Our heat battery in the oceans

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, May 19th, 2023 - 28 comments
Categories: budget 2023, climate change, Economy, Environment, infrastructure, Politics, science - Tags: , , , , ,

Almost all of the extra heat that humans have captured by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere over the last few centuries has wound up warming the deep oceans. But in the fine balance that runs between the ocean depths and the atmosphere, the effects of centuries of dissipated industrial living, we are seeing the beginnings of the the next couple of centuries of extreme weather. We’re now starting to feel the effects of that excess heat.

The Guardian has had several articles detailing the downstream effects of warming the oceans.

The temperature at the ocean’s surface – like on land – is being pushed higher by global heating but can jump around from one year to the next as weather systems come and go.

But in the 2km below the surface, that variability is almost nowhere to be seen. The rising heat down there has been on a relentless climb for decades, thanks to burning fossil fuels.

“The heat-holding capacity of the ocean is mammoth,” says Dr Paul Durack, a research scientist specialising in ocean measurements and modelling at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“The ocean captures more than 90% of the imbalance of energy that we’re creating because of anthropogenic climate change.”

The ocean is much less reflective than the land and soaks up more of the direct energy from sunlight.

But as greenhouse gases trap more of the energy that’s reflected back – allowing less to escape to space – the ocean tries to balance itself with the heat in the atmosphere above.

A technical chart in a chapter of the latest UN climate assessment laid out the unfathomable heat gain. Between 1971 and 2018, the ocean had gained 396 zettajoules of heat.

How much heat is that? Scientists have calculated it is the equivalent energy of more than 25bn Hiroshima atomic bombs. And that heat gain is accelerating.

study in January found the ocean gained 10 ZJ more in 2022 than the year before – enough heat to boil 700m kettles every second.

Compared with the ocean, according to a study in January the atmosphere has held on to about 2% of the extra heat caused by global heating since 2006.

To understand what’s happening below the ocean surface, out of sight of satellites, scientists look at a vast network of thousands of thermometers on buoys, ships, underwater gliders and permanent moorings.

Durack says it wasn’t until the early 2000s that a view of the changes in the ocean – long-predicted by climate scientists – started to become clear as more and more data became available.

The Guardian: Oceans have been absorbing the world’s extra heat. But there’s a huge payback

We have heated the oceans enough now that we’re getting very strong climatic shifts not merely predicted, but now thoroughly measured at the surface of the oceans and into the atmosphere. Not just the wind and rain that has been shaking my top story ridge apartment since October.

In Asia the tropics are getting quite extreme heat.

Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use.

Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia.

On Tuesday, four weather stations in Myanmar hit or matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet, in eastern Mon state, reaching the highest, at 43C (109.4F). On Wednesday, Bago, north-east of Yangon, reached 42.2C, matching an all-time record previously recorded in May 2020 and April 2019, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian.

Globally, 2022 ranked as one of the hottest years on recorded, and the past eight years were collectively the hottest documented by modern science. It is believed that a return of the El Niño weather phenomenon this year will cause temperatures to rise even further.

“The poorest of the poor are going to [suffer] the most. Especially, it is devastating for the farming community, the people who are dependent on agriculture or fishing,” said Dr Fahad Saeed, regional lead for South Asia and the Middle East at Climate Analytics, a climate science policy institute.

“The heat is not foreign to this part of land,” he said, but added that temperatures were rising beyond the limits of people’s adaptability.

The Guardian: ‘Endless record heat’ in Asia as highest April temperatures recorded

Note the emphasis on farming, agriculture and fishing. These are the underpinnings of our societies worldwide. They are extremely sensitive to weather and climatic shifts. Our food gathering technology systems worldwide are inherently dependent on having predicable weather and climatic patterns. Not something that has been noticeable in NZ this year, or in Australia over their last decade of drought and floods, or in large parts of Asia this yera.

