Chris Trotter has written a brilliant piece about the challenges New Zealand faces as catastrophic climate rapidly approaches. He singles out the parliamentary Green Party and its leaders for failing to lead on this matter.
It is a challenge for us as well.
As Rachel a stewart writes, “Virtually everything we argue about and/or discuss relates to climate change/capitalism. Both are intertwined, unchecked and deadly. .”
We must keep the issue of catastrophic climate change front and foremost in all our discussions.
We must pressure for action today.
“Saving the planet and feeding all its people long ago ceased to be a practical proposition. The amount of cultivatable land will shrink – along with the quantity of water necessary to ensure adequate harvests. As the mean global temperature increase passes 2oC, millions of human-beings will begin to starve. What is the correct moral response to famine, disease and conflict on an unprecedented scale? When the boatloads of desperate climate-change refugees start appearing off New Zealand’s coast, what should a Green New Zealand government do?
This is a long way from green technological fixes and rehabilitating four-letter words.
So, too, is deciding what to do when the big container ships and the oil-tankers stop venturing this far south. When the sheer number of super-hurricanes renders voyages too far out into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans uninsurable. How will a Green government keep the chronically-ill provided with their life-saving pharmaceuticals; and crucial machinery supplied with spare parts; when the flow of these vital imports ceases? How will it keep the lights on and the electric cars powered-up when the snow refuses to fall and the hydro lakes are empty?
Who in today’s Green caucus has the courage to tell New Zealanders that teaching young people the skills required to keep the post-industrial communities of the future functioning is now a matter of urgency. Because in 100 years’ time Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin will be only a fraction of their present size and most of the population will be living in the countryside – where the food is. Which of today’s Greens are working with Maori to preserve the indigenous medical and pharmacological knowledge built-up over the 600 years of non-European occupation of Aotearoa?
Who will dare to tell today’s captains of industry that in 50 years the Internet will be but a memory? That the genocidal global resource wars will kick off with the destruction of the undersea communication cables. That the revolutions, civil and religious wars that roll across the sweltering continents will leave the control hubs for satellite communication unmanned for a generation. That the rocket launching pads will become nesting places for such birds as still fly through Earth’s fetid air.
These are the challenges which Green parties should be preparing us for. The challenges arising out of the fundamental transformations anticipated and demanded in the latest IPCC report. Deluding voters into thinking that somehow the scientists will come up with a way of saving us all: a way which allows capitalism, consumerism and narcissistic individualism to continue unchecked and unmodified; is not something with which any responsible Green should be associated.”
Mike Joy, a courageous and independent scientist, has also warned of us of the need to act now or face catastrophic climate change.
“How many barrels of oil does it take to power the economy? Far from the punchline of a joke, the answer outlined by Dr Mike Joy, a senior researcher at Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, in a public lecture highlights some disturbing truths about our reliance on oil, the importance of energy to the economy, and how we might “transition to a de-carbonised world”.
Starting with the dire warning from more than 20,000 scientists worldwide that “if the world doesn’t act soon, there will be catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery”, Joy went on to introduce the field of Biophysical Economics and one of its key concepts—Energy return on energy invested (EROI), or “how much energy do you have to put in to get that back?”.
The energy density of our alternatives is so much lower than fossil fuels, but if we want to keep under the 1.5oC threshold, we have to reduce our emissions by 6 percent per year from today,” said Joy.
“Basically we’re going to have to get used to having a whole lot less energy than what we had before, and that’s our only future. We have to figure out how we’re going to do that.”
has also warned of us of the need to act now or face catastrophic climate change.
But isn’t this the opposite of what Trotter is saying? Joy says there is still time to act while Trotter says it’s too late and we should give up and plan for the worst case scenario.
Yet so many governments aren’t ready to face it, let alone try. Capitalism’s all been ‘pay-later’ thinking — little children preferring a definite sweet now to possible sweets later. Feast rather than the long term. Not sure that’s wrong.
As we get to the sharp end of our feast and look out on our children and grandchildren, oblivious in their present comfort to the pre-agricultural deprivation awaiting them , we must do what we can to turn the freighter.
One of the issues with climate change is that it seems so insurmountable that it has become less of a priority against the daily capitalist grind of making money or survival.
Maybe it needs to be put into smaller segments by what each industry should or could be doing for example, insurance, what are they doing (apart from putting up premiums until they refuse to cover the risks), what is dairy farming doing, what are electrical companies doing, what are councils doing, what is transport doing (in Wellington changing to diesel buses for example, FAIL) etc etc
It has to be changed from two words into the practical legislation of prevention and now.
Trotter is a yawn. He has no idea what “Green” is. He can’t understand that greenies care about ecosystems and not just people. That they want to limit the damage to the environment generally and not just say “fuck it”. Watching him try and comment with relevance on the Green Party is akin to watching a chimpanzee studying an internal combustion engine.
He has an agenda here like always. He wishes to attack the Greens as best he can. If it is the survival of working people that is at stake, then why not attack Labour Party policy? He is a stale old school leftie with zero relevance.
Giving up meat is not preparing for the scenario that Trotter is speaking of. Many of the imported vegan protein sources that you eat would not be available. Are you learning what of these crops could be grown here and where, and how to grow them sustainably? Your ignorance of permaculture that you have shown so many times here would suggest not.
I also don’t believe that you gave up meat because of climate change. This is certainly something you like to hang it off along with animal welfare, but your rigidity on the subject shows that it is a personal thing. You have refused to even consider that animals may have a part in permaculture land systems. Grazing chickens in orchards is one example i have given. Mussel farms would be another animal based culture that could both improve the environment and provide good quality protein.
I’m not doing what Trotter suggests because i am a greenie. I am rather working to limit the damage to the environment by participating in a political party with the same aims.
I am though as part of generally being a greenie landscaping and developing my half acre urban property along permaculture principles and practice.
Trotter is a lot like you Ed because basically you are both full of shit.
Is there anything that Trotter actually wrote that you disagree with? If anything I’d rate his sentiments a tad on the alarmist end of the spectrum; but not unreasonable either. So exactly why do you think all this a ‘yawn’?
Or are you just offended because Trotter has strayed on the Green’s widdling patch?
I think i’ve explained above why i find him a yawn.
Going all doom and gloom would be an idiotic strategy for the Greens in the current context. The first step to progress is to get a general consensus to address the problem. Telling people that it is too late to address the problem will not help.
OK that makes more sense; I agree totally. Doom and gloom nihilism is literally a dead-end response. And Trotter is certainly not the only one to have flirted with it either.
But hell, faced with such an overwhelming prospect you can surely have some empathy for where it comes from.
Part of the yawn is that i don’t think Trotter is being genuine but rather taking an angle to attack the Greens. As i point to above, these criticism would be better addressed to Labour as Trotter shows only concern for people and not the environment too.
I’m not going to quibble how you interpret Trotter’s motives; you’re entitled to your reading of him.
Still he isn’t the enemy either, and not every ally is going to map 100% onto your own motives and values. But that doesn’t mean we cannot reach out and work with people where there is some common ground.
When done along sustainable principles yes. Mussels filter the water and remove nitrogen and phosphorus and so can help restore our estuaries and harbours.
Ed, I posted this the other day on TS in relation to Trotter’s latest attack on the Greens…..
Trotter hates the Greens and has never really tried to understand them. He wants rid of them.
He is an unreconstructed Old Lefty and writes very well, often brilliantly, about that sector of traditional left-wing union-dominated politics. Nothing wrong with any of that BTW-all power to the unions.
But why he attacks the Greens when Labour will probably never be able to form a government without the Greens I can’t fathom.
Meanwhile the Greens are polling 7% and doing fine.
They are particularly strong on transport-it will be good when Genter comes back from maternity leave.
Since I wrote the above the Greens have had another policy gain with the retention and refurbishment of 15 electric locos that should help to get freight out of trucks and on to rail. Not all Green policies are climate change related; many have major social gains.
Actual result was Greens 6.2% while NZ first 7.2% One was up on trend the other was down .
2014 election had Greens polling on say 12.2% while election result was 10.7% and similar in 2011.
7% is not doing fine , its saying they will get much the same as now, which is a ‘setback’
“For around 5,000 years we’ve had a problem as a species. We have lived in hierarchies for most of that time. A few people at the top have control over what the rest of us do.
“And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know this has never really worked. Because if it had, why has there generally always been poor people at the bottom? Why has there commonly been some human lives that are worth more than others?
“We consider ourselves the most advanced life form on the planet; possibly the universe. Yet throughout our history, the majority of us have willingly accepted a minority telling us what to do. When has it benefited us? And why, in 2018, is society no more truly equal than it was thousands of years ago? Even with all our academic, scientific, and technological advances?
“Today, we may be led to believe that just because we own a car, rent a house, and buy the same shopping each week that we’re ‘more equal’ to Richard Branson than Egyptian slaves were to their Pharaoh. Looks can be deceptive. Because it’s all relative. Many of us may not be physical slaves – but only the Richard Bransons truly have freedom in 21st century society.”
“Original sin
“But moreover, why do we still put up with these damaging hierarchies?
“It’s called greed and power. The first is a human desire; forged over thousands of years by hierarchies. One that tells us having more stuff makes us better than our neighbour. The second is almost a drug, that corrupts many people who have it. Those at the top push both as being in reach of those at the bottom. Together, they’re what drive benefit cuts; make people homeless; allow fracking and destroy the NHS. But now, this greed and power from the ‘one percent’ has literally put every species and the planet at risk. And we continue to be complicit in it; consciously or not.
“This has to end.”
“To put it bluntly: we’re fucked. And the only way it will change is by all of us taking drastic action now. We can’t leave it to politicians and corporations to decide. Unless someone can name one point in history when leaving power in the hands of a few has been good for the many? As in every single lifeform on this planet? And when it actually lasted.”
Yes, I would agree with you.
Unless we get rid of capitalism, we are going to see a brutal transition to a simpler sustainable future or even our extinction as a species. It’s that stark.
Our actions have already caused mass rapid extinction that may prove irreversible.
This article came out in the Guardian yesterday.
“Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.
“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”
“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”
And there’s more sobering, shocking news about human impacts on the planet.
It all puts the corporate media’s discussions about royal visits, All Blacks’ selections and Jono and Ben’s axing in context. Utter trivia, complete distractions.
The media is a major obstacle to humankind acting immediately to avert the oncoming catastrophe.
Unless we approach the challenge and mobilise as if it were WW3, then we can forget passing a habitable world to our grandchildren.
“Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.
After a string of recent reports chronicling the demise of the ice fields, researchers hope that greater awareness will help the public better understand the rapid pace of climate change.
The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming “unprecedented”.
“The region is one of the hotspots for warming, which is something we’ve come to realize over the last 15 years,” said David Hik of Simon Fraser University. “The magnitude of the changes is dramatic.”
“But moreover, why do we still put up with these damaging hierarchies?
It is a paradox. Hierarchy arises from value. The core reason why humans do anything at all is because when we move from one condition to another, we expect the outcome to be ‘better’. And we can only measure this using values; we constantly stack up and compare, we order from best to worst, we are hardwired to create hierarchies of value.
Translating value into action demands performance. And all humans have different competency and we all perform at different levels. For instance I’m an experienced programmer and understand some of the science; but compared to the towering figures at the centre of the computing revolution, Kurt Goedel, Alan Turing and John von Neuman I’m way, way down the hierarchy of value. And of all the computer people who ever worked in the field, only a tiny fraction will make a real, novel and valuable contribution. The rest of us are mere artisans of varying degrees of skill. Something the Pareto distribution (and it’s close cousin Prices Law) describes.
Every field of human endeavour is organised in hierarchies of value; whether we formalise them or not. They are how we know what is ‘better’ and which direction to move in. Hierarchy in inherent and inevitable; it cannot be eradicated without also demolishing entire value structures. If you ‘end’ all values, precisely what will you do today? What is worth doing anymore? Or is the phrase ‘drastic action’ a code for ‘an orgy of destruction because I’m angry and too ignorant to think of anything better’?
The modern world is massively complex; and it creaks and totters in many vital organs. But the person who wrote this article has no fucking clue how to actually fix it. It amounts to thinking you can usefully improve a precision machine with a sledgehammer … and pretending there will be no consequences when it breaks.
I feel you’ve rather missed the point of the article.
Whether we like it or not, the sledgehammer is poised to strike. We’re not going to even approach the beginning of fixing climate change by tinkering at its edges.
Hence the movement’s title – Extinction Rebellion.
The old ways got us into this mess! Well, let’s be anarchists – tear it all down and see what comes out of it all.
Well, let’s be anarchists – tear it all down and see what comes out of it all.
I promise you, an even bigger mess. The original problems would only get worse, and our capacity to deal with them would eliminated. Not a smart strategy at all.
