A sustainable future

19 comments on “A sustainable future ”

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1. Ben Clark 1

   8 February 2012 at 8:59 am

   And the first person who needs to look at this report is Steven Joyce.

   He really needs to learn a bit about sustainability and environmental and social costs. With his complaints about the “can’ts” in the Herald he just shows his serious lack of understanding of long-term thinking and a sustainable future.
   • r0b 1.1

     8 February 2012 at 9:15 am

     Post coming up about that…
   • Shane Gallagher 1.2

     8 February 2012 at 9:59 am

     Yes – but you will be asking him to throw out his entire ideology and change his world-view in one road to Damascus conversion event – and then be turned upon by his peers. It is highly improbable.
     • Matthew Whitehead 1.2.1

       8 February 2012 at 12:57 pm

       No, ideally this would be a mass conversion of all right-wing MPs, including those in the Labour Party. 😉
2. Colonial Viper 2

   8 February 2012 at 9:42 am

   We have a political-economic system and leadership which rewards short term thinking, promotes consumer materialism and drives up profits the faster resources are used and consumed.

   The report makes it sound like we have 30 years, a generation to make these regulatory, mindset and paradigm changes. Actually that was 27 years ago. My feeling is that its now trying to position for the wrong thing – the long descent is what we now have to get ready for, and we’ve got to get that underway at full speed now. James Cameron is. We need to too, as a nation.

   As a friend of mine says – do you want to know what the economic and social degradation caused by peak energy will be like? Just look around you.

   h. Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources. It requires both mobilizing more public funds and using global and national capital to leverage global private capital through the development of incentives.

   This made me laugh. The report’s authors have no idea. Europe, Japan and the US are currently debt imploding, with governments around the world applying austerity like never before but still sinking further into the red.

   Where are these “public funds” going to be “mobilised” from? Are we all clear that to “leverage global private capital” means to get into even more debt?

   Its that paragraph which finally makes me think the entire report is a dream sequence of unrealisability. Time to prepare for the long descent.

   By the way the latest Keiser Report mentions NZ on a short list of countries to move to in the near future.
3. Herodotus 3

   8 February 2012 at 11:00 am

   Not a mention that I could see regarding World Population and how the planet can cope with this increasing demand placed on it, and what is a substainable pop. level given the diminishing resources that we have. In particular with how oil has allowed us to feed this level and what happens when the oil levels reduce? Is this not the real hard question that should be adderessed?
   • bbfloyd 3.1

     8 February 2012 at 12:45 pm

     typical national party toady…….fixate on an issue that is related, but was not part of THIS report…. if you were to take the hobbles off, you would probably recognise the fact that just because this report deals with one aspect of an issue doesn’t mean that it has been overlooked….. indeed, you may be surprised to find that efforts are already underway to deal with that issue…..

     but before you can deal with the issue of changing whole society’s approach to the numbers of births, you have to ensure that there is no need to continue to breed in order to counter high infant mortality rates…….that is just ONE aspect of the issue…… this is an extremely complicated and divisive issue that requires it’s own study, and entirely separate report…..

     but of course, being a tory, i wouldn’t expect you to have the depth of cognizance to grasp these little details….. much better to be shallow and reactive and use what intellectual vigor? you possess to simply attempt to undermine without actually saying anything useful…..
     • Herodotus 3.1.1

       8 February 2012 at 1:45 pm

       As someone who appears to not know the difference between friend or foe, I find it amusing at you ability to attemp to place everyone with simple labels.
       How can a report continual to comment using the world “Substainable” when the macro environment is all about Population explosion.
       I’m for attacking the real issue not some phantom sympton. From what is reported here it is all about symptoms. Take point d on Social Exclusion- As resources are depleated due to greater demand what do you think this will have on exclusion??? Perhaps exasperate what is alread prevalent.
       I notice that you dont pose the same comments to DTB.
4. shreddakj 4

   8 February 2012 at 11:43 am

   I don’t think NACT will ever understand that if we don’t look after our environment there won’t BE an economy for them to exploit.
5. Draco T Bastard 5

   8 February 2012 at 12:37 pm

   It is time to embrace a second green revolution — an “ever-green revolution” — that doubles yields but builds on sustainability principles;

   This is one reason why we’re not becoming sustainable – all the politicians still think we need to increase the population even more despite the fact that we’re already around 6 billion people past the point of sustainability.

   B is good. So is C. Although, C will get the RWNJs complaining about rising prices pushing the poor into even greater poverty. This is, of course, rather stupid and faux outrage – they really don’t care about the poor. The costs are always there it’s just that one way they’re measured in dollars (making sure everything is properly costed) and the other way they’re measured in death (continuing BaU).

   Developing countries need time, as well as financial and technological support, to transition to sustainable development.

