“It’s abundantly clear we have to embark on deep change so we can achieve the biggest goal humankind has ever attempted. It is not to save the planet. It will survive – even if we don’t. It will adapt as it has to previous geological eras. Over tens of millions of years vastly different life-forms and ecosystems will evolve, ones shaped by prevailing conditions.
Our goal has to be to save ourselves. To do so we must give this ecosystem that gives us life the best chance it has to recover, and to continue to support us.”
Great. Anybody who accepts this(and I do ) must also accept that Capitalism, as we know it, will have to go. Capitalism is incompatible with saving the Planet.
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily life.
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily lifehistorical oddity.
Well, I think there is still a place for some inter-community scale, family store scale capitalism, as well as local models of self financing, but we may differ on that point.
na capitalism is just a man made tool , and like all tools if you have the right safegaurds it can be useful, it’s just that we have let the greedy use it for their purposes .
yes but with strong government it could be taken back and used just as a tool or system to get things done.
By this i mean something like.
The eu decides that all packaging will have to be biodegradable in ten years,
now some will winge , some will say it’s undoable , but some good little capitalist will see an opportunity and go to work trying to corner the market.
Two major things destroy this planet: 1/ far too many people 2/ every one of those wants what the neighbor has.
No matter what system you put in place – theoretically soviets Marxist system should have brought equal equilibrium for all but it didn’t – it is human nature that actually gets in the way. We are wired to destroy and not to build despite what some would like to belief. This is what we have to accept and learn to negotiate, our true nature. No one can say that they haven’t cotton on and by how far all is deteriorated, I would not hold my breath and unfortunately humanity will only learn when it gets a huge head clip to remind them that we are just a blip on the radar of the cosmos.
1) The richest 10% of people in the western world consume 60% of the world’s resources. This is not a question of “far too many people.” It is a question of the a few hundred million people in the rich west eating the rest of the world.
2) The only people who “wants what the neighbour has” are those who have learnt to greed, venality, jealousy and covetousness. I don’t want a yacht like my neighbour has and I don’t want a new HSV like my other neighbour has. You may think that that most people are basically venal, but perhaps that is simply only most people around your circles.
Your comments are always from the perspective that is angry and almost hateful. When you do that it becomes personal without having any grounds or indeed facts to support that. So I try to explain this differently:
1/ too many people – lets look at this globally. The greed (I want what my neighbor has) is destroying the forest and with that the reservoir for rain water exchange in the atmosphere. This in turn leads to droughts and the arable land that is available gets overused. If this continues the land we can use to feed us all will diminish even further and with that the means of sustaining the many people and growing population. Scientists have opened the Pandora’s box of gen modification and this will most likely increase the impasse in the future. We see the bees and pollinators dying already. Water: as we have seen in Hawks bay recently, water contamination will increase as aquifers are being contaminated because it is not enough to have a few cattle, it has to be more. The ground water is pumped and the lower the water table the more likely salination and contamination will occur.
2/ It is this “more” that will be humanity’s undoing.
Nature will be a great equalizer in that game of survival. This is not about money, this is about a finite world that cannot sustain an ever increasing population worldwide. I
If we wouldn’t be here, I doubt that any animal or plant would miss us. Some might be jubilant….
I agree with you Foreign Waka but what always does amuse me is – do the 10% honestly think once they have brought about complete planet collapse, that they will be able to start afresh from their bunkers or what ever and have the capacity to start again. That they cannot see that it will be their undoing as well, is just is too ridiculous for words but they are quite prepared to go over the cliff with the rest of us just for the sake of more consuming and greed. It’s like they are happy to take on a death wish for it all to occur.
I suppose in their utter selfishness they just think “well our generation will all be dead so what the hell”. Don’t they have grandchildren to have a thought for their futures and the carnage as society breaks down, that they will face.
The people who do care in this world are hopelessly powerless against the filthy rich of this world who can buy and control countries at will.
Good capitalism is an oxymoron – the model is exploitive, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but always with some, therefore it is no good. Assuming you don’t like exploitation that is.
Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .
“Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .”
Or shorter: Democratic Socialism. I’m a big fan of the Nordic Model.
I am nonetheless amused at CV’s opining on Capitalism while being a Trump supporter. Cognative dissonance is strong with him (or her)
aah I’ve wondered what my political label would be , it would appear that at this stage i am a democratic socialist. Which nz party fits the bill most do you think?
I wondered recently if I was right enough in perceiving a certain leakage in the levees that shore up ‘business as usual’. The first inkling came from the Guardian in a piece that not only directly quoted eminent scientists in the field expressing fairly deep misgivings about our present position and direction, but questioned this whole notion of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Previously that’s just been taken as a read by the likes of the Guardian.
And I do like that Rod characterises the need for radical action as an “adventure”…
I was at a workshop at which Rod facilitated the discussion around action on Climate Change yesterday. Rod has been active in this area for some years now. I am not surprised with his comments. He certainly understands that the economy is a subset of the environment not the other way round.
Pathetic ! On Q+A Corin Dan giving Parata the sweetest platform, like a paid ‘pretend’ interviewer. It’s disgraceful really. He just sits there watching Parata go all ‘aspirational’. FFS !
Halfcrown i used too watch Q+A when it first started and even though the late Paul Holmes was the host and always could be relied upon too give the left a good kick i stuck with it because there was no other in depth political coverage at the time.
As the media has moved away from unbiased coverage in favour of the right wing perspective Q+ A has regrettably gone the same way.
Corrin Dann indulges anyone from the government side but watch him change into a nasty scowling arrogant monster when its anyone from the left, its real hatred and i dont know why anyone from the left of politics would want to appear to be treated this way and its the viewer who wants too be informed that misses out because Dann wont allow the victim too talk and get their point across basicly its just bloody bullying.
It just angers up the blood so i dont watch any of them and have pleasant no stress Sunday as god intended.
Campbell had Key worked and looked what happened to him.
Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager.
When extremists like red delusion and ‘man in the middle’ ( never knew Genghis Khan , Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini were men in the middle) rant on about Venezuela and North Korea, maybe they should look at the state of our own media.
Open the curtains it’s a lovely day outside Paul, stop wallowing in negativity on your PC, we all have google search thus your cut and pastes while admirable from a quantitative perspective and effort is not really required
Live updates of the penultimate day of the Rio Olympics.
‘Just Bledi Awful’ – Aussie’s reaction
Girl who killed her own family set free (Canadian crime story)
‘Righto, we need to take this to the police’ (the Herald appears more concerned about the All Blacks being spied on than the whole country)
KFC’s secret recipe uncovered
All Blacks v Australia: Player ratings
Revealed: The best and worst airline food
Cold case mystery: Is he still alive? (Australian crime story)
Who is the lucky punter who won $13.3m?
Could Hamblin win rare Olympic medal?
The poisoning of 4000 New Zealand citizens?
Not as important.
More wins for the All Blacks and less money and support for the grassroots.
More medals at Olympics and less participation in sport.
Olympic swimmers. Closing school polls.
Shhhhhhh mate is their any joy in your life , suggestion stop bringing every thing back to partisan politics Just enjoy something for enjoyment sake, as the say accentuate the positive it could be life changing for you
Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
In the days when everyone was a sportsmen
Back then, worn out tennis balls would mysteriously appear in the gutters of our street. Finding one of these little beauties could mean only one thing: it was time for a street cricket match.
Kids’ names were called out and pretty soon you had enough players to start a game. While the batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper were definitely human, most of the fieldsmen were drawn from the vast throng of free-range neighbourhood dogs.
How long does it take for a new graft on an established tree to fruit? For an Apple tree? Pears? Plums? Cherry? (I’m guessing plums and cherries are sooner).
A graft “takes” quickly, days or weeks, depending on the type of graft. I do a simple cleft graft that binds more slowly, as it’s done at the end of winter and moves with the rise of the sap. Bud grafts are done when things are cranking, and take a shorter time. In any case, grafting fruit-bearing scions onto decorative trees is fun and funny.
Fifty years ago the Gurindji people walked off Lord Vesty’s Northern Territory Wave Hill station.
.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this article contains images, voices and names of deceased people.
Fifty years ago, the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory made their name across Australia with the 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off.
It was a landmark event that inspired national change: equal wages for Aboriginal workers, as well as a new Land Rights Act.
Although it took another two decades, the Gurindji also became one of the first Aboriginal groups to reclaim their traditional lands.
Many people know a small part of the walk-off story because of the song From Little Things, Big Things Grow about 200 stockmen, house servants and their families who walked off Wave Hill Station on 23 August 1966, in protest at appalling pay and living conditions.
But what is not widely known is that the walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.
Vincent Lingiari introduces the recording in his language, which he then translates into English.
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
That means that I came down here to ask all these fella here about the land rights. What I got story from my old father or grandfather that land belongs to me, belongs to Aboriginal men before the horses and the cattle come over on that land where I am sitting now. That is what I have been keeping on my mind and I still got it on my mind. That is all the words I can tell you.
‘Gurindji Blues’
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
Me bin sit down this country
Long time before the Lord Vestey
Allabout land belongin’ to we
Oh poor bugger me, Gurindji.