A lot of that is directly related to shifts in the El Niño and La Niña climatic pattern in the Pacific. The recent changes since 1960 in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are now definitely attributable to the greenhouse gas emissions.

new study led by researchers at CSIRO set out to determine the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the major climate driver, known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Up until now there had been limited understanding about the role climate change has already played on ENSO, with research primarily looking at future projections.

Lead researcher Wenju Cai said their research yielded significant results, with evidence that El Niño and La Niña events had become more frequent and intense due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.

“Previous research projected how El Niño and La Niña will change in the future but was unable to tell whether human-caused climate change has already affected [them],” he said.

“The current paper provides modelling evidence that climate change has already made El Niño and La Niña more frequent and more extreme.”

The swinging pendulum of ENSO plays a major part in year-to-year climate, with recent La Niña and El Niño events having played a hand in devastating flooding and drought events in Australia.

On a global scale, no other single phenomenon yields a bigger influence on whether a year will be warmer, cooler, wetter, or drier than average.

It is a climate pattern that has been operating for millions of years, according to palaeoclimatic evidence.

The CSIRO study, published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, examined extensive outputs from models without greenhouse warming, each for hundreds to over thousands-of-year time scales, to examine how unusual the last 60 years have been.

To understand the change, they then compared ENSO in the 60 years pre- and post-1960.

They found that strong El Niños increased from two events in the pre-1960 to four events in the post-1960, and strong La Niñas from one event to nine events.

Dr Cai said the observed strength was extremely unusual if climate change had not had an impact.

Even without changes to ENSO itself, Dr Cai said the impacts of El Niño and La Niña were expected to be more intense because of climate change.

“Global warming makes their impact more extreme because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, so when it rains it rains harder, and evaporation is higher making droughts more severe, their onsets earlier and harder to get out,” he said.

But Dr Cai said with the changes to the frequency and strength of ENSO the impacts were likely to be even stronger.

ABC News: El Niño and La Niña have become more extreme and frequent because of climate change, study finds

The recent years of overheated surface waters around NZ, probably as a result of the last 3 years in a La Niña pattern tend to drive home just how extreme this is likely to be – even here. New Zealand is an island nation, well separated and ocean buffered from any disturbing continental land mass. But the ocean heatwaves around us have been devastating to our marine ecosystems, and to the large fishing and aquaculture industries.

New figures provided to the Guardian by scientists studying ocean temperature shifts show that on average, over the year to April 2023, New Zealand’s coastal waters sat stewing in marine heatwave conditions for 208 days. Some southern regions experienced marine heatwave conditions for more than 270 days during the period. In the north island’s Bay of Plenty, the waters remained in heatwave for an entire year.

With little respite for species to recover between the waves of heat, scientists warn that some ecosystems are reaching tipping points under the surface, with effects that will be felt years into the future. No one yet knows what it will mean for the fish, seabirds, whales, dolphins, and New Zealand’s multi-billion dollar fishing industry.

As scientists and communities begin to reckon with the impact, the conditions hitting Aotearoa provide a preview of the future of the world’s oceans under climate change: waters around the world are projected to rise by about 4C on average by 2100, if the world maintains its course on global heating. Heatwaves around New Zealand are already seeing spikes that high, giving a glimpse of what it can do to species under the surface.

The Guardian: Are New Zealand’s marine heatwaves a warning to the world?

Some of the examples provided are pretty gruesome, with massive wash ups of dead fish, starving penguins, sea sponges bleaching in Fiordland as their algae cooks off, plus fish species and whales disappearing to more benign ocean climates. But it also affects our economy.

The changes in the ocean are so stark they have been noticed outside scientific circles.

In the hills above Blenheim, between the wineries and pine plantations, trucks rumbled through January along the narrow road. They would make the journey 160 times over, through the hot summer months, winding from the coast to the hill and back again. Their cargo was tonnes upon tonnes of fish: king or “chinook” salmon, the most expensive variety of the salmon family, prized enough that a single large fish can sell for up to $1,700.

