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The government needs to understand that climate mitigation and adaptation are twins

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, March 8th, 2023 - 39 comments
Categories: climate change, james shaw - Tags: , , , ,

Micky has a post up, Triangulating climate change, about the jarring shift yesterday from Labour on road transport and climate. Transport Minister Michael Wood released a promising and exciting plan for a major shift in New Zealand transport systems to help mitigate climate change by reducing our GHG emissions.

Then Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister announced that recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle will take precedence. There’s a good explainer here (and in other comments), about the politics involved and what just happened. I’m going to focus on climate impacts and the concept of transition.

In the panic shift to adaptation over mitigation, what many people are missing is that transition, the process by which we both mitigate and adapt as we shift to a regenerative economy, gives us the best chance of future security. It offers us different but still good lives.

The key here is to shift from binary thinking to both/and. Rather than getting caught up in adaptation vs mitigation arguments (or cyclone recovery vs transition road transport strategy), simply shifting to both/and thinking opens up new options.

Here’s head of communications at GreenpeaceNZ yesterday,

I’ll reiterate what Nick is saying: the best adaptations are also mitigations that both build resilience AND reduce emissions. There is a synergy that happens when we do both, each feeding into and enhancing the other.

There is an excellent piece by Climate Minister James Shaw in the Guardian this week, We can’t afford to choose adaptation over cutting emissions – suggesting otherwise is dangerous,

Despite what some New Zealand right-wingers are arguing, adaptation will not help us in a world three degrees warmer.
…

Let me use an example: it will be almost impossible to farm in a world that is three degrees warmer. Absent any plan to cut emissions, National and Act look willing enough to sacrifice the future of rural communities on the altar of short-term electoral politics.

Adaptation is critical but has its limits. We must limit warming as much as we can so we have a chance to adapt. Even with the progress we’ve made, our likely future still lies well beyond thresholds considered “safe”. Without urgent action to limit warming, we will very quickly reach adaptation limits. To be resilient, we need both immediate and urgent action to limit warming, and action to adapt to what we know cannot be avoided. With a new cyclone recovery taskforce up and running, I have three guideposts that should direct where we go from here.

The Climate Minister’s three guideposts,

The impacts of climate change will get worse until we stop polluting the atmosphere.

Two degrees of warming is not as bad as three degrees – and 1.5 degrees not as bad as two degrees. Urgent action to cut emissions is the frontline of defence. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every tonne of climate pollution that is stopped matters.

Some degree of climate change is already locked in, we need to plan for this.

Our focus needs to shift from short-term preparedness towards creating stronger communities. Resilient, affordable, inclusive communities that can meet everyone’s needs despite the challenges of the disrupted climate.

We need to get serious about this new approach. Otherwise, the changes we experience will be forced on us by extreme weather disasters, rather than our efforts to create vibrant, connected communities, even as climate change shapes how we live.

Extreme weather affects everyone, some people are more badly affected, we need to make transition fair.

The option to move somewhere safer, less prone to flooding doesn’t exist for many people. Some people will be forced to go into debt to replace essentials like beds or curtains. This unequal impact puts people at greater risk when the next inevitable climate-fuelled weather event arrives.

How we go about building resilient communities is a question that we all need to be asking ourselves. For me, the answer is clear: a more equal and inclusive society is a more adaptive and resilient society.

When I say the government needs to understand that mitigation and transition are twins, I of course mean Labour. It’s already the core position the Greens. Labour have to win the election, so I appreciate they’re between a rock and a hard place. However, messaging is vital on this issue at this time. When climate is at the forefront of many people’s minds, it’s the exact time to talk about the crucial nature of mitigation and how it relates to adaptation.

This is also why having more Greens in government is one of the most straight forward ways of getting better action on climate. Why isn’t Shaw, the government’s Climate Minister, being used by Labour at the moment? More Green MPs and thus more negotiating power post-election would mean we more have climate literate and articulate people speaking for the government as well as helping design the transition systems we desperately need.

