it's along way to the top

It seems to be covered in mud. As always, the issue du jour (that's latte speak) is covered in excruciating detail elsewhere. So what can Chateau VVB turns its attention to that might add value? Ooh, this is veering awfully close to metablogging which is, I understand, a bit de trop (that's chardonnay speak).

No, as a ten-year inhabitant (not quite a citizen, I still support the wrong team) of Brizvegas, it's about the journey to work. I'm still a climate gobbler, that is to say, a single occupant of a thirsty car on the daily commute. I leave for work 45 minutes earlier than I did when I came here so I can get out of second gear at least once on the 13 km trip.

Mayor Campbell is building tunnels everywhere except the leafy western suburbs I inhabit, so both the routes into town are chocka after 7 every morning. I'd use public transport except I'm not much of a fan of buses. I do like trains but, as we never had a train line out here in the leafy west, there'll never be one because of the cost, financial and social, of resuming enough properties. Unless we get a tunnel, of course.

It's the same or worse in Sydney and Melbourne. We're growing, we all need to get thither and, after we've been to thither, either yon or back again. So it would seem that population growth is the culprit. Of course the rationalists and classical capitalists are seen to be all in favour of unrestrained growth because it gives them a bigger market much more simply than seeking new markets elsewhere, which makes profitability easier (provided you're running a halfway efficient business).

That's a simplistic argument even if I am kind of attracted to it initially. However such simplistic approaches leave out the human ('soft') factor - not all bosses are avaricious, grabbing bastards. The growth at any costs model is of course attractive to governments as it is a more or less self-fulfilling prophesy - you don;'t have to be particularly good at what you do if you've got natural advantages (as of course we do in the leafy western suburbs).

I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about stuff to start making any comments about natural carrying capacity, whether in urban or rural areas (stop that laughing, DH and SD!). However it seems to me that limits must be reached in terms of water, arable land and what-all. Technological advances have traditionally delivered increases in carrying capacity, but some of these now come under scrutiny - eg the costs of transporting food. I reckon we can expect to see mega-changes in the paddock to plate model as highly centralised and standardised models that deliver costs benefits to the distributor and/or vendor are shelved in favour of more local production. Which gets us back to the local arable land thing - eg Sydney has lost lots. Where do we get more?

How did we end up here? Probably by tunnel, in the meantime we should cogitate on how long can it go on.