Look I’m not unsympathetic to the sentiment; I get it. The outlook is bleak and scary and the temptation to advocate for ‘something dramatic’ is real. But also profoundly irresponsible.
I agree that hierarchies of skill and value are unavoidable. People after all are not equally talented, hardworking, etc.
But I don’t believe it’s inevitable, or right, that we jump from that fact into accepting extreme hierarchies of power and reward, which are quite different things.
Yes. Although hierarchy is necessary and unavoidable; it is also prone to being captured and becoming corrupt. Hierarchy endows power which can easily be mis-directed into protecting itself and tilting the rewards unjustly.
A healthy hierarchy provides stability and direction of purpose; while at the same time is open to scrutiny, review and re-invention when the environment changes. In very general terms the right is good at operating the system according to the agreed rules and procedures; the left is good at calling it out when it becomes corrupt and needs refreshing.
No it doesn’t else Donald Trump would be living in a caravan park.
And of all the computer people who ever worked in the field, only a tiny fraction will make a real, novel and valuable contribution.
Actually, it’s probably far more likely that they’re just not properly recognised for the work that they’ve done. I recall the story of the guy who invented industrial diamonds. He spent hundred of hours working for no reward and when he accomplished it the company gave him a $10 gift voucher while stating that the discovery was theirs.
Nope. Capitalism is essentially the economic expression of the Rennaisance idea of the sovereign individual. It links the idea of the right of every individual to equality before the law and equality of opportunity, to the right to private property. It embeds the notion of human right to dignity and security with the capacity to own their body, their labour and the fruits of it.
The notion of private property is a very old one; but when it met the evolution of the modern credit money systems and legally protected in English common law … the result was the broad system we call capitalism. As an economic tool is has been incredibly successful on its own terms; as a social and environmental tool it has deep shortcomings. Capitalism as we have it right now has problems, but it’s not the problem.
You advocate throwing the tool away and hoping something better will come along; I’m arguing that we study the existing tool closely, regard what it does well, understand it’s limitations and why they arise … and carefully engineer a better version.
This is why competent economists like Steven Keen never talk about ‘the end of capitalism’. Instead he devotes time, talent and energy to understanding the system (his Minsky Model is a masterpiece), and works to train the next generation of economic leaders in more sophisticated implementations of what we already have.
Capitalism is essentially the economic expression of the Rennaisance idea of the sovereign individual. It links the idea of the right of every individual to equality before the law and equality of opportunity, to the right to private property. It embeds the notion of human right to dignity and security with the capacity to own their body, their labour and the fruits of it.
No it doesn’t. It embeds the right of the rich to own everything and thus to live the life of kings on the labour of everyone else.
As an economic tool is has been incredibly successful on its own terms; as a social and environmental tool it has deep shortcomings.
Yes, it’s made a few people very rich at everyone else’s expense.
You advocate throwing the tool away and hoping something better will come along;
No I’m not. I’m advocating dropping private ownership of houses, businesses and land. Land and houses will be state owned, city managed. Businesses will be self-owned and run as cooperatives by the people who work in them. There will be no shareholders.
Money to be created by the government and spent into the economy via productive works, 0% interest loans to businesses and a UBI. It won’t be created by private banks whenever they make a loan.
In other words, the system would be very similar to what we have now but without the bludging of shareholders and other forms of unearned income that is detrimental to society.
I’m advocating dropping private ownership of houses, businesses and land. Land and houses will be state owned, city managed. Businesses will be self-owned and run as cooperatives by the people who work in them. There will be no shareholders.
In other words you are saying that your version of communism would be less catastrophic than all the ones tried already. I’m not sure whether to admire your optimistic naivety, or call out the dangerous hubris.
it’s made a few people very rich at everyone else’s expense.
You come back to this point so often I have to conclude Orwell was right; you don’t care so much about the poor as you simply hate the rich. It’s not a promising starting point.
In other words you are saying that your version of communism would be less catastrophic than all the ones tried already.
Communism hasn’t been tried. All we’ve had is other forms of hierarchy which failed as hierarchies always do.
you don’t care so much about the poor as you simply hate the rich.
The present system fails. It has always failed and always will. Eliminating the capitalists will, as a matter of fact, ensure that everyone will get the value that they produce rather than having it syphoned off to bludging shareholders and other rentiers.
The poor will actually be better off as they’ll no longer be paying taxes to the rich.
I first read Gulag Archipelago in my 20’s; it remains one of four or five deeply influential books I’ve ever read.
It’s a chilling and cautionary narrative of one of the most horrible episodes of the 20th century. When I was in Russia about 20 years back I made a point of travelling to the only gulag left in Perm, and just last year a work project took me to Kolyma, the area in Eastern Siberia where the most brutal gulags were located.
And I’ve driven on the “Highway of Bones”. Here are some pics of the region from a random linky:
Yet the there is a deep lesson in Solzhenysen’s work; the entire evil edifice only functioned because the mass of people stopped speaking truth. Everyone knew about it, no-one could speak the truth of it. Yes we are all capable of being utter arseholes, and reading this book permanently convinced me of my own capacity for evil.
Most of us mistake merely being harmless with actively choosing good. Most of us never find ourselves in a situation where we can indulge in being evil with no immediate chance of being caught and sanctioned. Most of the time we don’t do bad things because it’s the easiest thing to do. But faced with the gulags, or concentration camps, or orders to commit genocide … how many of us have the courage to actively choose to be good over evil?
This is what the Archepelago explores. I can barely listen to it now in more than 30 minute segments.
One of the points that Marx raises is the capitalists working people to death. And we still see it happening today. Pike River Mine, logging deaths and more. That’s in NZ. In other countries we see actual murder to keep the capitalists in power.
Do you seriously think, when climate catastrophe strikes, as strike it will, all the norms of society will not be thrown into confusion?
We cannot, simply cannot ‘profit’ our way out of what is coming. We need to already be thinking outside the box, and that will probably mean a complete rethink of the institutions of government.
We simply cannot envisage what shit may happen as a result of catastrophic climate change. But what I do believe is – we can’t solve any of the looming problems by ‘capitalistic’ tinkering.
But frankly any and all suggestions that we have to tear down the global economy in order to deal with this are fucking idiotic. Lets do that, lets stop everything, shut down the economies of the world tomorrow and stop every skerrick of activity that might possibly cause climate change.
Have you any idea how murderous this would be? The resulting chaos, social disruption, violence and famine would put at direct risk the lives of billions; immediately.
And any possible chance to address the problem without a mass die-off would be lost … deliberately. Maybe this is what you want; it’s hard to tell.
RL, I can’t see into the future any more than you can – but, if the entire tropical band north and south of the equator becomes too hot for human life, do you seriously think there won’t be chaos?
Millions, perhaps as many as a billion, of people will be forced to migrate to more equatable climatic areas – at the same time as the grain-lands of Europe and North America will be coming under climate stress. Already some governments in Europe are digging in their toes about accepting more migrants. And the exodus hasn’t even started yet.
Seriously, the decades from 2020 to 2040 could be a clusterfuck of disruption. Hundreds of millions of people will probably die and the institutions of government will struggle to cope with the catastrophe.
I sure as hell don’t know how we’re going to get through to the other side, but I repeat, I think we should be thinking outside the box already.
But perhaps I’m being too pessimistic? Perhaps capitalism will rise to the challenge, solve the climate change problem and make money at the same time!
Of course I understand everything you say above is a real possibility. I’m not neglecting or discounting that at all. But I do know that plunging the global economy into an immediate crisis is a certain route to an even worse outcome.
Every time we use climate change as the end to justify the means of ‘ending capitalism’ we achieve nothing except amplify and confirm the suspicions of most of the population. Most people are not communists or hard radical left. They don’t want a bar of it. Provoking them with useless talk makes an already monumentally difficult task harder.
There is no single silver bullet solution to this; it’s multi-dimensional and complex. No single person, or organisation, or nation on it’s own stands any chance of succeeding.
But 7 billion people can together do it. The trick is getting us together. Learn to be competent and persuasive; find something you can do, however small, and get good at it. Then people will come flocking to offer you bigger opportunities.
I don’t know the future either; but I do know there is only one strategy which optimises our chances of getting through this without too much devastation. Stop tilting at windmills, learn to use the already powerful tools around media, technology and money to make your case positively. The box of ideas and possible tech to get us through this mess is already huge, you don’t need to invent anything original or unique. Surround yourself with people who know what they are doing and ally yourself with them, even when at first brush you don’t agree with them.
The challenge could turn out even more monstrous than either of us imagine. But we’ve lost already unless we face it skillfully. I don’t intend to be mean here, but recycled neo-marxist tosh will not cut mustard.
I’m posting this for those involved in any manner with Canterbury re drought. Please pass this on. The methods as outlined here involve restoration of eroded outlets and installation of ‘dams’ that retain water to be infiltrated into the land. Plantings are also essential for the shade and infiltration aspects provided, including the build up of organic matter which increases a soils capacity for holding water, and decreasing evaporation.
Get cracking showing how it works on a model farm in the drought area. (You do have a decent hydrologist/ecologist/permie designer in your ranks??) Within a couple of years other farmers will be lined up to get their land rehydrated.
The drainage systems covering our country can be converted to retaining water (and draining excess) easily. Simple floodgate control at storm culverts will enable rehydration of the land.
It’s not a far stretch to show how with similar methods you can also turn riparian scrub into highly productive aquaculture/silviculture re: the late Charles Mitchell’s farm. I know his system, too.
Refill the aquifers, restore the landscape. Consultation available. Time wasters will be shredded by my Aspie ire.
Sounds like the opposite of where NZ is going and taking the water out of the aquifers and not being vigilant against ground water pollution, instead these farmers are tying to restore natural water systems, pre colonial times, against drought.
I watched this last night. It is a prime example of exactly the kind of competent and effective response we truly need to beat this bastard.
Quit the bickering and bitching; watch this and be impressed. Be inspired, and then look around at your own life, look for what is immediately in front of you and fix that first.
My partner has a wry joke that goes “If you’re going to learn cross-country skiing, start with a small country first”.
Then come back here, tell us your success story and help others.
Humankind spawned “this bastard” – the mystery is why we continue to nuture it in spite of known threats.
Maybe partly to do with the fact the many (some more than most) have done very well from ‘it’, at least in the short term.
“The current economic system being utilized and internalized relies on perpetual growth. It has long operated counter to the reality that we are confined to a finite planet with finite resources. Yet, this system continues to be practiced and promoted globally. As the environmental and social repercussions of disbelief in limits become increasingly clear, so does our need for a new economic system —one that is not wedded to growth. Neither growth in the number of consumers nor growth in the amount consumed.”
“So far the politicians and economists are so wedded to growth that they insist that economic growth is itself the main characteristic of sustainable development.” – a fine example of magical thinking; our leaders have so many constraints on their imaginations.
Yes I largely agree with this DK; but to most people the idea of de-growth is deeply unattractive. There are profound psychological reasons why; and it would make a great tangential discussion to explore them.
Look most people have a fair clue that the current setup is a bit fucked. And there are many, many people at least a little open to the idea of changing the way we organise our economies if we can present a competent, credible alternative plan.
No-one wants to go back to medieval living standards; they just won’t voluntarily go there. And there are tens of thousands of people out there right now working on ways to solve the problem. Not all of them will work, but some will. They need our help and encouragement. They need us to be good at this; they don’t need us sitting about renting sackcloth.
And don’t discount the possibility that an entire raft of new tech, some of it very close to coming online, like solid state lithium batteries, perovskite enhanced PV’s, a whole generation of graphene based materials and techniques, HVDC global grids and on to whole rafts of research I’ve never heard of … all have the potential to transform our resource intensity dramatically. We have to bet on this.
And I understand that at core, it is the human heart that will prove most stubborn to change. But at least it can and will change with zero carbon footprint 🙂
Has Jacinda Ardern spoken out about this yet? And if not, why not?
… The protests were launched to demand the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees to their villages and towns in what is now Israel, and to call for an end to Israel’s blockade. They culminated on 14 May, on the day of the US embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when Palestinians commemorate the displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands in 1948-9 during the conflict following the creation of the state of Israel. On that day alone, Israeli forces killed 59 Palestinians, in a horrifying example of use of excessive force and live ammunition against protesters who did not pose an imminent threat to life.
The organizers of the “Great March of Return” have repeatedly stated that the protests are intended to be peaceful, and they have largely involved demonstrators protesting near the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel. Despite this, the Israeli army reinforced its forces – deploying tanks, military vehicles and soldiers, including snipers, along the Gaza/Israel fence – and gave orders to shoot anyone within several hundred metres of the fence.
