Senior Lecturer in urban planning with the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, Dr Garry Glazebrook, painted a sobering picture of the environmental consequences of climate change due to the greenhouse effect. He said we were fast approaching a concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that would lead to dramatic and irreversible climate change, acidification of the oceans and dramatic rise in sea level.

"We are addicted to the car despite the fact it is a very costly way of travel financially and environmentally," Dr Glazebrook said. "Much of our real financial costs are obscured to us by staggered fees associated with car ownership – registration costs, depreciation and so on. We need to get used to the idea of travelling less and when we do travel, choose options that have far fewer environmental impacts.

"Alternative sources of energy used in association with public transport is one of the most obvious and urgent solutions we should be pursuing. There is no reason why our train system in Sydney should not be run entirely on green energy and our buses be fuelled by electricity. ...