The right to strike for their future

Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, March 8th, 2019 - 25 comments
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Good editorial in the DomPost today supporting the students’ strike for their future environment. I can’t say the same for David Farrar opining yesterday on National radio they should strike at the weekend! For another lesson in patronising, watch Senator Feinstein meet young ones in California

25 comments on “The right to strike for their future ”

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  1. AB 1
    8 March 2019 at 4:03 pm

    This is excellent vocational training for the kids.
    They get some early exposure to being belittled, condescended to, ignored and ripped off. Just like all those modern, dynamic, fast-paced, results-focused, innovative, work hard/play hard and rewarding workplaces out there in Kiwiland.
    They get an early taste of alienation, absurdity and a feeling of impending doom.
    Well done to their teachers! This is the best training possible for a life in the capitalist death machine.
    “Be a good kid and suck up 3 degrees of warming. Now piss off I’ve got money to make. And it’ll be 4 degrees.”

  2. patricia bremner 2
    8 March 2019 at 4:54 pm

    How do the condescending adults talk to their own families? Do they deny climate change? Will this issue become as divisive as apartheid? Probably. Now like John Key many don’t wish to own the side they were on. That may happen again. Go the young!!
    and supporters.

    • Heather Grimwood 2.1
      8 March 2019 at 9:34 pm

      Agree wholeheartedly Patricia especially with your last sentence. Urgency is the name of the game. I will be with the young people next Friday, and have already written to ODT.

    • Shadrach 2.2
      8 March 2019 at 11:26 pm

      The ‘condescending adults’ could also be teachers filling children’s heads with sensationalist nonsense to rival chicken little.

      • Incognito 2.2.1
        9 March 2019 at 12:46 pm

        In which case a day away from those brainwashing indoctrinating treachers would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?

        • Shadrach 2.2.1.1
          9 March 2019 at 8:19 pm

          Sitting at home listening to some balanced commentary, well yeah.

          • Incognito 2.2.1.1.1
            9 March 2019 at 8:32 pm

            By whom?

            • Shadrach 2.2.1.1.1.1
              9 March 2019 at 8:35 pm

              That’s actually an excellent question. I’m not a denier, but I would like to see some opinion to balance the hysteria around climate impacts. Particularly when we’ve been reading the same short term catastrophic predictions for over 30 years now.

              Edit – https://reason.com/blog/2016/06/14/global-warming-prediction-30-years-later. This is a good balance between denial and alarmism. The article covers some predictions made by James Hansen in 1986, and concludes with this:
              “First, it does no good for the antagonists in the scientific debate over man-made climate change to mischaracterize the views of their opponents. On the other hand, the lower rate of temperature increase suggests that most computer climate models relied upon by Hansen are running far too hot, and future temperature increases may not portend catastrophic changes by the end of this century.”

              • Incognito …
                9 March 2019 at 9:01 pm

                Ok, thanks, but your comment comes across as somewhat conflicted and contradictory. Whose opinion would you consider and based on what? These are not loaded questions.

                To get the ball rolling, I think we all struggle with some of the predictions and the impacts they might have. It feels like somebody warning me that my house could spontaneously combust within the next 30 years. I will still go to bed and sleep well at night. However, when the house is on fire I’ll make sure I get the hell out if [pardon the pun] if it is not too late. Interestingly, people run back into burning houses and buildings to save valuable items (or loved ones). It just shows that our ability to accurately calculate risk is pretty poor and that we act on impulse and emotion more than based on logic and reason.

                • Shadrach …
                  10 March 2019 at 12:00 pm

                  “Whose opinion would you consider and based on what?”
                  My comment “balance between denial and alarmism” is a starting point. Denial defies the known science, alarmism is on the verge of religious fervour armed with little more than emotion and a desire to take mankind back to some kind of pre-industrial lifestyle.

                  “It feels like somebody warning me that my house could spontaneously combust within the next 30 years.”
                  I like your analogy, but here’s one in response. If 30 years ago someone said to me that “my house could spontaneously combust within the next 30 years”, and nothing happened, I would take whatever they said the next time with caution.