While some protesters have engaged in some forms of violence including by burning tyres, flying incendiary kites or throwing stones and Molotov cocktails in the direction of Israeli soldiers, social media videos, as well as eyewitness testimonies gathered by Amnesty International, Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups show that Israeli soldiers shot unarmed protesters, bystanders, journalists and medical staff approximately 150-400m from the fence, where they did not pose any threat. ….
Wierd scenes eh Morrissey in the wake of the shooting in the states of the jews in the synagog …maybe my hearings not the best …but i didnt hear a single news outlet explore the possibility thet the reason they got shot might have been something to do with the fact israel shoots palistinians with total impunity on a regular basis .Nope according to the worlds reporters its ANTI SEMITISM .
“As Facebook and Twitter are purging alternative media outlets, a neoconservative operative at a US government-funded think tank says more censorship is on its way. Max Blumenthal and Jeb Sprague discuss how scaremongering over Russia and China is being exploited to silence dissent on social media.”
This Russian fantasy nonsense, lazily recycling Hillary Clinton’s campaign crap, is just as rabid here. Two of the very worst are John Campbell and Bernard Hickey. And then there’s THIS ignoramus….
Very funny, Gabbieva. But seriously, now, listening to the likes of Campbell and Mulligan channel British and U.S. black propaganda is a hard listen, isn’t it.
The major problem with hydrogen is storing it effectively. The damn molecule is so small that most metals and materials are like tissue paper to it; it just migrates out of the vessel and is lost at a rate that is very hard to engineer around.
The good news is that graphene (apart from being a bloody wonder material in so many other respects) looks like it has some real potential to solve this key problem:
About time Phil woke up to save the electric rail system as he was previously “sidelined by false reports coming out of MBIE old “cherry picked” documents National had made up to show rail was not worth saving or ‘viable’ so twyford thought rail was dead. Thank christ he has come to his senses not a minute to soon.
Our letter to Minister of transport Phil twyford last week;
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
• Health and wellbeing.
• East Coast Transport Project.
TO;
Hon Phil Twyford – Minister of Transport.
Hon’ Jacinda Ardern PM.
Hon Winston Peters. Deputy PM.
Hon’ Shane Jones. Minister of Regional Development.
Hon’ Grant Robertson. Minister of Finance.
Hon’ Stuart Nash. MP For Napier Wairoa/ Matawai regions.
Hon’ Megan Woods. Minister of Energy.
URGENT PRESS RELEASE; – ACTION NEEDED HERE BY – Transport Minister Twyford.
26th October 2018.
Dear Ministers, Local civic authorities & rail stakeholders,
Here is an important study paper from October 11, 2018 by Cody Januszko, Carnegie Mellon University Department of Engineering and Public Policy Transporting freight by road accounts for around seven percent of the world’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing that heavy road freight is particularly hard to decarbonize, says the paper here.
But the report also claims roads are subsidised by us for truck freight so we need to level the playing field now in favour of “encouraging more rail freight services in all our exporting regions now and not delay the move back to rail freight any more.
QUOTE; “In the U.S., railroads own their own tracks, so they have to build their own infrastructure,” says Vaishnav, an assistant research professor in EPP. “Trucking uses public infrastructure, but does not bear the full cost of the damage heavy trucks do to roads and other infrastructure and indeed to the environment.”
Here attached above are the electronic copies of four of the studies on the benefits of rail we advocate, and Gisborne District Council has produced called “The socio-economic & environmental loss of rail for the Gisborne District” -2012 and we strongly endorse this study report.
We now want all Government agencies to have a copy so distribute anywhere as they need to be mentioned to Government and others as evidence for our cal to restore the Gisborne Napier- Wellington rail service again.
* 6-249607-Socio-economic_&_environmental_impacts_of_loss_of_rail_-on May_2012 (2) *BERL Report November/Dec 2012.
*”The value of rail in NZ produced 2016 by national and kept hidden and released by Labour Minister of transport Phil Twyford Feb 2018. (Plus press release promising regional rail.) (Twyford) then kiwi rail press cover of rail study.
*Bolland report produced for Ministry of Transport 2010 but kept hidden by National and never released. Shows rail saved NZ lots of money and without rail how much a year it costs us.
The electric wire catenary system is only ever going to be partial – it will never replace the need for a diesel fleet, because it is never going to stretch all the way from Whangarei to Bluff to Nightcaps to Whanganui – or indeed to Gisborne.
If Twyford gets a really good case from NZTA and Kiwirail to replace the entire fleet to a new carbon efficient system, that is good for the country. On all sorts of policy dimensions.
The rebuilt of the old electric trains only buys them a decade of future operation if they are lucky. That buys them a bit of time.
There is a good case to replace the entire rail engine system, rip out the electric system completely, and have a major national mode that needs neither electricity generation nor petroleum as its main energy base. Nothing like a good strong innovation case for a further massive step-change in rail.
The rebuilt of the old electric trains only buys them a decade of future operation if they are lucky.
The EF class is around 32 years old, but it can be considered mid-life with a decent electrical overhaul. The fantastic old DFB’s and DX’s date back to the 60’s and 70’s and mechanically are still trucking along fine.
Ah yes there is a tiny little bit of unreconstructed railfan in me 🙂
I am interested in any information on the use of regenerative braking on central north island electric locos gooogle seems not to be my friend today (ie i havent found the right question yet) any links anyone on this subject.
“The locomotives are supplied electricity from 25 kV AC overhead lines. These lines draw electricity from New Zealand’s national grid at four locations along the electrified section: Bunnythorpe, Tangiwai, Taumarunui, and Hamilton. The locomotives are fitted with regenerative braking as well as regular air brakes, so the traction motors can be turned into generators when the locomotive is coasting downhill and feed electricity back into the overhead lines and the national grid.”
“Key global locomotive manufacturers such as GE, EMD, and Vossloh have embraced the notion of the hybrid diesel locomotive while Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, Mitsubishi, and Kawasaki have committed to the electrical systems approach with their offerings. All of these manufacturers have commercialized vehicles and systems which are now finding their way onto the global stage”.
thanks cleangreen, i had found the wikipedia claim that they “feed electricity back into the overhead lines and the national grid.” and so I have always believed, but so far I cannot find any confirmation of this claim or technical details which concerns me given that power is supplied as 25Kv 50hz. of course as they are being given an electrical upgrade in 2018 achieving this is very do-able but I would like to be confident that is is and will be done.
I can confirm that this happens at least in some locations. Reinjected power is at 55 kV. I wouldn’t say the quantity of electricity reinjected was huge, but no doubt every little helps.
My understanding the power generated during braking is dumped as heat by large resisters on the locos.
Thats apart from the brakes themselves for lower speeds.
and objectives,
a solution that will return maximum return to investors/shareholders may well be different to one that provides best cost benefit to users/public
so the question becomes who do they take their advice from.
Since rail is a publicly owned system the investment framework for it is through the NLTP. That’s where it gets reconciled however imperfectly. Next NLTP version will be smoother.
>It’s always the benefit horizons that bedevil rail investment compared to road.
Are you saying that rail doesn’t typically tend to stand up over a standard length CBA (20-30 yrs) but pays off over a longer term (Say 50 yrs), and that this holds in this particular case too?
Interesting that the NZTA was assuming top ‘principal position as transport advisor to Government on transport” but “NZTA is only a road controlling authority” (RTA).
Ministry of transport (MoT) is the “key principal advisor to Government” for all forms of transport” – not NZTA!!!!!!
So Labour/NZF need to amend this anomaly and fund equally Ministry of Transport (MoT) as they do NZTA in future.
About the Ministry of Transport
Last updated on: 14/08/2018
The Ministry of Transport is the government’s principal transport adviser. The majority of our work is in providing policy advice and support to Ministers.
Through our advice we aim to:
improve the overall performance of the transport system
improve the performance of transport Crown entities
achieve better value for money for the government from its investment in the transport system.
We help the government give effect to its policy by supporting the development of legislation, regulations and rules. We also manage and account for funds invested in transport.
The Ministry represents New Zealand’s interests internationally, particularly in aviation and maritime.
We work with Crown entities
We assist the government in its relationship with the transport Crown entities to ensure they are effectively governed, and are accountable for their performance and monitoring arrangements for transport sector Crown entities.
Visit the Transport Sector Functions page for more information
We work with local government authorities
Local government authorities own, maintain and develop New Zealand’s local road network and perform important regulatory functions. Regional councils (and unitary authorities) are required to develop regional land transport strategies that guide the decision-making of local councils. In the Auckland region, the Auckland Transport carries out these functions. Some local authorities own seaports and airports, or share ownership with the Crown.
> So Labour/NZF need to amend this anomaly and fund equally Ministry of Transport (MoT) as they do NZTA in future.
Sorry but you have no idea. NZTA needs billions of dollars per year to fund the country’s land transport network. MOT is just a few bureaucrats – bums on seats.
Significant increases in commercial truck loadings across the Saskatchewan road network have resulted in accelerated damage to the provincial highway system. This accelerated damage has decreased the expected performance life of many of these roads and also increased maintenance and rehabilitation requirements and costs.
Unquote;
Antoine; – It is because truck freight who are responsible wholly for totally wrecking our roads and causing the road maintenance to accelerate to such high levels now we need to change road freight companies the full cost of their damages now.
You need to learn the real truth here.
Here is an important study paper from October 11, 2018 by Cody Januszko, at the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Engineering and Public Policy Transporting freight by road accounts for around seven percent of the world’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing that heavy road freight is particularly hard to decarbonize, says the paper here.
But the report also claims roads are subsidised by us for truck freight so we need to level the playing field now in favour of “encouraging more rail freight services in all our exporting regions now and not delay the move back to rail freight any more.
QUOTE; “In the U.S., railroads own their own tracks, so they have to build their own infrastructure,” says Vaishnav, an assistant research professor in EPP. “Trucking uses public infrastructure, but does not bear the full cost of the damage heavy trucks do to roads and other infrastructure and indeed to the environment.”
Clearly NZTA must not be used to make rail studies up as they are principally geared to funding truck freight activities for private companies some which are foreign owned. Stop subsidising the trucks.
yes Hydrogen is a detour off the highway to reducing carbon.
The easiest/cheapest way to ‘make’ the hydrogen is from natural gas- they hide that fact with waffle as ‘only a backup method’ or CO2 sequestration – is if they would pay for that.
It wouldn’t hurt to be looking seriously at highspeed rail.
The energy equation is not much different to conventional, but the speed allows it to compete favourably with carbon heavy domestic air services.
TransTasman traffic could probably run on something similar to the Busan Shimonoseki ferries, again with substantial carbon savings.
These things might take years to scope out – better to begin that sooner than later.
Hydrogen is a bit like fusion – a wonderful tech with no working prototypes. If we were determined to embrace the new, maglev at least has working prototypes.
This is interesting. The UK has had enough of Facebook etc not paying taxes and has gone it alone with a digital services tax, albeit not very tough.
Interesting thing here is that it breaks all the normal tax rules because it is based on turnover not profit and the tax authorities will make other assumptions as to company structure rather than rely on what it is being told by Facebook etc.
Sorry I wasn’t thinking about GST which is actually a tax added to turnover not part of it. But you can see the point of the digital services post I hope?
I think the map we use has a lot to do with some euro western feelings of superiority – like they’re better than everyone else or they are the sum total of what’s gone before – you know, the white superiority stuff.
“As most of us know, the world map we grew up with isn’t exactly the most accurate vision of the world. Currently, the Mercator projection—which was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569—is the standard map projection. Though we’ve known for quite some time that this projection significantly distorts the size of landmasses, for nearly 450 years nothing better has become the standard.
More than just a cartography error, many critics have said that the Mercator projection is a visual representation of Eurocentricity and historic colonialism, as Africa and South America appear much smaller than they actually are.”
Who actually uses Mercator these days? My atlas doesn’t; nor does Google Maps (which is my main go-to for maps nowadays); nor, I would think, do most maps in NZ classrooms.
“Parker described it as a “momentous” day for New Zealand and world trade, and said the CPTPP had become even more vital now the World Trade Organisation was in such a parlous state.
The CPTPP represented 13 per cent of the worlds GDP, and its member countries had a combined annual gdp of just under $15 trillion New Zealand dollars.”
Yes. Through every single party’s votes in the New Zealand Parliament except the Greens. For the formation and passage of legislation, that is the very definition of democracy.
So yes, by an overwhelming democratic majority, it has that support.
“I still haven’t seen majority support for it from the people.”
Thats because a minority of a minority party – Greens- are opposed and cant sleep at night over the possibility of an investor sueing the government. They are sleepless I tell you.
only 27.4 per cent support TPP on the basis it would be good for New Zealand’s economic well-being, although that is up 4.5 points from September when just 22.9 per cent supported it.
