Greta will not be happy.
So we can add this bullshit climate change bill to the long, long list of u-turns and backdowns by this Government over the last 18months…
The Government’s flagship climate change policy will treat biological methane far more softly than all other greenhouse gas emissions – but still mandates a large reduction.
Biological methane emissions will legally need to be reduced by at least 10 per cent by 2030 and between 24 and 47 per cent by 2050. All other emissions would be reduced to “net zero” by 2050 to limit global warming increases to 1.5C.
Despite the softer approach to methane, which mainly comes from agriculture, the Government has not managed to win the full support of the National Party, although the party is supportive of the main structure of the bill.
Sigh.
They backed down on the Cannabis referendum being binding.
They backed down on the CGT.
Their inquiry backed down on Afghan survivors of war crimes appearing at the inquiry.
They back down on Māori voices being part of the Mental Health inquiry.
They backed down on any meaningful welfare reforms.
By being so soft on methane, the climate bill lacks any real teeth and seeing as this won’t even come into full effect until 2050, (the year when most of the remaining ice will have melted), it seems about as ineffectual as the Greens get.
This is less transformative and more glacial, except there won’t be any glaciers by 2050.
If this legislation was our generations ‘nuclear moment’, America just parked a nuclear ship next to David Lange’s grave and rolled all over him.
Yes I think you are dead right . Those cows have just gotta go . the level of debt on NZ dairy farms is over 4 billion with huge numbers of cows for a low profit margin. Drowning in the nightmare of white gold. And China about to buy out the indebted dairy on the Westcoast. Shocking. New Zealand’s Eco Disney land will go the same way with tourism as a panacea for needing more money and jobs than we need.
We need food, shelter, health support, education and community organised labour to provide those essentials.
More that that is GREED that has endangered the whole system..
Funny you should say that John W – I identified greed as a defining characteristic a wee while back; we may choke to death on materialism and consumerism – and some of our grandchildren may be or may have been upright decent sort of people, but their predecessors have betrayed them.
Don’t worry, if china owns our farms there won’t be any methane emissions penalties imposed.
D J S
I’m not a farmer but just getting rid of the cow’s isn’t a solution. For starters that means getting rid of food which will lead to the sort of chaos that will make us forget about climate change. And given our free market settings I imagine it will be kiwis going hungry while China continues to take our exports.
We also need to distinguish between different types of farming. Factory farming is horrendous every which way you look at it. Conventional farming is better, then there’s organic farming and finally permaculture which looks to have a balanced land use modelled on natural eco systems. If we just measure the methane from the cow it’s the same for each system. If we look at how carbon is sequestered back into the soil for each system there is a big difference.
There are people out there right now working out how to produce food without damaging the environment and we need to be promoting that work rather than getting into a battle with Federated Farmers.
We’ve also got to remember that there is such a huge emotional component to our eating which means we risk massive alienation of the population if we push too hard – which is why I think attempts to force everyone to go vegan would be disastrous.
People tend to eat what is available in spite of it stuffing up their health.
Settler from Europe / UK/ Ireland coming to NZ in the early 1800
left a life with little meat, perhaps a special meal 2 or three times a year.
They found it hard to accept meat once a week in NZ but took it as a luxury.
So don’t underestimate the social sustainability of a well planned no animal diet. You will probably be a lot healthier.
” Milk builds health bones” BULLSHIT
NZ like other countries with high dairy intake have high rates of osteoporosis, high prostate and breast cancer rates , type one diabetes in children strongly linked to milk and a wide range of auto immune diseases found mainly in dairy consuming countries.
Pussyfooting around the agricultural sector…disgusting.
The NZ dairy industry is costing the country and the public purse MORE than their contribution to the GDP. Think about that.
“…it is likely that the environmental externalities from dairy farming may exceed the value of dairy’s export revenue and the contribution to GDP (total of NZ$16.6 billion). This is not at present a cost for the dairy industry, but an estimate of the potential external cost to the public of New Zealand from dairy farming—from having a degraded environment or paying to clean up.”
NZ Dairy Farming – Milking Our Environment for All Its Worth
Should we reconsider trading partners?…should they be boycotted?