Usually, it would be sliced into sashimi, or smoked and laid atop hors d’oeuvres. Instead, it lay rotting in the truckbeds, more than 1,300 tonnes of it, carried to be dumped in a pit in the hills.

In Marlborough’s fish farms last year, the fish had died in their thousands, unable to survive the rising temperatures around them. In warmer areas, about 42% of total fish stock died. The country’s largest salmon producer, NZ King Salmon, announced it would have to shut down some of its farms as the climate heated waters around the sounds.

“When I joined this company, I never heard of the term ‘marine heatwave’,” said CEO Grant Rosewarne, as the company reckoned with the losses. “Recently, there’s been three of them.

“We thought we had more time,” he said. “Climate change is a slow process. But faster than many people think.”

New Zealand’s seafood industry plays a key role in the economy, contributing around $2bn in export earnings and employing more than 13,000 people. As sea temperatures warm, they are wreaking havoc with some of the most profitable sections of that industry.

“There’s been definitely changes with marine fisheries – with a lot more warmer water fish being caught further south,” Langlands says. “I really do feel fear. And feel for the price of seafood in New Zealand.”

The Guardian: Are New Zealand’s marine heatwaves a warning to the world?

That stored ocean heat isn’t just going to affect the ocean. What happens in the oceans directly affects what happens on land and especially in New Zealand. Farmers and urbanites can expect to feel the effects in the short-term over the next decade or so.

This has been easy to observe in the tail end of our last few years of a strong La Niña and its associated devastation in the upper North Island down to Hawke’s Bay, East Cape and Poverty Bay. It included my car getting written off after traversing the St Georges Bay Road River in downtown Auckland. That was rather surreal as the storm water system started blowing its access lids and the rapidly rising waters.

As well as drowning cities, towns, and farmlands, it also demonstrated that our infrastructure was built for a different era – that of the climate we used to have. This plaintive article in the wake of the devastating Cyclone Gabrielle flooding in February was pointing to the once in 250 year flood in Napier in 2020.

It was meant to be a one-in-250-year deluge but the last big floods in Napier, and the recommendations that followed, were a little more than two years ago.

“In the context of climate change, events such as the November flood may become more common, and Napier should expect and prepare for extreme weather events in the future with changing weather patterns meaning extreme weather events will return on a shorter cycle than they once did,” a Napier City Council 2021 report said.

Nobody died in the November 2020 floods but a report to the council a year later shows it resulted in 173 evacuees, 115 homes deemed uninhabitable, and 2680 homes losing power.

The rainfall was a one-in-250-year event, the report said, but warned “events of this nature, and subsequent flooding, may occur more often”. Other reports downgraded it to once in a century.

Fast-forward 827 days to Valentine’s Day, February 2023 and Cyclone Gabrielle delivered what Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said was “the most severe weather event this century”, submerging a Hawke’s Bay power station, flooding homes to their roofs, killing at least seven in Hawke’s Bay, and creating thousands of evacuees and many unaccounted for.

Stuff: One-in-250-year Napier flood, and recommendations, a little more than two years ago

Multiply that by every city, town, and farmland region in NZ. Look at all of the roads, rail, water systems, power and telecoms and buildings that were and often still are being built for the climate of the last more benign century. Like Napier, instead of all of that infrastructure being tested by weather to see if it fit for purpose every few centuries, now with a changing climate it is likely to be tested within a decade.

This makes it easier to understand why this years infrastructure budget (and the budgets over the last 5 years) have been so enormous. We’re not only having to catch up for the later 50 odd years of laggard investment in infrastructure, mostly by the conservative governments and councils, we’re having to build for ever-more likely devastating weather events.