Almost the same number, 25.8 per cent oppose it on the basis of the investor-state dispute settlement provisions, down 5.5 points from the same questions asked in September.
But 45.9 per cent formed no view on it, the same as September.
Thats means 73% have no view or support it . They are sleeping well at night.
Likely the revised investor -state dispute provisions – which mean local operating companies that have overseas owners have to go through local courts- means only a rump oppose it totally now.
Every time President Donald Trump mentions the $110 billion arms deal he negotiated with Saudi Arabia last year, he quickly follows up, saying “It’s 500,000 jobs.”
But if he means new U.S. defense jobs, an internal document seen by Reuters from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor, which could potentially deliver around $28 billion of goods in the deal.
Lockheed instead predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together – an outcome experts say is unlikely.
A person familiar with Raytheon’s planning said if the Saudi order were executed it could help to sustain about 10,000 U.S. jobs, but the number of new jobs created would be a small percentage of that figure.
So, it’s really just another deal to boost the profits for the bludging shareholders of the military-industrial complex.
Kathryn Ryan, who’s incapable of recognizing bullshit
when it’s rubbed in her face, needs to talk to more children. Nine to Noon, RNZ National, Wednesday 31 October 2018, 11:32 a.m.
During a discussion with Young Adult fiction author Melanie Rodriga, the host affected her most serious voice and intoned….
KATHRYN RYAN:[talking very slowly, enunciating her words very carefully to show how serious she is] Children’s BS detectors are so acute, aren’t they. More so than adults….
Melanie Rodriga, who seemed to be a bright person, was too polite to acknowledge the clanging, jangling irony of that statement.
So that first link – you cut and paste from here onto your blog and then post back here to direct people to your blog where a copy of the conversation from here is. Did enjoy seeing some old and long gone quality commenters there ta.
Thanks, Marty. That blog of mine I started many years ago, but only put two items on it and forgot about it until late last year. I’m paranoid about sites closing down and everything getting lost, as happened with the old Planet Rugby chat site, and the willful destruction of Google Groups. I have been trying to harvest everything I’ve done online since 2003.
Often I’ll link straight to The Standard or wherever I first posted, but since so much of my stuff is now on the blog, it’s often more convenient.
The poor wee devotees of liberalism will struggle with this one. It shows up just how far down the rabbit hole the fubar ideology has gone. Plus funny as.
+1 Adam – some of the best videos there are on foreign policy. Probably explains why our defence force now is expected to defend foreign and domestic corporations rather defend NZ people and sovereignty. Thanks neoliberalism.
meanwhile Pence turns up in Pittsburgh with a ‘fake rabbi’ to offer prayers – In the name of Jesus – I kid you not!
“As he began his prayer, it became immediately clear that the rabbi, Loren Jacobs of Congregation Shema Yisrael in suburban Detroit, would not be considered a Jew by any of the four major denominations of Judaism. In his prayer, he mentioned the “saving power” of the Lord and concluded, “In the name of Jesus, amen.”
Clintons are all now confirmed as stool pigeons for the Global elite of course. They are still funded by George Soros the convicted criminal and attend “the Bilderberg Group” secret meetings.
Kia ora The Am Show Its good that thousands of new houses built are on the market in Auckland .
Is it a coincidence that there was a housing crisis in America Britain Canada NZ Banks love houses a safe bet they can most time’s claw there money back if thing go wrong Banks caused it with there lending policy’s I see one made a cool 2 billion .
Becoming a Republic do we need more political fighting for the head of states job do we want to have politics like they have in America at the minute I think not.
Maori and Pacific people won’t go for that we have other reason to if it aint broke don’t fix it one will end up with a big mess.
There you go all shonkys m8 are making billions banks retailers a lot of business profits at least % 30 higher after 9 years of national then bill decided to kick our youth.
Ka kite ano
I believe there is a God and Heaven we are living in Heaven now its just people don’t treat Te Papatuanuku / Mother Earth like a Heavenly thing and respect her and her creatures .
Men are chasing money and destroying our planet in 3 small life times we will only have % 10 of the wild creatures left this is why Eco Maori pushes for more wahine to become world leaders as MAN IS TURNING OUR HEAVEN INTO HELL we need wahine to kick there ASSES out and back to reality.
If one keeps shitting in one own back yard you end up in the SHIT not much logic needed to work that out.
The Maori view is that we are related to all the creatures and what do you know hundreds of years later scientist prove that thought to be fact the matrix genealogy .
The Maori view on our connection with Papatuanuku and her creatures is a common view of most indigenous cultures around Papatuanuku .
The neo liberals capitalist are running this heaven into hell all for there greed of prophet over everything else in the world change COMPANY Constitutional needed to have clauses in them to put our earth and decedents well being before profit .
Its a crying shame what man is doing to the world at the minute.
Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. Ana to kai ka kite ano link below
Some music for my other post its cool that some are getting the big picture we need all the common people to stand up and fight with there votes if we all vote the pollies will BUCKLE and start making laws that benefit all creatures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ad4MH7fMLs
Man does not own the Earth we are just caretakers for the next generations wake up
History shows that, when presented with unpalatable evidence of the undesirable effects of our decisions, we either bury our collective heads in the sand, or order the problems we face in terms of their tractability. Where they are judged to be intractable, as in this instance, they are relegated for later attention. We cannot continue to delude ourselves that the transition to near-zero fossil fuel use is possible without global mandation.
The overriding message located between the lines of the IPCC report is that we must lead our lives within the planet’s means. In all conscience, we are currently locked into a process that will inevitably result in passing on a dying planet to our children and their successors. Should this not be at the absolute top of the international debating agenda? Ka kite ano
The go oil party are big cheats taking minority people right to Democracy right to vote with corrupt laws. The federally-recognized Spirit Lake Tribe filed a complaint Tuesday against North Dakota Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger that reads: “Jaeger’s implementation of the residential address requirement has imposed severe—sometimes insurmountable—burdens on the right to vote for many voters on reservations.”
Every time the secretary of state’s Alvin Jaeger is asked a question that indicates deceit on his and his office behalf he showed Eco Maori he was lying the eyes are A direct view into ones true intentions the mouth can lie but the eyes reveal those LIES .
Kia kaha wahine and fight for the right of our childrens future. link is below ka kite ano
Just five countries hold 70% of the world’s remaining untouched wilderness areas and urgent international action is needed to protect them, according to new research.The UQ and WCS study, published in the journal Nature, identifies Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia and Canada as the five countries that hold the vast majority of the world’s remaining wilderness. Link is below Ka kite ano.
Kia ora Newshub The banks have been shutting down banks in rural places leaving people with banking services .I see shonky have his bull line in the herald to he made the problem and is throwing up a smokescreen he should go play golf with trump.
There you go those Saudi sisters have lost there lives it doesn’t look good for the Saudis they will never become a major place for all people to visit if they carry on treating wahine and the lower class people like dirt .
That’s cool the goverment has a new housing development plan’s for Porirua . I say the Law commission or whom ever is advocating law changes should worry more about the common poor person not getting a fair go from New Zealand laws 6 times the system has underarm bowled Eco Maori cheated me
Carbon based fuel is going to be a thing of the past the faster the better the fuel company’s should invest in green energy that’s the future or else you are pushing up hill.
No comment on the police pay I seen two following me at the supermarket with uniform I gave them a ki ora they could not even look at me I blasted the Rock radio music and drove off respectfully on Tuesday.
Ka kite ano
Ki ora James & Storm from The Crowd Goes Wild
The coach has confidences in his players who are playing Japan test team the Japan team have there Kiwi connection coaching staff .
That was a good game of T20 cricket for the Kiwis and Pakistan.
Hope the white ferns have a good run at there T20 cricket matches kia kaha ladys.
The wife loves her horrors not me comedy science and doco’s .
Josh rafting with the Aussies nice tat one should know that if they are encouraging you to sit some ware its a set up.
Money makes the soccer ball go around Qutar wining the football world cup.
Ka kite ano .
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Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
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Chris Trotter has written a brilliant piece about the challenges New Zealand faces as catastrophic climate rapidly approaches. He singles out the parliamentary Green Party and its leaders for failing to lead on this matter.
It is a challenge for us as well.
As Rachel a stewart writes, “Virtually everything we argue about and/or discuss relates to climate change/capitalism. Both are intertwined, unchecked and deadly. .”
We must keep the issue of catastrophic climate change front and foremost in all our discussions.
We must pressure for action today.
“Saving the planet and feeding all its people long ago ceased to be a practical proposition. The amount of cultivatable land will shrink – along with the quantity of water necessary to ensure adequate harvests. As the mean global temperature increase passes 2oC, millions of human-beings will begin to starve. What is the correct moral response to famine, disease and conflict on an unprecedented scale? When the boatloads of desperate climate-change refugees start appearing off New Zealand’s coast, what should a Green New Zealand government do?
This is a long way from green technological fixes and rehabilitating four-letter words.
So, too, is deciding what to do when the big container ships and the oil-tankers stop venturing this far south. When the sheer number of super-hurricanes renders voyages too far out into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans uninsurable. How will a Green government keep the chronically-ill provided with their life-saving pharmaceuticals; and crucial machinery supplied with spare parts; when the flow of these vital imports ceases? How will it keep the lights on and the electric cars powered-up when the snow refuses to fall and the hydro lakes are empty?
Who in today’s Green caucus has the courage to tell New Zealanders that teaching young people the skills required to keep the post-industrial communities of the future functioning is now a matter of urgency. Because in 100 years’ time Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin will be only a fraction of their present size and most of the population will be living in the countryside – where the food is. Which of today’s Greens are working with Maori to preserve the indigenous medical and pharmacological knowledge built-up over the 600 years of non-European occupation of Aotearoa?
Who will dare to tell today’s captains of industry that in 50 years the Internet will be but a memory? That the genocidal global resource wars will kick off with the destruction of the undersea communication cables. That the revolutions, civil and religious wars that roll across the sweltering continents will leave the control hubs for satellite communication unmanned for a generation. That the rocket launching pads will become nesting places for such birds as still fly through Earth’s fetid air.
These are the challenges which Green parties should be preparing us for. The challenges arising out of the fundamental transformations anticipated and demanded in the latest IPCC report. Deluding voters into thinking that somehow the scientists will come up with a way of saving us all: a way which allows capitalism, consumerism and narcissistic individualism to continue unchecked and unmodified; is not something with which any responsible Green should be associated.”
The whole article is here.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-long-term-green-advantage-of.html
Mike Joy, a courageous and independent scientist, has also warned of us of the need to act now or face catastrophic climate change.
“How many barrels of oil does it take to power the economy? Far from the punchline of a joke, the answer outlined by Dr Mike Joy, a senior researcher at Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, in a public lecture highlights some disturbing truths about our reliance on oil, the importance of energy to the economy, and how we might “transition to a de-carbonised world”.
Starting with the dire warning from more than 20,000 scientists worldwide that “if the world doesn’t act soon, there will be catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery”, Joy went on to introduce the field of Biophysical Economics and one of its key concepts—Energy return on energy invested (EROI), or “how much energy do you have to put in to get that back?”.
The energy density of our alternatives is so much lower than fossil fuels, but if we want to keep under the 1.5oC threshold, we have to reduce our emissions by 6 percent per year from today,” said Joy.
“Basically we’re going to have to get used to having a whole lot less energy than what we had before, and that’s our only future. We have to figure out how we’re going to do that.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@future-learning/2018/10/29/297393/energy-makes-the-economy-go-round
Do either articles reference the impact of military and war inc on climate?
Influence of atmospheric damage created through ‘experimental activity’?
To ignore or pretend they are not a major causal element is foolhardy at best…
has also warned of us of the need to act now or face catastrophic climate change.
But isn’t this the opposite of what Trotter is saying? Joy says there is still time to act while Trotter says it’s too late and we should give up and plan for the worst case scenario.
Yet so many governments aren’t ready to face it, let alone try. Capitalism’s all been ‘pay-later’ thinking — little children preferring a definite sweet now to possible sweets later. Feast rather than the long term. Not sure that’s wrong.
As we get to the sharp end of our feast and look out on our children and grandchildren, oblivious in their present comfort to the pre-agricultural deprivation awaiting them , we must do what we can to turn the freighter.
Yawn. So what is Trotter doing about it? What skills is he acquiring?
He’s a lot like you really Ed.
Do you think climate change is a yawn?
Wow…..
If you had been paying attention on this site, you will know I stopped eating meat because of climate change.
What are you doing?
Apart from emailing snide comments?
Woosh!
One of the issues with climate change is that it seems so insurmountable that it has become less of a priority against the daily capitalist grind of making money or survival.