   Put all the knowledge of all nations on the internet and make it freely available, get rid of patents and other similar artificial restrictions and I’m sure you’ll find the developing nations developing quite well. Especially when the developed nations stop stealing their resources from them (ie, oil rich poor countries).

   At F they’re still thinking that infinite growth on a finite planet is possible so not a good example of a sustainability report.

   Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources.

   Depends upon what they mean by capital. If they’re talking money then no it doesn’t. If they’re talking resources then yes it does but then it comes back to developed nations stopping taking resources from developing nations so that they can actually develop.

   International institutions have a critical role. International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption of sustainable development goals;

   Translation: The present governance model is failing but we should continue to use it anyway.
   • Matthew Whitehead 5.1

     8 February 2012 at 1:14 pm

     We could even “buy out” relevant patents in the event that there are people who genuinely rely on them for their livelihoods. And yeah, your translation is 100% correct, lol.
6. Uturn 6

   8 February 2012 at 1:37 pm

   On the whole I find these reports depressing. The language they use can mean positive change, but it’s always so ambiguous that any government could use the same words and claim to be justified in doing the complete opposite of what is intended. Even the UN High Level Panel on Global Sustainability state the responsibility is with national governments. Have they had a look at who’s running the world lately?

   For example, when they talk about getting the unemployed, children and women equality and re-involvement in economic outcomes, you’d think it would translate to a legislated level playing field and more meaningful jobs. But what often happens is that unemployed women with children would be shunted into any job available, like prostitution or meanial factory work. The government would then say they had gender equality with men: men work long, late hours, why not women? And they can “choose” to be prostitues or starve. You see how “equal” the vague meaning of these phrases turn out to be? And children can join them too; and the unemployed can work for free (already happening in the UK); all under the label of “redefining our relationships to each other” or as it was earlier known as – feudalism. And the driver of this horror? Economic growth.

   In the UK, just outside of Bradford, there is a largish housing estate that previously suffered high unemployment and all the social problems that come with people having nothing to do. There was a lot of land empty around the estate and after the community organised itself it won a grant to begin a sustainable permaculture perspective to the immediate environment. Results are ongoing and mainly positive. It solved a lot of immediate problems for the people. But the government didn’t cut them any breaks and the larger economic context did not change. The produce they grow cannot compete with the international or domestic market. It just feeds and supports them. They are locked out of the economic prosperity of their own efforts. They are, although generally healthier and occupied, still prisoners of the system that rules them – a system that does not want to give them self determined freedom. They are the peasants of old, with a few modern rights.

   I’m sorry, there will never be an alternative that embraces “economic growth” that will solve any of the world’s problems. Economic growth, or greed as it is commonly known, eventually leads to revolution and that has always been how humans have operated. For real progress, the system must come down and a new one rise and this UN report is just like NZ’s “slow right” policies or Bradford’s permaculture efforts. Neither address the problem and neither will allow the people to find solutions to a system enforced on them against their own good.
   • Draco T Bastard 6.1

     8 February 2012 at 5:54 pm

     +1

     Well said.
7. james111 7

   8 February 2012 at 2:21 pm

   Here we go the greatest wealth redistribution plan yet to come out of the biggest Socilaist power centre the UN.
   Should we at all be surprised they want to slow down growth in the developed world in the hope that the 3rd world might catch up one day.
   • mickysavage 7.1

     8 February 2012 at 2:23 pm

     You don’t understand ecology do you James.
     • McFlock 7.1.1

       8 February 2012 at 2:43 pm

       it might be better to start a list of what he DOES understand:

       how about – noooo, not that.
       um, maybe … nope.
       mathemat– no, not that either.
       sentence construct– no.
       empath– nope.
       ethi–hell no.
       maybe something pretty basically logica… sorry my bad.
        spelli– nope.
       Punctuatio– ah, nah, sorry.
       …
       um…
       …
       …
           
          
       Anyone has any ideas, feel free…
   • AAMC 7.2

     8 February 2012 at 2:49 pm

     Anthropocentric delusions there James?

     p.s. there is no growth in the developed world and all those corporations are asking developed economy workers to compete with Chinese and Indians. Read about Caterpillar factory in Canada closing down? Workers refused a 50% pay cut in light of the CEO’s income quadrupling in 4 years to 22.5 mill USD. See, that’s not socialist redistribution, that’s taking the work to the third world to fund your greed!   
     • james111 7.2.1

       8 February 2012 at 5:49 pm

       You mean the chinese free trade agreement that Helen proudly sigined so she could shut some facotries down in New Zealand make some blue collar workers redundant Imagine what you would be saying if it was John Key who put his name on it
       • Draco T Bastard 7.2.1.1

         8 February 2012 at 5:57 pm

         Doesn’t matter who did it, it was a stupid thing to do that will ruin NZ’s economy and increase poverty.

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