39 comments on “The government needs to understand that climate mitigation and adaptation are twins ”

  1. adam 1
    8 March 2023 at 11:39 am

    I'm not sure we have a choice but to adapt. In that no government can stop the main polluters at this point. Their greed/profit motivation is all consuming, they will not be stopped from making more money – even if it kills the rest of us.

    There is no political will to change. A lot of excuses, and a lot of hand wringing – but outside virtue signalling policy which can be over turned at a press conference. We are not doing enough.

    The Greens and Te Pāti Māori will act . Whilst nat/act will lock us into the death path in the name of greed.

    Reply
    • weka 1.1
      8 March 2023 at 1:04 pm

      If we want to convince people to change, or to vote GP/TPM, then we have to give them a narrative that works. The narrative of transition is good because it offers ways for people to get involved, as well as showcases the now huge number of transition techs in existence and development.

      If someone joins the narrative of 'adapt rather than mitigate', or 'adapt because it's too late', they are joining the people sealing out fate to some truly horrific. It's a choice, which narrative we pick up and offer to the world.

      Reply
      • adam 1.1.1
        8 March 2023 at 10:37 pm

        I don't think tech is going to help much. I think getting some basics rights is the answer.

        Like why the hell are we not investing in coastal shipping? We don't need to move everything via trucks. Trucks are good for moving a lot of stuff small distances, also for moving goods into the interior of the nation. But around it we are blessed with long coasts, good harbours and some accessible rivers. Plus most people in this country live rather close to said harbours.

        I get we need to get people to vote the Greens and Te Pāti Māori if we want to actually have a constructive response to this problem. Rather than the scraps of paper we are getting from the rest of them.

        Reply
  2. Robert Guyton 2
    8 March 2023 at 11:41 am

    "The catastrophic flood damage to the roading networks means we will have to revisit the GPS, but make no mistake, we remain focused on climate action. In many cases, there will be chance to future-proof the network as we repair it."

    Indeed.

    Reply
  3. That_guy 3
    8 March 2023 at 11:53 am

    Indeed. The rural lifestyle and community is worth protecting, and main threat to that lifestyle and community is a conga-line of extreme weather events that makes farming steadily less viable. I'm no farming expert but I have my ear to the ground when it comes to horticulture/viticulture, and they are reeling. Some growers are starting to ask if it's worth it.

    It's a shame that some unrepresentative voices in that community seem to have a visceral hatred of the Greens. That's like mistaking the fire alarm for the fire. Like a fire alarm, the Greens can be an annoying, repetitive, piercing shriek that nobody wants to hear. That's rather the point. Don't deal with the fire by taking the batteries out of the fire alarm!

    Reply
    • bwaghorn 3.1
      8 March 2023 at 5:45 pm

      I think you'll find carbon farming by foreign polluters is the biggest immediate risk to rural nz ,especially sheep and beef,

      Followed very closely by the cc

      Reply
      • Graeme 3.1.1
        9 March 2023 at 7:43 am

        Think it's more that sheep, and beef in a lot of country, has such pitiful profitability that it's the cheapest land available for forestry.

        If farmers were getting a couple of hundred a lamb and got more for your wool than it cost to shear the sheep they wouldn't be selling (read the bank / financier made them sell) to the forestry companies. This isn’t a recent occurrence and previously productive, but really not that profitable, land has been more profitable, and arguably sustainable in trees since the start.

        Is NI high country sheep an industry or a lifestyle?

        Reply
      • That_guy 3.1.2
        9 March 2023 at 9:26 am

        I think you'll find that I was talking about horticulture and that I never claimed any expertise in sheep & beef farming. So I think you're correcting a point I didn't make about an industry I didn't claim expertise in.

        Reply
  4. Ad 4
    8 March 2023 at 11:55 am

    Most arterial and highway upgrades do this already.

    I'm struggling to find one that doesn't.

    We'll just lose Ak and Welly light rail, but Jack up the subsidies.

    Reply
  5. Nic the NZer 5
    8 March 2023 at 12:55 pm

    Good post.