Maybe it needs to be put into smaller segments by what each industry should or could be doing for example, insurance, what are they doing (apart from putting up premiums until they refuse to cover the risks), what is dairy farming doing, what are electrical companies doing, what are councils doing, what is transport doing (in Wellington changing to diesel buses for example, FAIL) etc etc
It has to be changed from two words into the practical legislation of prevention and now.
Trotter is a yawn. He has no idea what “Green” is. He can’t understand that greenies care about ecosystems and not just people. That they want to limit the damage to the environment generally and not just say “fuck it”. Watching him try and comment with relevance on the Green Party is akin to watching a chimpanzee studying an internal combustion engine.
He has an agenda here like always. He wishes to attack the Greens as best he can. If it is the survival of working people that is at stake, then why not attack Labour Party policy? He is a stale old school leftie with zero relevance.
Giving up meat is not preparing for the scenario that Trotter is speaking of. Many of the imported vegan protein sources that you eat would not be available. Are you learning what of these crops could be grown here and where, and how to grow them sustainably? Your ignorance of permaculture that you have shown so many times here would suggest not.
I also don’t believe that you gave up meat because of climate change. This is certainly something you like to hang it off along with animal welfare, but your rigidity on the subject shows that it is a personal thing. You have refused to even consider that animals may have a part in permaculture land systems. Grazing chickens in orchards is one example i have given. Mussel farms would be another animal based culture that could both improve the environment and provide good quality protein.
I’m not doing what Trotter suggests because i am a greenie. I am rather working to limit the damage to the environment by participating in a political party with the same aims.
I am though as part of generally being a greenie landscaping and developing my half acre urban property along permaculture principles and practice.
Trotter is a lot like you Ed because basically you are both full of shit.
Is there anything that Trotter actually wrote that you disagree with? If anything I’d rate his sentiments a tad on the alarmist end of the spectrum; but not unreasonable either. So exactly why do you think all this a ‘yawn’?
Or are you just offended because Trotter has strayed on the Green’s widdling patch?
I think i’ve explained above why i find him a yawn.
Going all doom and gloom would be an idiotic strategy for the Greens in the current context. The first step to progress is to get a general consensus to address the problem. Telling people that it is too late to address the problem will not help.
OK that makes more sense; I agree totally. Doom and gloom nihilism is literally a dead-end response. And Trotter is certainly not the only one to have flirted with it either.
But hell, faced with such an overwhelming prospect you can surely have some empathy for where it comes from.
Part of the yawn is that i don’t think Trotter is being genuine but rather taking an angle to attack the Greens. As i point to above, these criticism would be better addressed to Labour as Trotter shows only concern for people and not the environment too.
I’m not going to quibble how you interpret Trotter’s motives; you’re entitled to your reading of him.
Still he isn’t the enemy either, and not every ally is going to map 100% onto your own motives and values. But that doesn’t mean we cannot reach out and work with people where there is some common ground.
Hey not ruling out working with the guy. Just responding to him attacking the people doing the actual work.
Mussel farms improve the environment? My Marlborough Sounds based relatives would strongly disagree. Maybe if the growers weren’t so greedy…
When done along sustainable principles yes. Mussels filter the water and remove nitrogen and phosphorus and so can help restore our estuaries and harbours.
100% Ed, full marks there.
You are right and others seem to ignore the warnings totally at their peril and ours too.
Phase of the day; “None so deaf as those who will not listen”
The Trotsker seems to be missing the point he is making.
He likes to pointificate.
Ed, I posted this the other day on TS in relation to Trotter’s latest attack on the Greens…..
Trotter hates the Greens and has never really tried to understand them. He wants rid of them.
He is an unreconstructed Old Lefty and writes very well, often brilliantly, about that sector of traditional left-wing union-dominated politics. Nothing wrong with any of that BTW-all power to the unions.
But why he attacks the Greens when Labour will probably never be able to form a government without the Greens I can’t fathom.
Meanwhile the Greens are polling 7% and doing fine.
They are particularly strong on transport-it will be good when Genter comes back from maternity leave.
Since I wrote the above the Greens have had another policy gain with the retention and refurbishment of 15 electric locos that should help to get freight out of trucks and on to rail. Not all Green policies are climate change related; many have major social gains.
“Meanwhile the Greens are polling 7% and doing fine”
Greens vote is ‘usually’ less than their pre election polls. There is only so much their base vote amoungst tertiary educated middle class women will do.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/NZ_opinion_polls_2014-2017-majorparties.png
Poll trend was Greens 7% +-2% and NZ First 6% +-1%
Actual result was Greens 6.2% while NZ first 7.2% One was up on trend the other was down .
2014 election had Greens polling on say 12.2% while election result was 10.7% and similar in 2011.
7% is not doing fine , its saying they will get much the same as now, which is a ‘setback’
On similar lines to Ed’s post above:
Sometimes ‘The Canary’ comes up with little gems!
Extinction Rebellion – 31st October.
“A problem thousands of years in the making
“For around 5,000 years we’ve had a problem as a species. We have lived in hierarchies for most of that time. A few people at the top have control over what the rest of us do.
“And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know this has never really worked. Because if it had, why has there generally always been poor people at the bottom? Why has there commonly been some human lives that are worth more than others?
“We consider ourselves the most advanced life form on the planet; possibly the universe. Yet throughout our history, the majority of us have willingly accepted a minority telling us what to do. When has it benefited us? And why, in 2018, is society no more truly equal than it was thousands of years ago? Even with all our academic, scientific, and technological advances?
“Today, we may be led to believe that just because we own a car, rent a house, and buy the same shopping each week that we’re ‘more equal’ to Richard Branson than Egyptian slaves were to their Pharaoh. Looks can be deceptive. Because it’s all relative. Many of us may not be physical slaves – but only the Richard Bransons truly have freedom in 21st century society.”
“Original sin
“But moreover, why do we still put up with these damaging hierarchies?
“It’s called greed and power. The first is a human desire; forged over thousands of years by hierarchies. One that tells us having more stuff makes us better than our neighbour. The second is almost a drug, that corrupts many people who have it. Those at the top push both as being in reach of those at the bottom. Together, they’re what drive benefit cuts; make people homeless; allow fracking and destroy the NHS. But now, this greed and power from the ‘one percent’ has literally put every species and the planet at risk. And we continue to be complicit in it; consciously or not.
“This has to end.”
Read the entire article:
https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2018/10/30/our-time-is-up-weve-got-nothing-left-but-rebellion/
“To put it bluntly: we’re fucked. And the only way it will change is by all of us taking drastic action now. We can’t leave it to politicians and corporations to decide. Unless someone can name one point in history when leaving power in the hands of a few has been good for the many? As in every single lifeform on this planet? And when it actually lasted.”
Yes, I would agree with you.
Unless we get rid of capitalism, we are going to see a brutal transition to a simpler sustainable future or even our extinction as a species. It’s that stark.
Our actions have already caused mass rapid extinction that may prove irreversible.
This article came out in the Guardian yesterday.
“Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.
“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”
“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds
And there’s more sobering, shocking news about human impacts on the planet.
It all puts the corporate media’s discussions about royal visits, All Blacks’ selections and Jono and Ben’s axing in context. Utter trivia, complete distractions.
The media is a major obstacle to humankind acting immediately to avert the oncoming catastrophe.
Unless we approach the challenge and mobilise as if it were WW3, then we can forget passing a habitable world to our grandchildren.
“Scientists in Canada have warned that massive glaciers in the Yukon territory are shrinking even faster than would be expected from a warming climate – and bringing dramatic changes to the region.
After a string of recent reports chronicling the demise of the ice fields, researchers hope that greater awareness will help the public better understand the rapid pace of climate change.
The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, concluded the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its annual Arctic Report Card, which called the warming “unprecedented”.
“The region is one of the hotspots for warming, which is something we’ve come to realize over the last 15 years,” said David Hik of Simon Fraser University. “The magnitude of the changes is dramatic.”
Whole story here.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/canada-glaciers-yukon-shrinking
“But moreover, why do we still put up with these damaging hierarchies?
It is a paradox. Hierarchy arises from value. The core reason why humans do anything at all is because when we move from one condition to another, we expect the outcome to be ‘better’. And we can only measure this using values; we constantly stack up and compare, we order from best to worst, we are hardwired to create hierarchies of value.
Translating value into action demands performance. And all humans have different competency and we all perform at different levels. For instance I’m an experienced programmer and understand some of the science; but compared to the towering figures at the centre of the computing revolution, Kurt Goedel, Alan Turing and John von Neuman I’m way, way down the hierarchy of value. And of all the computer people who ever worked in the field, only a tiny fraction will make a real, novel and valuable contribution. The rest of us are mere artisans of varying degrees of skill. Something the Pareto distribution (and it’s close cousin Prices Law) describes.
Every field of human endeavour is organised in hierarchies of value; whether we formalise them or not. They are how we know what is ‘better’ and which direction to move in. Hierarchy in inherent and inevitable; it cannot be eradicated without also demolishing entire value structures. If you ‘end’ all values, precisely what will you do today? What is worth doing anymore? Or is the phrase ‘drastic action’ a code for ‘an orgy of destruction because I’m angry and too ignorant to think of anything better’?
The modern world is massively complex; and it creaks and totters in many vital organs. But the person who wrote this article has no fucking clue how to actually fix it. It amounts to thinking you can usefully improve a precision machine with a sledgehammer … and pretending there will be no consequences when it breaks.
I feel you’ve rather missed the point of the article.
Whether we like it or not, the sledgehammer is poised to strike. We’re not going to even approach the beginning of fixing climate change by tinkering at its edges.
Hence the movement’s title – Extinction Rebellion.
The old ways got us into this mess! Well, let’s be anarchists – tear it all down and see what comes out of it all.
Perhaps there are no solutions, only actions.
Well, let’s be anarchists – tear it all down and see what comes out of it all.
I promise you, an even bigger mess. The original problems would only get worse, and our capacity to deal with them would eliminated. Not a smart strategy at all.
Look I’m not unsympathetic to the sentiment; I get it. The outlook is bleak and scary and the temptation to advocate for ‘something dramatic’ is real. But also profoundly irresponsible.
It has been tried before and it has failed miserably every time. It is cute you think the idea is an original one though.
I agree that hierarchies of skill and value are unavoidable. People after all are not equally talented, hardworking, etc.
But I don’t believe it’s inevitable, or right, that we jump from that fact into accepting extreme hierarchies of power and reward, which are quite different things.
Yes. Although hierarchy is necessary and unavoidable; it is also prone to being captured and becoming corrupt. Hierarchy endows power which can easily be mis-directed into protecting itself and tilting the rewards unjustly.
A healthy hierarchy provides stability and direction of purpose; while at the same time is open to scrutiny, review and re-invention when the environment changes. In very general terms the right is good at operating the system according to the agreed rules and procedures; the left is good at calling it out when it becomes corrupt and needs refreshing.
No it doesn’t else Donald Trump would be living in a caravan park.
Actually, it’s probably far more likely that they’re just not properly recognised for the work that they’ve done. I recall the story of the guy who invented industrial diamonds. He spent hundred of hours working for no reward and when he accomplished it the company gave him a $10 gift voucher while stating that the discovery was theirs.
As I’ve been saying for years: We cannot afford the rich and Capitalism is the problem.
Nope. Capitalism is essentially the economic expression of the Rennaisance idea of the sovereign individual. It links the idea of the right of every individual to equality before the law and equality of opportunity, to the right to private property. It embeds the notion of human right to dignity and security with the capacity to own their body, their labour and the fruits of it.
The notion of private property is a very old one; but when it met the evolution of the modern credit money systems and legally protected in English common law … the result was the broad system we call capitalism. As an economic tool is has been incredibly successful on its own terms; as a social and environmental tool it has deep shortcomings. Capitalism as we have it right now has problems, but it’s not the problem.
You advocate throwing the tool away and hoping something better will come along; I’m arguing that we study the existing tool closely, regard what it does well, understand it’s limitations and why they arise … and carefully engineer a better version.
This is why competent economists like Steven Keen never talk about ‘the end of capitalism’. Instead he devotes time, talent and energy to understanding the system (his Minsky Model is a masterpiece), and works to train the next generation of economic leaders in more sophisticated implementations of what we already have.
No it doesn’t. It embeds the right of the rich to own everything and thus to live the life of kings on the labour of everyone else.
Yes it is and it’s brought about the collapse of every single civilisation that took it too far. Private ownership needs to be heavily restricted to personal items. The problems begin when it’s extended into owning land, houses and business.
Yes, it’s made a few people very rich at everyone else’s expense.
No I’m not. I’m advocating dropping private ownership of houses, businesses and land. Land and houses will be state owned, city managed. Businesses will be self-owned and run as cooperatives by the people who work in them. There will be no shareholders.