National and Act of course are vaguely hand-waving that they may have policies to deal with this. None of which appear to have any more substance or detail than simpleton slogans. The reality is that they are both solidly stuck in ideologies of the 20th century – because they’re conservative, obsessed by making sure that the wealthy aren’t taxed, inefficiently chasing the poor with punitive and inefficient policies guided more by slogans than intelligence, and generally pretty damn stupid about dealing with any kind of change. You’d think that they never left the last century when you listen to them.

Quite unlike the budget yesterday. Like the 3 Waters programme, it probably isn’t enough. But at least it is a step in the right kind of direction to deal with the already existing build up of heat in the oceans.

Don’t forget that El Niño is currently slated to become dominant and active in 2023/2024. Based on what has happened in recent El Niño events it will arrive early, bigger and more destructive than expected, and cause more but different events than La Niña. Instead of just heat, wind and rain we get more atmospheric cooling from the south (quite different effects than most of the world). It will probably take a year or two to really hit here. But it is likely to be much more extreme that previous events.

A big part of the government’s recovery and resilience thrust is its focus on infrastructure.

Robertson said: “The government has taken significant steps to address New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit. We have committed $71 billion of infrastructure investment over the next five years in addition to the $45 billion we have spent on infrastructure in the past five years. This is the funding that builds our schools, hospitals, public housing, [and] rail and road networks.

“In the last term of government we set up the Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga, which developed the New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy, identifying the challenges New Zealand is facing over the next 30 years. We know we need to change how we think about infrastructure planning and resourcing.

“Alongside this Budget, we have released our Infrastructure Action Plan, which supports our response to the strategy and which is crucial to continuing to deliver the infrastructure transformation required while providing certainty to the construction sector.”

The Minister pointed to the need to future-proof the infrastructure in New Zealand for the country’s growing and changing population, climate change events, and to make use of the available developing technology.

“The North Island weather events added a level of urgency to our infrastructure investment planning and highlighted the importance of resilience in the face of climate change and increasing extreme weather events,” Robertson said.

“Today I am announcing a major change in how we address our infrastructure deficit and build a more resilient nation. Through Budget 2023 we are investing $6 billion in the initial phase of a National Resilience Plan. This will support medium- and long-term infrastructure investment and focus in the first instance on building back better from the recent weather events.”

According to the Minister, the initial focus of investments will likely be on road, rail, and local resilience. Additionally, telecommunications and electricity transmission investment is high on the agenda as well.

Robertson said: “As indicated at Budget 2022, the change to the fiscal rules means we can use our balance sheet more effectively to support long-term productive investments such as this programme.

“For too long governments have kicked the can down the road when it comes to investing in resilient and essential infrastructure investment. Today we embark on the long-term nation-building that I believe a responsible government must do.”

Insurance Business: Budget 2023 shines spotlight on New Zealand recovery and resilience

Outside this morning, I hear the Auckland Central fire-engines, police, and probably ambulances sirens going their way past, as they were doing through the evening and this morning. Presumably dealing with the consequences of last nights weather…. It was certainly shaking my apartment when I was writing the start of this post last night

28 comments on “Our heat battery in the oceans ”

  1. lprent 1

    BTW: Please keep the dystopian fantasies down to a dullards quiet roar. I've been hearing them for nearly 50 years. As long-term science fiction addict and historian geek, I almost certainly know the scenarios better than most.

    This is a post about a upcoming and steadily increasing problem with a little bit about measures that will need to be taken for living with the heat already stored in the oceans. Regardless of future attempts to curb future emissions, the already stored heat will keep coming out of the oceans and affecting our climate and weather for next few centuries. Rapidly building up over the next two decades.

    The problem is that we don't exactly have a resilient infrastructure in this country to cope with that. Most of the politics from the right to deal with this as an issue can only be described as chicken-shit and rather stupid. Certainly none that I have heard so far have the vaguest idea about the science or the economics of dealing with this kind of issue. Essentially incompetent to run a government to deal with our responde.

