Get the tissues, snowflakes are feeling down…
Kiwis suffering depression, anxiety and hopelessness because of climate change
A report released by the Royal Society in 2017 said climate change was “expected to have adverse mental health and community health effects” brought about by increased frequency of flooding, fires and infrastructure damage.
…peeps are feeling sad and getting their blues on which is funny because if you think you are depressed by climate change right now, wait until the mass deaths start as methane feedback loops kick in and super charge the climate crisis to society ending levels of magnitude.
You haven’t seen anything yet, so save your emotional energy folks.
The sudden need to minimise the climate crisis because the truth is so paralysingly terrifying has got to be the most snowflake trigger free safe bullshit nonsense to date, because there literally is no safe spaces for snowflakes when it comes to a super heating planet.
Dear folks, we don’t have the fucking luxury to be depressed, the enormity of what we face collectively must forge a new reality. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of a moon landing that showed how far we can technologically leap, as we commemorate the 80th year of the start of World War 2 and the defeat of fascism, as we plot how far we have come as a species we can not allow depression to rob us of the energy to generate survival from a crisis created by our own greed and pollution.
To perish from our own stupidity while poetic for humanity, is intellectually unacceptable.
While the current political spectrum can’t and won’t change fast enough to reform the economy, culture and society, that spectrum can be ripped apart at the ballot box, and once enough people dump the denial and seek to be survivors and not depressed possums stuck in the headlights, radical reform can be adopted.
But it is going to require organisation, an agreed radical manifesto and ruthless application of that manifesto once in power.
That change will only happen when enough people are angry and frightened, so minimising climate change into happy stories like the Stuff readers are calling for is the exact wrong direction to take.
I think Danyl Mclauchlan is the only reason to read The Spinoff but his most recent column minimising the climate crisis and claiming any attempt connecting it to criticism of neoliberal capitalism is Machiavellian is the kind of middle class wishful thinking that is dangerous and is the new battlefront.
Just like middle class holistic mothers from the leafy suburbs bristle at vaccinations, this new manifestation of middle class hope mixing with the Millennial cultural demands of trigger free safe spaces demands happy happy fun times on the Climate Crisis rather than adult scrutiny and intellectual recognition that survival now demands immediate action.
The current Government’s environmental strides are baby steps made by a sleeping infant. The nonsense plastic bag ban, meaningless carbon neutral by 2050, pitiful Electric Car policies and the latest nothings to force Farmers to pay for their pollution in the ETS are all virtue signalling greenwash that go no where, NO WHERE, in responding to this…
Analysis: Major update to ocean-heat record could shrink 1.5C carbon budget
The new version provides more accurate estimates of SSTs in the period during and after the second world war, as well as over the past decade. It suggests that the world’s oceans have warmed by around 0.1C more than previously thought since pre-industrial times.
…or this…
July on course to be hottest month ever, say climate scientists
Record temperatures across much of the world over the past two weeks could make July the hottest month ever measured on Earth, according to climate scientists.
The past fortnight has seen freak heat in the Canadian Arctic, crippling droughts in Chennai and Harare and forest fires that forced thousands of holidaymakers to abandon campsites in southern France and prompted the air force in Indonesia to fly cloud-busting missions in the hope of inducing rain.
If the trends of the first half of this month continue, it will beat the previous record from July 2017 by about 0.025C, according to calculations by Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, and others.
This follows the warmest-ever June, which was confirmed this week by data from the US space agency Nasa, following Europe’s Copernicus satellite monitoring system.
…or this…
Greenland’s Superfast ‘Ice Slides’ Could Be Bad News for Climate Change
Greenland’s ice sheet is sliding way more than previously thought, according to a new study.
This means that the ice sheet can change faster in a warming climate, a group of researchers reported July 10 in the journal Science Advances.
…the only technological advance that might save us is super intelligence from AI which could control nano technology, but hoping on a benign AI that wishes to save us from our own mess seems almost religiously faith based at this stage.
Meanwhile our Prime Minister back-peddles…
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won’t compare climate change to World War II
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she wouldn’t compare to climate change to World War II – a comparison her Associate Transport Minister, Julie Anne Genter, made last week.
