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Open mike 20/03/2025

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 20th, 2025 - 12 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

12 comments on “Open mike 20/03/2025 ”

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  1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1
    20 March 2025 at 8:04 am

    Climate Emergency. Meanwhile. Nero NAct1 fiddle…..

    Dire climate report lays out records for ocean heat, shrinking ice cover

    Scientists have reacted with frustration to a report by the World Meteorological Organisation saying climate change reached new heights in 2024, with some of the consequences being irreversible over hundreds if not thousands of years.

    Each of the past eight years had set a new record for ocean heat, and ice cover was shrinking to new lows on both land and sea, it said.

    Scientists, interestingly, are also Human and worried, if not also fearful..

    One of many. You can feel her frustration ! What will it take !?

    Dr Linden Ashcroft, a lecturer in climate science and science communication at the University of Melbourne, said she'd been providing comments like these for her entire career and wondered if she should try screaming the findings from the tops of buildings or saying them while dancing on TikTok.

    Just look FFS !

    The 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice measurements on record were all in the past 18 years, the WMO said, while in Antarctica – where sea ice had previously stayed relatively stable – the three lowest ice extents were all in the past three years.

    The largest three-year loss of glacier ice also occurred in the past three years, it said, while the rate of sea level rise had doubled since satellite measurements began.

    To Climate..Deniers. Its not just about People and our Planet. Its also the Economy, stupid !

    "While a single year above 1.5C of warming does not indicate that the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement are out of reach, it is a wake-up call that we are increasing the risks to our lives, economies and to the planet," WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo said in an accompanying statement.

    Last words to Laura Ashcroft (and speaking for her colleagues).

    They are scared too : (

    "However, I'm not sure what researchers can say to this latest update that we haven't said a thousand times before," she said.

    "Yes, we have now crossed even more devastating and globally significant thresholds. Yes, these records are breaking because of human-induced climate change. No, there is no other way to explain it. Yes, we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change but we all have to act, and we have to act right now. Yes, we are scared too.

    "I've been providing comments like these for my entire career, and honestly, I'm not quite sure what to do next," she said.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/545309/dire-climate-report-lays-out-records-for-ocean-heat-shrinking-ice-cover

  2. Incognito 2
    20 March 2025 at 9:16 am

    I don’t think this write-up adds anything new to last week’s reporting, e.g., by Newsroom (e.g., https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18-03-2025/#comment-2028860).

    Edmonds reiterated if contracts were already entered into by the time it returns to government, Labour would honour them to prevent break fees or cuts to construction jobs, even if the projects were schools, hospitals, or prisons.

    "If spades are in the ground, it's quite clear that the contract is progressed enough," she said.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/545397/labour-s-shifting-position-on-public-private-partnerships

    If Edmonds and Labour want to distinguish themselves from the Nicky No Boats and the Coalition’s ferry fuck-up then they should use more consistent, more direct, and less subtle language and call a spade a spade.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 2.1
      20 March 2025 at 9:26 am

      Exactly. I, (and IMO many thousands of other voters ) need to know who, and what, I am seeing in Labour. Where are those crucial points of difference?

      Obfuscation via “nuance” aint gonna do it…

      Sadly, there is more than a little tweedle dee at present.

      • Incognito 2.1.1
        20 March 2025 at 9:44 am

        It’s ironic that the RW Coalition quite happily breaks commercial contracts and breaks promises (e.g., Dunedin Hospital) while Labour and presumably a LW coalition says they would honour them and we can trust them unlike the incumbent lot.

        Even with the best project planning and management there will always be cost-overruns with complex long projects. To mitigate against this means spreading the (financial) risk more equally among project partners.

        • gsays 2.1.1.1
          20 March 2025 at 9:56 am

          The first sentence of yr last paragraph.

          Plus a pithy sentence highlighting the amateur incompetence of Willis cancelling ferry contract and the unnecessary costs that brings about.

          • Phillip ure 2.1.1.1.1
            20 March 2025 at 10:40 am

            Willis became finance minister…

            ..and five minutes later cost us $300 million.. wasn't it..?

            That’s a bit of ground to make up..

            ..and she hasn’t done it…

    • Subliminal 2.2
      20 March 2025 at 9:44 am

      Its absoutely shameful. Talk about giving the far right a free pass! They are pretty much saying you can cancel as much of our program as you like, go as far to the right as you like and we will just sit back and suck it up. Absolutely shameful.

      Hopefully, the Greens and Te Pati Maori will realise what is at stake and be as beligerent in negotiations as ACT. They are now our last only chance.

      • tc 2.2.1
        20 March 2025 at 2:41 pm

        Hipkins appears to still want to straddle the middle which worked so well before.

        Opens it up for TPM and Greens to fill the gap he is leaving.

    • Bearded Git 2.3
      20 March 2025 at 10:54 pm

      That will never happen under Hipkins

  3. Adrian 3
    20 March 2025 at 11:27 am

    Edmonds is stating that they are nothing like the right, throwing away hundreds of millions on a round of spiteful hissy fits. If a project is underway she and the government she is part of will not mirror that infantile behaviour that only hurts the less well off, hence the cuts to services to try and pay for Nikki No-boats hissy fits. I would expect them to hold the contracted project builders to every last cent and not give an inch.
    Projects need not go over budget or time frame.. read Why Big Projects Fail, it’s brilliant, it sets out why none of this bullshit need ever happen.

  4. adam 4
    20 March 2025 at 1:09 pm

    I will take you out because of your name.