Poor bugger blackfeller; Gurindji
Long time work no wages, we,
Work for the good old Lord Vestey
Little bit flour; sugar and tea
For the Gurindji, from Lord Vestey
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji,
Man called Vincent Lingiari
Talk long allabout Gurindji
‘Daguragu place for we,
Home for we, Gurindji:
But poor bugger blackfeller, Gurindji
Government boss him talk long we
‘We’ll build you house with electricity
But at Wave Hill, for can’t you see
Wattie Creek belong to Lord Vestey’
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
Up come Mr: Frank Hardy
ABSCHOL too and talk long we
Givit hand long Gurindji
Buildim house and plantim tree
Longa Wattie Creek for Gurindji
But poor bugger blackfeller Gurindji
Government Law him talk long we
‘Can’t givit land long blackfeller, see
Only spoilim Gurindji’
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
Peter Nixon talk long we:
‘Buy you own land, Gurindji
Buyim back from the Lord Vestey’
Oh poor bugger me, Gurindji.
Poor bugger blackfeller Gurindji
Suppose we buyim back country
What you reckon proper fee?
Might be flour, sugar and tea
From the Gurindji to Lord Vestey?
Oh poor bugger me.
Oh ngaiyu luyurr ngura-u
Sorry my country, Gurindji.
Regretfully Joe – it isn’t much better even today. The billions of dollars that are “invested” in the indigenous people of Australia mainly ends up in State administration and people getting rich at the expense of those who really need it. The land on which aboriginal communities live is State owned – not the peoples – as are the houses and all the facilities. The first aborigine ,albert namatjirato be granted Australian citizenship was in 1957.
Read a beautiful book about Aboriginal culture recently… really moving
Mutant Message Down Under is the fictional account of an American woman’s spiritual odyssey through outback Australia. An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan’s powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.
Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia’s bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.
By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.
Policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
Overall credibility, able to bring along a team, general fiscal prudence, impact on rates, capability of the incumbent all bear upon the voters choice.
Fiscal prudence like a great big fuck off convention centre and rugby stadium? Or fiscal prudence involving buying up tracts of prime central city land in order to prop up land prices artificially for the governments mates? Or the environmentally prudent moves by ECan to allow shitty farmers to steal all the good water?
Democracy has failed in Canterbury, destroyed by the disaster capitalists and abetted by that waste of space Brownlee
If Minto fails to win but still performs well (making it a close race) it will send a shiver up the spine of the establishment. As it will indicate the tide is turning.
The canary used to alert miners of the presence of noxious gases. It has since become a metaphor for truth tellers in a dangerous world. We talk to the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Canary – the newest arrival in Britain’s online journalism – Kerry-Anne Mendoza.
Yeah well, what’s that quote (from some US official?) on how friends are chosen by dint of what it is that is wanting to be achieved, and not on grounds of how good or bad, or right or wrong they may be?
I’ve no doubt ‘The Guardian’ and others will do a huge mea-culpa over their ‘Boy in an Ambulance’ story and earnestly seek to redress any “rush to war” sentiments that their coverage may have produced.
Labour MP Kelvin Davies has gone public about his role in helping a mentally ill man and argues it shows a need for better services.
“I stopped a guy from killing himself last night,” Mr Davies posted on his Facebook page.
He says the man, whom he knows, texted him from Dunedin to say “he’s had enough. He’s going to end it”.
Mr Davies said he stopped on the side of the road and talked to the man for an hour.
After a stand-off and confrontation police took the man to accident and emergency services where he got medical treatment for the harm he did to himself.
But there was no treatment for “his actual problem”, and he was given a taxi chit to get home where he had no power, heat or food.
He says the man is a hard worker and he has complex issues.
Mental health services “must do their job regardless” of how complex needs are.
That yahoo article containts mistakes (Davis not Davies for a start).
Having a look at Davis’ FB page, good on him and Curran for making something happen. However he does have a bit of a hero complex and seems largely ignorant (or willfully ignorant) of why our mental health services are the way they are.
There are bloody good reasons for why the state can’t just section people willy nilly, and many of those reasons are because of serious abuses of power in the past. The big push towards community mental health in recent decades, supported by Labour, was meant to establish broader support so that it wouldn’t just be left to the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff services. Massive fail on that, and a classic example of neoliberal co-option of good ideas and well intentioned people.
Davis can bang his fist on the table over this all he likes, but until there is a govt that addresses poverty, and then works for the wellbeing of all people, then what he will get is tinkering around the edges.
Besides all that, the Southern DHB is in a mess and as a politician he should be addressing that. Blaming emergncy psych services for things that are often outside their control is not helping. Those psych services were failing under the last Labour govt too. If he is serious about this issue he needs to step up with some solid policy on what will make a difference. Making out that staff should break the law, esp where that law is designed to protect people, is just not on.
There’s a lot about caring for someone who’s unwell that isn’t as you’d expect, coming from normal society, and without wider family experience. The first few times you expect the process to more objective, like a broken arm. But it’s not, it’s this amazing, complex interaction of patient and clinician, fear rebellion and trust, liberty privacy and control, and someone who is tearing to pieces but can think everything is fine.
I’ve had to be part of catching my partner at the bottom of the cliff about every six years and am slowly learning more and more each time. I wish I knew what I know now 20 yeas ago, and I’ll learn a lot more yet. But Kelvin sounds like I did 15 years ago. We expect the process to work in a concise and determined way. It doesn’t, but it can and does work, in a patient centred way.
I hope that Kelvin will learn on from this experience to understand the process and journey that an unwell person follows to live within their world.
Thoughtful comment Graeme. I think it’s one of the downsides of the push to see mental illness as the same as physical disease. People end up thinking it should be that straightforward.
Covers quite a bit of ground, but a few main points:
Trumpism has a deep-rooted appeal in a disenfranchised blue collar right excluded by a managerial technocratic ruling class post WWII (a class championed as the face of new conservatism by William F Buckley).
What it shares with the left, and makes it attractive to some nominal or former leftists is its opposition to neoliberalism and managerialism.
However, any pretence that the racism and something involving brown shirts and silly walks or a tendency to wear bedsheets and set crosses on fire is merely incidental or an embarrassing fringe is naive at best. Reactionary racial and sexual supremacism is intrinsic to the movement and many of the founding figures and current inciters are unashamed racist nationalists. An endorsement of Trump from the leader of the American N*** Party should be no surprise.
Mention is given to the publicity-hungry trolls of the “alt-right” such as Milo Yiannopoulos, who have seized on it as a stage to act out their own narcissism.
Makes an interesting parallel with this, examining the decline of liberal democracy:
What’s happening to this country has happened before, in other nations, in other anxious, violent times when all the old certainties peeled away and maniacs took the wheel. It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance. Donald Trump is the Gordon Gekko of the attention economy, but even he is no longer in control. This culture war is being run in bad faith by bad actors who are running way off-script, and it’s barely begun, and there are going to be a lot of refugees.
While you may see Trump as a stick with which to beat the elites, that stick will beat the rest of the people too, particularly those with darker skins. That’s particularly callous schadenfreude.
Firstly, I think that under either Trump or Clinton, the multi-decades long income stagnation and collapse of the US middle class will continue.
Secondly, my point stands: if the Democratic Party wanted the stronger anti-Trump candidate, one who was polling far more strongly against Trump and carried far less questionable political baggage, they could have chosen him.
Yes I’m afraid so. Bernie and Corbyn are actually the reasonable face of a wider movement, shoving them aside will not solve anything, it will just further delay the needed reforms that WILL occur one way or another.
The Republicans could have avoided this insanity as well, instead of sucking up to the Tea Party idiots and hamming it up for fox news. It’s a party on life support, i wonder if their Wall St backers are sick of them too.
Indeed. The Democrats said of the working class that “they have nowhere else to go” and the Republicans saw them as useful shock troops in the form of the Tea Party but never imagined that they’d get up on their hind legs.
If I were voting in the American election, I’d want to vote for a unicorn, not choosing Nixon over Mussolini. We can be grateful for MMP at least allowing alternative voices in government rather than the duopoly that results from FPP.
Admittedly he described my former workplace very accurately in Dilbert…
Is this some joke that went over my head or is there a Scott Adams who is a statistician with extensive access to data and algorithms to process it and not a satirical cartoonist?
And his support for this assertion is…? Looking at his blog post on the subject, not much.
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark :
1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
Anecdotes and claims about having to say that he supported Clinton for his own physical safety(!). No facts given, merely anecdote and gut instinct.
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
No evidence, hence no debate.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
Not an expert.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
Vague gestures in this direction, nothing substantive, resorts to gut instinct.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
Hoooo boy!
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
NOPE.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
Nope. Gut instinct again.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
Hypothesis has no evidence, supposes unexplained forces at work to an unknown degree.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Too vague to be falsifiable, contains a bit of handwaving in the manner of “I could be wrong, but…”
Sagan is simply summarising the universal scientific method. That’s how science works. It makes predictions based on the best available data at the time.
Naturally as time passes through the campaign, new events will happen, new data will be acquired. You ignore the fact that Silver is analysing polls, not measuring an invariable predetermined event. Clearly a campaign is not a static object but a process. In the early stages of the data gathering process, it is to be expected that wild results will be produced.
At this point the reasonable assumption based on quantified data and reasonable analysis and extrapolation is that Trump will still lose. There is a possibility that Trump may win, and it’s greater than the chance that a unicorn will win. However, I still think that Silver’s polling is far superior to Adam’s entrails and a Trump win is therefore very unlikely.
Rhinocrates, I ask you again, where is the evidence that using the “universal scientific method” to predict the outcome of US Presidential elections is statistically superior than any other method?
