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6:00 am, August 11th, 2021 - 79 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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I have seen reports that the latest IPCC report says that the last decade is the warmest in the last 100,000 year , to 125,000 years.
As the glaciers melt in this unprecedented warming, they leave behind interesting debris, most notably the stumps of old trees.
Carbon dating pegs them with ages ranging from 3000 to 8000 years old, depending on the particular glacier, scattered over the globe
How can that be if now is the warmest in the last 100,000 years…….
For a forest to have grown there it must have been warmer, cause last time I checked, forests don't grow under glaciers
Guess you would have to call those tree stumps inconvenient facts…..
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
I don't allow climate change denial under my posts. I've moved your comment to Open Mike so others can pull it apart if they want to without derailing my post.
It would help if you said what trees you are talking about (i.e. where). Then we can address the climate conditions of that area in an evidence based way. We also will know that you're not making shit up or generalising madly.
Denial is a rational response in the face of overwhelming bad news. Why anyone would bother trying to pick that^ apart at this stage is beyond me. Clutching at straws.
Hope your cognitive dissonance clears up in time for you to be a useful member of todays climate threatened society.
the only value I see in picking it apart is that it shows readers the flaws in the arguments and helps them to be able to spot the bullshit still coming out of corporate denial machines. Maybe also helps people sitting on the fence.
But yeah, tend to agree it's not the best use of time, and this is why I don't allow it under my posts.
"Denial is a rational response in the face of overwhelming bad news."
It can be, but in the case of climate change denial the overwhelming majority derives from deliberate action by people with a financial interest in continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Provide a link to your source of information, then we can look at it. If you "have seen reports", you should be able to say exactly where they were.
A short bit of google shows where these assertions came from – they are on established climate-change-denial websites (I won't link).
Looking at the source material I could find (relating to Iceland) – seems these stumps are there because of a cycle of glacier retreat / growth (involving 0.5C temperature change or so) that occurred since the last ice age. Nothing unusual about that, and certainly says nothing about current warming predicament, where we seem to be heading to 2+ C increases.
…Looking at CD's comment
"How can that be if now is the warmest in the last 100,000 years……."
The earth is rapidly warming now, and it takes time for glaciers to retreat and forests to grow. So it is completely possible for the climate to currently be warmer than during the Holocene climatic optimum, which lasted thousands of years and was when those trees that ended up under glaciers grew.
"Inconvenient facts"- I don't think so.
Yep – it's quite possible for these trees to have been growing during a period that was cooler than today. As you say US, it takes a bit of time for our anthropogenically-forced high temps to cause glacier retreat. And if we wait around for a few decades they will retreat further and maybe will reveal some 100,000 year old tree stumps higher up the glacier – which would make CD's argument somewhat hollow.
"It's not good for them to think they can buy us. And it's not good for us to be the whore of the South Pacific. Time to give them their money back, revoke their residency and tell them politely but firmly that if they want to come in they can queue up like everyone else."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/126023257/dont-pander-to-those-who-put-themselves-in-prison
All the indications are we are indeed a 10 million dollar whore.
I would ask for 20 million and have a cap of 50 per year for the entry category. I would then use the money to build state homes. There might actually be a balance of rich person helping struggling person.
The Stuff comments are a bit disappointing. Nobody on either side of the debate there has mentioned the political power that accrues to people with significant wealth – through donations to political parties and networks of influence. And as such people are generally very conservative on economic policy despite being socially 'liberal', a large influx of them will make it harder for us to elect governments actually willing to make the decisions needed on CC, inequality, taxes, housing etc. The short-term sugar hit of their money is simply not worth their long-term pernicious ideological influence.
Political influence could partly be sorted out by having all party donations declared, the donor named and loopholes closed.
Though, oddly enough, the major parties don't seem too fussed about that.
Nailed it AB. We don't need any more rich entitled opinionated antisocial… I'll stop there, but there's plenty more adjectives where that came from.
Yeah particularly that American conservative influence.
Years ago there was some good commentary on how things like the explosion of craft magazines were led by fundamentalist christians in the US publishing them to encourage women back into the home.
Some years later there were a couple of articles about a group of about 40 conservative US businessmen who felt they could shape New Zealand into the image of the country they wanted the US to be and who had started moving here cause you know the US was turning to hell. I've looked but can't find the article. It was around the same time as Sensible Sentencing trust changed their funding model from donations to ??.
Then there was the election year when it turned out several (5?) ACT candidates had to quickly get permanent residency/citizenship in order to stand (3 elections ago I think).
Ahhh making New Zealand in their own image….
hey, some of my best friends are or have been whores.