    I think the question is why the policy shift occurred and is it significant and meaningful regarding Labour govt thinking.

    The actual economic questions around mitigation vs adaptation are if either of these activities are having real impacts. Is the country in a position where light rail and cycle ways are taking resources from the rebuild, anyway? Or are the resources available to progress both projects at once? And of course there is the question of how much these projects pay off in net emissions reductions over their lives.

    Unfortunately I get the impression that a fiscal forecast likely cancelled some projects which were otherwise environmentally desirable.

    Reply
    • weka 5.1
      8 March 2023 at 1:02 pm

      cycleways etc aren't simply environmentally desirable though. They're economically essential. Existentially too if we are looking at the whole picture.

      The other question that I don't see being asked is what's the economic cost of rebuild if the rebuild gets trashed by another cyclone next year? Or another 2 – 3 cyclones in the next decade?

      Rather than rebuilding, we could be transitioning. People are talking about managed retreat of individual houses, and some suburbs. Are we ready to talk about retiring some roads yet? Or changing their usage, and adjusting to that?

      Some will react to that, but I can think of a road near Oamaru that's already fallen into the sea some years ago (might be a decade or so now). People adapted. Adaptation within a transition framework means people/communities don't get left to manage that alone. We look at how to support people to build resilience.

      Reply
  6. Ad 6
    8 March 2023 at 1:18 pm

    When does new draft NLTP come out?

    That will tell us the priority shift in reality.

    Reply
  7. Maurice 7
    9 March 2023 at 7:08 am

    Time for a new message?

    Dear establishment, realise we’ve had enough of your sh*t and no one trusts you.

    Stop digging.

    Reply
  8. Jenny are we there yet 8
    9 March 2023 at 7:17 am

    Think you can adapt to the effects of global climate change.

    Is like thinking you can adapt to the effects of global nuclear war.

    Climate change adapters may think they are prepared to give up coastal areas to rising seawaters, and coastal storm surges?

    But are they prepared to retreat from our inland waterways as well?

    Lake levels are rising across the world and climate change is to blame

    Water levels at lakes in East Africa are rising alarmingly fast, flooding homes and farmland and displacing people. It is an unanticipated consequence of global warming – and it is being repeated around the globe

    By Graham Lawton 28 February 2023

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25734280-400-lake-levels-are-rising-across-the-world-and-climate-change-is-to-blame/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2023-03-01-Lake-levels-ris

    We won't be spared.

    Rain could bring record lake and river levels for Waikato, major roadworks postponed ahead of storm

    Matthew Martin10:19, Feb 12 2023

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300804820/rain-could-bring-record-lake-and-river-levels-for-waikato-major-roadworks-postponed-ahead-of-storm

    How far inland will we have to go?

    Climate change adapters may think they understand climate change. But they don't.

    Climate change posing 'existential threat to human civilisation' and time is running out

    In the news on 28 February, 2022

    This article discusses the threats posed by climate change as outlined in the latest report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The article includes a quote from Swenja Surminski on the need for businesses and governments to plan with climate change in mind….

    https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/climate-change-posing-existential-threat-to-human-civilisation-and-time-is-running-out/

    We can build higher and higher sea walls and river stopbanks, We can retreat further and further inland. We can rebuild our infrastructure, again and again, until we can't.
    Permanently impassable roads, overloaded storm water systems, wrecked power lines, communication outages, Water treatment and reticulation systems beyond repair.

    Having to boil your drinking water over a pile of gathered twigs and leaves. Think you can adapt to that?

    We need to pull on the emergency cord slamming on the air brakes on BAU and seriously cutting our emissions right here right now is our only hope.

    Reply
    • Maurice 8.1
      9 March 2023 at 7:24 am

      Seriously cutting our emissions can only leave us at the present level of CO2 and deprive us of the only present energy source readily available to us for any transition. To make any appreciable changes will force use of even MORE fossil fuels or real collapse right now – not in a hundred years.

      That is the brutally real cleft stick we are currently trapped in!

