The climate fight

34 comments on “The climate fight ”

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1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1

   15 January 2023 at 7:35 am

   We were already on Notice…(how many more warnings ?) In this link..are plenty of What we should,…and Need to do !

   1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity”

   The authors of the 1992 declaration feared that humanity was pushing Earth's ecosystems beyond their capacities to support the web of life

   humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual.

   humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual.

   https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229

   And as ever…when trying to reason with fuckwits (hmm, maybe not bother with them, but try with people who will listen. FYI : I do ! )

   https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

   IMO I would like Scientists to speak up more. (And maybe be given much more Media opportunities to do so? )
   • DB Brown 1.1

     15 January 2023 at 9:06 am

     Scientists are tired, exhausted with being minimised, ridiculed and simply overlooked. The calibre of those decrying science… why would I bother?

     Climate deniers and other 'just asking questions' fake intellects amass fickle friends on social media and present a united front of junk thinking and fuckwittery. Anti-vaxxers and anti-science professionals work tirelessly to swell their evil/imbecile ranks. Here you may find [sic] truth, belonging, a sense of purpose, community… despite this bubble being the antithesis of these things to the wider (and actual) world.

     Meanwhile in the actual world influencers and celebrities have upstaged authorities – someone who wrote a song or scored a try or got a spot on yet another 'reality' tv show, where climate change doesn't exist… these are the people that people follow, these are the non-qualified we've given kudos to. The blithe and the bland who talk utter shit and thus consider themselves a bit racy.

     It's a race to buy a bunker, and fill your bunker with memorabilia.

     Scientists speak up?

     I'm clever AF. It rankles people. People hate being wrong. I'm an answers and solutions based thinker. I'm used to throwing a stab in the dark and hitting a critical organ most times – due to having studied broadly and deeply my whole life – and consulting experts on every question – it's just connecting dots…

     I got nothing.

     Maybe we got to stop listening to fucking idiots. Trying to talk over it seems pointless and largely hopeless.

     It's the rich allowing and purposely generating all this noise. The scientists are shouting, can you not hear them?
     • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1.1

       15 January 2023 at 9:28 am

       Good Morn DB Brown. Re all you said…yes it does get a bit like that.

       On "another site" others and myself had continual battles trying to rebut the denial…and outright lying ! (Climate, vaccine etc etc) But…was like whackamole. And.. seemingly they were..of one "mind". As in so many commonalities.

       IMO…we must keep trying (and do I get youre pretty clued up : ). I'm but a layman …albeit extremely interested in Our World…(Science,History,Geography,etc,etc..) I try to keep my mind active.

       I rate how you walk the talk…(as in your Planting etc)

       Oh I also replied to your last Manuka msg…very Interesting too !
       • DB Brown 1.1.1.1

         15 January 2023 at 11:52 am

         Mentioning the clever bit just to highlight the frustration with having no answers…

         We have answers to climate change. We don't have answers to (or leverage to change?) the fact we're not doing it.

         Racking my brain, and hopefully venting my exasperation will clear some of the ranty mad bits of me – bloody tiring!
         • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1.1.1.1

           15 January 2023 at 12:07 pm

           Oh yea , I also get like too. So to try make a positive from negative idiots, I..over a large, later part of my life, have done what I can in Practical Applications of Sustainability. Like you with your Garden and Food Forest etc ! . I rebuild/save Bicycles from landfill/scrap ( more than a hundred..stopped counting) And try to help our NZ Biodiversity as much as can. I also get involved enough to make submissions on many to Govt. And question MP's (kinda hard going ! )

           Anyway…keep on your way..and posting the interesting stuff .
2. Jenny are we there yet 2

   15 January 2023 at 7:53 am

   What are we fighting for?

   Radical Climate Action vs. Incrementalism

   Prime Minister Ardern, (before she was Prime Minister Ardern)

   Famously said that Climate change is this generations nuclear free moment.

   The Prime Minister is not overstating it. Climate change can be compared to nuclear war. The only difference between climate change and nuclear war – with climate change the devastated wasteland we leave our grandchildren will not be irradiated.

   Keeping to the Prime Minister's nuclear war metaphor;

   The climate change missiles are raining down on us right now. They are not in the megaton range yet, but if we don't do something radical soon, they will be.

