The Daily Blog Open Mic – Sunday 15th January 2017

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openmike

 

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

 

 

5 COMMENTS

  1. For those of us with children who look likely to grow up in a world much worse than the one we inherited; A global effort must be made.

    To be able combat Climate Change no less than a global World War II sized effort is required!

    Nothing less than a Rapid Global Mobilisation, of a size, and scale, and speed, of the global mobilisation that was necessary to defeat fascism.

    The WWII strategy has the utility of already having been successfully achieved.
    The WWII strategy also has the benefit of hindsight, to inform us on how this global mobilization was achieved.

    The first lesson of history;

    The United Nations, like its predecessor the League of Nations, is failing.

    Just as in the past, and just as now, multinational organisations and conventions are proving themselves not to be up to the task of mobilising the world to act on climate change.

    Now, just as in the past, endless rounds of high profile meetings by world leaders and politicians, despite achieving consensus that something should be done, apart from agreeing on high sounding resolutions that something should be done, and even issuing dire warnings of what will happen if nothing is done, achieved little in mobilizing the world against the threat.

    (A process we are seeing being repeated today).

    What really set the world in action to mobilise globally, was when one sole country acting unilaterally set the pace.
    (And this is how it will be done again. And in fact is how all global political change is achieved)

    It required Britain, under the militant leadership of Winston Churchill, to unilaterally declare war on Nazi Germany to spur the rest of the world to take sides, and to mobilise. Previously, before this lead from Britain, most nations were preparing to capitulate or make their peace with the Nazis.

    In lieu of any other country mobilising against Climate Change, on the scale necessary to catch the world’s attention and give a lead.
    New Zealand, in my opinion, is well placed to be that global leader.
    (New Zealand has taken this role before, universal suffrage, the welfare state, anti-nuclear, anti-apartheid, are some of the global campaigns that New Zealand has spearheaded)

    New Zealand is a high latitude, raised ocean island nation, in the middle a large temperature buffering Southern Ocean.
    New Zealand’s unique geography and location, plus having the benefit of being a fully developed First World nation, make New Zealand the most optimal place in the world to weather the worst effects of climate change.

    In my opinion this ‘optimal status’, where we of all humanity will be the least negatively affected by the consequences of unchecked Climate Change, means that we have a moral imperative and duty to act!

    So how should we go about it?

    New Zealanders need to make the 2017 a Climate change year.
    Climate Change needs to be made an election issue in this year’s New Zealand General elections.

    How can we as activists achieve that?

    The first thing we need to do is to get rid of the ruling National Government and Opposition Labour Party consensus on deep sea oil drilling.

    Nationally just as internationaly, leadership is the key.

    To get the Opposition Labour Party to oppose deep sea oil drilling is the vitally necessary first step in fighting climate change in this country. To get the Opposition Labour Party to oppose deep sea oil drilling would immediately create a sharp point of difference between the Opposition and the Government, which would then have to be argued out on the hustings and in the TV debates.
    It is my opinion, it is this single issue, and the point of difference it will create between the Opposition parties and the Government, will allow the Opposition parties carry the day in all the debates.
    This is because the arguments for taking action on Climate Change are irrefutable.

    Popular opposition to the current New Zealand Government’s expansion of fossil fuel exploration into the deep waters off the New Zealand coast is a signature issue. Opposition to Deep Sea Oil drilling has become a cause celebre for the New Zealand environmental and Climate Change movement. (much as the XL Pipeline in the US has).
    Polls indicate that 80% of the New Zealand population are opposed to deep sea oil drilling. Polls also indicate that over 50% of New Zealanders want the government to do more on Climate Change.
    These are big figures, much bigger than the favourability percentages of the opposition parties, (which are currently around 35%, compared to the Government’s 50%+ rating.)

    The opposition parties need to take note, and champion the cause of stopping deep sea oil exploration, as the first salvo in the war against Climate Change, and deliver a defeat to the conservative National Government, which is hell bent on expanding the fossil fuel economy.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10822510

    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/01/shane_jones_wins_the_battle_over_oil_drilling_in_labour.html

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0709/S00227.htm

    http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

    “People say “this is a Manhattan Project, this an Apollo Project”. Sorry, those are science projects. Fusion is a Manhattan Project or an Apollo Project… The rest of this is more like retooling for World War II, except with everyone playing on the same team.”

    Saul Griffith,
    on converting the world to clean energy

    Climate change is the problem of our time, it’s everyone’s problem, and most of our problem-solvers are assuming that someone else will solve it.
    I’m grateful to one problem-solver, who wrote to ask for specifics —
    “How do you think the tech community (startup community, or any community) can contribute to tech and/or policy solutions on a global scale?”
    the scale and rate of change required is often unappreciated. Saul Griffith has a good bit about this, suggesting that what’s needed is not throwing up a few solar panels, but a major industrial shift comparable to retooling for World War II.
    In 1940 through 1942, U.S. war-related industrial production tripled each year. That’s over twice as fast as Moore’s law.
    In order to avoid the more catastrophic climate scenarios, global production and adoption of clean energy technology will have to scale at similar rates — but continuously for 15 years or more.
    The catalyst for such a scale-up will necessarily be political. But even with political will, it can’t happen without technology that’s capable of scaling, and economically viable at scale.
    As technologists, that’s where we come in.*

    The techniques and the precedent are there. What is missing is the political will to implement them.

    to create that missing political will.
    As political activists that’s where we come in.

    *(my added emphasis)

  2. Like with most political decisions the world over – ‘at the end of the day’ it is usually the children who end up having to deal with consequences of it all.

  3. More of the same won’t fix the problem.

    WWII wasn’t that simple. Motivations including planned greed by a inner few are not included in common history accounts. UN has potential except one of the big players is an aggressive nest of warmongers.

    Energy is not being linked with the consequences of our high and increasing energy harvest.

    To stop the ongoing global damage being wrought, firstly we need to decrease our energy harvest and use and progressively use less. “Free ” energy is not the answer but would become an even bigger problem.

    The reductionism is appalling assuming energy use is not directly entwined with Non Renewable Natural Resource depletion, pollution, population expansion and global soil depletion.

    Any high energy use based culture is not only not sustainable but is destructive to the planet as a place to live.

    Economist gloss over any in depth analysis of world systems. Their dogma is a lame excuse to disregard essential change and carry on with the downward spiral.

    We have no hope as long as the Market rulz.

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