Money to be created by the government and spent into the economy via productive works, 0% interest loans to businesses and a UBI. It won’t be created by private banks whenever they make a loan.
In other words, the system would be very similar to what we have now but without the bludging of shareholders and other forms of unearned income that is detrimental to society.
How come not one single state has attempted your proposed solutions, even the ones who are anti-capitalist like Cuba and North Korea?
Perhaps they simply didn’t think of it.
Why didn’t they think of it given YOU think the solution is so simple and so self evident?
I’m advocating dropping private ownership of houses, businesses and land. Land and houses will be state owned, city managed. Businesses will be self-owned and run as cooperatives by the people who work in them. There will be no shareholders.
In other words you are saying that your version of communism would be less catastrophic than all the ones tried already. I’m not sure whether to admire your optimistic naivety, or call out the dangerous hubris.
it’s made a few people very rich at everyone else’s expense.
You come back to this point so often I have to conclude Orwell was right; you don’t care so much about the poor as you simply hate the rich. It’s not a promising starting point.
Communism hasn’t been tried. All we’ve had is other forms of hierarchy which failed as hierarchies always do.
The present system fails. It has always failed and always will. Eliminating the capitalists will, as a matter of fact, ensure that everyone will get the value that they produce rather than having it syphoned off to bludging shareholders and other rentiers.
The poor will actually be better off as they’ll no longer be paying taxes to the rich.
Communism hasn’t been tried.
Oh yes it has. See below. Maybe you need your nose rubbing in it, I dare you to get past the two hour mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccASsjhhgP8&t=8473s
Great read it basically sayes EVERYONE is an ARSEHOLE !!!
I first read Gulag Archipelago in my 20’s; it remains one of four or five deeply influential books I’ve ever read.
It’s a chilling and cautionary narrative of one of the most horrible episodes of the 20th century. When I was in Russia about 20 years back I made a point of travelling to the only gulag left in Perm, and just last year a work project took me to Kolyma, the area in Eastern Siberia where the most brutal gulags were located.
And I’ve driven on the “Highway of Bones”. Here are some pics of the region from a random linky:
https://jumboswank.com/employing-the-highway-of-bones-in-russian-far-east-with-my-father/
Yet the there is a deep lesson in Solzhenysen’s work; the entire evil edifice only functioned because the mass of people stopped speaking truth. Everyone knew about it, no-one could speak the truth of it. Yes we are all capable of being utter arseholes, and reading this book permanently convinced me of my own capacity for evil.
Most of us mistake merely being harmless with actively choosing good. Most of us never find ourselves in a situation where we can indulge in being evil with no immediate chance of being caught and sanctioned. Most of the time we don’t do bad things because it’s the easiest thing to do. But faced with the gulags, or concentration camps, or orders to commit genocide … how many of us have the courage to actively choose to be good over evil?
This is what the Archepelago explores. I can barely listen to it now in more than 30 minute segments.
Everyone knew about it, no-one could speak the truth of it.
It’s still happening, and it’s more ruthless than ever….
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-u-s-state-department-deletes-the-occupation-1.6069726
https://www.wrmea.org/013-may/getting-the-words-right-israel-isnt-occupying-palestine%E2%80%94its-conquered-it.html
I’ve traveled some this road last year to get to a job. Watch just the first five minutes of this and understand why you have trouble convincing me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1noUh2NrLI
One of the points that Marx raises is the capitalists working people to death. And we still see it happening today. Pike River Mine, logging deaths and more. That’s in NZ. In other countries we see actual murder to keep the capitalists in power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence
One body per metre … for 1200 km.
Nice to see some rational solutions to the problems with capitalism there, Red.
Although seriously engaging with Draco about the practicality of his ideas always seems like a bit of a trap
A.
Do you seriously think, when climate catastrophe strikes, as strike it will, all the norms of society will not be thrown into confusion?
We cannot, simply cannot ‘profit’ our way out of what is coming. We need to already be thinking outside the box, and that will probably mean a complete rethink of the institutions of government.
We simply cannot envisage what shit may happen as a result of catastrophic climate change. But what I do believe is – we can’t solve any of the looming problems by ‘capitalistic’ tinkering.
Do you seriously think, when climate catastrophe strikes, as strike it will
There are two reactions to a threat which always fail:
1. Denialism: Pretending it’s not happening OR if it is it doesn’t matter.
2. Catastrophism: Pretending that it’s so bad that either nothing can be done, OR that everything has to be impossibly changed deal with it.
There is a third reaction which will also probably fail, given the enormity of the change that is coming:
3. Blinkered thinking/she’ll be rightism. “We can get through this with only small changes to the way we make money.”
Humanity has never faced such a monumental change in such a relatively small period of time. We simply cannot afford to take this threat lightly.
Ah no. Nothing ‘she’ll be right about it’.
But frankly any and all suggestions that we have to tear down the global economy in order to deal with this are fucking idiotic. Lets do that, lets stop everything, shut down the economies of the world tomorrow and stop every skerrick of activity that might possibly cause climate change.
Have you any idea how murderous this would be? The resulting chaos, social disruption, violence and famine would put at direct risk the lives of billions; immediately.
And any possible chance to address the problem without a mass die-off would be lost … deliberately. Maybe this is what you want; it’s hard to tell.
RL, I can’t see into the future any more than you can – but, if the entire tropical band north and south of the equator becomes too hot for human life, do you seriously think there won’t be chaos?
Millions, perhaps as many as a billion, of people will be forced to migrate to more equatable climatic areas – at the same time as the grain-lands of Europe and North America will be coming under climate stress. Already some governments in Europe are digging in their toes about accepting more migrants. And the exodus hasn’t even started yet.
Seriously, the decades from 2020 to 2040 could be a clusterfuck of disruption. Hundreds of millions of people will probably die and the institutions of government will struggle to cope with the catastrophe.
I sure as hell don’t know how we’re going to get through to the other side, but I repeat, I think we should be thinking outside the box already.
But perhaps I’m being too pessimistic? Perhaps capitalism will rise to the challenge, solve the climate change problem and make money at the same time!
Of course I understand everything you say above is a real possibility. I’m not neglecting or discounting that at all. But I do know that plunging the global economy into an immediate crisis is a certain route to an even worse outcome.
Every time we use climate change as the end to justify the means of ‘ending capitalism’ we achieve nothing except amplify and confirm the suspicions of most of the population. Most people are not communists or hard radical left. They don’t want a bar of it. Provoking them with useless talk makes an already monumentally difficult task harder.
There is no single silver bullet solution to this; it’s multi-dimensional and complex. No single person, or organisation, or nation on it’s own stands any chance of succeeding.
But 7 billion people can together do it. The trick is getting us together. Learn to be competent and persuasive; find something you can do, however small, and get good at it. Then people will come flocking to offer you bigger opportunities.
I don’t know the future either; but I do know there is only one strategy which optimises our chances of getting through this without too much devastation. Stop tilting at windmills, learn to use the already powerful tools around media, technology and money to make your case positively. The box of ideas and possible tech to get us through this mess is already huge, you don’t need to invent anything original or unique. Surround yourself with people who know what they are doing and ally yourself with them, even when at first brush you don’t agree with them.
The challenge could turn out even more monstrous than either of us imagine. But we’ve lost already unless we face it skillfully. I don’t intend to be mean here, but recycled neo-marxist tosh will not cut mustard.
Agree with thiz almost 100 percent.
+ 1 draco
Dear Green Party
I’m posting this for those involved in any manner with Canterbury re drought. Please pass this on. The methods as outlined here involve restoration of eroded outlets and installation of ‘dams’ that retain water to be infiltrated into the land. Plantings are also essential for the shade and infiltration aspects provided, including the build up of organic matter which increases a soils capacity for holding water, and decreasing evaporation.
Get cracking showing how it works on a model farm in the drought area. (You do have a decent hydrologist/ecologist/permie designer in your ranks??) Within a couple of years other farmers will be lined up to get their land rehydrated.
The drainage systems covering our country can be converted to retaining water (and draining excess) easily. Simple floodgate control at storm culverts will enable rehydration of the land.
It’s not a far stretch to show how with similar methods you can also turn riparian scrub into highly productive aquaculture/silviculture re: the late Charles Mitchell’s farm. I know his system, too.
Refill the aquifers, restore the landscape. Consultation available. Time wasters will be shredded by my Aspie ire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4OBcRHX1Bc
Thanks for that great link, WeTheBleeple
Sounds like the opposite of where NZ is going and taking the water out of the aquifers and not being vigilant against ground water pollution, instead these farmers are tying to restore natural water systems, pre colonial times, against drought.
100% support here too.
I watched this last night. It is a prime example of exactly the kind of competent and effective response we truly need to beat this bastard.
Quit the bickering and bitching; watch this and be impressed. Be inspired, and then look around at your own life, look for what is immediately in front of you and fix that first.
My partner has a wry joke that goes “If you’re going to learn cross-country skiing, start with a small country first”.
Then come back here, tell us your success story and help others.
Most people can’t afford to change, to fix what’s in front of them.
Humankind spawned “this bastard” – the mystery is why we continue to nuture it in spite of known threats.
Maybe partly to do with the fact the many (some more than most) have done very well from ‘it’, at least in the short term.
Yes I largely agree with this DK; but to most people the idea of de-growth is deeply unattractive. There are profound psychological reasons why; and it would make a great tangential discussion to explore them.
Look most people have a fair clue that the current setup is a bit fucked. And there are many, many people at least a little open to the idea of changing the way we organise our economies if we can present a competent, credible alternative plan.
No-one wants to go back to medieval living standards; they just won’t voluntarily go there. And there are tens of thousands of people out there right now working on ways to solve the problem. Not all of them will work, but some will. They need our help and encouragement. They need us to be good at this; they don’t need us sitting about renting sackcloth.
And don’t discount the possibility that an entire raft of new tech, some of it very close to coming online, like solid state lithium batteries, perovskite enhanced PV’s, a whole generation of graphene based materials and techniques, HVDC global grids and on to whole rafts of research I’ve never heard of … all have the potential to transform our resource intensity dramatically. We have to bet on this.
And I understand that at core, it is the human heart that will prove most stubborn to change. But at least it can and will change with zero carbon footprint 🙂
We are in Aus currently, and this programme has just aired on tv. Australia’s latest PM supported this idea the previous one dissed it.
It was amazing to see how the hydrated land survived 4 years drought.
It all made so much sense.
Dirty dairying is destroying this country.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17-12-2017/#comment-1427213
SIX MONTHS ON: GAZA’S GREAT MARCH OF RETURN
Has Jacinda Ardern spoken out about this yet? And if not, why not?
Wierd scenes eh Morrissey in the wake of the shooting in the states of the jews in the synagog …maybe my hearings not the best …but i didnt hear a single news outlet explore the possibility thet the reason they got shot might have been something to do with the fact israel shoots palistinians with total impunity on a regular basis .Nope according to the worlds reporters its ANTI SEMITISM .
The shooter was targeting not Israelis but liberal, compassionate, American Jews. He had a particular hatred for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
https://www.hias.org/
“As Facebook and Twitter are purging alternative media outlets, a neoconservative operative at a US government-funded think tank says more censorship is on its way. Max Blumenthal and Jeb Sprague discuss how scaremongering over Russia and China is being exploited to silence dissent on social media.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXv6igtW3c
This Russian fantasy nonsense, lazily recycling Hillary Clinton’s campaign crap, is just as rabid here. Two of the very worst are John Campbell and Bernard Hickey. And then there’s THIS ignoramus….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/jesse-mulligan-sometimes-when-i-read.html
Well you would say that Morrissevich.
Very funny, Gabbieva. But seriously, now, listening to the likes of Campbell and Mulligan channel British and U.S. black propaganda is a hard listen, isn’t it.
Great to see the Minister of Transport reverse the Kiwirail board decision and require them to continue with electric trains rather than diesel.
This refurbishment will keep the Hutt workshop busy for years.
Also very good to.see them considering converting the whole fleet to hydrogen rather than extending electrification.
This would pull out all their diesel and give stronger network resiliency.
They would be better off running the trains on gas turbines.
For all this talk about hydrogen, no one has actually come up with a viable hydrogen propulsion system that has been put into everyday use.
The major problem with hydrogen is storing it effectively. The damn molecule is so small that most metals and materials are like tissue paper to it; it just migrates out of the vessel and is lost at a rate that is very hard to engineer around.
The good news is that graphene (apart from being a bloody wonder material in so many other respects) looks like it has some real potential to solve this key problem:
https://www.greenoptimistic.com/graphene-hydrogen-storage-tanks-20081008/
Alston already has them operating in Germany.