   If we keep raising our emissions, (as we are), by the time our grandchildren are adults, the climate change weather bombs will be in the megaton range. Washing out infrastructure, igniting fire storms, taking lives, wrecking communities, ruining economies, destroying arable land threatening our ability to feed ourselves.
   Cascading extreme weather events will increasingly impact our ability to communicate with each other, to travel, to trade, to organise, to plan, or build.
   Climate change is an existential threat.
   The danger of climate change can't be overstated.

   In a climate more volatile than the one humanity and our societies evolved in, the collapse of organised human civilisation is a very real possibility.

   Incognito makes the case for "incrementalism"

   Sometimes, incrementalism is indeed just variations on a theme, window dressing, moving deck chairs, perhaps with a little virtue signalling, etcetera. Obviously, nothing (much) changes and/or not for very long…..

   Sometimes, we make big changes. Think NY’s resolutions such as going to the gym and giving up after 4-6 weeks. Again, nothing changes long-term even after any initial improvements…..

   ….incremental changes carry less political risk, are easier to sell to the people (and voters), are more achievable, and can be more resilient.”

   .https://thestandard.org.nz/the-weather-sucks/#comment-1929762

   Under incrementalism emissions keep going up!

   Incognito writes that National will be worse.

   .https://thestandard.org.nz/the-weather-sucks/#comment-1929728

   National will be even worse. And I totally agree. Of course National will be even worse. Unfortunately, the difference between bad and worse, is that emissions keep going up under both.

   .https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/greenhouse-gas-emissions-up-1-7-percent-in-the-march-2022-quarter/#:~:text=Greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%20up%201.7%20percent%20in%20the%20March%202022%20quarter,-20%20October%202022&text=Seasonally%20adjusted%20greenhouse%20gas%20(GHG,product%20(GDP)%20decreased%200.2%20percent

   The government may be taking incremental action to address climate change but even more to prop up BAU

   The Government support package of $2billion to Air New Zealand to keep emitting carbon at pre-pandemic levels.

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/government-support-for-air-new-zealand-balloons-to-2-billion/S5C6MTSAE46ATL5TOQNTWO5RNQ/

   The government gave $117 million to New Zealand Steel (our biggest single biggest CO2 emitter).

   https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2023/01/climate-change-end-pollution-subsidies.html

   We keep widening our motorways for more cars.
   We keep digging and importing coal.
   We continue with dairy conversions.
   And emissions keep going up, relentlessly.

   Incognito admits that, sometimes incrementalism can be compared to "moving deck chairs". If only, incrementalism was that radical. With all the subsidies we give to polluters to keep pouring out greenhouse gases. 'incrementalism' is like moving the deck chairs one inch forward and then timidly moving them back again when the ship owner (vested interest) objects.

   Moving deck chairs one inch forward one inch back.

   The government legislated to make public transport cheaper, but also legislated to make fossil fuels cheaper at the same time. The government could have increased the fuel excise tax and lowered the cost of public transport even more. The Government putting the excise tax back on petrol and diesel, should encourage less consumption. But we can't have that, so the government are putting up the price of public transport at the same time,

   One inch forward one inch back.

   But the call for change that actually cuts emissions is growing louder.

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/130949767/the-case-for-banning-some-of-new-zealands-shortest-flights

   Will the government listen, will they stick with incrementalism?
   • Jenny are we there yet 2.1

     15 January 2023 at 8:16 am

     ‘
     “We’re not fighting climate change, we’re fighting those that are delaying us from transitioning to systems and technologies that don’t cause climate change”
     Dr Charlie Gardner

     But what are we fighting with them over?

     Radical climate action.
     • DB Brown 2.1.1

       15 January 2023 at 9:17 am

       Excellent quote, that's it in a nutshell.

       Time to strip the wealth off climate change complicit oil companies and spend it on mitigation.
3. arkie 3

   15 January 2023 at 9:53 am

   https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1612865746916507648
4. bwaghorn 4

   15 January 2023 at 9:55 am

   No text visible on mobile
   • weka 4.1

     15 January 2023 at 10:44 am

     it's a single tweet. Can you please try switching to the Desktop version on your phone and tell me what you see? Also your phone and OS, thanks.
     • bwaghorn 4.1.1

       15 January 2023 at 3:08 pm

       It always works on desktop,

       Samsung x,cover 5 ,not sure what os is, but Google is my go to for everything (owned for life now).
       Tweet shows up in mobile in you’re comment, Mickies post has no text in mobile either.
       • weka 4.1.1.1

         15 January 2023 at 3:39 pm

         ah, ok, thanks. I thought Lynn had fixed that, I'll let him know.
   • weka 4.2

     15 January 2023 at 10:45 am

     this is the tweet in the post. Can you see it?

     https://twitter.com/CharlieJGardner/status/1610628207929090049
5. Maurice 5

   15 January 2023 at 12:09 pm

   It has been postulated that the present rise in CO2 has prevented a plunge back into the next Ice Age fluctuation. Any human fiddling with CO2 may well restart that plunge …

   It appears that there is a really fine balance between increasing warming and inevitable cooling without the already increased CO2 levels.