“China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses so we should be particularly interested in the level of its emissions, as well as the success of the practices and policies it pursues to reduce them. After all, China’s emissions are likely to have the greatest influence on future global warming and our ability to keep average global temperature rise to less than 2°C above those of the pre-industrial era.”
https://skepticalscience.com/China-GHG-emissions.html
“Apart from being an ozone destroyer, CFC-11 is also a very potent greenhouse gas with Global Warming Potential 4,750 times that of CO2. Measurement of CFC-11 concentration in the atmosphere show that around 67,000 tonnes of CFC-11, or 0.3 Gt CO2eq. are reaching the atmosphere each year from these sources. The Chinese Government has not previously been ‘officially’ aware of these and possibly other emissions when compiling statistics on greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2017 a London based organisation, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) determined that China was the source of these emissions. In 2018 the EIA published its report ‘Blowing It’ which concluded that at least 18 Chemical Companies in 10 Provinces are actively engaged in the production of CFC-11 and that it is used throughout China as a blowing agent for production of insulating foam products used in the building and other industries. The reason for its on-going use? It was easier to use and more profitable than use of alternative gasses.
The production and use of CFC-11 in China could be more widespread than reported by EIA. Even if this is not the case, it is difficult to understand how such widespread production and use of CFC-11 could have gone undetected by the Chinese National and ten Provincial Governments for so many years. How could the EIA investigate and compile a detailed report on the matter in less than a year while the UN agency responsible for ensuring international compliance with the Montreal Protocol has yet to offer comment or action?….
Promoting Coal
In a well researched article, Tiboku Hirochi points to the dichotomy of huge investment made by China in renewable energy (prompted by the need for breathable air in megacities) and the building of large numbers of coal fired power stations, many of them overseas. She reports findings from the Urgewald data base which concludes that companies specialising in design and construction of coal-fired power stations are engaged in or propose building 1,600 new power stations in 62 countries. Eleven of the 20 largest companies involved in their construction are either owned or financed by the Chinese Government.
It is estimated that if all of these coal-fired power stations were built, they would have the capacity to increase global coal-fired electricity generation by 43%, significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions at a time when the IPCC is calling for their rapid reduction. Chinese companies are engaged in designing, building and in some cases owning and operating coal fired power stations in developing countries. Many of these investments are part of the One Belt – One Road expansionist initiative of the Chinese Government. Further, over the last 15 years some $50 billion has been invested by China in the production, transport and use of coal.
It appears to be State Policy to promote increased use of coal both within China and by investment overseas. Some of the countries where coal-fired power stations are being built by Chinese companies (eg Malawi, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and others) will be using coal-fired electricity generation for the first time. Rather than speeding-up transition to a decarbonised economy, those building additional coal fired generating capacity are collectively slowing the process and, in so doing, committing the world to average global warming well in excess of 2°C by 2100 and a climate which will be both unpredictable and dangerous….
I do not agree with China or anyone else such as the USA with its grossly excessive and unfair wasteful consumption of energy and Non Renewable Natural Resources, or any one else continuing consumption linked destruction of our fragile biosphere.
BUT the population size of countries / states being quoted as polluters is a paramount consideration hence the per head of population figures must be used to have any relevance when comparisons are made.
The USA uses many times the energy units per capita compared with China and that does not include the US global warfare effort. GHG emissions similarly are much lower in China per capita that the USA in spite of much of the USA consumer purchases are from China.
Overall the USA is not far behind China in total GHG emissions in spite of its population being one third that of China.
Per capita the USA uses much more coal than China and as well the USA is processing the horrendously dirty tar sands.
Per capita NZ uses more energy than China and produces more emissions than China per capita. On top of that much of our consumer goods are made in China for NZ consumption.
We are a bigger part of the problem per capita that China.
Never underestimate the power of the farming lobby. If any government stood against their wishes, they would back a coup d’état.
The fact that they are moaning about the bill even as it stands, says a lot.
Until New Zealanders en masse change their minds about cannabis, CGT, global warming etc, nothing is going to happen.
And nothing whatsoever on lowering the birth rate – the single most effective way of lowering ALL emissions across the board. Indeed this is the only sustainable long-term solution that can possibly work to “combat climate change” since any positive population growth (globally) whatsoever will inevitably end up bringing us right back to where we are now since every human requires green-house gas emissions to keep him/her alive. Changing how much each person consumes by definition solves nothing (given that it can’t be reduced to zero) as long as the population continues to grow.
+100 NITRIUM…overpopulated countries have to take responsibility
Hard to convince them when children are the best retirement insurance there.
When a state run universal old age pension is in place then family sizes will and do shrink.
Populations have grown as a result of excess energy being harvested using the old forests, then coal and leading onto oil.
Without that excessive harvesting of energy the human population on Earth would have peaked more that a century ago being held in check by natural constraints.