    You only have to listen to Seymour or Luxon for a few minutes to realise that they have absolutely no frigging ideas. Both sound like old mean wanting the world to change back to something that they vaguely remember as being a better world for them.

    Certainly neither seem to have a clue about how to deal with changing world. Nor do their fawning acolytes.

    Labour has been making a start and looks to be continuing that process.

  2. weka 2

    well, fuck.

    Excellent post Lynn.

  3. pat 3

    Meanwhile…

    "But air passenger travel is ramping up, anticipating a surge in demand. That translates to thousands more aircraft and new pilots. Boeing estimates that the world will need more than 600,000 new pilots between 2022 and 2041, and the biggest requirement is in Asia. Pilot training is a huge new growth industry, it seems. Aircraft manufacturers are salivating."

    https://www.interest.co.nz/business/121293/us-data-better-except-house-sales-australian-jobless-rate-rises-freight-rates-ease

  4. Mike the Lefty 4

    The heat problem in the oceans is not the only problem, the other is acidification of the world's oceans by carbon dioxide absorption.

    • lprent 4.1

      the other is acidification of the world's oceans by carbon dioxide absorption

      Sure and your point is ????????

      FFS my first degree was in Earth Sciences. It isn't exactly rocket science to understand how weak carbonic acid forms.

      You really just need to get a sense of scale.

      At various times over the last half billion years on Earth, we've had much higher CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases. Far far higher high ocean heat due to greenhouse gases and much more acidic oceans.

      Earths living organism genotypes and ecosystems are perfectly capable of moving into vacant habitats and doing it at a rapid pace. Think of what happened during an after every glacial/interglacial within the recent history since Antarctica started form its deep freeze icecap about 35-40 mya. Colonisation happens within decades. Evolution to ecological niches happens within very very short (for a earth scientist) periods

      FYI: Wikipedia

      The present atmospheric concentration of CO2 is the highest for 14 million years.[15] Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere were as high as 4,000 ppm during the Cambrian period about 500 million years ago, and as low as 180 ppm during the Quaternary glaciation of the last two million years.[4] Reconstructed temperature records for the last 420 million years indicate that atmospheric CO2 concentrations peaked at approximately 2,000 ppm during the Devonian (400 Ma) period, and again in the Triassic (220–200 Ma) period and was four times current levels during the Jurassic period (201–145 Ma).[16][17]

      My point is that I'm not concerned that Earth's biosphere will survive. Or even the small minority of it lives in the oceans and on land surfaces (the ancestral forms in the lithosphere far outweigh the rest). I can't think of anything that humans are capable of, or possibly capable of doing in the very near term that could kill off Earth. There simply isn't enough fossil carbon geologically sequestered to do that.

      I'm concerned that our societies and maybe our species survives in something like its current form. Especially if it is relatively easy to do. The decarbonising of the economies is happening at a very rapid pace. It means that we may be able to prevent taking the CO2 ppm up over 600 over the rest of the century. 450 is a pipedream. 500ppm may be possible.

      But we're at about 412 now. So some adaption is going to be required both by us and the species who share this world.

      So species are already having to adapt back into other and often older forms latent in their genotype. Shellfish start dropping their shells or start using different compositions. Warm loving algae will eventually colonise vacated reefs. FFS we still have algae strains around from both the Cambrian and the peak Quarternary glaciations for the really hot and acidic and freezing cold.

      You don't have to look far to see this happening. After all we are the weird bald species that sweats to maintain heat dissipation. A absolute rarity in the animal kingdom.

      As I commented at the top. When it comes to dystopian speculation I don't need much assistance. I could run through dystopian scenarios that you'd be unlikely to even be aware of as possibilities.

      /sarc

      • Mike the Lefty 4.1.1

        My point is that acidification of the oceans means a whole lot of marine organisms, particularly shellfish will probably die out because they won't be able to form shells. That is less food for the higher predators and they will die out in turn.

