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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, March 5th, 2023 - 52 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Some interesting input on our recent weather woes. Mainly from a US northern hemisphere perspective but there are interesting graphic bits that show the influence down here.
On Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization reported that a 'triple-digit' La Nina weather phenomenon, which caused severe droughts and floods, is finally ending. Nonetheless, the probability of an El Nino occurring is increasing and could affect global weather patterns
La Nina is over, and an El Nino event is forecasted to begin this [northern] Summer. An El Nino event can completely change the weather patterns in the upcoming seasons, especially during the [northern] late Fall and Winter seasons, so this will likely be one of the biggest global events in 2023.
Ocean anomalies and especially their changes can significantly influence seasonal weather patterns. Perhaps even more so in [northern] Winter, when the pressure systems are strongest.
"El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/triple-digit-la-nina-ending-el-nino-may-strike-soon
…..Whats your angle here?
reporting the change from La Nina to El Nino that is mentioned about to happen bringing further weather events.
Ah. So, no angle..as such ? Just.. that you link with zerohedge, a known climate denial site. Climate Cherry pickers. And of course all the other associated…
I note the final paragraph of your link to Zero Hedge (a right wing libertarian outfit which specialises in denial politics) is as follows:
After an interminable exposé of the meteorological outcomes of El Nino and La Nina weather patterns (no doubt extrapolated from reputable scientific sources) the article reveals the real message it wants to convey:
There is no evidence to indicate that humans are responsible for Climate extremes. They are natural phenomena.
Bullshit.
The Southern Oscillation climactic system has been around for countless millions of millenia so how come we have a heightened risk of extreme, life threatening weather events around the world on and ever increasing frequency.
Its due to "Climate Change" caused by excessive amounts of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere – a direct response to human industrial activity over the centuries.
You would do better to access your information from internationally recognised scientific bodies like NIWA:
https://niwa.co.nz/climate/information-and-resources/elnino/elnino-impacts-on-newzealand
"You would do better to access your information from internationally recognised scientific bodies like NIWA"
Like this?
https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/Climate-Change-Projections-Guidance-FINAL.pdf
"However, the CMIP6 models project inconsistent changes in the very extreme precipitation events in the region (Li et al., 2020) and, with regard to projections of intensification of heavy precipitation. This has low confidence in a world 1.5°C warmer compared to the recent past and low confidence compared to a preindustrial world. In a world with global mean surface temperature 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the CMIP6 models again project inconsistent changes in intensification of heavy precipitation in the region (Li et al., 2020), with low confidence compared with the recent past and medium confidence compared with preindustrial conditions."
All seems to be a bit 'wooly' and imprecise?
In your cherry picking of the referenced article above however you seem to have conveniently overlooked this:
My Bold
It looks more like you are trying to create a scenario based on your own lack of understanding re – the greenhouse gas effects that have led to the global warming of the planet and which in turn is screwing up the climactic weather patterns.
As Macro has said… you are cherry picking in the same way the 'professional' denialists try to cherry pick peer-reviewed scientific material for their own ends.
Cherries or plums? Dogma or discussion?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/carbon-emissions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_chemistry_observational_databases
So much dogma and discussion, while the total concentration of greenhouse gases in spaceship Earth's atmosphere keeps going up (and up and up, etc.)
If only there was some way of estimating the effects this on-going increase in GHGs might have on average global temperatures and adverse climate events. But it's almost as if we don't want to hear about estimates – easier by far (for most of us) to keep our heads firmly planted in the sand, at least for now.
But we need need more flood protection – what to do, what to do…
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-rural-support/environment-and-natural-resources/climate-change-primary-industries/
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-many-new-trees-would-we-need-offset-our-carbon-emissions
Cherry trees or plum trees? Dogma or discussion?
Dogmatic discussion coupled with climate change induced panic?
Or structural uncertainty compensated for by group certainty ….
Humanity may even have put off the next glacial for a bit – until the excess CO2 is leached from the atmosphere?
If your comforts are atop a cliff, in a valley or on a flood plain, and it's hosing down, then panic is as understandable as it is unhelpful. Discuss.
And if you expect “the next glacial” to intervene on our behalf, then imho your sense of time is off. The Anthropocene is noted for its rate of change.
Spaceship Earth's big, but its capacity to buffer the effects of civilisation's wastes has limits. This comment (source unknown) 'tickled' me:
Faux calculus no less! … very scientific
Meanwhile we need every bit of our Farming exports to pay for the fuel, machinery and supplies required for any sort of rebuild/repairs to our shattered infrastructure. Perhaps we can cut back a bit after the restoration?