   "According to research published in Nature Geoscience, human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) will defer the next ice age. Researchers used data on Earth's orbit to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one and from this have predicted that the next ice age would usually begin within 1,500 years. They go on to predict that emissions have been so high that it will not.[57] "

   1. Black, Richard (9 January 2012). "Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age'". BBC News. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
   • weka 5.1

     15 January 2023 at 12:23 pm

     that pieces says ppm CO2 would need to drop below 240. It was 280 in 1800 (link below).

     It also says that it would be 1,500 years before the next glaciation. We have time to prepare for that. Meanwhile, adverse weather events and sea level rise are already here, and about to get much worse if we don't drop emissions fast. We’re also in a mass extinction event including of species we rely on to exist. It doesn’t get much more serious than that.

     Your comment is a red herring argument, a derail from the post, and a form of climate denial. I don't allow climate denial under posts I write or put up, so please stop. You can use OM if you want to talk about it.

     https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/atmospheric-concentration-of-carbon-dioxide-5#tab-chart_5_filters=%7B%22rowFilters%22%3A%7B%7D%3B%22columnFilters%22%3A%7B%22pre_config_polutant%22%3A%5B%22CO2%20(ppm)%22%5D%7D%7D
     • Maurice 5.1.1

       15 January 2023 at 5:46 pm

       No denial here. Found it interesting that along with the adverse weather events; sea level rise and mass extinction we may have also derailed the millions of year old natural freezing/warming cycles with completely unknown consequences.
       • weka 5.1.1.1

         17 January 2023 at 5:29 pm

         you've just linked (below, to lprent) a climate denial blog. You are henceforth banned from commenting under any future post I write about climate. I will also moderate any posts I put up under Notices and Features or cross/Guest Posts.

         I'm fine with you continuing your conversation with lprent here as he is doing the in depth rebuttal.
         • Maurice 5.1.1.1.1

           17 January 2023 at 8:52 pm

           WOW! I am new to this so can you give me a list of Climate Denial sites I should not link to … so I do not mistakenly do so again? Please.
           • weka 5.1.1.1.1.1

             17 January 2023 at 10:46 pm

             You cannot run climate denial arguments under posts I write. That's been a long standing policy of mine. Other authors make their own decisions. Sometimes I put posts up under Notices and Features, and I'm unlikely to allow climate denial under those either (hence this discussion).

             If you don't understand what climate denial is, ask. If you don't understand the source material you are referencing, then do the work of finding out. We have standards here for what constitutes debate. I scrolled through the blog you linked to and found this very easily:

             The true motivation underlying the global warming movement is almost certainly ideological and political in nature, with a growing helping of greed now that many billions of dollars are being steered toward “controlling” global warming, and I predict that Anthropogenic Global Warming, as currently presented, will go down in history as the greatest fraud of all time. It makes Ponzi and Madoff look like pikers by comparison.

             You are still free to post those arguments and links in Open Mike.
   • lprent 5.2

     16 January 2023 at 9:57 am

     It has been postulated that the present rise in CO2 has prevented a plunge back into the next Ice Age fluctuation. Any human fiddling with CO2 may well restart that plunge …

     There isn't any doubt about that. But it isn't a ice age – we moved into that about 45 million years ago after Antarctica drifted into the polar region and started its accumulation of a major ice pack. The whole world has been in the fridge since then compared to most of the last billion years.

     Glaciations are just orbital mechanics and volatile feedbacks. In this case earth has been been steadily moving towards a glaciation for at least the last 3000 years, with about 1000-1500 years before we see significiant glaciation in the northern hemisphere. The desertification of the Sahara is the most obvious evidence of this. 2000 years ago that the northern Sahara was the food bowl of the Med. What is now deep desert fed the Roman empire. 2000 years before that it was the area of the great herds of Africa. THis repeats a pattern that has happened over multiple Glacial/Interglacial cycles.

     It appears that there is a really fine balance between increasing warming and inevitable cooling without the already increased CO2 levels.