About time Phil woke up to save the electric rail system as he was previously “sidelined by false reports coming out of MBIE old “cherry picked” documents National had made up to show rail was not worth saving or ‘viable’ so twyford thought rail was dead. Thank christ he has come to his senses not a minute to soon.
Our letter to Minister of transport Phil twyford last week;
Protecting our environment & health.
In association with other Community Groups, NHTCF and all Government Agencies since 2001.
• Health and wellbeing.
• East Coast Transport Project.
TO;
Hon Phil Twyford – Minister of Transport.
Hon’ Jacinda Ardern PM.
Hon Winston Peters. Deputy PM.
Hon’ Shane Jones. Minister of Regional Development.
Hon’ Grant Robertson. Minister of Finance.
Hon’ Stuart Nash. MP For Napier Wairoa/ Matawai regions.
Hon’ Megan Woods. Minister of Energy.
URGENT PRESS RELEASE; – ACTION NEEDED HERE BY – Transport Minister Twyford.
26th October 2018.
Dear Ministers, Local civic authorities & rail stakeholders,
We have written to you all multiple times since becoming our new Government requesting to restore our railway to Gisborne that was damaged after a storm in March 2012; – and caused by a lack of rail funding maintenance in 2011 on after funding was cut by Minister of transport Steven Joyce; – http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1302/S00183/kiwirail-admits-lack-of-maintenance-led-to-wash-out.htm
Here is an important study paper from October 11, 2018 by Cody Januszko, Carnegie Mellon University Department of Engineering and Public Policy Transporting freight by road accounts for around seven percent of the world’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing that heavy road freight is particularly hard to decarbonize, says the paper here.
But the report also claims roads are subsidised by us for truck freight so we need to level the playing field now in favour of “encouraging more rail freight services in all our exporting regions now and not delay the move back to rail freight any more.
QUOTE; “In the U.S., railroads own their own tracks, so they have to build their own infrastructure,” says Vaishnav, an assistant research professor in EPP. “Trucking uses public infrastructure, but does not bear the full cost of the damage heavy trucks do to roads and other infrastructure and indeed to the environment.”
Here attached above are the electronic copies of four of the studies on the benefits of rail we advocate, and Gisborne District Council has produced called “The socio-economic & environmental loss of rail for the Gisborne District” -2012 and we strongly endorse this study report.
6-249607-Socio-economic_&_environmental_impacts_of_loss_of_rail_-on May_2012
We now want all Government agencies to have a copy so distribute anywhere as they need to be mentioned to Government and others as evidence for our cal to restore the Gisborne Napier- Wellington rail service again.
* 6-249607-Socio-economic_&_environmental_impacts_of_loss_of_rail_-on May_2012 (2) *BERL Report November/Dec 2012.
*”The value of rail in NZ produced 2016 by national and kept hidden and released by Labour Minister of transport Phil Twyford Feb 2018. (Plus press release promising regional rail.) (Twyford) then kiwi rail press cover of rail study.
*Bolland report produced for Ministry of Transport 2010 but kept hidden by National and never released. Shows rail saved NZ lots of money and without rail how much a year it costs us.
Your response to our call is requested
The electric wire catenary system is only ever going to be partial – it will never replace the need for a diesel fleet, because it is never going to stretch all the way from Whangarei to Bluff to Nightcaps to Whanganui – or indeed to Gisborne.
If Twyford gets a really good case from NZTA and Kiwirail to replace the entire fleet to a new carbon efficient system, that is good for the country. On all sorts of policy dimensions.
The rebuilt of the old electric trains only buys them a decade of future operation if they are lucky. That buys them a bit of time.
There is a good case to replace the entire rail engine system, rip out the electric system completely, and have a major national mode that needs neither electricity generation nor petroleum as its main energy base. Nothing like a good strong innovation case for a further massive step-change in rail.
The rebuilt of the old electric trains only buys them a decade of future operation if they are lucky.
The EF class is around 32 years old, but it can be considered mid-life with a decent electrical overhaul. The fantastic old DFB’s and DX’s date back to the 60’s and 70’s and mechanically are still trucking along fine.
Ah yes there is a tiny little bit of unreconstructed railfan in me 🙂
I am interested in any information on the use of regenerative braking on central north island electric locos gooogle seems not to be my friend today (ie i havent found the right question yet) any links anyone on this subject.
xanthe
Our electric locomotives are traction regenerative I believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_EF_class_locomotive
“The locomotives are supplied electricity from 25 kV AC overhead lines. These lines draw electricity from New Zealand’s national grid at four locations along the electrified section: Bunnythorpe, Tangiwai, Taumarunui, and Hamilton. The locomotives are fitted with regenerative braking as well as regular air brakes, so the traction motors can be turned into generators when the locomotive is coasting downhill and feed electricity back into the overhead lines and the national grid.”
https://www.connectorsupplier.com/regenerative-braking-systems-rail-applications/
“Key global locomotive manufacturers such as GE, EMD, and Vossloh have embraced the notion of the hybrid diesel locomotive while Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, Mitsubishi, and Kawasaki have committed to the electrical systems approach with their offerings. All of these manufacturers have commercialized vehicles and systems which are now finding their way onto the global stage”.
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=150711
thanks cleangreen, i had found the wikipedia claim that they “feed electricity back into the overhead lines and the national grid.” and so I have always believed, but so far I cannot find any confirmation of this claim or technical details which concerns me given that power is supplied as 25Kv 50hz. of course as they are being given an electrical upgrade in 2018 achieving this is very do-able but I would like to be confident that is is and will be done.
I can confirm that this happens at least in some locations. Reinjected power is at 55 kV. I wouldn’t say the quantity of electricity reinjected was huge, but no doubt every little helps.
A.
My understanding the power generated during braking is dumped as heat by large resisters on the locos.
Thats apart from the brakes themselves for lower speeds.
Proposals for NEW electric locos said they could be equipped for regeneration.
http://www.kiwirail.co.nz/uploads/Publications/Better%20Business%20Case%20NIMT%20Performance%20Improvements.pdf
Wikipedia stories on the existing EF locos have unsourced material saying they regenerate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_EF_class_locomotive
Here is a link for Ad’s story:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/10/government-scraps-national-s-plan-for-kiwirail-diesel-trains.html
Refers specifically to trains between Hamilton and Palmy. Seems sensible although I am curious about the cost/benefit overall.
A.
It’s always the benefit horizons that bedevil rail investment compared to road.
and objectives,
a solution that will return maximum return to investors/shareholders may well be different to one that provides best cost benefit to users/public
so the question becomes who do they take their advice from.
Since rail is a publicly owned system the investment framework for it is through the NLTP. That’s where it gets reconciled however imperfectly. Next NLTP version will be smoother.
“however imperfectly” – i.e. driven by the preferred transport mode of the Government of the day
A.
>It’s always the benefit horizons that bedevil rail investment compared to road.
Are you saying that rail doesn’t typically tend to stand up over a standard length CBA (20-30 yrs) but pays off over a longer term (Say 50 yrs), and that this holds in this particular case too?
A.
This particular business case hasn’t been released to the public yet.
But generally yes that’s always been the tenor of the arguments.
Should be some way of factoring it in through e.g. terminal value adjustments (though perhaps hard to quantify).
A.
Interesting that the NZTA was assuming top ‘principal position as transport advisor to Government on transport” but “NZTA is only a road controlling authority” (RTA).
Ministry of transport (MoT) is the “key principal advisor to Government” for all forms of transport” – not NZTA!!!!!!
So Labour/NZF need to amend this anomaly and fund equally Ministry of Transport (MoT) as they do NZTA in future.
https://www.transport.govt.nz/about/
Quote;
About the Ministry of Transport
Last updated on: 14/08/2018
The Ministry of Transport is the government’s principal transport adviser. The majority of our work is in providing policy advice and support to Ministers.
Through our advice we aim to:
improve the overall performance of the transport system
improve the performance of transport Crown entities
achieve better value for money for the government from its investment in the transport system.
We help the government give effect to its policy by supporting the development of legislation, regulations and rules. We also manage and account for funds invested in transport.
The Ministry represents New Zealand’s interests internationally, particularly in aviation and maritime.
We work with Crown entities
We assist the government in its relationship with the transport Crown entities to ensure they are effectively governed, and are accountable for their performance and monitoring arrangements for transport sector Crown entities.
Visit the Transport Sector Functions page for more information
We work with local government authorities
Local government authorities own, maintain and develop New Zealand’s local road network and perform important regulatory functions. Regional councils (and unitary authorities) are required to develop regional land transport strategies that guide the decision-making of local councils. In the Auckland region, the Auckland Transport carries out these functions. Some local authorities own seaports and airports, or share ownership with the Crown.
> So Labour/NZF need to amend this anomaly and fund equally Ministry of Transport (MoT) as they do NZTA in future.
Sorry but you have no idea. NZTA needs billions of dollars per year to fund the country’s land transport network. MOT is just a few bureaucrats – bums on seats.
A.
Antoine;
You have no idea ‘why NZTA needs billions’ !!!!
https://trid.trb.org/view/1125281
Quantifying Incremental Pavement Damage Caused by Overweight Trucks
Quote
Significant increases in commercial truck loadings across the Saskatchewan road network have resulted in accelerated damage to the provincial highway system. This accelerated damage has decreased the expected performance life of many of these roads and also increased maintenance and rehabilitation requirements and costs.
Unquote;
Antoine; – It is because truck freight who are responsible wholly for totally wrecking our roads and causing the road maintenance to accelerate to such high levels now we need to change road freight companies the full cost of their damages now.
You need to learn the real truth here.
Here is an important study paper from October 11, 2018 by Cody Januszko, at the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Engineering and Public Policy Transporting freight by road accounts for around seven percent of the world’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing that heavy road freight is particularly hard to decarbonize, says the paper here.
But the report also claims roads are subsidised by us for truck freight so we need to level the playing field now in favour of “encouraging more rail freight services in all our exporting regions now and not delay the move back to rail freight any more.
QUOTE; “In the U.S., railroads own their own tracks, so they have to build their own infrastructure,” says Vaishnav, an assistant research professor in EPP. “Trucking uses public infrastructure, but does not bear the full cost of the damage heavy trucks do to roads and other infrastructure and indeed to the environment.”
Clearly NZTA must not be used to make rail studies up as they are principally geared to funding truck freight activities for private companies some which are foreign owned. Stop subsidising the trucks.
You are not making sense
A.
MoT is just a speedbump barely registering in Wellington to NZTAs actual funding and execution.
Would be better if they were reformed into a new proper transportation system regulator.
100% Ad.
And replace Steven Joyce’s well placed “tarmac lovers” sitting still inside the NZTA at the same time please.
I’m with Fred Eaglesmith on this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd34Ioye5v4
Another good decision. Keep them coming Phil. Such a pleasure to see integrated planning involving communities.
Hydrogen for power is a complete waste of electricity, it takes far, far more electricity to make enough hydrogen to achieve the desired outcome.
yes Hydrogen is a detour off the highway to reducing carbon.
The easiest/cheapest way to ‘make’ the hydrogen is from natural gas- they hide that fact with waffle as ‘only a backup method’ or CO2 sequestration – is if they would pay for that.
It wouldn’t hurt to be looking seriously at highspeed rail.
The energy equation is not much different to conventional, but the speed allows it to compete favourably with carbon heavy domestic air services.
TransTasman traffic could probably run on something similar to the Busan Shimonoseki ferries, again with substantial carbon savings.
These things might take years to scope out – better to begin that sooner than later.
Hydrogen is a bit like fusion – a wonderful tech with no working prototypes. If we were determined to embrace the new, maglev at least has working prototypes.
SPORTS NEWS:
Knocking up a quick half century before lunch
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/10/its_about_the_policy_not_the_people.html/comment-page-1#comment-2346591
This is interesting. The UK has had enough of Facebook etc not paying taxes and has gone it alone with a digital services tax, albeit not very tough.
Interesting thing here is that it breaks all the normal tax rules because it is based on turnover not profit and the tax authorities will make other assumptions as to company structure rather than rely on what it is being told by Facebook etc.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/29/uk-digital-services-tax-budget-facebook-google-amazon
Labour in the UK has called the tax a pittance….but it is a start and once in place can be upped. The Yanks have been blocking a tax for years.
The digital people are screaming. Music to my ears. Come on Jacinda lets do it.
Yes.. tax these monoliths.
GST is based on turnover !
Where did you get the idea it wasnt, as its plain and simple.
What they will do is base the tech tax on turnover like VAT but without any deductions for the tax on goods supplied.
Sorry I wasn’t thinking about GST which is actually a tax added to turnover not part of it. But you can see the point of the digital services post I hope?
BTW I’m a qualified accountant (lapsed).