      Reply
      • weka 8.1.1
        9 March 2023 at 9:28 am

        I suspect you are thinking BAU vs green BAU. We have other choices for transition that involved smaller amounts of FFs and dropping GHGs much faster. Powerdown and degrowth are both options soon on the table.

        Reply
    • weka 8.2
      9 March 2023 at 9:27 am

      Jenny, please stop scaremongering. You are messing with the most important messaging, which is that we have to mitigate and adapt (both), and that they are two sides of the same coin. eg when people on the East Coast build a new house, that house should be built for both mitigation and adaptation. Do you know what that means? This is what the post is about.

      Reply
      • Jenny are we there yet 8.2.1
        9 March 2023 at 1:39 pm

        weka

        9 March 2023 at 9:27 am

        ….we have to mitigate and adapt

        OK. Let's talk about mitigation and adaption.

        What is an example of climate mitigation vs adaptation?

        Climate adaptation vs. mitigation: What's the difference, and why does it matter?

        The Climate Reality Project, November 7, 2019

        ….We can’t adapt our way out of this crisis — especially not with the absolutely unprecedented rate of change we’re seeing now. Truly solving the climate crisis calls for mitigation….

        ….If adaptation is pouring water out to stay afloat in the moment, sealing the leak to halt more water coming in is mitigation. In other words, it's addressing the root cause of the problem rather than dealing with its effects.

        https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-adaptation-vs-mitigation-why-does-it-matter#:~:text=If%20adaptation%20is%20pouring%20water,than%20dealing%20with%20its%20effects.

        I would argue that in the wake of this climate disaster the government are doing neither mitigation nor adaption.

        .

        The government have established a cyclone recovery taskforce, and appointed Grant Robertson as Cyclone Recovery Minister to head it.

        ….A new cyclone recovery taskforce headed by Sir Brian Roche and with regional groups, modelled partly on a Queensland taskforce established after their floods, will be set up. Terms of reference for the taskforce will be made public in coming days.

        A new Cabinet committee will be established to take decisions relevant to the recovery, chaired by Grant Robertson, who will also take on the new role of Cyclone Recovery Minister, with Barbara Edmonds appointed as an associate minister….

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/cyclone-gabrielle-cyclone-recovery-minister-grant-robertson-announces-40000-grants-for-hard-hit-businesses/H4CQYJF765H4DH7FMRWJGT4MMQ/

        The government have not appointed a taskforce and a Minister for for Cyclone Adaption.

        Semantics you say?

        There is a difference between adaptation and recovery.

        Recovery, is clearing away the silt and slash and wreckage and pushing it into landfills.

        Recovery, is rebuilding wrecked bridges and highways,

        Recovery, is repairing all the damaged river stopbanks, in some cases building them even higher.

        Recovery is repairing all the sewers, water mains and power lines.

        Recovery is reconnecting all the communities isolated from power sewerage water and communication infrastructure.

        That is what we are doing. None of this is adaption to climate change. In fact, it is its opposite, it is ignoring climate change.

        Recovery is hoping another once in a hundred year cyclone doesn't happen next year.

        Adaption is different.

        Adaption is Red Zoning all the flood damaged areas, and rewilding them.

        Adaption is demolishing all the damaged bridges and roads and stopbanks and letting the rivers take their natural course.

        Adaption is abandoning all the flood damaged farms and orchards and townships and putting them into permanent native forest locked up in perpetuity as a carbon sink..

        Adaption to climate change is staging a managed retreat from all flood prone coastal areas and river plains.

        Recovery would make sense, if we were doing something to prevent it recurring again. But we are not.

        Instead we are postponing what meagre mitigation efforts we are making to cut our greenhouse emissions to concentrate on recovery. (Not adaption).

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/government-u-turns-on-transport-plan-blaming-cyclone/CSULJ23GYZH4NFRC2HD2AUANEI/

        Look Weka I apologise if you think I was messing with your message.

        But in the wake of this disaster when the government should be doubling down on adaption and mitigation the government are not doing adaption and have postponed mitigation. That's pretty messed up in my opinion, when they should be doing the opposite.