     Plus aerosols and acidity from volcanism. At least two of the great extinction events are in at least part directly related to massive magma extrusions from the Siberian traps and the Deccan traps.

     All planetary volatile atmosphere/oceans are inherently always in a fine balance because they are a geologically fast chaotic system. They balance between energy, meteoric and gas in-falls, exhalations from the heat in the mantle and crust, gaseous gravitational escape, and locking up volatiles in in non volatile chemical combinations. In the case of earth the latter includes the biosphere.

     But that really isn't the point. When those balances fail you get new balance points like the extremes of Mars which has shed much of its surface volatiles to space due to low gravity and Venus where the volcanic outgas and probably a lack of a moon has caused a run-away greenhouse effect. Whereas Earth has had a relatively (compared to Mars and Venus) stable surface volatile balance for most of the last billion years. The biosphere has adapted to that with the few mass extinctions during that billion years of stability.

     However human civilisations have adapted to the extremely benign climate since the last glaciation. But it is a civilisation based entirely on upside down pyramid highly dependent on agriculture technology. If our ability to maintain a working agricultural systems for large populations gets damaged, the the whole human civilisation collapses.

     Climate change is a direct threat to agriculture because changes in temperature balance will cause increased energy transfers and much faster and more extreme weather. The northern jet-streams have been displaying this variability pretty strongly over the last decade It will also cause pretty rapid changes in climatic regions. etc etc.

     Any increases in weather and climate variability threaten the technical basis for the agricultural systems that humans have developed over the last 10,000 or so years. Human history and archaeology is littered with failed civilisations that died when their agricultural underpinnings failed.

     The problem isn't that climate is finely balanced. That has been obvious to anyone with the faintest idea about geological history for the last 50 years.

     It is that anything that we do to increase the level of climate change are a direct danger to us. And that is exactly what burning of fossil fuels, biological clearances and massive increases in methane from agriculture are achieving right now.

     Those human changes to climate don’t happen over millions or thousands or even hundreds of years. They happen within a century and are increasing in their rapidity every decade as the buffering in the Earths volatile systems are exceeded. We’re currently rapidly heading towards a situation where we have a new climate in regions in each decade in the second half of this century.
     • Maurice 5.2.1

       16 January 2023 at 2:38 pm

       "But it isn't a ice age"

       Perhaps should have used glacial/interglacial rather than 'ice age' to clarify. We are moving on from the last great Ice Age of millions of years ago with cyclic variations of glacial/interglacial but use the short hand of 'ice age' to indicate the last Glacial period we are presently moving away from over the last 11 to 12 thousand years.

       "If our ability to maintain a working agricultural systems for large populations gets damaged, the the whole human civilisation collapses.

       Climate change is a direct threat to agriculture because changes in temperature balance will cause increased energy transfers and much faster and more extreme weather."

       Changes in either direction of warming/higher CO2 or cooling/lower CO2 can damage that fine balance. It is postulated that warming/higher CO2 does LESS damage – certainly in the Temperate Zones we are located in.

       This is examined and commented about extensively in Harold Seneker's Blog: http://hseneker.blogspot.com/ where he postulates that 2+ degrees of average warming and CO2 levels of up to 800+ ppm may even be beneficial to food production. What effects this would have on livability outside Temperate Zones is the big question.

       One danger is that instead of being cursed for causing excess warming in the shorter term (100-200 years) we may be cursed for not pouring enough energy in to the system to keep cooling in to another Glacial episode in the longer term (1,500-2000 years). Perhaps we are all damned if we do or doomed if we don't?
       • lprent 5.2.1.1

         17 January 2023 at 4:13 pm

         It is postulated that warming/higher CO2 does LESS damage – certainly in the Temperate Zones we are located in.

         That depends if you look at the total range of all farming or not. Also if you only look at end-condition steady state models rather than the transition changes.

         Basically looking at a end-condition that may not arrive for a century or two is a fools game because it ignores the chaos from climate and weather changes in intervening decades. Which is what is missing if you look at the stupid waffle in your link. The author simply ignores the obvious side-effects while ha concentrates on what are the equivalent of black-body physics models. Treating real world issues as being some kind of daisy world is a excellent way of ignoring all of the history, paleo-climatology, and almost everything else in favour of looking like a completely stupid idiot who should be looking at distant stars.

         Your link references two warming phases and one cooling phase in Europe (a teeny fraction of the world) and treats them as only related to the end-point conditions. It ignored the periods of transition between them. Including the massive famines, wars, and migrations of both humans and the biosphere from Roman times from the fall of the western Roman empire to the fall of the Eastern Roman empire.