How is it that Nate Silver’s organisation can assign 6:1 odds in favour of Clinton and have that taken seriously, when he has been outright wrong about Trump relatively recently.
IMO it’s going to be an easy Trump win come November. I can accept that you believe that opinion flies in the face of all the objective scientific evidence.
I tell you what though they just played a bit of a his last couple of his speech’s on prime news , now if i was someone who paid little attention to politics what he was saying would of grabbed my attention.
And all clinton did was tweet a sulky tweet inresponse.
Family in illegally converted garage faces eviction
A family living in a South Auckland garage faces eviction in October because the landlord converted it into a flat without a council permit.
Samoanagalo Ioelu, Nick Mah Yen and their 11-month-old son Charlie have been living in the Manurewa garage since their landlord converted it into a three-room flat just after Charlie was born.
From the street, the building still looks like a conventional garage with a roller door taking up most of the frontage.
Behind the door, the garage now boasts a small living room with a large mat covering the floor, a bedroom and a bathroom for which Ioelu and Mah Yen pay $220 a week.
“…Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay in Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.”
yes, he’s no slouch…nailed it.
“The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labour movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain. The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.”
“If we cannot halt the emissions of carbon dioxide, what can we do?
In the end, the only hope we have is to find a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere once it has got there. Even the IPCC has admitted that we will have to find a way to extract carbon dioxide from the air. The trouble is that they don’t just how we can do that. The most favoured scheme is known as BECCS: bio-energy with carbon capture and storage. Essentially, you plant trees and bushes over vast swaths of ground. These grow, absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. Then you burn the wood to run power plants while trapping, liquefying and storing the carbon dioxide that is released.”
Ok, so people don’t want to change their lifestyles and this makes them think they can defy physics? Some people sure, but I think mostly it’s more a process of desperation. My reply was to point out that there are better thing to do with that desperation than go to fantasty land.
Im more inclined to think its a case of not wishing to think about it or being more focused on perceived more pressing needs…..that can be considered fantasyland (or denial) but it is a prevalent state.
There’s a few other possibilities. For just one instance, currently concrete is a major climate nasty mostly due to fossil fuels burned for process heat and the CO2 released by chemical reactions in cement production, However, concrete also absorbs CO2 back out of the atmosphere as it cures.
Simply changing the process heat source to renewable electricity plus capture and storage of the CO2 released during calcination would turn conventional concrete into a small net carbon sink rather than a large emitter.
But there’s also processes that create unconventional cements suitable for concrete that absorb CO2 during manufacture, rather than releasing it. Which would be even better.
there appear to be many proposals for carbon capture, however as far as I can see those investigating the options all seem to come to same conclusion that what is currently feasible (even potentially) lack the capacity to remove the volumes required….that may not be so into the future but there is also a time constraint factor…no point in having a process in 50 -100 years time if we’re already extinct.
Personally I reckon human extinction in 50 to 100 years is very unlikely. Either massive nuclear war, or the oceans turning anoxic (apparently has happened before so non-zero probability). I reckon the sight of billions dying in the tropics will scare the rest of the planet to take enough action that there will still be habitable refuge areas in high latitudes.
if billions are dying in the tropics (or anywhere) I would suggest it will be past the point of no return…..as to anoxic oceans we may be well on the way already….when the food chain collapses the resulting extinction events will be rapid so 50 -100 years may seem hyperbolic but not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.
My Department Right Or Wrong: Far from “politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters” being a bad thing, their involvement – along with that of the Ombudsman – constitutes a necessary check upon the unreasonable and unlawful exercise of authority over prison inmates by prison staff. A Corrections Minister who ...
New Zealand is supposed to have a progressive tax system, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. But it turns out that the rich are cheating: The wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average, according to research from ...
Ground truths on warming When we think about rapid climate change of the kind we've accidentally unleashed and the warming of Earth systems inherent in the process, we tend to focus on phenomena in order of their immediate tangibility, their drama. Sea ice loss in the Arctic, atmospheric and ocean ...
by Daphna Whitmore The Department of Corrections has called in the police over a pamphlet that supports protests at Waikeria Prison, saying the material might incite another riot. The group People Against Prisons Aotearoa denies it advocates for riots and has said it “encourages persistent, peaceful protest action such as striking from ...
One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in ...
I've just lodged my fourth complaint to the Ombudsman for deemed refusal of an OIA request by police this year. That brings their total to four for four - every request I have sent them has not been answered within the legal timeframe, even when they extend it to give ...
Will the health reforms proposed for the Labour Government make the system better or worse? Health commentator Ian Powell (formerly the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) gives his analysis of what change is most necessary, and what should be avoided. The review of the Health ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections An off-course polar vortex meandered toward the Mexican border, bringing with it frigid Arctic air rarely seen as far south as Texas. Frozen equipment rendered power generation systems in the state inoperable, forcing grid operators to begin rolling blackouts to customers then left to fend ...
Just as National once produced a “rock star economy” that Grant Robertson rejected as being only for the rich, the Labour Government has produced an economic “bounce back” that leaves out the poor. Branko Marcetic argues for a rise in benefit levels to give the poor a real bounce back. ...
Virginia has voted to abolish the death penalty: State lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the ...
Yesterday a New Zealand Judge issued a formal finding that the Department of Corrections had treated prisoners in a cruel, degrading and inhumane manner, illegally detaining them, using excessive force, denying them basic necessities unless they performed degrading rituals of submission first. Some of the conduct appears to be criminal: ...
The Herald reports that there is a "storm brewing for the Climate Change Commission". The "problem"? Polluters are unhappy with its economic projections saying that action will not be as costly as they have previously claimed: Last week a coalition of over a dozen New Zealand business and industry ...
You're Move: What would a genuinely powerful Maori Caucus do? What policies would it insist upon? More to the point, since the single most important question in politics is always “Or you’ll what?”, does the Maori Caucus possess the wherewithal to enforce its demands?THAT LABOUR’S MAORI CAUCUS is potentially powerful ...
This post is a mix of a few recent reports on trends, recent discoveries or developments. Topics covered are the future of work, the geopolitical shift from oil to semiconductors, transition to low carbon futures, disappearing Artic sea ice, and AI in health care. Yesterday’s Gone A Canadian report ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson One of the hottest years in U.S. history, 2020 was besieged by a record number of billion-dollar disasters, led by two of the most dangerous phenomena with links to climate change: wildfires and hurricanes. In its initial U.S. climate summary for 2020, ...
Just because something is bad, doesn’t mean it’s easy to criminalise. Graham Adams argues that the proposed ban on gay conversion therapy is messier than many realise, and he delves into some of the difficulties facing the Government in their promise to legislate. A highly successful petition has inadvertently ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Absolutely ridiculous’: top scientist slams UK government over coalmineExclusive:Prof Sir Robert Watson says backing of ...
Over the weekend we learned that Turkey plans to deport a New Zealand woman and her children who had fled Syria after previously joing the Islamic State. Which means that Andrew Little's tyrannical Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019 - rammed through under all-stages urgency on the basis of an ...
While it has made a lot of noise about inequality, Labour has resolutely avoided reversing the 1990 benefit cuts and improving living standards for the poorest in our society. Meanwhile, 70% of kiwis think they should: A survey has found seven out of 10 New Zealanders believe the government ...
Anti-Philosopher President? Emmanuel Macron and his party’s reaction to the terrorist atrocities committed on French soil targets the very same philosophical movements excited and emboldened by New Zealand’s own terrifying tragedy.IT IS NOT the sort of thought experiment New Zealanders are encouraged to conduct in these culturally sensitive times. Even ...
If Jacinda Ardern or ay of her Auckland-based cabinet ministers stepped outside this weekend, they would have realised that this afternoon’s cabinet decision on whether to move Auckland back to Level 1 has already been made. The residents of our biggest city have voted with their feet.While some places where ...
According to epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker, the decision to end the second Auckland lockdown after just three days was a ‘calculated risk’. The possibility of undetected community transmission cannot be ruled out. In the United States, modelling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the ...
As I rose for the first time to speak from the Despatch Box in the House of Commons, I had the comfort of seeing that the Despatch Box had on it the inscription “A Gift from the People of New Zealand”. But I was also a little daunted, like so ...
This article is by Laura Biggs, from the Marxist-Feminist blog On the Woman Question. The term ‘sex work’ has come to replace the word ‘prostitution’ in contemporary discussions on the subject. This is not accidental. The phrase ‘sex work’ has been adopted by liberal feminists and powerful lobbyists in a ...
Sometimes it’s smaller, intensive studies that shed light on issues. Just reported results of daily sampling of COVID-19 patients indicate patients with the B.1.1.7 variant first observed in Kent, UK may have a longer infection compared to patients infected with non-B.1.1.7 variants. This is the variant seen in NZ’s most ...
Redline has just passed one million views – as I start writing this we have reached 1,000,015 views. It took us nearly seven years to reach our first 500,000 and just three months short of three years to reach our second 500,000, with 2019 being our best year, with over ...
. . As the rest of the world was perceived to be “going to hell in a handbasket with an out-of-control pandemic; ructions in Europe as Britain copes with “Brexit” chaos; Trumpism in the United States climaxing with the 6 January mob-led coup attempt in Washington’s Capitol; a deadly ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Feb 14, 2021 through Sat, Feb 20, 2021Editor's ChoiceQ&A: Is Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Book a Hopeful Look at the Promise of Technology, or a Cautionary Tale?The Pulitzer Prize-winning ...