We have over ridden those constraints creating a situation where Non Renewable Natural Resources have been seriously depleted and on top of that resources such as wilderness, natural forestation with its rich ecosystems, the sea and atmosphere all have been damaged and now out of the balance of prehuman times.
Human Population will peak very soon as food supply ( energy dependent) is unable to increase with the fertile soil availability decreasing.
We have thrashed fertile soil then added chemical fertiliser to damage it even more. It will take many hundreds of years or longer for soil to form or damaged soil to recover in a natural wilderness setting.
Soil needs a rich and varied plant life and micro and macro organism ecosystem as found in wilderness and natural forest ground cover. The animals, birds and insects are a vital part of this naturally evolved process.
The closest humans can get to this is to use permaculture over a medium term in limited and constrained areas leaving widespread wilderness to support the wild life necessary to support a small footprint human occupation within a rich and diverse natural wilderness surrounding any human occupation.
Humans widespread exploitation of wilderness and the ignoring of natural constraints became available with harvested energy.
Limiting our energy use is a key factor we are ignoring.
The neolioberal vulture john key was put in power to privatise energy in NZ. He took the next step towards that setting up a path for full privatisation. Our national grid is being run down and excessive profits extracted to share holders. When the grid needs major expenditure then the dbt will prompt the next step to raising money by fuller privatisation. An old formula well tried and proven to work. ( vis MED Wellington)
Our referendum about partial privatisation of govt owned energy corporations ( these were set up by roger douglas) gave a resounding NO to such partial privatisation. The neoliberal pimp john f…… key ignores that and stated that he was in power and could do as he liked.
So partial privatisation was set in place and the people lost control of their asset. jfk was not working for NZ but off shore capitalists who now own the bulk of the 49% share of our energy generating assets.
But without buying the shares back at inflated prices and reforming the energy sector back into a state owned govt agency responsible to the people of NZ, then we cannot guide the necessary direction of our energy use and supply.
I focus on energy because it is a key factor when controlling environmental abuse.
Use less energy and do less damage basically.
The Energy Corps now work against out long term survival interests.
When did you last hear of a strategy to REDUCE NZ energy use.
Population has to fall and will fall drastically on the path we tred currently. If you hear an “economist” talk of 10 billion people then you are listening to an ignorant and dangerous fool.
“Economists” are the play thing of capitalism which has become a blue print for destruction of humanity and most living things.
If intelligent planing to reduce the misery of starvation and conflict ahead was a human option, then population reduction following China’s lead would be implemented immediately.
“Economics” would need adjustment for demographic changes but that is no big deal nor hardship.
Capitalist would fight that as their GREED exceeds any respect for others and the future generation.
Capitalism deserves no respect for what it has done in perverting human community to a dog eat dog suicidal mess. The rulers are not responsible but are predators
But we have that great propaganda machine for more and more babies called the Royal Family. Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor is just the latest in a breeding program designed to encourage more breeding to maintain the taxpaying and consuming public in the service of the system. And the Royals are merely the show-ponies of an entire superstructure of ideology around breeding…just witness the saturation of the culture with images of the ‘nuclear family’, Mum and Dad and the two perfect kids having blissful fun at the beach or wherever, usually white but now often brown with the current trend of inclusivity. The role of television as a medium, and all advertising generally, is not just in maintaining capitalism, it is maintaining anthropocentrism.
That is how we got to where we are.
Remove advertising for example and a large workforce is freed to do more worthwhile activities including lowering the hours worked by all, resources consumption would be reduced and less crap would fill our dwellings. landfill, waterways, atmosphere and attention.
The economy would need adjusting, for the better.
Capitalism would resist such a move but if capitalism is our master then we need a change obviously.
Of course the Zero Carbon bill is bullshit.
In the real world the existential threat is NOW, not 30 years from now.
Arctic sea ice is at a record low for the time of year.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Continuation of the current trend would result in an extraordinarily low ice cover in September of this year, which would amplify the meltdown.
So everyone had better start hoping the current trend does not continue. Otherwise positive feedbacks will exacerbate the meltdown and could well be ‘all over’ in a decade or so.
It may well be over already but to not try is rank stupidity.
If we love our kids then fight for them.
We have badly damaged our planet and are continuing to do so.
Profit now regardless is rank criminal GREED.
A system change is needed urgently
This sums up the dilemma very nicely, John W.
What are the options?
There is not a single satisfactory answer to this question.