        You can spout out all the science you like to try and impress people but the simple facts that everyone can understand are there: species die out leads to other species dying out.

        • Craig H 4.1.1.1

          Sure, but eventually other species come along and fill the ecological niche(s).

  5. Molly 5

    I can't recall the book I read, which looked at the effect on the oceanic pump system that regularly recalibrated, but there's a good precis here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation

    The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is part of a global thermohaline circulation in the oceans and is the zonally integrated component of surface and deep currents in the Atlantic Ocean. It is characterized by a northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic, and a southward flow of colder, deep waters. These "limbs" are linked by regions of overturning in the Nordic and Labrador Seas and the Southern Ocean, although the extent of overturning in the Labrador Sea is disputed.[1][2] The AMOC is an important component of the Earth's climate system, and is a result of both atmospheric and thermohaline drivers.

    Climate change has the potential to weaken the AMOC through increases in ocean heat content and elevated freshwater flows from the melting ice sheets.

    • RedLogix 5.1

      For what it's worth in 1983 I spent 10 weeks on HMNZS Tui with an oceanographic team plotting out parts of the Southern Ocean segment of this astonishing current. Not a lot was known about it then, and still most people have no idea just how much energy it shifts around the planet.

      • Molly 5.1.1

        You appear to have led a very interesting life, RedLogix.

        • RedLogix 5.1.1.1

          I look back with nothing but gratitude and respect for all the really interesting people I have been privileged to either meet or work with along the way.

          All that is happening here is that I'm a little more willing to be open about my life than most contributors here – because if there is one thing I have learned is almost everyone has an interesting life and something they can teach you. They just fail to see it that way.

  6. Scott 6

    I'm no scientist but I love to fish and can clearly see the effect of the rising sea temperatures in my area.

    The marlin fishing season is extended by almost 3 months as temperatures stay above 18 degrees longer and we are now regularly catching the beautiful mahimahi- a sub tropical species.

    Kingfish are prolific and are breeding on a shallow reef 3 to 4 metres deep which can be reached in 5 minutes by kayak.

    I'm enjoying it at the moment but realise it will probably end badly if the oceans continue to warm

    • Corokia 6.1

      We have been getting kingfish down here in coastal Otago occasionally, due to the marine heatwaves. Nice fish to eat sure, but it will end badly. It's not "probably" and "if"

      • Phillip ure 6.1.1

        Fish have central nervous systems very similar to humans..

        So if you can imagine going about your business..and suddenly a hook in the mouth.. protruding out of your cheek..then being dragged into the water to drown…to be hauled into a vessel..and either left to die.. drowning in oxygen…or to be bashed on the skull..

        These are the cruel realities of fishing/eating fish…

        Plus fishers…both commercial and recreational..are committing the environmental crime…of fishing species to extinction..

        My fishing was done in the bay of islands…when I was a boy…and the ocean then was teeming with fish..

        It ain't teeming no more..

        This is what fishers/those who eat them…are doing..

        Think on..!…eh..?

        • Scott 6.1.1.1

          Philip I realise meat is off the menu but if carrots scream when cut and fish are gone then what shall we eat?

          • Phillip ure 6.1.1.1.1

            Aah..!…the screaming vegetable argument..

            The last/only resort of the defensive carnivore…

            And really… it is the only argument you can muster against what I am talking about/living…eh..?

            (Tho' I must say… Kathryn ryan interviewed a scientist who works in the field of animal communication…and she had some amazing stories to tell..

            And her grand finale was playing a recording of plants communicating with each other…not screaming…but mind-blowing all the same…it sounded like electrical impulses..with a hint of firing up old school landline modem..

            So your screaming carrot argument may have some heft..after all

            If that is the case my argument will come down to causing least damage/suffering..

            But as far as dedicated carnivores are concerned…that other death knell of our export-driven animal exploitation industries..the lab-grown meat…will soon see them sorted..

            Animal flesh with no animal suffering..

