As I type this another storm has hit Tamaki Makaurau.
The North has been particularly badly hit. Mangawhai received 300 mm of rain in a seven hour period. Auckland’s average rainfall in the past for February was 65 mm.
And out west Scenic Drive has slumped in a vital area. There is now only one viable route out for West Coast residents and this is hanging on by a thread.
It is February, normally the warmest and driest month of the year. What is happening?
The answer is climate change. That thing that us lefties have talked about for decades is now happening. And given the trajectory of effects this is bad, but it will get much worse.
Much, much worse.
As a long term observer of the responses of the political right and of Capital can I acknowledge the sophistication of their historic responses.
The oil and gas companies have for a long time fought even the most modest of steps to address the production of greenhouse gasses even though they knew the damage that was going to happen.
They even created pseudo citizen organisations to cast doubt on the science and feed into a manufactured both sides debate even thought the science was then clear.
This Newsroom article describes the situation well and quotes former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel who led the fight for America not to ratify the Kyoto protocol on the basis it was a threat to the economy and jobs. From the article:
“What we now know about some of these large oil companies’ positions … they lied. And yes, I was misled. Others were misled when they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly. I mean they, lied,” he told the documentary-makers.
Asked if the planet would be better placed to confront the climate crisis if the oil industry had been honest about the damage fossil fuels were causing, Hagel did not flinch.
“Oh, absolutely. It would have created a whole different climate, a whole different political environment. I think it would have changed everything,” he said.
This PBS video which backgrounds what was happening ought to make you really, really mad.
This is the introductory video. There are further episodes if you want to become incandescent with rage.
The history is clear. Activist right wing groups claimed there was a conspiracy to install Communism or United Nations control or Agenda 21 or various other variants and wanting to save the world from devastation was a pretext for global control.
Now that we have reached the stage where the effects of climate change are in our faces and cannot be denied except by those whose grasp of reality is severely compromised elements of the right are now changing their approach to the issue.
And hoping that enough of us will forget the sustained attacks they have mounted on the concept of climate change for so long as they now pirouette to a completely different position.
They are clearly hoping to have a new political debate where citizens will look to the future and forget about the past.
For instance Act now wants the country to focus on adaption and ignore the need to mitigate increasing greenhouse gasses. From Russell Palmer at Radio New Zealand:
Seymour said the weather showed a need to shift focus regarding climate change.
“Our climate change response needs to shift from mitigation to adaption. New Zealand can’t change the climate but it can better adapt, and unfortunately we’re getting a really big lesson in that right now.”
He said risks should be accurately priced in insurance, and people who benefited or imposed costs should be the ones to pay, rather than costs being forced on them.
However, having EQC price in risk resulting from climate change was an option ACT would consider supporting.
Green Party co-leader and Climate Change Minister James Shaw welcomed the government’s “decisive and comprehensive” action in responding to the emergency, but despaired over a lack of action on the climate.
“Just when we thought we had had our worst climate-related disaster in this country only two weeks ago, we are now facing an even more significant challenge,” he said.
Act has come a long way. In 2008 then leader Rodney Hide said in Parliament:
I think I will be the only person speaking in this debate who has any qualifications in environmental science. It is not that that should count, but I think it is significant for what I am about to say—that is, that the entire climate change and global warming hypothesis is a hoax, that the data and the hypothesis do not hold together, that Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue, and that the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle.
He never changed. In 2014 Hide pronounced a build up of Antarctic sea ice as the trigger that finally ended public fears about global warming.
National has also played around with the issue. It has learned to make reassuring noises but cannot resist at poking fun at policies that could actually achieve a lot of good. Remember how they railed against energy efficient light bulbs and short showers in 2008? And their kowtowing to the oil industry and farmers shows how determined they are not to be determined about the issue.
More recent examples include National’s opposition to light rail and cycleways and their obsession with the construction of more roads. They cannot help but criticise any issue which has progressive aspects.
National’s indifference to the issue is highlighted by the fact that climate change and the environment are not mentioned in its list of priorities.
Maureen Pugh’s recent issue merely highlights that below the reassuring rhetoric that National engages in there is a deep cynicism at the seriousness of the problem or the steps needed to actually address the issue.
And there are signs that National may also focus on adaption rather than mitigation. This paywalled Herald article by occasional Standard reader Matthew Hooton highlights the issue and includes his criticism of National for not concentrating on adaption.
The right’s fixation with adaption underlines their economic illiteracy, because make no mistake about it adaption will cost more than mitigation.
In 2006 the UK Government commissioned Stern Report suggested that adequate mitigation would cost 1% of the world’s GDP per year but that adaption would cost 20%. A review 10 years later suggested that because of the development of cheaper reusable energy technology the difference had increased.
The sixth Labour Government will be criticised for not doing enough. But to be fair to them changes do not occur overnight. It takes years to design, consent and construct large scale wind turbine farms for instance. Benefits can take years to occur.
This year the focus will be on climate change. And which parties will be best placed to see us through this crisis.
Labour and the Greens ought to be well placed given the progressive left’s long term commitment to the issue and because it has been shown to be right. But time will tell.
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