But:
“If those at the parliamentary wheels cannot initiate or support transformative change quickly, we have to replace the team at elections.”
‘A system change is needed urgently’
Yes, absolutely. Indeed, a system change was urgently needed decades ago.
However, how can system change come about when the system is designed to strongly resist change and it clobbers those who attempt to trigger change? And on top of that the bulk of the population don’t want significant change.
All the evidence to date indicates it will be utter catastrophe that will trigger system change, unfortunately.
The unfolding state of emergency is neither by design, nor by coincidence.
A definable class structure, power accumulating through individuals, family networks, self-serving elitists has been able to lead exploitation and destruction of nature and fellow human beings through the centuries, from feudalism to colonialism to capitalism.
TdB will not and cannot find perfect answers to all technical and socioeconomic aspects of a radical system change.
But what the participants to this blog can do, realistically, is to facilitate, to support, to vote the presence of “System Change NOW!” into the NZ/AO parliamentary system.
The appearance of such platform (new party, perhaps) would significantly shake-up the routines, send out important signals and messages, and could help to open up practical options presently not sufficiently recognized.
Such parliamentary platform would probably have to stand on amalgamated principles from socioeconomic and ecological analyses to be strategically effective and successful.
….. a powerful and complementary support – on a different level – to Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion (and others).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLVE69QZt5w
+100%
AFKTT
The system is called democracy where powerful wealthy groups control what is happening with laws that over ride the public commons stripping environmental balance and enforcing wage slavery.
Try “mining rights” for example
The Westminster “heritage for the elite” system we have been forced to adopt, gives bankers the legal right to loan 9 times as much as they have in hand. When this is paid back they have 900% profit plus interest along the way.
But the initial money in hand that the escalation of money creation is based on is now somewhat mythical. They can create free money for themselves as fast as they can give loans, with some provisos to keep their system in check.
This gross money creation has formed a power base far beyond any government or voting system. That one law has destroyed any chance of the mythical “democracy”
If you have not read this in detail then educate yourself. Reflect on how a society could run with such a highly representative system at every step of governance and with the state being the only bank to create loans and then use the money for public good. Corporate power is kneecapped.
http://openanthropology.org/libya/gaddafi-green-book.pdf
Libya had free healthcare from cradle to grave, free dental and education at all levels and a newly married couple were allocated a house and $50K as a starter.
What a terrible system setting such a bad example for the world.
Of course it has to go along with its oil and water resources and banking system which was leading Africa away from the Zionist IMF and World bank loans.
A change of system needed has to be fundamentally different from embedded Westminster elitist control.
Unrealistic – a collapse may alter the landscape giving local voice a change to make fundamental changes.
We will not be alone.
Unfortunately a collapse of global capitalism may see us in the pacific become actual Chinese territories.
If we aren’t taken over by the USA / Australia coalition.who already have a strong hold on many of out institutions.
We are already a part of their network with 5 eyes spy network.
But money buys its way into any system that is not controlled by a central Govt such as that is at present in China.
Neither the Labour Party nor the Green Party is the government. And they are not the coalition government government. The Greens are not even in the coalition government.
If people want more delivered they will deliver more votes to Greens and Labour, they cannot do it without the votes.
Head over to the standard SPC, they specialize in vanilla.
Or notice the increase in traffic here from those starting to notice that the TPPA lie wasn’t a one off.
This is the point I was making yesterday, we all like to whinge that they aren’t doing what we voted then in to do, yet will all still vote for the parties who make up the coalition. That is the exact reason why they are not interested in pandering to us, our votes are assured. They simply have to please the middle, who I’m sorry to say, are far more to the right of most of us.
maybe they can get us a sweet deal on some slushy machines
The Elite don’t care … they have survival bunkers :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh1JZVjKUAo
I am very suspicious of ‘average temperature’ claims and claims of how much those ‘averages’ have changed because most ‘averages’ did not (and usually do not) include the oceans, and the oceans are by far the biggest component of heat absorption and heat storage. ‘About 93 percent of excess heat — trapped around the Earth by greenhouse gases that come from the burning of fossil fuels — accumulates in the world’s oceans.’
Ocean heat content over recent decades shows an alarming, non-linear, upward trend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_heat_content
and 2018 set a new record high
Ocean Heat hits Record High, in Bad News for Planet
https://www.juancole.com/2019/03/ocean-record-planet.html
The Standard are heroically giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to this still born piece of legislation.
Like it was really worth compromising for this?
Is this a joke?
