www.350.org.nz (or www.350.org if you live outside New Zealand). You can also see 350's funky animation showing the causes of climate change and what we can do to fight back. Bill's talk was recorded and will be put up on the website. It's inspiring - you should check it out.