Session Thirty-Five. We have had some in-game and out-of-game indication that we are drawing to the end of the Dreamland adventure… which has lasted since the fourth session. Getting back to the Waking World will require some mental adjustment, especially considering that Annalax has spent thirty-odd sessions not ...
A Friend In Need: I have grown up, and grown old, within earshot of New Zealand’s public broadcaster. Through times of peace and plenty, through days of tumult and recrimination, it has been a constant and reliable presence. The calm and authoritative voices of Radio New Zealand kept their fellow ...
This article, authored by Dr Lisa Schipper, Dr Morgan Scoville-Simonds, Dr Katharine Vincent and Prof Siri Eriksen, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Feb 10, 2021. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments posted on Carbon Brief. Photo by ...
. . As the rest of the world was perceived to be “going to hell in a handbasket with an out-of-control pandemic; ructions in Europe as Britain copes with “Brexit” chaos; Trumpism in the United States climaxing with the 6 January mob-led coup attempt in Washington’s Capitol; a deadly resurgent ...
by Georgina Blackmore Instead ask the government to separate the two issues caught under the heading of “Conversion Therapy”. 1) Gay Conversion Therapy which is what 99.9% of people believe this petition is about. It is a ban I personally support. 2) Gender Identity Conversion Therapy which doesn’t have any ...
The burning of books has a long history. That it no reason why we should add to it.If you want to get Burning of the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack from the National Library you may have to hurry. It is in the overseas nonfiction section; many books ...
by Daphna Whitmore After promising to tackle poverty, housing, transport, and climate issues in 2017, and failing on all these measures, Labour has moved to a Helen Clark “promise little and disappoint less” style of government. Poverty – perversely called “child poverty” by Ardern – has worsened under Labour. Much ...
This is one of those subject matters better suited to a thesis than a blog post, and far smarter people than I have tackled the question in a more detailed and accurate manner. But it’s a question that’s been running around in my brain for a fortnight or so. ...
Chris Fogwill, Keele University; Alan Hogg, University of Waikato; Chris Turney, UNSW, and Zoë Thomas, UNSWThe world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jan Ellen Spiegel Colorado is no stranger to drought. The current one is closing in on 20 years, and a rainy or snowy season here and there won’t change the trajectory. This is what climate change has brought. “Aridification” is what ...
Sweet Surrender: By 1933, Adolf Hitler was the last political leader left standing, and his Nazis the only party Germany had yet to try. It was ever thus. Dictators and dictatorships succeed by being the only medicine a desperately sick nation hasn’t swallowed; the only strength that hasn’t failed.NOT ALL ...
"I know what you're not thinking!" Thanks to their polling agency and the participants in its focus-groups, the Labour leadership possesses a great deal more information about the Kiwis clamouring for action on the housing and inequality fronts than most journalists and lobbyists.ACCORDING TO PEOPLE “in the know”, Labour is ...
James Higham, University of OtagoThe Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s second tourism report urges the government to take advantage of the disruption caused by COVID-19 to transform the tourism industry. Titled “Not 100% – but four steps closer to sustainable tourism”, it builds on commissoner Simon Upton’s 2019 “Pristine, ...
My column over at Newsroom this week points out the fairly obvious. The government can add daily saliva testing for everyone at the border to the existing testing regimen. If daily testing winds up proving the swab tests to be redundant, ditch the swab tests when we find that out. ...
Geoengineering heats up Sorry, that was irresistible. By chance in this edition of New Research are two intriguing papers including different perspectives on the subject of geoengineering, a topic increasingly arousing emotions. Happily both of these papers are open access and free to read. A third article underlines that enthusiasm ...
Tamra Burns Loeb, University of California, Los Angeles; AJ Adkins-Jackson, Harvard University, and Arleen F. Brown, University of California, Los AngelesRacial and ethnic minority communities that lack internet access have been left behind in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The average monthly cost of internet access, about ...
Zach St. GeorgeThe first and only time Steve Jackson spoke to Bill Critchfield was in the late 1980s. Critchfield, an authority on the conifers of North America, was at home recovering from a heart attack. Jackson, then a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, had called looking for advice on how ...
Richelle Butcher, Massey University; Britta Denise Hardesty, CSIRO, and Lauren Roman, CSIROPlastic in the ocean can be deadly for marine wildlife and seabirds around the globe, but our latest study shows single-use plastics are a bigger threat to endangered albatrosses in the southern hemisphere than we previously thought. You ...
On Monday, the US Congress failed to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for inciting an attempted coup against the US constitution. So now someone is doing it privately, in the traditional American way: suing him: Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, the former president’s personal lawyer, have been accused ...
The media this morning was full of hopeful stories about how the current lockdown may have been a "false alarm" and an over-reaction and how it would all be over soon (I bet those journalists and editors all feel pretty stupid now). But along the way, National's Michael Woodhouse let ...
Jen Purdie, University of OtagoAs fossil fuels are phased out over the coming decades, the Climate Change Commission (CCC) suggests electricity will take up much of the slack, powering our vehicle fleet and replacing coal and gas in industrial processes. But can the electricity system really provide for this ...
Nearly twenty years after they first arrived, the last New Zealand troops will finally be leaving Afghanistan in May: New Zealand troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by May 2021. The current deployment consists of six Defence Force personnel - three deployed to the Afghanistan National Army Officer Academy, ...
I’m a bit of an ETS-absolutist. Or at least a carbon-pricing absolutist, in a place the size of NZ. I think the Weitzman reasons for preferring a carbon tax to an ETS are second-order relative to political economy considerations, and any weight at all put on switching costs makes it ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson Despite the speed bump posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is rolling toward completion of its Sixth Assessment Report, the latest in a series that began in 1990. IPCC’s assessments, produced by many hundreds of scientists volunteering countless hours, ...
On Friday (5 February) we went for a walk in the Karangahake Gorge, and were very happy to discover (during the Windows Walk) that there are glow-worms in the darker parts of the mine workings. (Strictly speaking they’re glow-maggots as they’re the larvae of small flies/midges, but that is perhaps ...
Alysha JohnsonThey say a good day is a busy day, and aboard the R/V Falkor (Seafloor to Seabirds in the Coral Sea – Schmidt Ocean Institute), almost every day is busy! On this particular day, we deployed a CTD, which stands for Conductivity, Temperature and Density. It is ...
This is a transcript of a speech by developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton delivered at on 29 November 2020 for the ‘Feminist Academics Talk Back!’ meeting. This talk was originally published by womentalkback.org Sex denialists have captured existing journals We are dealing with a new religion Thank you for the ...
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway wallsAnd tenement halls"Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence, 1963-64 BOMBER’S RIGHT about Adam Curtis’s latest offering, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, it is brilliant. You can tell it’s a work of genius by the ...
Familiar Excuses: Those wondering why our Prime Minister was so willing to countenance a reputationally damaging breaking of Air New Zealand's contract with the Saudi Arabian navy should wonder no longer. Pieces are in motion on the Middle East chessboard. The interests of the majority shareholder in Air New Zealand ...
Three new community cases of Covid-19 and an unknown source have plunged Auckland into lockdown and the rest of the country into alert level two. Microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles tackles some of the critical questions we now face. Could we be looking at a situation as worrying as last August in ...
Over the years, members from our team have published several handbooks providing information about how to successfully counter misinformation and conspiracy theories. These include The Conspiracy Theory Handbook and The Debunking Handbook 2020, both published in 2020. In addition, we have our list of rebuttals as well as our MOOC Denial101x to specifically ...
Story of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... SkS Spotlights... Video of the Week... Reports of Note... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Article Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... IEA: India is on ‘cusp of a solar-powered ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Green MPs currently in Auckland, Marama Davidson, Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, will remain in Auckland for the next 72 hours. Those in Auckland today for Big Gay Out who have flown home will self-isolate for 72 hours. These decisions will be subject to any new information that may arise ...
It’s Pride month, and as we celebrate our LGBTIA+ community, we’re taking the next steps towards a more inclusive Aotearoa. From investing in mental health services to banning harmful conversion therapy, we’re building a New Zealand where everyone can be safe, healthy and happy. ...
The Green Party strongly condemns the revelation that Air New Zealand may have provided assistance and maintenance to Saudi Arabian vessels involved in committing atrocities in Yemen. ...
This week, Labour MPs headed north to take part in Waitangi events, and acknowledge Aotearoa’s shared history. Here’s a quick look at what our team got up to at Waitangi, and how we’re working together with Māori to build a better future for us all. ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
It’s time to recognise the outstanding work early learning services, kōhanga reo, schools and kura do to support children and young people to succeed, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins says. The 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards are now open through until April 16. “The past year has reminded us ...
Three new Jobs for Nature projects will help nature thrive in the Bay of Plenty and keep local people in work says Conservation Minister Kiri Allan. “Up to 30 people will be employed in the projects, which are aimed at boosting local conservation efforts, enhancing some of the region’s most ...
The Government has accepted all of the Holidays Act Taskforce’s recommended changes, which will provide certainty to employers and help employees receive their leave entitlements, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said the Government established the Holidays Act Taskforce to help address challenges with the ...
The Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and faster than expected economic recovery has been acknowledged in today’s credit rating upgrade. Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) today raised New Zealand’s local currency credit rating to AAA with a stable outlook. This follows Fitch reaffirming its AA+ rating last ...
