This is why the current NZ Political spectrum will snap…
Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground.
So we can’t save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed.
Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.
So everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience, it is time to rebel.
…the existential threat climate change poses will generate a radicalism in voters that if harnessed will snap the spine of the Parliament.
The current Political spectrum can not move the economy to the war setting required to advance the adaptation of economy and culture necessary to compete with the challenges catastrophic climate change represents.
At some point in the near future, voters incandescent with rage at the snails pace reform will demand radical reform that will be unforgiving in its revolutionary nature. If this vast anger is tapped into and harnessed, a vengeful green populism will swamp the pale lime middle class identity politics obsessed incarnation we currently have and wipe aside Labour Party incrementalism.
It’s not a case of if, it is a case of when.
I certainly do not see many voters that would fall into a category of people who will be willing and ready to rebel for environmental policies. I see the pendulum swinging into the other direction, where deluded people think that humanity and with that the NZ political system will somehow prepare us for a ‘sustainable future’.
And mass delusion it is, that is, what I see, most having NO own experience with growing and processing food, the masses are totally dependent on supermarkets and what they sell, and they also believe, that EVs will be the future alternative, not realising you need to massively increase electricity generation to facilitate this.
Anything considered will also require massive investment, and most governments, including New Zealand’s, will not have enough investment capital available, putting on the printing press to generate money, that will have some undesired consequences down the line.
It’s always darkest before the dawn Marc.
The entire history of Britain and it’s unfortunate colonies is a back and forth fight between power and normal people.
British Kings used to be above the law and gradually their power was whittled away to the point where they are no more than a reality show these days.
The vote has now spread to every ‘common’ adult and even in this neoliberal age things like the health system (which did not exist 100 years ago) are basically untoucheable.
The Labour movement rose and fell several times during the 20th century and even if it isn’t under a Labour banner the common people will rise again – as they are already doing in the UK and USA.
You forget, people want to eat and have a ‘good living standard’. That was given to them in varying degrees after WWs 1 and 2, to keep them quiet and make them happy, in the developed world at least.
But with the appetite that has grown now being unsustainable, with too large human populations only surviving in reliance on fossil fuel energy use, limits to alternative energy and massive infrastructure investments needed within a decade or two, few governments will dare shoulder more debt and so onto the people.
The people may rebel, they may make demands, it will first and foremost for the sake of ensuring bread and butter, clothing, housing, fuel for their cars and so forth, and any environmental concern comes after that, as a ‘nice to have’.
That is where we are trapped, and the dawn you may hope for, it will not come to many, as the human population will not be sustainable, and like rats under stress in a narrow lab environment, they will attack and eat each other, rather than join forces for progress on the environmental front.
If it were different, we would have a fundamentalist Green Party be in government by now, we have not, for the reasons I just stated.
That’s enough to make me want to jump off a cliff – and it’s not very helpful.
I don’t doubt the difficulty of what we face but one thing I know for sure is that if your attitude spreads we really are doomed.
History is full to the brim with examples where normal people overthrew rulers and made things better – usually as the result of a crisis. Also, all around the world right now people that never make the news are working away doing positive things for the world, working against the tide and proving that we should have hope.
Maybe there’s only a slim chance we’ll get out of this mess but if we’re 100% convinced there’s no hope we won’t even see that chance when it presents itself
It will be even more difficult in future under communist Chinese rule.
I’m not entirely joking.
Apart from a tiny true green element I find green voters to be mostly hypocrites:
> Worried about global warming but own a Volvo SUV
> Worried about Global warming sitting in a business class seat heading to Europe
> Concerned about hunger in the 3rd world but anti the GMO foods that can improve their nutrition
> Prefers bullshit organic food that takes up more resources to produce it
> Claims solidarity with the masses but their kids go to private schools
> Lives in Grey Lynn and owns a Colin McCahon
You know the type! 😉
Andrew – those are the blue-greens. You now – that tiny, tiny group of people tasked with making National look ‘environmentally friendly’ and con the punters out there in voter-land by doing so.
Sure they are!
The greatest hypocrites are well off, possibly real estate property or other kinds of millionaires, and they preach that everybody could be the same, no matter that this is impossible, as resources are finite and not every human could live like the wasteful rick pricks that you may represent on this now too small planet.
Sure they are Andrew!
Meanwhile the US is using its proxies like Brazil and Columbia to surround Venezuela and overthrow its government so they can get to all that oil and burn, burn, burn it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUKNg6X26x4&feature=share
Spot on champ, the sooner the better. It will be a heartfelt revolution like nothing before which will be led by radicals, survivalists & visionaries from the left, right & centre. I’m not ashamed to admit that this is the only sane & viable option left in an insane, soulless PC world led by toothless tinkerers & half hearted liberal reformers. There will pain & sacrifice but let’s just get on with it.