On Twitter last week, Genter declared climate change was “our generation’s WWII” while discussing the Government’s proposed ‘feebate’ scheme which would provide discounts on some low-emission, electric and fuel-efficient petrol-run vehicles.
…Genter is absolutely correct in comparing the climate crisis to our war on fascism as both were existential threats to our species. She’s totally wrong in thinking her tepid feebate for electric cars will help win that war though.
If we were to mix Genter’s analogy, she would declare that we are going to war with the Nazi’s and here are the vegan sleeping bags we’ve knitted out of hemp for you…
I mean, great we’ve got some vegan sleeping bags knitted out of hemp, but I think the defeat of the Nazi death machine might require something a tad more lethal than vegan sleeping bags knitted with hemp.
The NZ Greens have all the offensive capacity of resting moss.
The entire economy needs to be put on a war economy footing, radical reforms and investments are required and the entire country needs to be involved, because the facts of this climate crisis threat are staring us in the face now.
FACT: We face an existential threat to our species from catastrophic climate change which occurs because of our pollution and is happening far faster than most scientists had hoped for.
FACT: This catastrophic climate change can occur within decades fuelled by feedback loops built into the biosphere which will make vast parts of our planet uninhabitable to sophisticated civilisation.
FACT: We have waited too long to stop climate change, it is now becoming a run away event and only radical adaptation can be adopted to survive it.
FACT: Most of the political spectrum are corrupted to the vested interests of those doing the polluting and the current political establishment are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
FACT: As the climate deteriorates and gets worse citizens will panic and be forced to join civil disobedience like Extinction Rebellion and forcibly be arrested and force Governments to change as their judicial system becomes too blocked to function.
FACT: It only takes 3.5% of the population to force radical change.
OPINION: Only a revolutionary political movement with a focus on sustainability, a rejection of neoliberal economic growth models and a war footing economy focused on protecting what we have is the only way forward.
The denial of climate change and the quack science used to peddle it must be eradicated with the same zealotry we amputate cancer. Our politicians are too frightened of the corporate vested interests that profit from pollution so those politicians need replacing.
I can be smug about this because the external examples of the out of control climate crisis will become impossible to ignore no matter the trigger free safe space or commercially vested interest.
Fortress Aotearoa is a movement whose time will come.
To survive climate change we must embark upon Fortress Aotearoa…
- Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self sustainable in terms of food.
- Immediately ban all water exports
- 5 year Parliamentary term.
- Upper and Lower House (Upper House 50-50 split between Māori & Pakeha that can hold up legislation if unhappy about Treaty issues)
- Massive investment into R&D from Government with the understanding research is to benefit NZ first before sold offshore.
- Large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce.
- Mass limiting of tourism numbers with increased tourist taxes.
- Only citizens can vote.
- Sustainable immigration and an end to exploiting international students & migrant workers.
- Resettlement Programms for all pacific island neighbours.
- Increase refugee in take to 5000 per year
- Fully funded public services.
- Mass Green housing rebuild.
- All houses to have solar panels within a decade.
- UBI for all citizens
- 100% renewable energy for entire country, (including nuclear if necessary).
- Renewed look at GE
- Massive tree planting across previous farming land.
- Wholesale re-write of state services act to end commercial values.
- Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
- Financial transaction tax
- Wealth tax
- Multinational tax
- Inheritance tax
…Radical Eco Socialism is the only way forward for a country that is likely to be the last lifeboat. Our traditional tyranny of distance will end up becoming our last saviour.
Guilt, remorse, greed, soul searching, any one found. Profound change is coming. A Hard rain, Dylan sang. What to do when your house is on fire. Seven stages of the Grief process, will be part of the new reality.. We also need an honest media and bottom up action. Thank you Martyn.
Hey Martyn have you heard of the toxin producing oceanic cyanobacteria blooms? Another level to the horror. There’s a book about it called The Judas Strain. (Good title) Go for a swim? Flesh eating bacteria, you get dissolved. Fishing? No they dissolved all the fish. Camping by the shore? Gassed by sulfides made by the blooming bacteria. Boating? Your boat is now dissolving in the steaming acid ocean.
