BTW – the planet is melting

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
22
0

Isaac-Cordal-climate-change-4

With the madness of an orange fascist taking over America, BREXIT backlash, human rights abuses across the ditch, the Pacific being ripped apart and desperation growing in our own country, it’s easy to sometimes forget the biggest story of our lifetime.

The Planet is melting…

NASA: Hottest June on record continues 14-month global heat wave 

The first six months of 2016 were the hottest ever recorded, NASA announced on Tuesday, while Arctic sea ice now covers 40% less of the Earth than it did just 30 years ago.

Temperatures were on average 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average between January and June this year, compared to the late nineteenth century.

In total, the planet has now had 14 consecutive months of the hottest temperatures seen since records began in 1880, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

Australia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Spain were some examples of places where temperatures soared more than a degree above average, as New Zealand had its hottest January to June period since records began.

…the problem is that most of our political, media and business interests are owned by Baby Boomers who won’t live long enough to see the impacts of global warming.

The moment when Gen X and Gen Y outnumber Boomers in the electoral demographics (set to be post 2020 in NZ) will be when the younger generations have the power to force change. Until then recycling is just symbolic.

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22 COMMENTS

  2. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that the IPCC are not only right but *way* too conservative in their estimates, we have a government that have progressed ever-so-slightly from outright climate change denial to weasel-worded climate change minimization. *sigh*

    As reported in the Otago Daily Times:
    http://www.odt.co.nz/node/390895

    >> Last year, Mr English rejected the need to budget for the cost of sea level rise, calling Dr Wright’s report “pretty speculative” in regards to potential sea level rise and its cost.

    Asked again yesterday whether he stood by those comments, he responded, “Yes. Predicting sea level rises and the cost of those rises is an inherently speculative activity.

    “Rather than attempting to quantify the impact of particular risks, the Government focuses on making prudent decisions that take account of all the known risks.

    “The possibility of sea level rises is one of the many risks that local and central government need to keep in mind,” Mr English said. <<

    • Basically although scientists say sea level will rise disastrously English doesn’t believe them and if it does he’ll be long gone. No Worries Mate! 🙂

    • Speaking of probabilities Mr English, what are the chances of NZ going into debt for another tax cut bribe for the electorate to try and re-elect National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party in 2017?

      Good to see the National, ACT, UF and Maori Party going Green by promising to rid NZ of rats, stoats and weasels by 2050.

      Start by getting rid of rats and weasels from the Beehive by 2017.

    • DANYL: According to the IPCCs ‘evidence’, there should have been an ice free Arctic for the last 8 years and millions of climate refugees from the Pacific Islands.

      So their evidence isn’t really worth the paper it’s written on, is it?

      It reminds me of a quote by HL Mencken:

      “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

      • According to the IPCCs ‘evidence’, there should have been an ice free Arctic for the last 8 years and millions of climate refugees from the Pacific Islands.

        Citation, please, Andrw? Not that I’d suggest you’d be making up any old sh*t…

        But, you know…

        You might be making up any old sh*t.

  3. As a baby boomer I think I can say that at least one problem will change shortly. Many of us have sat next to our parents as, having clung to life desperately, they die slowly. I think those who have had this experience will say enough, today is a good day to die. That will relieve a huge down draw on resources especially as most population growth in the developed world is more about living longer rather than breeding more.

    And secondly we do vote, we do engage with the politics of democracy, many of us do care about what happens to our tamariki and moko. We do know how to walk to the shops or cycle. Yes some baby boomers fell for the instant equilibria beloved by neoliberalism but many of us do realise that we do have a duty to consider cross generational justice. We would love to see young people engage. Come on, the other Friday evening I was on a pro popular sovereignty picket outside a Natz event and said remember when we could expect several thousand young people at an event like this on a Friday in Chch and some one said “we were those young people” We are still doing it but we need the young

  4. In a country, run by a government that has the thickest and tightest blinkers on that one can find, most people are simply not getting it, how serious the situation is.

    I have seen NO reduction in cars on the streets, roads and motorways in Auckland, rather the opposite, and many will share this view.