Idiot Savant waxes lyrical
It is all very well having targets. I could have a target to be a millionaire in 5 years.
I could even have a plan that says, to reach my target I have to get $200,000 every year.
Sounds so simple doesn’t it?
I’m well on my way. I’ve got my target.
What I neglected to say was how I was going to do it.
The same with the Zero Carbon Bill, It is all very well saying we are going to have ‘reduce the number of cows, with flow-on benefits for water quality.’ But how? Will farmers agree to cut their herds voluntarily? Is that the plan?
Will they be made to reduce their herds, by whom?
The proposed Climate Commission has no powers to compel anyone to do anything.
It is a joke.
Genuine question; What is to stop us increasing methane, instead of a decreasing it by 2030?
It’s all castles in the air.
In the real world, the government has just opened up huge area of Taranaki for oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
In the real world, it is still illegal for planning authorities to consider objections to fossil fuel projects based on climate change evidence.
In the real world, it is still illegal to protest deep sea oil exploration and exploitation.
In the real world, Huntly Power station will keep burning coal to generate electricity. and Hauauru Maraki will remain un-built.
In the real world, After a massive government bailout to meet the increasing demand the new private owners of Solid Energy are planning a huge expansion of their newly aquired Rotowaro open cast coal mine in Huntly.
In the real world, emissions are going up and no concrete efforts are being made to limit them.
I stopped trusting Labour back in the 80’s and I’ve never trusted National. So here we are dead in the water (no pun intended) with yet more neo-liberalism from a govt who I suspect know they should change but simply don’t want to.
I see that Jacinda Adern has been persuaded to take NZ down a pathway of that will involve massive expenditure on projects that have been known for decades to be fraught with difficulty and which will ultimately prove to be counterproductive -the dead-end of the so called hydrogen economy. This ludicrous policy is supposedly a component of ‘carbon neutrality’.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/111287946/taranaki-could-lead-nz-into-lowcarbon-economy-with-hydrogen-roadmap
Any competent chemist will tell you:
1. There are no sources of hydrogen on Earth.
2. Hydrogen has to be manufactured, usually either from natural gas or by electrolysis of water. Both manufacturing processes waste huge amounts of energy.
3. Hydrogen is impossible to store or transport in large quantities because it does not liquify under pressure at normal temperatures. Very thick-walled storage vessels are required in order to compress worthwhile quantities; thick-walled vessels are expensive and heavy. Heavy tanks reduce transport viability
4. Cooling to minus 260 Celsius facilitates liquification but require yet more energy to be wasted and generates a plethora of other problems.
5. The energy returned when hydrogen is utilised is a lot less than the energy expended. Hydrogen is an energy sink.
Perhaps the most compelling argument against use of hydrogen is that if it were viable we’d already be using it.
Much this is set out here (Scroll down).
https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-03-12/
Summary:
‘The laws of physics mean the hydrogen economy will always be an energy sink. Hydrogen’s properties require you to spend more energy than you can earn, because in order to do so you must overcome waters’ hydrogen-oxygen bond, move heavy cars, prevent leaks and brittle metals, and transport hydrogen to the destination. It doesn’t matter if all of these problems are solved, or how much money is spent. You will use more energy to create, store, and transport hydrogen than you will ever get out of it’.
of course scientific facts and rational arguments carry little weight )or none) in the world of politics and commerce.
Hydrogen as an energy storage fuel just another deviation from reality.
The path forward is to live without need for such expensive inefficient resource wasteful and infrastructure demanding energy storage.
More of the same thinking won’t get us out of he mess it created.
There is nothing new in living without such fuels.
That is because Winston supports such hydrogen based technology.
Jacinda knows more about fashion and communication than about science and facts.
Tesla gave us free energy. It was taken away.
Car engines exist that run on water. We are not allowed to have them.
Since 1828 EVs have existed. By definition, an electric vehicle, or EV, will use an electric motor for propulsion rather than a gasoline-powered motor. Besides the electric car, there are bikes, motorcycles, boats, airplanes, and trains that have all been powered by electricity.
But we are not allowed to have them.
We are being had big time!!!
So where’s my comment from last night? Criticism not desired, I note.
Being critical of Jacinda does not help a commenter, I conclude.
Well when she leaves for Paris for her rendezvous with Macron, who, I hear, holds parties only for the brave (debauched), you close the door, Marc, and I’ll bolt it shut!!
Absence might make the heart grow fonder…it will do much for the country. Let the fresh air blow through, I say.
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