         Because climate for humans or biological zones isn't a black-body experiment with the kinds of simple side-effects that appear to be all that Harold Seneker appears to be incapable of understanding. It winds up with kids starving, epidemics becoming more common, and conflicts – migratory, political, military, and vigilante. Times of even moderate climatic change are the periods of hordes.

         Those were natural climatic swings – one that took hundreds of years to be noticeable. Where a 1C regional temperature shift or a increase or decrease of rainfall would take most of a century to happen.

         Whereas we're more likely to keep moving the climatic 'bands' towards having the current polar experience. The measured change in the Antarctic Peninsula has risen by more than 3C in the last 50 years, and it is accelerating. Precipitation has shifted from being exclusively snow to having significant periods of sleet or even rain doing the same period. The same in the Arctic. The same rapid change in temperatures and precipitation is now starting to exhibit in the sub-polar areas – mostly in jet-streams. But also there are concerning measurements with ocean currents – the Gulf stream in particular.

         What happens when the same changes in 'temperate' zones are compressed into a few decades? With a population that is several orders of magnitude larger than Roman times?

         here he postulates that 2+ degrees of average warming and CO2 levels of up to 800+ ppm may even be beneficial to food production. What effects this would have on livability outside Temperate Zones is the big question.

         What a complete fuckwit. What temperate zones? There won't be any continental ones – ie where the bulk of our food is currently grown. Somehow you and he have managed to postulate a increase in world temperature without having temperate zones moving. You are not that stupid are you?

         Incidentally there are no 'temperate' zones in most of the world when you look at paleo climates on continents. We are pretty much at maximum extent for temperate zones at present during an interglacial in an ice age. If glaciation is close its fullest extent, then you find the continental temperate band between jungle and permafrost is about a tenth of what it is now. But if gets warmer then if we got to 800ppm – the level that it was in the early eocene about 50 million years ago you'd find this…

         The Early Eocene Climatic Optimum lasted for over 2 million years, and was characterized by warm and equable (meaning the climate was relatively similar everywhere) conditions. Deciduous, temperate forests covered Antarctica, and palm trees marched north across Wyoming and into Arctic Canada. Summer temperatures in the Arctic Ocean were approximately 59 degrees F (33 degrees C), almost 30 degrees F (17 degrees C) warmer than today, while ocean surface temperatures in the tropics were hardly different (at most, 9 degrees F, or 5 degrees C warmer) from those at present. This low equator to pole temperature gradient, with tropical and subtropical climate zones spanning much of the globe, is a notable characteristic of early Cenozoic hothouse climates, and understanding the mechanisms by which such a low temperature gradient can be maintained is one of the greatest challenges in paleoclimate science.

         The temperate zone is tiny under those circumstances. It is crammed between the 6 months of twilight or night near the pole and the rest of the polar regions out to about 76 degrees S or N. It is temperate because the plants don't grow fast even with large doses of CO2 and high temperatures. The limited daylight hours in winter is a major constraint. Even minimal research would have indicated what 800ppm CO2 would produce. It also wouldn’t stop at an average of 2C temperatures – because that wasn’t what it was when we last had 800ppm.

         Which kind of brings the question of where can we currently see anything like a farming technology under those conditions? Because that is the farming environment of migratory herders. Hardly a good basis for maintaining a technological civilisation.

         The nearest you get to semi-permanent paleo-temperate zones are smallish islands like NZ that are buffered by oceans and surrounded by warmish currents. However the vast majority of the worlds food is grown in continental climatic zones. But NZ was mostly underwater during the Eocene due to high sea levels and based on the kind of plants, probably more like current Papua New Guinea than anything we know of now.

         Apparently neither climatic reality nor doing some really basic research are features of Harold Seneker's Blog. It looks like it is just there for suckers like you.
         • Maurice 5.2.1.1.1

           17 January 2023 at 8:56 pm

           "It looks like it is just there for suckers like you."

           I am just stumbling around searching for information.

           Guess it is suckers like me you have to convince.

           With China and India plus much of the developed world more interested in keeping warm and keeping their populations on track in the short term with attendant CO2 et al emissions we are doomed to be drowned and overheated?
           • lprent 5.2.1.1.1.1

             19 January 2023 at 8:24 pm

             You're a bit out of date with China and you have to look at the velocity as well as the total.