        You also accuse me of scaremongering. Dare I mention all the deaths and devastation we witnessed in Hastings and Auckland?

        In my opinion, if you are not scared of climate change you don't understand the enormity of what is happening to our world.

        What scares you most about climate change?

        BY Liz Mineo Harvard Staff Writer

        DATEApril 22, 2020

        To mark Earth Day’s 50th anniversary, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Gazette contacted experts on climate change, the environment, and sustainability to ask them about their global-warming fears. Here are their answers…..

        https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/harvard-experts-discuss-climate-change-fears/

        Reply
  9. jay11 9
    9 March 2023 at 7:44 am

    A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when, in pursuing progress through human ingenuity, they inadvertently introduce problems that they do not have the resources or the political will to solve for fear of short-term losses in status, stability or quality of life. This prevents further progress and sometimes leads to societal collapse.

    We are in an insoluble predicament either way and the outlook is bleak. We've had our party and now the reckoning.

    Reply
    • weka 9.1
      9 March 2023 at 9:30 am

      or, we can use sustainability design and degrowth to transition to different kinds of societies that take the risks of the progress trap into account. The main problems we have currently aren't technological, they're political and social, and revolve around people not seeing the other choices available.

      Reply
  10. arkie 10
    9 March 2023 at 9:35 am

    The costs of inaction are manifold:

    Climate change is, unavoidably, a mental health issue. Appropriate responses to eco-anxiety – and all forms of climate-related distress – require us to see it as simultaneously political and personal.

    “The messages around ‘living green,’ are often not helpful, because they’re so individualist – they say that if you purchase the right things, there’s a solution. But if you don’t have the money for that, it feels like there is nothing you can do,” says Silvia Purdie, a counsellor who is a member of Ora Taiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council. The power to make sustainable decisions and respond to the climate crisis is also not distributed equally. An over-focus on individual climate action can distract from the systemic drivers of climate problems, creating a sense of hopelessness.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/09-03-2023/good-climate-policy-is-good-mental-health-policy-too

    Together we can hold those with decision-making power to account:

    The results showed that nearly two-thirds of the major industrial greenhouse gas emissions (from fossil fuel use, methane leaks, and cement manufacture) originated in just 90 companies around the world, which either emitted the carbon themselves or supplied carbon ultimately released by consumers and industry. As Heede told The Guardian newspaper, you could take all the decision-makers and CEOs of these companies and fit them on a couple Greyhound buses.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/just-90-companies-are-blame-most-climate-change-carbon-accountant-says

    Reply
  11. Jenny are we there yet 11
    9 March 2023 at 1:47 pm

    We have had a shocking wake up call. Adaption is like pushing the snooze button. Recovery is like pulling the clock plug out of the wall.

    We need to cut our emissions, ‘Right Here, Right Now!’

    Close Huntly

    Ban coal imports and exports

    Make carbon targets enforceable

    Nationwide fare free public transport

    Enact Greenpeace plan for agriculture

    Move freight from roads to rail and coastal shipping

    What are we doing instead? Postponing even the meagre climate action we were committed to.

    adaptation

    /ˌadəpˈteɪʃn/

    noun

    '….the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.'

    Right here, Right Now, Right here, right now.

    Fear, fear, fear, fear….

    Reply
    • Maurice 11.1
      9 March 2023 at 2:49 pm

      Close Huntly

      And have brownouts when the renewable load fails to provide an alternative?

      Ban coal imports and exports

      Replace coal with what – right now?

      Make carbon targets enforceable

      Who makes the targets? Who enforces them? And how?

      Nationwide fare free public transport

      Who pays for that? Almost ALL powered by FF – right now. Oh – and where are all the new bus drivers – right now?

      Enact Greenpeace plan for agriculture

      Hear the farmers grinding their teeth (even more than now) and sharpening pitch forks?