None of them were avaricious sociopaths who powered their rocket trips to the edge of space with govt-subsidised staff who don't even get toilet breaks.
Some of your best friends….was one of them the NZ Gov?
I went to Otago, so there might be a couple of govt folks who think I'm a bit of a dick.
Mercury Energy (10/08/2021): Not fair, it's not our fault!
Mercury Energy (11/08/2021): Here's a million in compensation to prove it's not our fault!
Making amends is a deterent to prevent a reoccurence.
I applaud making of amends. It will just come off our shares though. Corporations only want to be seen to be responsible. PR, not humanity.
I didn't think about the shares dividend.
There would be stuff people do not know about their energy provider, just the best rate to be on, basic charges.
Sounds to me like it was Transpower that was at fault not Genesis, Mercury or any of the others.
Heat goes on Transpower after Wel Networks reveals grid operator made huge error | Stuff.co.nz
I have been impressed with TJ Perenara as a player and lately with his off the field efforts.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/300379943/tj-perenara-seeks-answers-after-insulting-comments-by-hurricanes-board-member
I spent the weekend with a mate who is near retirement age and is an Ambo. He spoke of 'resenting te reo being shoved down his throat'. Use of Aotearoa came up for being disliked too.
It ended up suggesting that he was a relic from a long past age and while his opinions were relevant, it was to fewer and fewer people.
This Bowker rooster falls into the same category.
Then there is this from Newshub with an example of how not to win friends and influence people
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/2021/08/hurricanes-star-tj-perenara-blasts-team-s-part-owner-troy-bowker-for-m-ori-loving-agenda-comments.html
I wonder how you fire a part owner. This ancient relic is not doing much good for the brand as well as offending large numbers of people.
His ignorance seems to be boundless……I really cannot get over his ignorance in taking on Sir Ian Taylor who has never struck me as 'some radical'.
So often that ignorance is found in those who are affluent.
a boof head type statement from Bowker. 25 years haven't made much difference in that respect it seems.
It may have already been discussed on this site:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/448932/full-vaccine-rollout-required-to-start-opening-border-report-says
Excellent report and its time the nay-sayers pulled their heads in and started to get with the programme. First off: GET VACCINATED. Follow all the requirement requests to keep NZ as safe as is possible. There are plenty of rocks ahead, and without the full cooperation of everybody we're going to end up in the same boat as New South Wales and elsewhere.
Stop reading screwed-up bile posted online and start listening to our top medical scientists who up there among the best in the world.
Anything less than that amounts to treason in my book and should be treated as such.
in terms of climate and ecology crises, we're better off with the borders closed and adapting around that. In terms of conservation, local economies, building resiliency, likewise.
Rushing the vaccination rollout to prematurely reopen the borders seems daft by comparison.
Helen Clark apparently said she doesn't expect resumption of international travel the way it was before covid to happen within her lifetime.
Then there's this, from your link,
We'd be better off debating the nuances. The idea that we will open borders BAU once we have everyone vaccinated isn't a given. So many unknowns, and this actually serves us. We should be planning our lives around uncertainty and building emotional security in other ways, because that's the climate change world we are in now.
It seems like a sensible report. Conceptually it pushes elimination back from being almost all about about cast-iron borders, to a diffuse combination of some border restrictions, vaccination and public health action in the community. And it was actually always blindingly obvious that this was the way forward.
But it won't be lauded by our local commentariat (ZB, Herald, business, Bishop etc.) as "a plan" or "a roadmap" in the way they did for Scomo's five blathering bullet points a few weeks back. That's because it doesn't say what they want to hear.
Anything less than that amounts to treason in my book and should be treated as such.
Are you polishing off your needles a la tricoteuse?
All in all the report is reasonable and sensible. Particularly around the staged opening of the border.
But it's a bit vague on what might be involved in "some localised elevation of alert levels".
Personally, after all of us that want vaccination have got it, I would find it quite unpalatable to have repeats of levels 3 and 4 with their restrictions on travel between regions, and requirements to keep withing bubbles.
For all the histrionics going around about forced vaccinations being a violation of the Bill of Rights (nobody is proposing forced vaccination), the travel restrictions and bubble requirements in level 3 and level 4 are actual violations of the Bill of Rights. Specifically, 16 Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, 17 Freedom of Association, and 18 Freedom of Movement.
Clearly over-riding these rights using section 70 of the Health Act was and is the right thing to do for as long as there are people among us that haven't yet had reasonable opportunity to get vaccination.