Weather events will be more disruptive, then a lot more disruptive.
https://www.aon.com/weather-climate-catastrophe/index.aspx
Very nasty – if you're on the receiving end of that 'faux calculus'.
And, “after the restoration” – BAU tweaked? Good luck with that
Or not. Doesn't matter personally – I won't be facing hard choices.
Then along came Gabrielle. The times they are a-changin’.
Conservative men in Conservative Dresses – some interesting history and insights.
"At least when they were calling themselves cross-dressers, these men weren’t claiming to literally be women and clamoring for access to women’s washrooms, changing rooms, rape shelters, prisons, and sports. Even if they wouldn’t admit it was a fetish, at least they would admit that dressing up in women’s clothing was a leisure activity and not a “gender identity” that had to be protected by law."
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/conservative-men-in-conservative?r=jvqcz&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post&fbclid=IwAR2i5WJYtBz5hfIBpAAuj_qdRRLUORcg4qu_fWAUE8Zpjq1AcKlC1N118N0
Thanks for the link, which is an informative read based on Amy Bloom's 2002 article of the same name. It clearly states what many choose to ignore.
It also links to a Children of Transitioners support group, which has the original 2002 article:
Conservative men in Conservative Dresses
Sunday morning, 11 am. Time for church.
Or you can skip it and hear Righteous Luxon preach his gospel to the unbelievers. For His is the True Way, Repent Sinners (but don't go to church, I'm talking here!).
No, he's not the messiah, he's just a very boring boy.
https://twitter.com/NZQandA/status/1632114471933206529
https://twitter.com/NZQandA/status/1632144786206457863
Shaw isn't in the recovery team with Robertson and Roche, isn't being asked for advice on managed retreat decisions that need to occur within weeks, but still puts on a professional face to front to Jame Tame.
TBH its pretty shitty of Labour not to get him to work on this stuff.
As he says, the work is too important to give up in the face of that.
But I agreed it's disheartening to see such an approach from Labour, but sadly it is only the latest instance of diminishment of the Greens.
More Green MPs would still mean a Labour led government but one where the Greens can't be sidelined like Shaw has been. Party vote Green.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/education/300814789/the-jugglenaut-how-childcare-became-a-forprofit-game
Surly it’s only a coincidence that luxon announce a proposed funding boost for childcare, the same day its pointed how big a slice, for profit childcare providers ate taking.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131407675/christopher-luxon-promises-childcare-rebates-for-any-family-earning-less-than-180000
Of course it's a coincidence. He's rewarding the party faithful…
/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/wanganui-man-outed-in-hagers-book/VZWAHDM3WDZ4WQ5I25WPOXR4DA/
You are correct, Joe90.
Its nothing to do with childcare profits. Its about the accusation, Luxon just wants it to turn into your saying no to childcare because your over paying consultants.
They win both ways ,
funded child care=more profit for child care
Funded childcare =more 2 income houses to strip profits from in other ways,
Incredibly poor timing for Luxon yet again. $2.3b not enough for corporate child farmers? Chrome-dome says, "here's another $240m!"
This is one of the worst policies I've ever seen. They claim it will benefit 130,000 families. It's only for those with kids enrolled in private ECE as far as I can tell. Inference is National sees stay at home mums as lazy and they should go get a job.
It also targets quite a narrow band, people with kids under five. And the full amount is available to families earning $140k or less! Hardly progressive, is it?
And why does that clown never wear a tie? He looks like a half-dressed pimp.
Because he's pushing the "I speak for hard-working kiwis because I'm one of them" line.
Look at me, I've taken my tie off and unbuttoned my shirt so I'm ready to do the hard yakker, like all you other working men. I'm the hard-mahi man, the suited warrior, I'm just like you, really.
Yeah, right.
The Barak Obama tie-less cool.
Here's Barack Obama giving his State of the Union address. Note the tie! He knows how to do 'formal'!
https://www.obamalibrary.gov/timeline/first-state-union-address
hi Muttonbird, this probably connects with some of it..
The Wright (right !?) family….
And… is he taking the piss? No sense of Irony? Other?
Just…wtf. But good reporting. And sometimes just good…letting them talk about… their aims
https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/20-08-2022/two-hours-with-the-secretive-rich-lister-bankrolling-sean-plunkets-the-platform
The irony in the TDB post below is that it might be the same (or same sort) money behind the Platform funding another online radio station.