      Move freight from roads to rail and coastal shipping

      Bit difficult given the run down state of both and the huge costs of upgrading both in time and cost …. mostly run by FF – right now

      [you’re banned from my posts on climate, because I don’t allow climate denial under my posts. See https://thestandard.org.nz/the-climate-fight/#comment-1930602 Stay out of this and future posts. Comments from now on will be deleted. – weka]

      Reply
      • Jenny are we there yet 11.1.1
        9 March 2023 at 6:49 pm

        I have never maintained that it would be easy. But I do maintain that it is necessary.

        Our society and civilisation is at war with the natural world – And we are losing.

        If you are in a war, (and we are), and we want to regain the initiative, we will have to make sacrifices, sometimes even grave sacrifices.

        Brown outs? Yes.

        Rationing? Yes

        Labour shortages? Yes

        Costly? Yes

        Beyond us? I don't believe so.

        Will these sacrifices and cost be worth it? When you consider what is at stake, – Definitely.

        And these sorts of hardships, are they endurable? I believe they are.
        .
        And I put it to you Maurice that these hardships are nothing to the hardships those in the affected zones here and our Pacific neighbours have suffered and are enduring, now. And as the climate crisis worsens, if we fail in cutting our emssions these hardships will deepen and become more generalised, more deadly and more widespread, so much so that we will regret we never made the sacrifices and endured the hardships and expense that you have acknowledged as the cost of saving lives and preventing biosphere collapse.

        Did I hear you say Maurice, that it will take blood sweat toil and tears? I think I did.

        Reply
      • weka 11.1.2
        9 March 2023 at 7:47 pm

        mod note.

        Reply
      • Jenny are we there yet 11.1.3
        10 March 2023 at 9:45 am

        Personally speaking, I don't think Maurice is a climate denier per se. He was just outlining why this government, won't take any meaningful measures that would actually cut green house gas emissions.

        Except for the brief blip during the covid lockdowns, this government has actually overseen annual quarterly rises in our greenhouse gas emissions.

        In the worst climate disaster to hit during this administration's tenure, instead of seeing this as a reason to increase action on climate change, has used this disaster as an excuse to postpone what little mitigation it had promised.

        .https://thestandard.org.nz/triangulating-climate-change/#comment-1938375

        Reply
    • Jenny are we there yet 11.2
      11 March 2023 at 3:43 pm

      "I'm #1 So why try harder" Fat Boy Slim – Right Here, Right Now

      Reply
  12. Maurice 12
    9 March 2023 at 1:55 pm

    " … revolve around people not seeing the other choices available."

    Or rejecting them as unacceptable and unbelievable?

    Reply
    • Drowsy M. Kram 12.1
      9 March 2023 at 3:36 pm

      What if the ecologists had something else to do than to annoy you?
      [26 May 2022]
      The changes desired by the ecologists are sometimes assimilated to punitive ecology or to an attack on freedoms. Let’s take the problem another way: how will your freedoms be in a world with +2°C of global warming? At 50°C in France in the summer, you will be more free? Are you sure you know what +2°C on a global scale represents?
      …
      Let’s repeat it: there is enough wealth in France for all French people to have decent housing, heating, and proper food. If this is not the case, it is because some people have made choices and are maintaining these situations.

      Some still seem to believe that climate change mitigation would be an unacceptable and/or unbelievable infringement on their freedums.

      Questioning Climate Change [28 February 2023]
      …Labour has pushed the country too far down the climate mitigation rabbit hole…

      Extraordinary.

      He doesn’t seem to understand that “climate change” is a Trojan Horse that is being used by the left to undermine the free market economy

      Quite extraordinary – expect more of this frankly bizarre denialism in election year.