But the fact that the vaccine is safe, free, and very effective, means that once everyone that wants vaccination has received it, there won't be a public health emergency anymore that justifies use of section 70 across the entire population. At worst there might be a stupidity emergency among the unvaccinated, that justifies targeted applications of section 70.
edit: The actual document from the advisory group to the government is well worth reading in the original form.
https://www.scribd.com/document/519645361/Embargoed-Skegg-Advice#fullscreen&from_embed
Grateful Andre. I will read the document as soon as I can.
Thanks for all the info. you provide us on a daily basis. I've come to rely on it for my own edification.
!!This post isn't intended as treason!! Our people are good, but a little bit behind the really rapid changes in data.
Timestamp 31:13 through 35:40
Two experts + the one interpreting it ate stating we can't reach heard immunity with vaccines. Of course if you already think this is "screwed up bile" you probs won’t watch. Eventually it will be accepted our vaccine strategy needs to shift to early identification and effective treatment which I expect to occur before the end of the year (about the time it takes for information to filter through).
lol, from the youtube link (I'll put the interesting bit in italics):
As for not reaching herd immunity with vaccines, let's assume that you're correct. Just for the sake of it. Doesn't that just make vaccination just as important as it is now, just for a much longer term? E.g. influenza or tetanus, rather than smallpox?
You might need to explain why herd immunity being out of reach makes vaccination that much more important. Prob'ly best to do it s l o w l y with short simple words.
The health system needs to be prepared to manage Covid short and long term.
Individual responsibility for being vaccinated is probably all that can be done. Hopefully in the next 6 months there will be more reliable data on who ends up in hospital, the vaccinated or the unvaccinated.
The "reliable" data is already available Treetop. It's the unvaccinated who largely fill the intensive care units.
That is how I also see it now and down the track.
It wasn't all criticism and mockery at the Royal NZ College of GP's conference in Wellington last week.
Awards were given to Kiwi doctors who had gone the extra mile to provide care to their communities over the past year, and I was very pleased to see Dr. Sandhya Ramanathan was appropriately recognised.
Dr Sandhya Ramanathan started filming Covid-19 home-help videos last year. The aim was to inform her family members back in India, but the videos soon went viral.
“I felt extremely responsible, I always have. Even if I didn’t have family over there, I would have produced these videos,” she told 1 NEWS.
In the videos, Sandhya gives advice on prevention, how to keep your family safe and breathing exercises to try if you catch the virus.
The Ministry of Health did not offer any public advice whatsoever on how best to manage mild Covid at home last year (before the roll out of the vaccine) and the calm and reasoned advice given by this true doctor has been of enormous value and comfort for literally millions throughout the world.
Namaste, Dr Sandhya, and thank you.
Good to know when Delta finally makes it to these shores you'll now be able to to use your 'home medical management plan for mild covid', and won't need to come on again daily, complaining how the government isn't giving you enough free ppe
Please don’t. Express your personal opinion but not directed at other commenters in a nasty way.
Sure
thank-you 🙏
talk of borders reopening is very premature . was talking to my mechanic yesterday, owns a two person garage in small horowhenua town, and a conservative. said his business is flatout, as are the other garages in town. he made the comment that with five million in our waka, we have enough internal money and demand that we really dont need to import more people.I know that the roads are certainly very busy and there is no shortage of kiwis out and about ,spending and enjoying our country.
Who does NZ really need here?
You are clearly not in a company needing workers.
Even applicants per job advertisement have dropped sharply.
Thought you all liked the vagaries of supply and demand.
Not sure to whom you are responding there, but as a Labour member I like:
really high wages – great careers – exceptional public services and social security – and a high performing successful economy that shares wealth and innovation alike.
You can start to get that with long term really really low unemployment.
But you want more foreign workers, they gaurentee lower wages.
Who does?
Your comment at 7.1.1 made it sound like you do .
Try being a renter and then competing with an influx of people.
As a side issue a friend told me today that they think landlords who do not need to charge the market rental rates do so to pay off their mortgage quicker on the rental property.
Paying off your mortgage quickly is indeed a good thing. Fully agree.
Is the word, "disgusted" overused by right wing populist politicians? And the word, "actually" for that matter.
Computer says yes:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/do-they-want-stalin-up-there-judith-collins-lashes-out-at-greens-for-ditching-churchill/TH2ARIOS3I7T2Y3OUWEX6ZXRN4/
It is hard to recall a day when Judith Collins has not said, "disgusted, actually", actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill
We have Covid and its restrictions we have Climate Change requiring us to pull our strings in. Good time to start doing that right – Start learning to live within our environmental means … Start consolidating or down sizing . Start working with the people already here in NZ.