Tena koutou e nga Maata Waka Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu whanui, Tena koutou. Nau mai whakatau mai ki tenei ra maumahara i te Ru Whenua Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga ora ki te hunga ora Tena koutou, Tena ...
The Minister of Justice has reaffirmed the Government’s urgent commitment, as stated in its 2020 Election Manifesto, to ban conversion practices in New Zealand by this time next year. “The Government has work underway to develop policy which will bring legislation to Parliament by the middle of this year and ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Social Development Hon Carmel Sepuloni today launched a new Creative Careers Service, which is expected to support up to 1,000 creatives, across three regions over the next two years. The new service builds on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to ...
Overseas consumers eager for natural products in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic have helped boost honey export revenue by 20 percent to $425 million in the year to June 30, 2020, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says. “The results from the latest Ministry for Primary Industries’ 2020 Apiculture Monitoring ...
Thanks to more than $10-million in new services from the Government, more rangatahi will be able to access mental health and addiction support in their community. Minister of Health Andrew Little made the announcement today while visiting Odyssey House Christchurch and acknowledged that significant events like the devastating earthquakes ten ...
Two month automatic visitor visa extension for most visitor visa holders Temporary waiver of time spent in New Zealand rule for visitor stays Visitor visa holders will be able to stay in New Zealand a little longer as the Government eases restrictions for those still here, the Minister of Immigration ...
The Tourism and Conservation Ministers say today’s report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) adds to calls to overhaul the tourism model that existed prior to COVID19. “The PCE tourism report joins a chorus of analysis which has established that previous settings, which prioritised volume over value, are ...
The Government is providing certainty for the dietary supplements industry as we work to overhaul the rules governing the products, Minister for Food Safety Dr Ayesha Verrall said. Dietary supplements are health and wellness products taken orally to supplement a traditional diet. Some examples include vitamin and mineral supplements, echinacea, ...
The Government is joining the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention), Justice Minister Kris Faafoi and Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications Dr David Clark announced today. The decision progresses a recommendation by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terror attack to accede to ...
Attorney-General David Parker announced today that an appointment round for Queen’s Counsel will take place in 2021. Appointments of Queen’s Counsel are made by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Attorney-General and with the concurrence of the Chief Justice. The Governor-General retains the discretion to appoint Queen’s Counsel in ...
The new Resurgence Support Payment passed by Parliament this week will be available to eligible businesses now that Auckland will be in Alert Level 2 until Monday. “Our careful management of the Government accounts means we have money aside for situations like this. We stand ready to share the burden ...
A dry run of the end-to-end process shows New Zealand’s COVID-19 vaccination programme is ready to roll from Saturday, when the first border workers will receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “The trial run took place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch yesterday afternoon, ahead of the ...
From June this year, all primary, intermediate, secondary school and kura students will have access to free period products, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced today. The announcement follows a successful Access to Period Products pilot programme, which has been running since Term 3 last ...
The latest update shows the Government’s books are again in better shape than forecast, meaning New Zealand is still in a strong position to respond to any COVID-19 resurgence. The Crown Accounts for the six months to the end of December were better than forecast in the Half-year Economic and ...
The Department of Conservation’s (DOC) new Heritage and Visitor Strategy is fully focused on protecting and enhancing the value of New Zealand’s natural, cultural and historic heritage, while also promoting a sustainable environmental experience, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “It has been a quarter of a century since DOC first developed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Peeni Henare have announced that New Zealand will conclude its deployment of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) to Afghanistan by May 2021. “After 20 years of a NZDF presence in Afghanistan, it is now time to conclude ...
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. This is a special time in our country. A little over a week ago, it was the anniversary of the signature by Māori and the British Crown of Te Tiriti O Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), a founding document in ...
The Government is in contact with relevant authorities in Turkey following the arrest of a former Australian and New Zealand dual citizen there, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “Contingency planning for the potential return of any New Zealander who may have been in the conflict zone has been underway for ...
Figures released today by Stats NZ show there was strong growth in median household incomes in 2020, before surveying was halted due to COVID-19. Stats NZ found the median annual household income rose 6.9 percent to $75,024 in the year to June 2020 compared with a year earlier. The survey ...
Legislation will be introduced under urgency today to set up a new Resurgence Support Payment for businesses affected by any resurgence of COVID-19. “Since the scheme was announced in December we have decided to make a change to the payment – reducing the time over which a revenue drop is ...
Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor congratulated Nigeria’s Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her ground-breaking selection as the next Director General of the World Trade Organization last night. Dr Okonjo-Iweala will be the first female and first African Director General of the organisation. She has a strong background in international ...
From 1 April 2021, people getting a benefit will be able to earn more through work before their benefit payments are affected, Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni has announced. “Overall, around 82,900 low-income people and families will be better off by $18 a week on average,” says Carmel ...
The first batch of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in New Zealand this morning, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed. The shipment of around 60,000 doses arrived as airfreight at Auckland International Airport at 9.34am today. “The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine’s arrival allows us to start New Zealand’s largest-ever immunisation programme,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
Good evening Cabinet has met this evening to make decisions on our response to the three cases reported earlier within a household in Auckland. Shortly I will ask Dr Bloomfield to set out some further information we now have relating to these cases. New Zealanders have enjoyed more freedoms for ...
For the first time, the Government will provide targeted nationwide funding to services that provide mental health support to Rainbow young people Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced. The announcement fulfils an election commitment to allocate $4 million specifically targeted to Rainbow mental wellbeing initiatives aimed at young people. There ...
A significant milestone in support to the regions has been passed with more than one billion dollars pumped into economic development projects to back local jobs and businesses. Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash says the Provincial Development Unit (PDU) has now invested $1.26 billion in regional projects since ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, PhD Candidate, Flinders University It’s not often you get to cast your eyes on a creature feared to be long-gone. Perhaps that’s why my recent rediscovery of the native bee species Pharohylaeus lactiferus is so exciting — especially after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgina Heydon, Associate professor, RMIT University The alleged rape of former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins has raised many questions about how sexual assault gets reported. Members of the Morrison government have repeatedly stressed the appropriate response to allegations of sexual assault ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dana M Bergstrom, Principal Research Scientist, University of Wollongong In 1992, 1,700 scientists warned that human beings and the natural world were “on a collision course”. Seventeen years later, scientists described planetary boundaries within which humans and other life could have a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Patfield, Postdoctoral Fellow, Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle It’s that time of year again when hundreds of thousands of Australian students start university for the first time. Commencing students account for about 40% of the more than 1.6 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University Australia’s electricity market is unsustainable. Texas shows us why. A week ago Texas experienced a bout of severe weather as arctic air reached deep into the state, driving temperature down to levels that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Stokes, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Deakin University Tim Hart was sitting on his couch one evening in November 2011 when he got an email with the subject line: “I’m watching”. The message that followed was short and to the point ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Edwards, Associate Professor, Sydney School of Health Sciences, University of Sydney Brisbane has just been confirmed as the preferred host for the 2032 Olympics. But Olympic organisers have more immediate concerns in mind — how to safely run the postponed Tokyo ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for February 26. All the latest news from New Zealand, updated throughout the day. Reach me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur Members make The Spinoff happen. Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us from ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Reserve Bank put in bind by Robertson move, Bridges clashes with top cop, and critical migrant health workers can’t get families in while new arrivals can.Finance minister Grant Robertson will be requiring the Reserve Bank to consider the impact on ...
There are clues globally that the avalanche threat is escalating in some regions as the planet warms, triggered by greater temperature swings and more intense rain and snow storms. Bob Berwyn reports for Inside Climate News Big dumps of powder snow are a precious gift in the best of times ...
District health board members have been made aware of a new problem with a just-opened Christchurch Hospital building. Oliver Lewis reports. It was two years late and plagued by errors during construction, now a further major issue can be revealed at the new $525 million Christchurch Hospital building, Waipapa. Hundreds ...
As further reports of torture and systemic rape emerge from Xinjiang, the PRC’s propaganda machine is hard at work in New Zealand. Laura Walters looks at why a Chinese New Year performance in Wellington was more than just cultural appropriation State-sponsored appropriation of Uyghur culture has been labelled “disgusting” and “disrespectful” ...
Covid-19 vaccination won’t be enough to save us from hard choices that will need to be made during our second or even third year of living with the coronavirus. Keeping Covid-19 mostly out of New Zealand has been a Herculean feat, drawing praise from around the world. Over the next year, ...
If there’s a time for screaming into the void, 2021 is surely it. Josie Adams shares a baker’s dozen of Aotearoa’s top contenders.When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you, and it’s nice to have company. New Zealand’s geography is perfect for abysses, or abyssoi ...
Jake Millar is an extraordinary young man. The young entrepreneur who convinced the rich and famous to invest millions in his business has now disappeared - and so has the money. Jake Millar was just a teenager in 2015 when he sold his first business to the government for six figures. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Defence Minister Linda Reynolds faces an agonising question. Should she say to Scott Morrison she doesn’t feel up to staying in what is one of the most demanding portfolios in the government? Reynolds broke down ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Sheldon Chanel in Suva Much of archipelagic Fiji was forced indoors by lockdowns and a nationwide curfew in March last year when the country recorded its first case of covid-19. The quick and decisive action by legislators was successful in helping contain the spread of a highly ...
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Rod Oram – earth’s hopeful future
“It’s abundantly clear we have to embark on deep change so we can achieve the biggest goal humankind has ever attempted. It is not to save the planet. It will survive – even if we don’t. It will adapt as it has to previous geological eras. Over tens of millions of years vastly different life-forms and ecosystems will evolve, ones shaped by prevailing conditions.