‘Labour Party incrementalism’
Surely you remember what happened in 1984, Martyn?
The Act cuckoos in the Labour nest – with an agenda – Huge changes forced through quickly, under the proviso – keep it moving quickly; don’t give them (the poor and naive people of NZ) a chance to think or fight back. Destroy their humanity. Prebble, Douglas, Moore, Bassett, Caygill and the fluent but naive Lange. And that’s what those bastards did. They stole Labour’s mana and Kiwis’ humanity. I shall never forgive them.
The internet later would have showed us all that this was a global attack on many countries to control and influence and steal resources. That worked like a dream. Bilderbergers was the link as far as I am concerned and now the International Democrat Union – Jkeyll, the chair.
What I don’t understand is why every NZer didn’t follow politics, as I then did, from then on, distrusting the greed of alt right MPs (in ANY party) entering parliament to pad their own bank accounts and help their lobbyist mates.
It’s still happening. It has always happened in National, and they boast about their attacks on those without an empowered voice.
So, Labour needs to root it out in their own ranks, before people still angry, ANGRY, about the past, begin to judge them on it. I understand that anger.
But, as far as I can see Martyn (and Chris Trotter), you want Labour to do everything in one, maybe one and a half years). Now, You’re both being naive. With the dirty politics and the attack squads of the alt right, it may almost seem that you are seeking to destroy Labour.
National had the money and the PERHAPS (I was forced to say that) self-interested celebs like McCaw and Peter Leach to influence National’s disease of dirty politics upon NZers. (Spare me the crap about how lovely they are; they are a brand and out to make their own fortune.) What creatures will National use in 2020 to spin to the people?
What have you done to mobilise youth and activists to spread throughout NZ, telling the truth about what National/Act really is? Oh, some blog posts. That’s only going to play into greed’s hands – that just happened with Bryce Edwards using The Standard to attack Labour, through ‘Bill’s post (another hater of Labour). Great going.
My question to you: What do you expect to get into Government, then? I suggest, with the gross uninformed and self-interested citizens of NZ, you’ll end up back with National and then I will never forgive You.
Leitch – perhaps I was trying to say Leech and ended up somewhere in the middle – who knows…
Political structures, parties and their programmes, do usually change, appear and disappear, with the socio-economic fundamentals on which they are built.
Beyond party horizons, an economic production process that internalizes gains and profits, and externalizes damages and loss, maintains to occupy the driving seat.
Climatic changes are the forceful global effects created from an excessive and overly exploitative mode of economic production.
A public disinformation machinery decorating the exploitative nature of the economic process is capable of manipulating opinions and modulating perceived reality to all sorts of odd appearances. Confusing cause and effects.
Sufficient building blocks for alternative pathways are known and can be made available. Their practical recognition often faces ignorance, reluctance, misconception or resistance.
Priority policies are required for:
• A fiscal system that gradually ensures coverage of cost for damage and loss through product and service prices, economic values and valuables, and financial budgets.
• Integrated climate change adaptation initiatives targeting coastal zones, vulnerable geographical regions, rural areas with high probability of negative climatic impacts. Focus on agro-ecological land use, integrated water management, protection and climate-proofing of relevant assets and infrastructure, small enterprise development.
• Local institutional capacities for disaster risk reduction, prevention, preparation and responses to climate induced calamities and other geo-hazards. Community-based initiatives that assure engagement of poor and vulnerable groups.
The NZ Green Party may need extra-parliamentary ‘green’ help to get things going (faster).
We are living in the Age of Consequences. But most people still think they are living in the Age if Entitlement.
NZ will ‘snap’ when it cannot import the oil it needs to maintain current dominant memes.
EXACTLY!
That’ all very interesting Mr Bradbury but what does it mean for residential property prices?
Prices for land and buildings in exposed locations will drop, especially if no measures of “climate proofing” are undertaken (also for protecting the public infrastructure in the concerned area, e.g. schools, hospitals, roads and water related infrastructure). Simultaneously, the value of land in less vulnerable locations will increase.
Pending on the strength of the impact from climate change, or from another geo-hazard, a dynamic process of devaluation, appreciation and revaluation evolves in the affected location.
In principle, the different facets of these counter-acting but nonetheless complementary economic forces provide opportunities for managing the overall process, if an appropriate fiscal and regulatory system does exist.
Existing land-use planning and zoning parameters may become obsolete and must be replaced by alternative definitions.
A most important, relevant and urgent issue for strategic policy development of Green Parties and potential local ‘green’ actors and supporters, including ratepayers and residents associations, other community and neighbourhood groups.
https://www.curbed.com/2018/10/16/17981244/real-estate-climate-change-infrastructure
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