And the extra profits coming to Wright (higher fees from his pre schools) from any Luxon victory one reason for him to invest in it …
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/03/05/mediawatch-feral-nz-antivaxer-online-radio-station-launches-is-taxpayers-union-damaged-by-association/
Plus, the first thing the child farming industry will do is put up their rates by $74/week. That is corporate subsidy and inflationary.
Unless the Nats also put a price freeze on ECE…
While I have no truck with 'baby farmers' (a good mate prefers the term baby gaol), what term do you have for those who clamour to keep the 'farm' stocked?
Not any difference between this corporate subsidy and the accommodation supplement.
Meanwhile the MoE is strangling not-for-profit Playcentres with unachievably onerous licensing and training requirements. [The expectation is that volunteer parents will undertake an undergraduate ECE degree; and, if they don't, funding is cut to the bone]
While it's been happening under the Labour Government, I don't (personally) think this is driven by the government, but rather by the idealogues at MoE – who purely hate the concept of parents as teachers, and want 'professionalisation' of all ECE services.
The baby farms technically have the qualified ECE staff – but are run for pure profit, not for the benefit of the children enrolled. There is no way that I would have sent my kid to one of them – though this was pushed as the default option by WINZ in order to make mothers 'work ready'.
We're destroying the family unit, in so many ways ,but this is probably the main one, getting all parents into work if possible.
Early Childhood Council CEO Simon Laube loves the idea. Of course he would, he and his child farming industry like The Platform owners, the Wright family, and National Party member, Tony Stuart, will be mainlining another $240m a year from the taxpayer.
In fact, one suspects the policy was written by Simon Laube himself…
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/03/labour-lambasts-national-s-not-very-well-thought-through-childcare-tax-rebate-policy.html
What's to stop a Labour Govt nationalising the whole childcare industry and bringing it ubder the auspicious of the MoE?
Well, primary, secondary, and tertiary education are publicly owned or overseen in NZ.
If our diseased, profit-driven society demands every ounce of flesh from every human being such that children have to be watched by private babysitters 9 hours a day from 18 months, why not bring ECE into the same model?
No wonder Luxon chose a small believer audience! Stilted. Wooden audience. Clap on signal. But not with warmth. They tried to artificially create a strong leadership image. They failed!
Content? Hodge Podge of usual criticism of Government a few detail-less policies. Really?
If National don't believe in using bureaucrats (which is National's term for administrative staff) then who will do the organisational donkey work for them?
National use just as many consultants as Labour, its just that they are better at hiding them under the euphemistic term "project managers".
Latest from Seymour Hersh (on the far-right disinformation Youtube channel "Breakthough News" – part of the Epoch media ecosystem) and no, I am not linking go find it yourself if you must.
1/ Russia hasn't committed it main army to the Ukraine
2/ The attack on Kyiv was a feint
3/ Ukraine has lost the war
4/ It is just a matter of waiting for Zelenskyy to make enough money.
So, Hersh has gone from peddling an implausible conspiracy theory where his "secret source" was probably Scott Ritter to pushing the same talking points as a Twitter account called "Z18276534322" created in January 2023.
Sad to see senility getting a platform.
I remember the rightwing's attacks on the Green Party 'magical money tree' – the National Party has its equivalent – its the 'magical efficency tree' where the National Party can pay less but get more – the latest instalment of this fairy tale is
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131407675/christopher-luxon-promises-childcare-rebates-for-any-family-earning-less-than-180000
It' a cult and Poots is Jim Jones.
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1631924284485521409
They were told after cyclone Bola that planting pine would stop the floods. But the slash backs up the water and then the bridges/roads fail.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/03/05/john-campbell-slash/
Which goes to show that sure-fire quick fixes and unintended consequences bedevil any response especially in uncertain times!
Planting indigenous (and some suitable newcomers) managed erosion, restricting logging to areas with either no "downside" risk or a management regime (removal and or processing) and sheep/trails/tourism.
nothing wrong with planting pine. dont demonise a tree species because of lack of cleanup .
MPI erosion-protection programme, including case studies where regional councils and others have repurposed slip-prone areas with government support, including 1 billion trees funding.
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/forestry/funding-tree-planting-research/hill-country-erosion-programme
Cool commentary by Big Hairy News on ACT's denounciation of Creative NZ funding for The Savage Coloniser show based on Tusiata Avia book.
#BHN ACT thinks a poem is the same as the Mosque massacre