Our goal has to be to save ourselves. To do so we must give this ecosystem that gives us life the best chance it has to recover, and to continue to support us.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/83327044/rod-oram-earths-hopeful-future
Great to see someone Oram’s position saying this.
(ecosystem recovery and assistance from humans in that IS saving the planet 😉 ).
Great. Anybody who accepts this(and I do ) must also accept that Capitalism, as we know it, will have to go. Capitalism is incompatible with saving the Planet.
CORRECT
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily life.
FTFY
Well, I think there is still a place for some inter-community scale, family store scale capitalism, as well as local models of self financing, but we may differ on that point.
Capitalism is incompatible with Life.
na capitalism is just a man made tool , and like all tools if you have the right safegaurds it can be useful, it’s just that we have let the greedy use it for their purposes .
Capitalism and consumerism today is not just a “man made tool”.
It has been deliberately engineered to become the fundamental societal value system, driver for activity and international priority.
yes but with strong government it could be taken back and used just as a tool or system to get things done.
By this i mean something like.
The eu decides that all packaging will have to be biodegradable in ten years,
now some will winge , some will say it’s undoable , but some good little capitalist will see an opportunity and go to work trying to corner the market.
I don’t think you understand the life destroying nature of capitalism.
The way to reduce the problem of packaging and pollution is to reduce the amount of things people buy and use in the west by 80%.
Not make new types of packaging for the 2020s.
Two major things destroy this planet: 1/ far too many people 2/ every one of those wants what the neighbor has.
No matter what system you put in place – theoretically soviets Marxist system should have brought equal equilibrium for all but it didn’t – it is human nature that actually gets in the way. We are wired to destroy and not to build despite what some would like to belief. This is what we have to accept and learn to negotiate, our true nature. No one can say that they haven’t cotton on and by how far all is deteriorated, I would not hold my breath and unfortunately humanity will only learn when it gets a huge head clip to remind them that we are just a blip on the radar of the cosmos.
1) The richest 10% of people in the western world consume 60% of the world’s resources. This is not a question of “far too many people.” It is a question of the a few hundred million people in the rich west eating the rest of the world.
2) The only people who “wants what the neighbour has” are those who have learnt to greed, venality, jealousy and covetousness. I don’t want a yacht like my neighbour has and I don’t want a new HSV like my other neighbour has. You may think that that most people are basically venal, but perhaps that is simply only most people around your circles.
Your comments are always from the perspective that is angry and almost hateful. When you do that it becomes personal without having any grounds or indeed facts to support that. So I try to explain this differently:
1/ too many people – lets look at this globally. The greed (I want what my neighbor has) is destroying the forest and with that the reservoir for rain water exchange in the atmosphere. This in turn leads to droughts and the arable land that is available gets overused. If this continues the land we can use to feed us all will diminish even further and with that the means of sustaining the many people and growing population. Scientists have opened the Pandora’s box of gen modification and this will most likely increase the impasse in the future. We see the bees and pollinators dying already. Water: as we have seen in Hawks bay recently, water contamination will increase as aquifers are being contaminated because it is not enough to have a few cattle, it has to be more. The ground water is pumped and the lower the water table the more likely salination and contamination will occur.
2/ It is this “more” that will be humanity’s undoing.
Nature will be a great equalizer in that game of survival. This is not about money, this is about a finite world that cannot sustain an ever increasing population worldwide. I
If we wouldn’t be here, I doubt that any animal or plant would miss us. Some might be jubilant….
I agree with you Foreign Waka but what always does amuse me is – do the 10% honestly think once they have brought about complete planet collapse, that they will be able to start afresh from their bunkers or what ever and have the capacity to start again. That they cannot see that it will be their undoing as well, is just is too ridiculous for words but they are quite prepared to go over the cliff with the rest of us just for the sake of more consuming and greed. It’s like they are happy to take on a death wish for it all to occur.
I suppose in their utter selfishness they just think “well our generation will all be dead so what the hell”. Don’t they have grandchildren to have a thought for their futures and the carnage as society breaks down, that they will face.
The people who do care in this world are hopelessly powerless against the filthy rich of this world who can buy and control countries at will.
Good capitalism is an oxymoron – the model is exploitive, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but always with some, therefore it is no good. Assuming you don’t like exploitation that is.
+1
Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .
No sorry mate that is incorrect imo
“Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .”
Or shorter: Democratic Socialism. I’m a big fan of the Nordic Model.
I am nonetheless amused at CV’s opining on Capitalism while being a Trump supporter. Cognative dissonance is strong with him (or her)
Yeah I like the various scandinavian models. There’s a lot we can learn in everything from criminal justice to post-natal care.
And it’s no coincidence that the Nordic countries appear at the top of all metrics relating to happiness, health and equality.
where we used to be before the 1970s.
aah I’ve wondered what my political label would be , it would appear that at this stage i am a democratic socialist. Which nz party fits the bill most do you think?
Will label improve you as a human being?
Attachement to politics or labels is not something to aspire to
I wont be getting a t shirt printed any time soon .
Well, NZ Labour espouses the values of democratic socialism, according to its constitution.
Guffffaw
I wondered recently if I was right enough in perceiving a certain leakage in the levees that shore up ‘business as usual’. The first inkling came from the Guardian in a piece that not only directly quoted eminent scientists in the field expressing fairly deep misgivings about our present position and direction, but questioned this whole notion of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Previously that’s just been taken as a read by the likes of the Guardian.
And I do like that Rod characterises the need for radical action as an “adventure”…
I shared a meal with Rod Oram 2 years ago and we talked about the very thing he wrote about today. Great oaks, little acorns, etc 🙂
Heh, nice one Robert.
I was at a workshop at which Rod facilitated the discussion around action on Climate Change yesterday. Rod has been active in this area for some years now. I am not surprised with his comments. He certainly understands that the economy is a subset of the environment not the other way round.
Good activity
http://inhabitat.com/guerrilla-grafters-secretly-graft-fruit-bearing-branches-onto-san-francisco-trees/?newinfinitescroll=false
Pathetic ! On Q+A Corin Dan giving Parata the sweetest platform, like a paid ‘pretend’ interviewer. It’s disgraceful really. He just sits there watching Parata go all ‘aspirational’. FFS !
I have always refused to watch “A Political Party Broadcast on behalf of the National Party” called Q&A
Halfcrown i used too watch Q+A when it first started and even though the late Paul Holmes was the host and always could be relied upon too give the left a good kick i stuck with it because there was no other in depth political coverage at the time.
As the media has moved away from unbiased coverage in favour of the right wing perspective Q+ A has regrettably gone the same way.
Corrin Dann indulges anyone from the government side but watch him change into a nasty scowling arrogant monster when its anyone from the left, its real hatred and i dont know why anyone from the left of politics would want to appear to be treated this way and its the viewer who wants too be informed that misses out because Dann wont allow the victim too talk and get their point across basicly its just bloody bullying.
It just angers up the blood so i dont watch any of them and have pleasant no stress Sunday as god intended.
Campbell had Key worked and looked what happened to him.
Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager.
When extremists like red delusion and ‘man in the middle’ ( never knew Genghis Khan , Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini were men in the middle) rant on about Venezuela and North Korea, maybe they should look at the state of our own media.
Here are some starters for them.
Holding power to account? Or playing along for fun?http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201811741
Is the weakening of our news media fuelling a democratic deficit? If so, what should the media do? Kicking against complacency
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201811741
John Oliver’s show on Journalism could easily refer to NZ media as well.
And listen to Bomber in his show from Friday.
His final word at 26:10
Also from America and the parallels here are so striking.
Shadows of Liberty.
Open the curtains it’s a lovely day outside Paul, stop wallowing in negativity on your PC, we all have google search thus your cut and pastes while admirable from a quantitative perspective and effort is not really required
& meanwhile we have one of the highest suicide rates for children under 12, go figure huh?
+ 1 Yep he’s got the delusion bit correct.
it’s lovely for the nat supporting 30% but for the rest of us the social fabric is rotten and falling apart
45% last poll.
if you’re happy to ignore the vast underclass of non voters that the “brighter future” has created
How did polling work out in relation to actual votes from registered voters?
Non voters who do not support Labour or Greens either.
Complacent Nation.
Epitomised by the Herald.
Today’s top 10 online headings……………
Live updates of the penultimate day of the Rio Olympics.
‘Just Bledi Awful’ – Aussie’s reaction
Girl who killed her own family set free (Canadian crime story)
‘Righto, we need to take this to the police’ (the Herald appears more concerned about the All Blacks being spied on than the whole country)
KFC’s secret recipe uncovered
All Blacks v Australia: Player ratings
Revealed: The best and worst airline food
Cold case mystery: Is he still alive? (Australian crime story)
Who is the lucky punter who won $13.3m?
Could Hamblin win rare Olympic medal?
The poisoning of 4000 New Zealand citizens?
Not as important.
By the way A great win by ab last night, more meritorious they can achieve such high standards living in such a neo liberal hell hole
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Au contraire Redelusion. The All Blacks do well because of this neolib hellhole. Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
Neoliberalism and sport.
More wins for the All Blacks and less money and support for the grassroots.
More medals at Olympics and less participation in sport.