The new apex life form on the planet could even become strains of necrotizing bacteria, reducing everything to jam before the long Venusian ending. It seems our intelligence wasn’t really fitness after all.
Just another extinction in progress. Good enough book to scan a summary though check it out. The Judas Strain. I guess we’ll see how fiction it is. Cheers, DH
You have some good ideas with Fortress Aotearoa but it won’t happen. Too many gutless politicians and too much division amongst the population. Once climate change fully kicks in there will be masses of climate change refugees and the “non binding” UN migration pact the government signed up to will become binding, and NZ will be flooded. Not that it matters much, pretty sure the elites want a mass die off which they’ll ride out in their bunkers, emerging later to enslave whoever is left
Well put and i had to laugh.
That is exactly how it will play out with the usual wars in the background and John Keys surveillance state working as it was set up to do when civil disorder has begun.
Nailed it Bomber.
Now, how do we set up with the party ?
FACT: It only takes 3.5% of the population to force radical change.
Good post Bomber.
No one is really prepared for what is coming and have become deaf to the warnings and blind to the evidence which is impossible to ignore if you are taking notice of the signs.
Many people think that this coming calamity is decades away so we still have time to pontificate and procrastinate and as long as there is no direct change to ones comfortable life then all the better.
Under MMP we need a strong centre left alternative party of social justice that has a non negotiable set of policies based on progressive socialist policy and climate action and a leader who can inspire and bring the youth , maori and polynesian and those who make up our working poor to the ballot box to vote for ACTION.
And the difficult part will be funding but it can be done just look at Bernie and Labour in the UK.
If the rich , business , corporate , baby boomers and the middle class can have a voice in parliament why not the rest of us , there is a large voting block that can have an effect on the direction of our country.
FACT: It only takes 3.5% of the population to force radical change.
Yeah i think if you really engage and harness the huge discontent out there it will be a lot more.
Efeso Colins would be one of the possible leaders in a new social justice party.
Just a thought.
Your bang on Martyn, I reckons the old cronies and climate deniers are actually starting to get it. They’re bloody thick and stubborn however climate problems are being noticed and the bewildered bunch of knowalls I work with are realising something is amiss. At this stage it is all Cindys fault, but progress is being made I think. Keep hammering away Martyn you are getting there.
Bomber, please don’t spout the ‘nuclear can save us’ bullshit.
Nuclear is yesterdays solution, designed to support making nuclear weapons, enrich a very small number of large corporations. It is the most expensive way bar none to generate power, leaves a radioactive waste legacy that technology can’t solve, and relies totally on overseas supply chains for fuel, which in themselves are extremely carbon intensive.
There is nowhere on earth where Nuclear power has been built by private industry because it’s totally uneconomic. All nuclear power plants are state subsidised in some way just to make them work financially.
The cost of one nuclear power plant is likely to be 10-15 billion USD alone – for that money we could do the smart thing and convert NZ to 100% renewables by overbuilding wind and solar, installing distributed battery storage around the country, and build an entire industry of renewable hydrogen from the overbuilt renewables, when there’s too little demand for wind/sun (see https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/01/no-joke-we-should-build-more-solar-wind-than-needed-its-cheaper/).
There is no clean nuclear power.
Cooling tanks around the world are filling with waste as it is too expensive to deal with. Aas most Nuclear plants are in part or full private ownership the long term economic business solution is to just walk away.
The catastrophic mess will get us all.
Use less energy not look for more.
Increased energy harvesting is the root of our problem over a century or so.
There is not enough resource and energy spare to use solar and wind to satiate our present energy greed.
A simpler system is needed with minimal energy consumption across the globe.
Walking in the jungle.
1. Make part of the TDB (or of another website) non-public, and encourage registration as a potential member of a radical Eco-socialist movement / platform / party for AONZ.
2. Recruit one secretarial staff for administration, communication and networking related to organizational works and institutional set-up. Funding initially ensured through voluntary contributions by the registrants / members of the platform.
3. Organize discussion and agreement on a general manifesto (most building blocks are already available through many contributions to the TDB over the past months). Two unconditional basic paradigms:
a. to support and establish immediate measures and action for effective climate resilience,
b. to support and establish immediate measures and action for quick impact on social and economic equality across vulnerable population segments.