            What's not to love about that…?

  7. Hunter Thompson II 7

    Looks like the oceans are the main drivers of weather patterns and we are in a downward spiral that will be hard to arrest.

    Recent news items showed forest fires in Alberta forcing thousands to evacuate, while northern Italy has suffered extensive flooding (this after months of drought).

    Yet international air travel is reported to be at 84.90% of Feb 2019 levels. Go figure.

  8. yeah but we all got jetskis, chainsaws, hardly davisons, angle grinders, trips to outer mongolia and makoo peekoo and you name it to distract us from the basically aimless infantile consumerist existence we have created

  9. adam 9

    If you were thinking about voting for act or anyone else who has their heads in the clouds on this issue.

    Please go back and re-read this post.

    We have no choice, we actually have to be decisive leadership now, and whilst you may not like labour (me either) – they do not have their heads up their asses on this. And are offering leadership, albeit a bit slow.

    My only issue with you post lprent and it's minor, is that any exploitation of any new gas and coal needs to be stopped – to quote brother Malcolm X – by any means necessary.

    • weka 9.1

      If someone is considering voting ACT, then your advice is good. If someone is considering voting Labour, then the advice needs to be to vote Green. It's the Greens who have been leading on this for a very long time, and it's long past time for NZ to empower them. Labour will still form government, but having 15 – 20 Green MPs in government with them would be a game changer on climate and transition.

  10. gsays 10

    Very sobering.There is a lot to digest.

    Unfortunately looking to Wellington and the wee parade of political options isn't where the solution lies. While touting infrastructure budgets and paying lip service to mitigation, they are still chasing trade deals that keep the global merry-go-round going round.

    Sure, there are a few things that must be imported. However, there is no need, as an example, for American or Belgian potato products on our supermarket shelves.

    You and I need to make the changes that matter. Transition Towns are a good example of building resilience and moving to a low carbon lifestyle.

    The solutions are local.

  11. Thank you Lprent, I read this over and over with huge sadness. So much damage done by our species. I agree that our choice of who we vote for has never been more stark.

    Local and personal resilience could slow things, but we have already made recovery difficult and dangerous. Our behaviour over water shows the problems ahead.

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    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    23 hours ago
  • Cutting all that dam red tape
    Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track.  “Dam safety regulations ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Drought support extended to parts of North Island
    The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Passage of major tax bill welcomed
    The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis.  “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Lifting economy through science, tertiary sectors
    Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Government announces Budget priorities
    The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says.  The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Government to consider accommodation solution
    The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Government approves extension to Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care
    Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says.                                         “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • $18m boost for Kiwis travelling to health treatment
    The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says.   “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • PM’s Prizes for Space to showcase sector’s talent
    The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Concerns conveyed to China over cyber activity
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government.     “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry
    Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function.  The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Brynderwyns open for Easter
    State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Speech to the Infrastructure Funding & Financing Conference
    Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Parliamentary network breached by the PRC
    New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • NZ to provide support for Solomon Islands election
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • NZ-EU FTA gains Royal Assent for 1 May entry to force
    The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union.    “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • COVID-19 inquiry attracts 11,000 submissions
    Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says.  “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Families to receive up to $75 a week help with ECE fees
    Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Unlocking a sustainable, low-emissions future
    A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says.  “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Chief of Army thanked for his service
    Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders
    25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Government commits nearly $3 million for period products in schools
    Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Speech – Making it easier to build.
    Good morning, it’s great to be here.   First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning.  I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Pacific youth to shine from boost to Polyfest
    Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • 2024 Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships announced
    ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Speech to Breast Cancer Foundation – Insights Conference
    Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Kiwi research soars to International Space Station
    New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Speech to the New Zealand Planning Institute
    Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Support for Northland emergency response centre
    The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed.  “Northland has faced a number ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Celebrating 20 years of Whakaata Māori
    New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago
  • Some commercial fishery catch limits increased
    Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 days ago

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