Olympic swimmers. Closing school polls.
http://snpa.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/CARTOONS-by-Jim-Hubbard/G0000MGcw3HsyXeA/I0000uX0HbRxXL50
Shhhhhhh mate is their any joy in your life , suggestion stop bringing every thing back to partisan politics Just enjoy something for enjoyment sake, as the say accentuate the positive it could be life changing for you
Of course you have not read or listened to one of the articles I have posted.
Yet you feel qualified to comment.
look the sun is really beaming out of FJK’s arse today.
Simply questioning the paradise that is Planet Key attracts a lot of flak from rd and other trolls.
Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
In the days when everyone was a sportsmen
Back then, worn out tennis balls would mysteriously appear in the gutters of our street. Finding one of these little beauties could mean only one thing: it was time for a street cricket match.
Kids’ names were called out and pretty soon you had enough players to start a game. While the batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper were definitely human, most of the fieldsmen were drawn from the vast throng of free-range neighbourhood dogs.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/this-cricketing-life/news-story/4630e4486fa52366f349481e00980639
The art of a great yarn is still very australian.
Your posts should be accompanied by violins Paul
Don’t you care about the decline of democracy in this country?
Or is Venezuela’s democracy your only concern?
What’s with Venezuela this morning that has you so agitated ?
‘man in the middle’ gets his name because of where his nose is, in relation to John Keys cheeks.
“Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager”
Independent media people, John Cambell and Nicky Hager, for fucks sake Paul
you really are delusional. You win most stupid comment of the week.
zzzzzz
That’s great, Marty. If anyone wants to learn how to graft, I’ll teach you 🙂
How long does it take for a new graft on an established tree to fruit? For an Apple tree? Pears? Plums? Cherry? (I’m guessing plums and cherries are sooner).
Cool link marty.
A graft “takes” quickly, days or weeks, depending on the type of graft. I do a simple cleft graft that binds more slowly, as it’s done at the end of winter and moves with the rise of the sap. Bud grafts are done when things are cranking, and take a shorter time. In any case, grafting fruit-bearing scions onto decorative trees is fun and funny.
How long until it fruits?
2 years…depends a little on circumstance, but, 2 years. Pears though, are difficult to do. I wouldn’t bother.
ta!
Fifty years ago the Gurindji people walked off Lord Vesty’s Northern Territory Wave Hill station.
.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this article contains images, voices and names of deceased people.
Fifty years ago, the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory made their name across Australia with the 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off.
It was a landmark event that inspired national change: equal wages for Aboriginal workers, as well as a new Land Rights Act.
Although it took another two decades, the Gurindji also became one of the first Aboriginal groups to reclaim their traditional lands.
Many people know a small part of the walk-off story because of the song From Little Things, Big Things Grow about 200 stockmen, house servants and their families who walked off Wave Hill Station on 23 August 1966, in protest at appalling pay and living conditions.
But what is not widely known is that the walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-19/the-untold-story-being-the-1966-wave-hill-walk-off/7764524
[audio src="http://indigenousrights.net.au/__data/assets/mp3_file/0018/413550/f56.mp3" /]
Vincent Lingiari introduces the recording in his language, which he then translates into English.
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
That means that I came down here to ask all these fella here about the land rights. What I got story from my old father or grandfather that land belongs to me, belongs to Aboriginal men before the horses and the cattle come over on that land where I am sitting now. That is what I have been keeping on my mind and I still got it on my mind. That is all the words I can tell you.
Ted Egan
Thanks Joe 90. Makes ya weep.
Regretfully Joe – it isn’t much better even today. The billions of dollars that are “invested” in the indigenous people of Australia mainly ends up in State administration and people getting rich at the expense of those who really need it. The land on which aboriginal communities live is State owned – not the peoples – as are the houses and all the facilities. The first aborigine ,albert namatjirato be granted Australian citizenship was in 1957.
Read a beautiful book about Aboriginal culture recently… really moving
John Minto (The Keep Our Assets Canterbury Mayoral candidate) outlined his six key policies at a campaign launch on Saturday.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/83384157/john-minto-says-he-will-fight-widespread-homelessness-in-chch-if-he-becomes-mayor
On the mayoral front, Christchurch has three candidates. How will Minto fare?
Thoughts?
Poorly
Your posts should be accompanied by barrel organ music, Reddelusion.
Maybe the Lego song “everything is awesome“
The latter please 😀
Minto is giving voters of Christchurch the opportunity to keep their assets.
It will be interesting to see if the people of Christchurch will support him.
Policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
Overall credibility, able to bring along a team, general fiscal prudence, impact on rates, capability of the incumbent all bear upon the voters choice.
Lianne will get back in easily.
Fiscal prudence like a great big fuck off convention centre and rugby stadium? Or fiscal prudence involving buying up tracts of prime central city land in order to prop up land prices artificially for the governments mates? Or the environmentally prudent moves by ECan to allow shitty farmers to steal all the good water?
Democracy has failed in Canterbury, destroyed by the disaster capitalists and abetted by that waste of space Brownlee
Indeed Wayne, policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
However, you seem to be implying Minto lacks fiscal prudence and a number of other traits required.
Minto has far more credibility than the current ex Labour incumbent that seems to support the corporate agenda status quo.
This local election is going to be a battle between an alternative left-fielder and the corporate status quo.
Minto winning will be akin to Peters taking Northland. And we all know the right didn’t think he had a show.
It will be an interesting one to watch. Do Christchurch voters have an similar appetite for change – or will they cement in the corporate status quo?
You don’t need to wait, they won’t
Pity he is not in Auckland – at least then I would have someone to vote for.
+1
Second. He’s unlikely to beat Lianne Dalziel, and the other candidate is a joke candidate.
If Minto fails to win but still performs well (making it a close race) it will send a shiver up the spine of the establishment. As it will indicate the tide is turning.
The best news source in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfhLxmoKgjA
Just watched that interview, it is excellent, thanks for highlighting this Paul.
And thanks to you for all the interesting sources you provide!
About that photo.
MSM using pro-al Nusra “media center” as source for war-propaganda
https://off-guardian.org/2016/08/18/media-using-pro-al-nusra-media-center-as-source-for-war-propaganda/
Yeah well, what’s that quote (from some US official?) on how friends are chosen by dint of what it is that is wanting to be achieved, and not on grounds of how good or bad, or right or wrong they may be?
I’ve no doubt ‘The Guardian’ and others will do a huge mea-culpa over their ‘Boy in an Ambulance’ story and earnestly seek to redress any “rush to war” sentiments that their coverage may have produced.
No doubt. No doubt at all. Oh look!
Flying pig!
In addition to Paul’s link, here’s another one with a bit more contextual depth.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/08/the-wounded-boy-in-orange-seat-another-staged-white-helmets-stunt.html#more
And the full 2 min video that the piece I’ve linked to references.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/17/the-stunned-bloodied-face-of-a-child-survivor-sums-up-the-horror-of-aleppo/?tid=pm_world_pop_b
Davies highlights case of mentally ill man
Labour MP Kelvin Davies has gone public about his role in helping a mentally ill man and argues it shows a need for better services.
“I stopped a guy from killing himself last night,” Mr Davies posted on his Facebook page.
He says the man, whom he knows, texted him from Dunedin to say “he’s had enough. He’s going to end it”.
Mr Davies said he stopped on the side of the road and talked to the man for an hour.
After a stand-off and confrontation police took the man to accident and emergency services where he got medical treatment for the harm he did to himself.
But there was no treatment for “his actual problem”, and he was given a taxi chit to get home where he had no power, heat or food.
He says the man is a hard worker and he has complex issues.
Mental health services “must do their job regardless” of how complex needs are.
<a href="https://nz.news.yahoo.com/top-stories/a/32395190/davies-highlights-case-of-mentally-ill-man/#page1
That yahoo article containts mistakes (Davis not Davies for a start).
Having a look at Davis’ FB page, good on him and Curran for making something happen. However he does have a bit of a hero complex and seems largely ignorant (or willfully ignorant) of why our mental health services are the way they are.
There are bloody good reasons for why the state can’t just section people willy nilly, and many of those reasons are because of serious abuses of power in the past. The big push towards community mental health in recent decades, supported by Labour, was meant to establish broader support so that it wouldn’t just be left to the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff services. Massive fail on that, and a classic example of neoliberal co-option of good ideas and well intentioned people.
Davis can bang his fist on the table over this all he likes, but until there is a govt that addresses poverty, and then works for the wellbeing of all people, then what he will get is tinkering around the edges.
Besides all that, the Southern DHB is in a mess and as a politician he should be addressing that. Blaming emergncy psych services for things that are often outside their control is not helping. Those psych services were failing under the last Labour govt too. If he is serious about this issue he needs to step up with some solid policy on what will make a difference. Making out that staff should break the law, esp where that law is designed to protect people, is just not on.
There’s a lot about caring for someone who’s unwell that isn’t as you’d expect, coming from normal society, and without wider family experience. The first few times you expect the process to more objective, like a broken arm. But it’s not, it’s this amazing, complex interaction of patient and clinician, fear rebellion and trust, liberty privacy and control, and someone who is tearing to pieces but can think everything is fine.
I’ve had to be part of catching my partner at the bottom of the cliff about every six years and am slowly learning more and more each time. I wish I knew what I know now 20 yeas ago, and I’ll learn a lot more yet. But Kelvin sounds like I did 15 years ago. We expect the process to work in a concise and determined way. It doesn’t, but it can and does work, in a patient centred way.
