Thanks to a little inspiration, I managed to get out of bed that little bit earlier this morning – such that I could oil my chain before riding to work.

Boy does it make a difference. At least I think it does. I imagine part of the effect is purely mental, ie. I can’t hear my chain squeaking like a Galah – so it seems like the bike is moving with less effort. Still placebo or otherwise it made the ride that tad easier.

I rode over the the ANU for some climbing this evening, and then popped over to Llewellyn Hall for a Science Festival Forum.

The topic was “Cats, Cars & Catchments” or thereabouts, basically a discussion about Canberra and it’s environmental future(s).

It was a pretty interesting hour or so, although it wasn’t a debate, rather just a series of observations from the assembled five experts.

There was lots of talk about water, Paul Perkins being one of the panel members (formerly CEO of ACTEW). He stated that with a 25% reduction in water usage, which they feel is feasible, Canberra could be home to 500,000 people – from the perspective of water supply at least.

One of the issues that concerns me, as someone who might live in Canberra for a long time, is the physical structure of the city. I think Canberran’s preference for cars as a mode of transport is to a large degree explained by the phyiscally dispersed nature of the city. It’s going to be very hard to address, but we may have to when petrol hits $10/litre.

No one really addressed the topic to any great degree, there was just one passing comment that if we over urbanise the inner city it won’t be a very nice place to live. Possibly true. Although if we keep burning petrol like we are there might be a whole lot of places that aren’t nice to live.

Food for thought anyway.