Leader of the opposition, Arnold Rimmer, is demanding Coronavirus be allowed into New Zealand in early 2022, revives "plan B":
Just imagine if this clown had been anywhere near power when the pandemic struck. We'd have bodies in the streets.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/448957/act-leader-wants-border-restrictions-eased-at-start-of-2022
I agree with him. NZ can't remain closed forever. By the end of this year, everyone that wants to be vaccinated should be vaccinated (hopefully that's at least 80% but I tend to think it may end up being less). This will give us as close to herd immunity that we will ever get. Yes vaccinated people will get the virus, but since they are vaccinated the symptoms should be far less. Those that choose not to be vaccinated will be the most at risk but that is up to them.
At the moment, it's only authorised for 16 and over. Medsafe have recommended it be authorised for 12 and over as it is in the US, but our government haven't yet made a decision.
Pfizer apparently expect to submit data for extending the authorisation to 5 – 11 year olds, expected in September, and a little bit later in the year for over 2.
If we add those age groups into our vax schedule, that will likely extend the rollout into early next year, so likely March or April or so before it can fairly be said that everyone that wants vaccination has had a reasonable opportunity to get fully vaccinated. Fully vaccinated meaning 2 weeks after the second dose.
edit: There’s also data suggesting better long term immunity results from extending the gap from first to second jab out to eight weeks. If that’s adopted, it will also push the date out a bit further.
Thanks Andre, all those points are helpful for thinking about when every NZer who chooses to get vaccinated will be protected against Covid.
I'll be pleasantly surprised if vaccine coverage plateaus above 80% of NZers being protected against serious illness and/or death due to Covid-19 infection. Hope it doesn't take more NZ deaths to persuade at least some of the hesitant to get the protection that vaccination provides. The risk is real – just look across the ditch – 35 more tragic Covid-attributed deaths in Australia over the last 30 days.
Again I raise a glass to everyone involved in the covid response, including a second glass for everyone in MIQ.
Outstanding work at keeping us safe, and under greater pressure now than ever.
March/April is also good because it gives the MoH another month or so to do more promotion and access. People will be distracted in December and January, end of year is a shit time to trial border opening of the goal is to prevent community transmission.
Meanwhile, US pediatric hospitalisations are at an all time high.
https://twitter.com/juliaraifman/status/1424077820838436870
https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1425063214132437011
Here's the real news: there is growing evidence that — for whatever reason (higher viral loads, something different about how the virus is handled by less mature immune systems, or something else), children infected by the Delta variant may develop a more severe form of the disease compared to illness caused by other forms of the virus.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/02/opinions/worrisome-thing-about-delta-variant-sepkowitz/index.html
Go onto the cdc tracker linked in the first tweet, and look at the region by region data by age group. Virtual chocolate fish for anyone who correctly guesses which regions have had that sudden recent spike of covid in kids, and which ones haven't.
Surprise surprise..
https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1424875475546120193
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1425155135370502147
https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD
For joe90 and aj
Latest tool in the fight – can't see me now.
https://twitter.com/TedGenoways/status/1424566606588436485
Despite an uptick in COVID-19 cases across the country as the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread, some states have reduced the frequency of their coronavirus data updates or stopped reporting deaths and cases entirely over the last month.
According to research from USAFacts, eight states have changed their COVID-19 data reporting as of Aug. 3.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-08-05/states-slow-covid-19-data-reporting-as-delta-variant-spreads
Like Thatcher stopping measurement of unemployment or the Nats refusing to measure poverty.
We kind of can, Jimmy.
In theory, yes. But I suspect the vaccinated majority of us would find the idea quite unpalatable.
I wouldn't bet on it.
Except for those that can't get vaccinated, children, babies, those with immuno issues, so fuck them? It's really not that black and white. We can open up, eventually, but with quarantine etc.
Immunocompromised can safely get the Pfizer vaccine. It's just unlikely to do them much good, because, well, immunocompromised means their immune systems aren't working well or not at all. So yeah, they will still mostly be dependent on the rest of us getting vaccinated for community immunity.
The only real contraindication I'm aware of is for those at risk of allergic reaction to one of the ingredients in the vaccine. Dunno if the plan is to get in small quantities of one of the other vaccines for them, but I certainly hope something like that is underway.
There's also a note that young males should be especially alert to symptoms of myocarditis after vaccination. The evidence seems to be that in the very rare cases that do get myocarditis they recover quickly with no lasting effects, but it's still better to get properly diagnosed and treated.
It's reasonably likely that children down to the age of two will have the vaccine authorised for them by the end of the year.
I understand NZ only has 300 ICU beds and most of them are allocated for non Covid cases. There is always the risk of health rationing were Covid to take hold.