I hope that Kelvin will learn on from this experience to understand the process and journey that an unwell person follows to live within their world.
Thoughtful comment Graeme. I think it’s one of the downsides of the push to see mental illness as the same as physical disease. People end up thinking it should be that straightforward.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/16/secret-history-trumpism-donald-trump
Covers quite a bit of ground, but a few main points:
Trumpism has a deep-rooted appeal in a disenfranchised blue collar right excluded by a managerial technocratic ruling class post WWII (a class championed as the face of new conservatism by William F Buckley).
What it shares with the left, and makes it attractive to some nominal or former leftists is its opposition to neoliberalism and managerialism.
However, any pretence that the racism and something involving brown shirts and silly walks or a tendency to wear bedsheets and set crosses on fire is merely incidental or an embarrassing fringe is naive at best. Reactionary racial and sexual supremacism is intrinsic to the movement and many of the founding figures and current inciters are unashamed racist nationalists. An endorsement of Trump from the leader of the American N*** Party should be no surprise.
Mention is given to the publicity-hungry trolls of the “alt-right” such as Milo Yiannopoulos, who have seized on it as a stage to act out their own narcissism.
Makes an interesting parallel with this, examining the decline of liberal democracy:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/08/the_week_democracy_died_how_brexit_nice_turkey_and_trump_are_all_connected.html
A left wing journo was invited to Milo Yiannopoulos and the Republican shitshow… what she saw should scare anyone with functioning nervous system.
https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-scream-room/im-with-the-banned-8d1b6e0b2932#.yen84li5d
The Democratic Party could have easily avoided all of this by picking Bernie Sanders.
Instead they picked the weaker candidate, Clinton, who always polled much more weakly against Donald Trump.
So the US elite will reap the results of what they have sown.
While you may see Trump as a stick with which to beat the elites, that stick will beat the rest of the people too, particularly those with darker skins. That’s particularly callous schadenfreude.
Firstly, I think that under either Trump or Clinton, the multi-decades long income stagnation and collapse of the US middle class will continue.
Secondly, my point stands: if the Democratic Party wanted the stronger anti-Trump candidate, one who was polling far more strongly against Trump and carried far less questionable political baggage, they could have chosen him.
They didn’t.
Yes I’m afraid so. Bernie and Corbyn are actually the reasonable face of a wider movement, shoving them aside will not solve anything, it will just further delay the needed reforms that WILL occur one way or another.
The Republicans could have avoided this insanity as well, instead of sucking up to the Tea Party idiots and hamming it up for fox news. It’s a party on life support, i wonder if their Wall St backers are sick of them too.
Indeed. The Democrats said of the working class that “they have nowhere else to go” and the Republicans saw them as useful shock troops in the form of the Tea Party but never imagined that they’d get up on their hind legs.
If I were voting in the American election, I’d want to vote for a unicorn, not choosing Nixon over Mussolini. We can be grateful for MMP at least allowing alternative voices in government rather than the duopoly that results from FPP.
Analysis of polling by Nate Silver’s organisation, continually updated with useful explanations of its implications for the electoral college etc.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
Scott Adams has a far better grip on what is actually going on vis a vis Trump/Clinton than Nate Silver does.
Admittedly he described my former workplace very accurately in Dilbert…
Is this some joke that went over my head or is there a Scott Adams who is a statistician with extensive access to data and algorithms to process it and not a satirical cartoonist?
Well, Adams isn’t a statistician or pollster, you are correct in that.
But I think his rationale that a lot of people are refusing to interpersonally admit their support for Trump is worthy of note.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChKFeh8WMAIbMte.jpg
And his support for this assertion is…? Looking at his blog post on the subject, not much.
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark :
1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
Anecdotes and claims about having to say that he supported Clinton for his own physical safety(!). No facts given, merely anecdote and gut instinct.
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
No evidence, hence no debate.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
Not an expert.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
Vague gestures in this direction, nothing substantive, resorts to gut instinct.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
Hoooo boy!
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
NOPE.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
Nope. Gut instinct again.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
Hypothesis has no evidence, supposes unexplained forces at work to an unknown degree.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Too vague to be falsifiable, contains a bit of handwaving in the manner of “I could be wrong, but…”
So, I’ll have mine on rye with mustard.
Where’s the evidence that any of Sagan’s assertions and heuristics are relevant to and valid for predicting election results?
OK that’s just me being smartarse but Nate Silver’s organisation and algorithms also gave Trump a near zero percent chance of being where he is now.
NS was not even wrong on Trump.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn5OAX4WgAQb5S7.jpg:large
He does not understand stochastic probability.
Sagan is simply summarising the universal scientific method. That’s how science works. It makes predictions based on the best available data at the time.
Naturally as time passes through the campaign, new events will happen, new data will be acquired. You ignore the fact that Silver is analysing polls, not measuring an invariable predetermined event. Clearly a campaign is not a static object but a process. In the early stages of the data gathering process, it is to be expected that wild results will be produced.
At this point the reasonable assumption based on quantified data and reasonable analysis and extrapolation is that Trump will still lose. There is a possibility that Trump may win, and it’s greater than the chance that a unicorn will win. However, I still think that Silver’s polling is far superior to Adam’s entrails and a Trump win is therefore very unlikely.
Thanks Poisson.
Rhinocrates, I ask you again, where is the evidence that using the “universal scientific method” to predict the outcome of US Presidential elections is statistically superior than any other method?
How is it that Nate Silver’s organisation can assign 6:1 odds in favour of Clinton and have that taken seriously, when he has been outright wrong about Trump relatively recently.
IMO it’s going to be an easy Trump win come November. I can accept that you believe that opinion flies in the face of all the objective scientific evidence.
Good read though tough – shows what is really happening and it is scarey. Trump and his minions a true horror story.
How the world sees Trump –
Ireland
Bulgaria
Canada
Austria
Australia
Scotland
UAE
I tell you what though they just played a bit of a his last couple of his speech’s on prime news , now if i was someone who paid little attention to politics what he was saying would of grabbed my attention.
And all clinton did was tweet a sulky tweet inresponse.
The Labour Mayor of London tells Corbyn to leave.
Even though Corbyn will win against Owens.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/20/ditch-jeremy-corbyn-before-too-late-sadiq-khan-tells-labour
Khan is putting his mark in as Corbyn’s successor.
Once the inevitable purge and split occurs, of course.
What a little shit head Khan is.
Apparently Corbyn makes Labour so unelectable that Khan went on to win the Mayoralty. Oh wait.
Another Labour 1%’er shit head.
Brighter future.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11698404
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics
brilliant stuff
“…Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay in Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.”
yes, he’s no slouch…nailed it.
“The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labour movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain. The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.”
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/destiny-church-co-founder-splashes-150k-mercedes-her-second-2016
‘Imelda’ Tamaki…….a disgustingly malodorous nugget of over-coiffed shit.
“If we cannot halt the emissions of carbon dioxide, what can we do?
In the end, the only hope we have is to find a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere once it has got there. Even the IPCC has admitted that we will have to find a way to extract carbon dioxide from the air. The trouble is that they don’t just how we can do that. The most favoured scheme is known as BECCS: bio-energy with carbon capture and storage. Essentially, you plant trees and bushes over vast swaths of ground. These grow, absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. Then you burn the wood to run power plants while trapping, liquefying and storing the carbon dioxide that is released.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-will-be-ice-free-in-summer-next-year
We can halt emissions. And even if we did have CCS tech we’d still need to do that. What part of finite planet do people not get?
the part where they have to change their lifestyle.
Ok, so people don’t want to change their lifestyles and this makes them think they can defy physics? Some people sure, but I think mostly it’s more a process of desperation. My reply was to point out that there are better thing to do with that desperation than go to fantasty land.
Im more inclined to think its a case of not wishing to think about it or being more focused on perceived more pressing needs…..that can be considered fantasyland (or denial) but it is a prevalent state.
There’s a few other possibilities. For just one instance, currently concrete is a major climate nasty mostly due to fossil fuels burned for process heat and the CO2 released by chemical reactions in cement production, However, concrete also absorbs CO2 back out of the atmosphere as it cures.
Simply changing the process heat source to renewable electricity plus capture and storage of the CO2 released during calcination would turn conventional concrete into a small net carbon sink rather than a large emitter.
But there’s also processes that create unconventional cements suitable for concrete that absorb CO2 during manufacture, rather than releasing it. Which would be even better.
http://arizonaenergy.org/News_10/News_Feb10/Calera%20and%20Novacem%20use%20concrete%20to%20capture%20CO2.htm
Sorry, that was intended to be a reply to Pat at 17.
there appear to be many proposals for carbon capture, however as far as I can see those investigating the options all seem to come to same conclusion that what is currently feasible (even potentially) lack the capacity to remove the volumes required….that may not be so into the future but there is also a time constraint factor…no point in having a process in 50 -100 years time if we’re already extinct.
Personally I reckon human extinction in 50 to 100 years is very unlikely. Either massive nuclear war, or the oceans turning anoxic (apparently has happened before so non-zero probability). I reckon the sight of billions dying in the tropics will scare the rest of the planet to take enough action that there will still be habitable refuge areas in high latitudes.
if billions are dying in the tropics (or anywhere) I would suggest it will be past the point of no return…..as to anoxic oceans we may be well on the way already….when the food chain collapses the resulting extinction events will be rapid so 50 -100 years may seem hyperbolic but not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.