      Newman and Pugh, Chris Baillie (ACT), and VFF are a ‘good’ fit. And now, a scientist:

      Climate scientists are desperate: we’re crying, begging and getting arrested [6 April 2022]
      I hate being the Cassandra. I’d rather just be with my family and do science. But I feel morally compelled to sound the alarm. By the time I switched from astrophysics into Earth science in 2012, I’d realized that facts alone were not persuading world leaders to take action. So I explored other ways to create social change, all the while becoming increasingly concerned. I joined Citizens’ Climate Lobby. I reduced my own emissions by 90% and wrote a book about how this turned out to be satisfying, fun, and connecting. I gave up flying, started a website to help encourage others, and organized colleagues to pressure the American Geophysical Union to reduce academic flying. I helped organize FridaysForFuture in the US. I co-founded a popular climate app and started the first ad agency for the Earth. I spoke at climate rallies, city council meetings, and local libraries and churches. I wrote article after article, open letter after open letter. I gave hundreds of interviews, always with authenticity, solid facts, and an openness to showing vulnerability. I’ve encouraged and supported countless climate activists and young people behind the scenes. And this was all on my personal time and at no small risk to my scientific career.

      Nothing has worked. It’s now the eleventh hour and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity. I feel deep grief over the loss of forests and corals and diminishing biodiversity. But I’ll keep fighting as hard as I can for this Earth, no matter how bad it gets, because it can always get worse. And it will continue to get worse until we end the fossil fuel industry and the exponential quest for ever more profit at the expense of everything else. There is no way to fool physics.

      And a physicist-turned-ecologist:

      Global Warming: Why the problem is worse – and solutions simpler – than you thought [22 June 2022]
      "There is no question that the course we have been on for the last 60 years will lead to a crash," he said. "But the alternative future is the careful transition to what we call a soft landing … where we need less than one Earth to support what we do on Earth."

      Reply
    • weka 12.2
      9 March 2023 at 5:36 pm

      Or rejecting them as unacceptable and unbelievable?

      Lots of people are blind, some wilfully so. You feel stuck in a cleft stick, but reject options without exploring them?

      Reply
  13. adam 13
    10 March 2023 at 12:14 am

    Weka,

    In the first 1min and a bit of this coffee guy I like, he does a really good job of explaining what needs to be done about the climate crisis. Simple clear and right to the point.

    The rest of the video it's about how somthing can sound Green but is not really.

    Reply
    • weka 13.1
      10 March 2023 at 8:29 am

      Is that the right link? He doesn't really talk about climate that much in the first two minutes other than saying we need system change rather than focusing on individual actions.

      Reply
      • Jenny are we there yet 13.1.1
        10 March 2023 at 10:32 pm

        This is a coffee guy talking about coffee, that's his thing. And it is obviously what his video is about. His coffee loving audience have flooded his inbox querying an industry claim that coffee capsules are better for the climate, 'Allegedly' coffee capsules use less energy to make a standard cup of coffee, so create less carbon emissions, than ground coffee or instant coffee, I think many people in particular coffee drinkers are appalled at the mountain of one use disposable waste of coffee capsules. Something that the coffee capsule people are obviously trying to counter with their claim that coffee capsules are sustainable after all, or at least more sustainable than the other coffee alternatives.

        That is what this video is about. I had to get that out of the way.

        But coffee guy does briefly touch on something that I have been convinced about for a long time. That is; Individual lifestyle choices are not going to solve the climate crisis.

        Starting at 0:48 minutes:

        …The whole idea of your personal carbon footprint was invented by British Petroleum to kinda make you feel bad and take the pressure off them.

        You through better actions alone in your home in your daily life, cannot fundamentally mitigate the problem of the climate crisis. We should do better and waste less, I one hundred percent agree with that. But we need fundamental change at a much higher level to really stave off the climate crisis we are in.

        Personally I hadn't heard that BP had invented the concept of personal carbon footprint. A pretty extraordinary claim to make, and I wouldn't have minded some sort of citation.

        But I agree with his point. Because what I know for sure is that beginning in the '90s when climate change first made it into the public discourse, it was always framed as being all our personal fault, 'You are the bad person that drives a car, you consume electricity generated in Huntly, it's your fault." The purpose of this messaging is to leave us feeling guilty and disempowered. Those really responsible for climate change, even today when the crisis is hitting, are running ads on TV screaming at us to buy the biggest latest roomiest fossil fuel burning turbo charged SUV, meanwhile in the corridors of power their highly paid lobbyists are pressuring government ministers to increase spending on roading and cut spending on public transport.