4. Elect a committee of 5-7 individuals nominated for public appearance on behalf of the Eco-socialist platform.
5. Evaluate periodically, correct and develop further.
Most of the steps can be done online.
Walk, observe and learn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoSq-yZcJ-4
Ba haa ! That image above reminds me of when dad was vacuum cleaning out our old Ellis Chalmers header after a little of his fancy welding repairs. The header was full of soft, dry, grain dust and it was a sunny High Country Canterbury day and everything was fine as dad vacuumed and cleaned as his Tellus vacuum cleaner burned down in a pall of smoke and sparks right behind him. It caught fire from a spark from his welding but it soldiered on. Mum and I were so bent double with laughter that we let it burn until it shorted out and stopped. Anything for a laugh in the high country. But then? Oh, the wailing and the shrieking!?
This is going to sound a bit iffy but stop worrying about the bloody weather.
Particularly here, in AO/NZ.
The criminals have hobbled our agriculture so severally that once they’re dead and cooking in Hell after the Cloven Hoofed One’s penetrated them repeatedly with various dildos and broom handles and our farmers are released from their bankster constraints, they’ll be burying AO/NZ in Bluff grown Bananas faster than you can say ‘ Care for a twist of Stewart Island Lime juice for your whisky sour Sir/Madam? ‘
And we must remember? We’ve been obscenely rendered hyper sensitive by a neo liberal head-fuck machine to have us become whining gollums hiding in our plasti-house caverns? Out there, outside in the real world, where people actually grow their own, in all permutations, and has a chicken as a pet and not a weird clone labradoodlespoodlecockerspanielbullradore for a tongue-out derpy dog pic for the Instagram
Well done, Martyn, you seem to have abandoned your faith that Kiwibank can be part of the solution. Its just a drop in the bucket.
It’s so roilingly impossible. Keep up the war-drum for reality, Martyn. What an awful place, cut in two between the existing situation, which just delivered a conservative non-responsive govt in Australia, let alone insane asylum America, and the appalling, almost (?!) impossible challenge of the upcoming situation. Rely on you to maintain the drumbeat.
My only comfort, as I’ve said often, is I’ll make it to early old age in the comfort I was born to by … no, not merit — luck, you silly fucks who determine our present reality.
We can’t on our own stop climate change which will devastate us. Our best bet is concentrating on science and persuading others, where we have recognised integrity. Protecting us in the event of climate change is all melting ice. Of course that’s decades, like the silly-arse decades that made laissez-faire supreme again after the democratic years from WW 2.
Only 100 times the emergency of 1939. But much gentlier approached. (Yes, I’m laughing).
No wonder the left and weird are called the loony left. Bomber Marx has done it again! What a prat.
No wonder the left and weird are called the loony left. Bomber Marx has done it again! What a prat.
Well done Martyn —–Nailed it .
We have a new manifesto for the NZ ECO PARTY.
Sign me up .
Ive heard one of the best ways to increase ecoleft political representation is to modify MMP so that citizens can have 2 electorate votes ,or an electorate and party vote as currently written or 2 PARTY VOTES.
We rarely vote for Greens in an electorate as it is a wasted vote relative to Labour or National candidate .
But what if just what if ,you could get around a lame Labour candidate, (who you really don’t want to vote for ) by forgoing your electorate vote ,and giving your two party votes to the GREENS or the NZ ECO PARTY.
Labour not so smug now.
Labour and the new Green Block could govern without the hand brake of Winston and go on a climate war footing with twice the number of Eco/Green mps.
By doubling the left wing/eco vote and reducing labour support we send a very clear message to Labour we won”t tolerate creeping planet wrecking incrementalism any more .
Doubling the Green vote by a rule change is smart .
A well funded campaign of MMP constitutional law reform to change how we can vote could be a big step in the right direction .
That way Countryboy wouldn’t have to waste so many perfectly good broomsticks shoving them up neoliberal arseholes.
For NZ to become carbon neutral by 2050 every man, women and beast will have to die. Just saying.
Is it wrong to call for a genocide of the middle class?
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