    Talk about bringing in so many electric vehicles over the coming ten or more years, and yesterday announcing the eradication of native bird endangering rodents and so forth, that is all just nice window dressing.

    This government does not do anything for the environment, nothing of substance, and the people do in their vast majority also not get confronted with what is going on, and what disastrous consequences it will have for the whole population, including the economy. We get virtually no serious discussions in the MSM, stuff all serious news reporting on climate change, and weather reports praising the sunshine and warm temperatures we can enjoy.

    It is also hard to believe, that over ten years ago, some seriously discussed getting rid of plastic bags and of one way wrappings and so for grocery items. All such considerations have gone out the window, we simply carry on as if all is well, and as if we can continue wasting, polluting and pillaging as we have done for the last hundred or so years (particularly the last few decades).

    What a disgrace.

  5. The right wing are just showing contempt for the planet and anyone who raises the warnings as just crazy or fear mongers’.

    In their ark they will perish just like the rest of us as the planet.

    It will cease to be habitable with little sustained life beyond six months after the collapse of the relentless rise of carbon dioxide to kill us all.

    http://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/

  6. Climate change is the defining challenge of our time and looks likely to wreck the global economy. The current government is doing nothing meaningful about it; they are yesterday’s men trying to govern for tomorrow. Time to change the government. The obstacle to doing that is Kiwi complacency, and the national obsession with trivia like sport. Until we have a better educated public there will be little real change. And then, would Labour be any better? They seem a bit wishy-washy and conflicted on many issues. Hopefully an alliance with the Greens would force them to do more on climate and also the dodgy TPPA.

  7. if this is in fact man made then a solution can also be man made, like creating an atmosphere that lets heat escape and prevents the sun warming the planet.

    • if this is in fact man made then a solution can also be man made, like creating an atmosphere that lets heat escape and prevents the sun warming the planet.

      Or – and here’s a thought, Dave – we can stop polluting our atmosphere with millions of tonnes of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide. That would be simpler than what you are suggesting.

      Plus, who would pay for your fanciful ideas? The taxpayer?

      And what technology exists that can create the weird idea you are putting forward? Because I’m not aware of it.

  9. I’d like to see John Key, his leading ministers, and other world leaders dragged out of their rest homes to stand trial much like ninety year old Nazis and charged with crimes against humanity for not doing anything to avert climate catastrophe

    • 10 very tired comprehensively debunked arguments. If you keep reading and trotting out this diarrhea for long enough do you think it will magically become true?

      Remember how the people who opposed cigarettes were wrong? How they were harmless. They didn’t cause lung cancer. Oops – so they added filters. They didn’t cause heart attacks. They didn’t cause emphysema or gangrene. Then they made mild and lite and low-tar versions.

      Global warming? Not happening. Oops – it is warming. But it’s not caused by humans. Oops – Ok but the effects of GHGs are overstated. Oops – the models are right. What about the hiatus? Oops, there isn’t any hiatus now as 2015 was the warmest year by a clear margin.

      Even as the people walk ankle deep in sea water in the streets in Florida it isn’t happening.

    • Do you also have ten reasons why we shouldn’t have worried about dumping CFCs into the atmosphere that nearly destroyed our Ozone Layer, Dave?

      You seem very intent on ignoring the problem.

      Is that how you deal with life’s problems – by ignoring them?

      • Pollution of any sort is undesirable, whether it be air, noise, water and so on.

        to think that the activities of man, in 100 years, can alter the planet to the point of alleged destruction, requires a bit more debate and discussion. Knee jerk and dooms day predictions from those with a political agenda do little to assist.

        • Dave, it has happened before, and only recently. Hum,an activity – through the release of CFCs – nearly destroyed our ozone layer.

          And 3.5 billion years ago, micro-organisms changed our entire planetary atmosphere from methane to oxygen.

          There is no “debate” or “discussion”; the world is spherical (slightly oblate), not flat; the solar system does not revolve around Earth; plate tectonics caused continental movement; and yes, human industrialisation; mass-agriculture; and de-forestation have increased Co2, methane, and nitrous oxide in our atmosphere.

          Or maybe NASA, NOAA, and the scientific community are all wrong, and you are right?

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