             If you look at wikipedia what you'll find is that coal as a percentage is reducing in their electricity production (interesting that they have such large holes still in their data) . It was 78% in 2004, and in 2019 was down to 62%.

             But in 2004 to 2019, generated power rose 3.34x while power from coal rose 2.66x. Hydro generation rose 2.32x. Wind rose 27.39x. Solar rose 1717.76x.

             What you're seeing in China is that coal plants are steadily becoming lousy investments, and there has been a slow falling off in either opening them or even running them at all.

             The think tank Carbon Tracker estimated the average loss was about US$4/MWh and that about 60% of power stations were cashflow negative in 2018 and 2019.[38] In 2020 Carbon Tracker estimated that 43% of coal-fired plants were already more expensive than new renewables and that 94% would be by 2025.[39] […] A 2021 study estimated that all coal power plants could be shut down by 2040, by retiring them at the end of their financial lifetime.[41]

             Somewhere there another more interesting analysis of China's push to renewables

             There is likely to be a spike in coal generation this year and next as they use existing coal generating capacity to handle a economic surge. But the trend is clear. "Climate change: Renewable energy to meet over 70 per cent of China’s additional power needs in next three years, says IEA".

             But most of the pressure is coming from the movement in living standards rather than their already shrinking population.

             The same kinds of economic issues are happening in India as well. But muted by the issues of unemployment of coal miners and still lagging well off peak population growth. India still has the sagging arse in its age demographics.

             

             BTW: Pretty much the same electricity economics as we have here. See BusinessDesk (may be paywalled) "Explosion in renewable electricity proposals". We're getting really short of electricity. It looks like we are finally going to get the extra capacity that we need.
6. DB Brown 6

   15 January 2023 at 12:17 pm

   Looking at where forestry slash/flood debris repeatedly hits/destroys some riparian fencelines…

   Perhaps the answer in these sites is using the debris to create giant hugelkultur mounds that double as stock barriers. Plant for stock feed on them.

   If the law is to insist on riparian fencing we need to also hold to account the forestry companies destroying these private/public assets.
   • weka 6.1

     15 January 2023 at 12:25 pm

     Love that idea. Hedgerows! Working with nature instead of against.
   • bwaghorn 6.2

     15 January 2023 at 3:58 pm

     Fetid methane emitting bogs is what would result, a feed stock for carbon neutral boilers might be a better use for slash
     • weka 6.2.1

       15 January 2023 at 11:10 pm

       Why would they become fetid bogs? The main problem I see would be where you got the soil from for the hugelkultur.

       There's a discussion here about hugelkultur and methane

       https://permaculturefoodforest.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/hugelkutur/
     • DB Brown 6.2.2

       17 January 2023 at 8:31 am

       Considering I've made a few hugelkultur mounds I can make the qualified statement that you are talking uninformed bullshit.

       They turn into fertile topsoil, that's what happens, and they produce a lot of food/feedstock.
7. gsays 7

   15 January 2023 at 12:33 pm

   My 2 cents worth says we are fighting convenience. Or avoiding inconvenience.

   It's just easier to get 'everything' from the supermarket. This ignores the excessive profits they are making. It ignores the diesel miles embedded in all the products. It turns a blind eye to the one-sided relationship that the big two enjoy at the expense of fresh produce growers.

   Similarly with transport, it is easier to take the personal vehicle rather than PT, car pooling, ride sharing etc.

   I know the view is not popular, but there is merit in the attitude of getting your own house in order before insisting that 'they' change, they being corporations, domestic and foreign governments, farmers etc, etc.
   • weka 7.1

     15 January 2023 at 11:11 pm

     I agree, or perhaps that we all have to act at the same time, individuals, communities, businesses, organisations, governments. Fortunately there's never been more options available for good change at the personal level.
8. Patricia Bremner 8

   15 January 2023 at 1:36 pm

   So the Oil companies knew they were ultra destructive, but like the Tobacco Companies they lied.

   We are fighting Corporate Greed.

   We are fighting against Spin.

   We are fighting for hope!!!

   We are fighting for future generations to have life.
9. Stuart Munro 9

   17 January 2023 at 8:29 pm

   Well, we're not seeing very plausible action from NZ thus far. We are one of the few dirty countries, the ones whose emissions are increasing.

   We need to handle this transition maturely.

   People could do worse than to read Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond | Goodreads

   Japan has two success stories we could learn from – the forestry reform, and the Meiji Reformation. If our government can be bothered to govern that is, instead of leaving everything to the Brownian motions of market forces.

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