        And we can see their handiwork paying off as the government does a “U-Turn” on climate mitigation at a time when they should be doubling down on it.

        https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/03/06/u-turn-on-emissions-focused-transport-plan-focus-on-cyclone-recovery/

        Reply
  14. Jenny are we there yet 14
    11 March 2023 at 8:52 pm

    We aren't adapting,. We aren't mitigating. We have learnt nothing from this disaster. We are spending $13 billion on recovering, so that we can get smacked again, and each time the blow will be harder until we can't recover anymore.

    Reply
    • Robert Guyton 14.1
      13 March 2023 at 7:58 pm

      "We have learnt nothing from this disaster."

      That cannot be true, Jenny.

      Our leaders are not stupid.

      Reply
      • Jenny are we there yet 14.1.1
        13 March 2023 at 11:08 pm

        That's a good point. They are not stupid and they are not corrupt. But there are just some things they just can't do, no matter how much the circumstances warrant it, And that is interrupt the flow of profits by regulating the polluters.

        Politics is all about pressure and the pressure from the oil companies the auto industry, the roading lobby and for BAU on our political class is immense. Only a mass protest movement can put a counter pressure on our MPs, to create the political allow our politicians to follow their conscience and do what their intellect tell them must be done.

        Reply
        • Jenny are we there yet 14.1.1.1
          13 March 2023 at 11:25 pm

          Jacinda Ardern who dared regulate business who interrupted the flow of profits to save lives during the pandemic for her efforts was brought down by an intense pressure campaign.

          Politics is pressure and no one is immune.

          Just imagine the pressure campaign that would be mounted on any politician who dared to regulate the polluters to save the biosphere.

          Reply
  15. Jenny are we there yet 15
    25 March 2023 at 8:23 am

    '

    Adapt this;

    …What started as a gradual, insidious process – around half a metre of land falling into the lake yearly – has escalated. In the last two years, those nibbles have become bites, and the community has lost large chunks of the foreshore….

    ….That change has not happened over the whole 50 years; Much of it has happened in a year or two. After back-to-back storms, the foreshore resembles a war zone; toppled trees cover what used to be beaches, and dirty rocks and stones litter the grass.

    While surveying the foreshore, Salmon comes across a large beech tree that has tumbled into the water. Its branches, she says, used to glow with light from sinking sunsets; Now it lies gnarled and broken under a grey sky.

    “It sort of epitomises the problem,” she says.

    …..The second reason to manage the lake level is to control Waikato River's flow. Several communities along the river are vulnerable to flooding, which can be mitigated by holding back water in the lake….

    ….“We manage Lake Taupō’s storage to ensure that we can supply renewable electricity for Kiwis,” says Phil Gibson, Mercury’s general manager of portfolio.

    “The other role the hydro system plays is to protect communities from the extreme effects of droughts and flooding.

    “It’s a whole-of-catchment thing, and it is turning up – for residents in parts of Lake Taupō – with erosion effects.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300829857/the-idyllic-community-being-eaten-away-by-the-electricity-market

    And this is not a problem just related to this country but a world wide phenomenon, resulting from, you guessed it climate change. (a factor that got ignored in the Stuff report about rising Lake Taupa water levels).

    Lake levels are rising across the world and climate change is to blame

    Water levels at lakes in East Africa are rising alarmingly fast, flooding homes and farmland and displacing people. It is an unanticipated consequence of global warming – and it is being repeated around the globe

    By Graham Lawton 28 February 2023

    https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25734280-400-lake-levels-are-rising-across-the-world-and-climate-change-is-to-blame/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2023-03-01-Lake-levels-ris

    Right here, right now.

    How can the Prime MInister justify canceling any climate mitigation measures?

    When he should be adding more climate change mitigation measures, how can the Prime Minister make vague promises about putting the money from the cancelled programs into some better programs at some unspecified time and date?

    .https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24-03-2023/#comment-1940559

    Reply

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