                  • Incognito …
                    10 March 2019 at 3:24 pm

                    Very hard if not impossible to judge and distinguish between denial and alarmism without knowing the science well. The scientific arguments can get very very complex very quickly and arguments on the contrary are often not clearly labelled “denialist” or “alarmist”. Many lay-people are not trained well enough to hold a debate based on scientific arguments in general. Unfortunately, they don’t realise it or simply don’t want to accept it.

                    The 30 years are not up yet …

                    It is good to be sceptic of claims especially when made by folks who got it wrong before. However, scientists get things wrong all the time, in fact more often than not, but it is what they do with this that is the telling part.

                    • Shadrach …
                      10 March 2019 at 6:32 pm

                      Yes, indeed. Well said. As for the 30 years not being up, well it is on some fairly catastrophic predictions. Alarmism, catastrophism, whatever we call it, is being used for a political agenda also, and the more people have seen through that, the harder it is to get consensus on meaningful change.

                  • KJT …
                    10 March 2019 at 3:30 pm

                    Well done Shadrack. Totally predictable. As always.

                  • Incognito …
                    11 March 2019 at 11:07 pm

                    Yes, you’re correct that different agendas misuse and abuse the imprecise science. Modelling predictions are never cut & dry; they are estimates and probabilities but this is too vague for many. And then they are hung out to dry when reality turns out to be a little different. The other thing is that (the) science is never settled; the scientific process is very dynamic and the boundaries of our fuzzy knowledge and understanding are always moving, changing, and sometimes disappearing. It is like fractal and can also loop backwards …

                    Indeed, meaningful change is hard to come by when things are more complex than in the movies …

  4. Observer Tokoroa 4
    9 March 2019 at 9:06 am

    Who Cares what Low IQ Radio National promotes !

    It is a shame that our hard earned wages go to a group of slags in Radio New Zealand
    who have not got their heads around Climate Change.

    The Pathetic Fararr – and the Woolly Wallace are way way behind the 8th ball when it comes to anything serious.

    The Protesters worldwide – are telling their Nations to get off their asses and do something for a change. The worldwide Protesters are Students. Way ahead of a stuttering Wallace. Or a Farrar or a stupefying Bridges.

  5. Pat 5
    9 March 2019 at 9:47 am

    “But in New Zealand, and around the world, the grown-ups in charge actually haven’t done enough to deal with climate change, ever since the problem came to our attention some 30 years ago. And now we’ve got these kids getting ready to march in the streets to point that out to us.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/111139469/student-climate-strikes-rules-dont-matter-when-youre-fighting-for-your-future

    Lets hope Shaw is as good as his word with regard to the Zero Carbon Bill…sadly I expect it will be as inadequate and deferred as all that has gone before.

    • greywarshark 5.1
      9 March 2019 at 1:20 pm

      If it looks like passing the Gnats can always find an excuse to stand outside and prevent a quorum or something. Funny eh. The great Dobe-do-be-dos who are always having a go at beneficiaries, lazy hrumph, gasp, spit, and all the time their mantra is be Dr Dolittles.

  6. patricia bremner 6
    9 March 2019 at 10:24 am

    In the end Marshall law will be imposed to get some things over the line. There will be battles with the self interested and the stupidly blind. We don’t have very long to the tipping point. Let us hope we haven’t passed it already.

  7. Jenny - How to get there? 7
    9 March 2019 at 12:33 pm

    “…….David Farrar opining yesterday on National radio they should strike at the weekend!”

    Genius! Yes of course. All strikes should be held on the weekend. Oh, why didn’t we think of this before.

    David Farrar will be sharing his deep insight with the CTU next.

  8. WeTheBleeple 8
    9 March 2019 at 12:53 pm

    We have listened to the leaders who mislead us with their lies
    Those who cheat us and mistreat us as they bleed us dead and dry
    We bear scars borne of their clawing of their drawing from our well
    Won’t you come and drink the water, sons and daughters, it is swell

    In their choppers over mountains fly the men from magazines
    Missiles borne from stock and shoulder driving prey into ravines
    Views of grandeur dwarfed by egos set to set the world on fire
    All the movers and the shakers never slaked some sad desire

    See the children march for mercy, march for sanity, for life
    See the mockers tut tut knockers fucking crock o’ shit right types
    See the parents see their children, see them bow their heads in shame
    See the tides so far subsided, soon to be a tidal wave.