I think the map we use has a lot to do with some euro western feelings of superiority – like they’re better than everyone else or they are the sum total of what’s gone before – you know, the white superiority stuff.
“As most of us know, the world map we grew up with isn’t exactly the most accurate vision of the world. Currently, the Mercator projection—which was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569—is the standard map projection. Though we’ve known for quite some time that this projection significantly distorts the size of landmasses, for nearly 450 years nothing better has become the standard.
More than just a cartography error, many critics have said that the Mercator projection is a visual representation of Eurocentricity and historic colonialism, as Africa and South America appear much smaller than they actually are.”
https://mymodernmet.com/world-map-accuracy/
Who actually uses Mercator these days? My atlas doesn’t; nor does Google Maps (which is my main go-to for maps nowadays); nor, I would think, do most maps in NZ classrooms.
A.
Oh hmmm
“Most people go through life perfectly happy in the knowledge that the real earth looks like it does on a standard Mercator projection map.
… The comic (link below) by Randall Munroe at XKCD looks at What your favorite map projections says about you (assuming you have one).”
https://brilliantmaps.com/xkcd/
That’s a good XKCD
My kid came home with a map centred on the South Pole which I liked.
A.
Centre it on Aoteoroa and be surprised. (Easy in google earth.)
Really, this is why we invented 3D computer graphics.
You know who didn’t need no damn Mercator projection.
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/stick_charts/
You are complicit Parker as are all of labour.
“Parker described it as a “momentous” day for New Zealand and world trade, and said the CPTPP had become even more vital now the World Trade Organisation was in such a parlous state.
The CPTPP represented 13 per cent of the worlds GDP, and its member countries had a combined annual gdp of just under $15 trillion New Zealand dollars.”
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/108238830/cptpp-trade-deal-over-the-line-after-final-nations-ratify-pact
One of our strongest-supported pieces of legislation in a while.
If the WTO starts failing by end of next year, such agreements may be the closest to rule-based trade that small states like us can get.
The structural entropy is accelerating.
Supported by who?
I still haven’t seen majority support for it from the people. Only the idiots in government and business.
Parliament.
Obviously.
We’re supposedly a democracy which would indicate that it needs the support of the people.
Does it have that support?
Yes. Through every single party’s votes in the New Zealand Parliament except the Greens. For the formation and passage of legislation, that is the very definition of democracy.
So yes, by an overwhelming democratic majority, it has that support.
Legislation is passed through the democratic system called parliament.
It sailed through.
It had that democratic support by the truckload.
See, that’s not actually a democracy. That’s a dictatorship no different from the feudal system.
You just pop down to parliament and give them a jolly good piece of your mind. Chant around it and see if it levitates for you.
You know how many anarcho-syndicalists does it take to change a lightbulb?
They just stand on a chair, hold the lightbulb up, and wait for the whole world revolve around them.
that’s a good ‘un
That’s awesome!
I’ve got one for you…
Q:How many kids with ADHD does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: “Do you wanna go bike riding?!”
(Maybe will have offended someone with that but I’m sure the lord will forgive me)
Dissing on ADHD Kids now …. How hypocritical You are !
“I still haven’t seen majority support for it from the people.”
Thats because a minority of a minority party – Greens- are opposed and cant sleep at night over the possibility of an investor sueing the government. They are sleepless I tell you.
What a load of bollocks.
I haven’t seen anything since that shows the support for this increasing.
That poll in 2015 wasnt the revised TPPA agreed to by Labour in 2018.
So you say you havent seen the support for TPPA increasing ?
Luckily I found something for you- but was same yr 2015
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11566580
only 27.4 per cent support TPP on the basis it would be good for New Zealand’s economic well-being, although that is up 4.5 points from September when just 22.9 per cent supported it.
Almost the same number, 25.8 per cent oppose it on the basis of the investor-state dispute settlement provisions, down 5.5 points from the same questions asked in September.
But 45.9 per cent formed no view on it, the same as September.
Thats means 73% have no view or support it . They are sleeping well at night.
Likely the revised investor -state dispute provisions – which mean local operating companies that have overseas owners have to go through local courts- means only a rump oppose it totally now.
Other polls
https://yournz.org/2016/02/28/tppa-poll/
Of course not much polling since then as its low concern to most.
So, we’re all about to get poorer – goodo.
100% Draco.
Labour sold us down the river as National did so they were both in bed to strip us of our Sovereignty.
Damn them all.
Defense firms see only hundreds of new U.S. jobs from Saudi mega deal
So, it’s really just another deal to boost the profits for the bludging shareholders of the military-industrial complex.
Kathryn Ryan, who’s incapable of recognizing bullshit
when it’s rubbed in her face, needs to talk to more children.
Nine to Noon, RNZ National, Wednesday 31 October 2018, 11:32 a.m.
During a discussion with Young Adult fiction author Melanie Rodriga, the host affected her most serious voice and intoned….
Melanie Rodriga, who seemed to be a bright person, was too polite to acknowledge the clanging, jangling irony of that statement.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/02/bradley-manning-show-trial-begins-in.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/dame-ann-leslie-arrrrgggh.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/is-it-possible-national-radio-is.html
So that first link – you cut and paste from here onto your blog and then post back here to direct people to your blog where a copy of the conversation from here is. Did enjoy seeing some old and long gone quality commenters there ta.
Thanks, Marty. That blog of mine I started many years ago, but only put two items on it and forgot about it until late last year. I’m paranoid about sites closing down and everything getting lost, as happened with the old Planet Rugby chat site, and the willful destruction of Google Groups. I have been trying to harvest everything I’ve done online since 2003.
Often I’ll link straight to The Standard or wherever I first posted, but since so much of my stuff is now on the blog, it’s often more convenient.
Yes your system works.
I’ve given up on my blog – a good record of the time though.
The poor wee devotees of liberalism will struggle with this one. It shows up just how far down the rabbit hole the fubar ideology has gone. Plus funny as.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqegTsi6SiE&ab_channel=thejuicemedia
+1 Adam – some of the best videos there are on foreign policy. Probably explains why our defence force now is expected to defend foreign and domestic corporations rather defend NZ people and sovereignty. Thanks neoliberalism.
“A movement, calling for ‘Blexit’ or exit of blacks from the Democratic party has been launched,..”
Not surprising really after Hillary’s latest unpleasant comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R75NDKOxR0g
Lol Kanye is into it so it must be quality – nah it’s not.
Its fake news, the same as the Clinton message.
Hint she said No twice, when asked about 2020.
meanwhile Pence turns up in Pittsburgh with a ‘fake rabbi’ to offer prayers – In the name of Jesus – I kid you not!
“As he began his prayer, it became immediately clear that the rabbi, Loren Jacobs of Congregation Shema Yisrael in suburban Detroit, would not be considered a Jew by any of the four major denominations of Judaism. In his prayer, he mentioned the “saving power” of the Lord and concluded, “In the name of Jesus, amen.”
Rabbi Jacobs believes that Jesus is the Messiah, a conviction that is theologically incompatible with Judaism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/us/mike-pence-rabbi-jacobs.html
Doesnt sound like there will be a jewish exodus from the democrats next week.
Clintons are all now confirmed as stool pigeons for the Global elite of course. They are still funded by George Soros the convicted criminal and attend “the Bilderberg Group” secret meetings.
Thank goodness we have decent gun control in NZ.
Ha!
Kia ora The Am Show Its good that thousands of new houses built are on the market in Auckland .
Is it a coincidence that there was a housing crisis in America Britain Canada NZ Banks love houses a safe bet they can most time’s claw there money back if thing go wrong Banks caused it with there lending policy’s I see one made a cool 2 billion .
Becoming a Republic do we need more political fighting for the head of states job do we want to have politics like they have in America at the minute I think not.
Maori and Pacific people won’t go for that we have other reason to if it aint broke don’t fix it one will end up with a big mess.
There you go all shonkys m8 are making billions banks retailers a lot of business profits at least % 30 higher after 9 years of national then bill decided to kick our youth.
Ka kite ano
I believe there is a God and Heaven we are living in Heaven now its just people don’t treat Te Papatuanuku / Mother Earth like a Heavenly thing and respect her and her creatures .
Men are chasing money and destroying our planet in 3 small life times we will only have % 10 of the wild creatures left this is why Eco Maori pushes for more wahine to become world leaders as MAN IS TURNING OUR HEAVEN INTO HELL we need wahine to kick there ASSES out and back to reality.
If one keeps shitting in one own back yard you end up in the SHIT not much logic needed to work that out.
The Maori view is that we are related to all the creatures and what do you know hundreds of years later scientist prove that thought to be fact the matrix genealogy .
The Maori view on our connection with Papatuanuku and her creatures is a common view of most indigenous cultures around Papatuanuku .
The neo liberals capitalist are running this heaven into hell all for there greed of prophet over everything else in the world change COMPANY Constitutional needed to have clauses in them to put our earth and decedents well being before profit .
Its a crying shame what man is doing to the world at the minute.
Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. Ana to kai ka kite ano link below
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds
Some music for my other post its cool that some are getting the big picture we need all the common people to stand up and fight with there votes if we all vote the pollies will BUCKLE and start making laws that benefit all creatures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ad4MH7fMLs
Man does not own the Earth we are just caretakers for the next generations wake up
History shows that, when presented with unpalatable evidence of the undesirable effects of our decisions, we either bury our collective heads in the sand, or order the problems we face in terms of their tractability. Where they are judged to be intractable, as in this instance, they are relegated for later attention. We cannot continue to delude ourselves that the transition to near-zero fossil fuel use is possible without global mandation.
The overriding message located between the lines of the IPCC report is that we must lead our lives within the planet’s means. In all conscience, we are currently locked into a process that will inevitably result in passing on a dying planet to our children and their successors. Should this not be at the absolute top of the international debating agenda? Ka kite ano
My link to the story above multi tasking Ka kite ano.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/30/climate-change-action-effective-ipcc-report-fossil-fuels
The go oil party are big cheats taking minority people right to Democracy right to vote with corrupt laws. The federally-recognized Spirit Lake Tribe filed a complaint Tuesday against North Dakota Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger that reads: “Jaeger’s implementation of the residential address requirement has imposed severe—sometimes insurmountable—burdens on the right to vote for many voters on reservations.”
Every time the secretary of state’s Alvin Jaeger is asked a question that indicates deceit on his and his office behalf he showed Eco Maori he was lying the eyes are A direct view into ones true intentions the mouth can lie but the eyes reveal those LIES .
Kia kaha wahine and fight for the right of our childrens future. link is below ka kite ano
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/31/politics/native-american-tribe-suing-north-dakota-voter-id/index.html
Mana Wahine Barba Streisand has a new Album Just released Kia kaha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNrj87Q-4Yk
Some Eco Maori Music For The Minute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNld-AHw-Wg
Just five countries hold 70% of the world’s remaining untouched wilderness areas and urgent international action is needed to protect them, according to new research.The UQ and WCS study, published in the journal Nature, identifies Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia and Canada as the five countries that hold the vast majority of the world’s remaining wilderness. Link is below Ka kite ano.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/31/five-countries-hold-70-of-worlds-last-wildernesses-map-reveals
Kia ora Newshub The banks have been shutting down banks in rural places leaving people with banking services .I see shonky have his bull line in the herald to he made the problem and is throwing up a smokescreen he should go play golf with trump.
There you go those Saudi sisters have lost there lives it doesn’t look good for the Saudis they will never become a major place for all people to visit if they carry on treating wahine and the lower class people like dirt .
That’s cool the goverment has a new housing development plan’s for Porirua . I say the Law commission or whom ever is advocating law changes should worry more about the common poor person not getting a fair go from New Zealand laws 6 times the system has underarm bowled Eco Maori cheated me
Carbon based fuel is going to be a thing of the past the faster the better the fuel company’s should invest in green energy that’s the future or else you are pushing up hill.
No comment on the police pay I seen two following me at the supermarket with uniform I gave them a ki ora they could not even look at me I blasted the Rock radio music and drove off respectfully on Tuesday.
Ka kite ano
Ki ora James & Storm from The Crowd Goes Wild
The coach has confidences in his players who are playing Japan test team the Japan team have there Kiwi connection coaching staff .
That was a good game of T20 cricket for the Kiwis and Pakistan.
Hope the white ferns have a good run at there T20 cricket matches kia kaha ladys.
The wife loves her horrors not me comedy science and doco’s .
Josh rafting with the Aussies nice tat one should know that if they are encouraging you to sit some ware its a set up.
Money makes the soccer ball go around Qutar wining the football world cup.
Ka kite ano .
Maori TV Te Kaea I got side tracked helping my offspring .Kia kaha ka kite ano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgGr_n4fgyI