The power and righteous fury at our collective climate denial explodes in this speech.
That we have come to require a young girl with Aspergers to give us hope is an obscene abdication of responsibility by us adults.
We deserve the coming horror of the climate emergency.
The problem with Stuff’s climate change journalism and all of the mainstream media’s coverage is the fake hope that this can all be managed and our comfortable little lives in the Shire will dance along with just a few tweaks and tinkering.
The naked reality is that the enormity of what we face is beyond our scope to endure under the current economic, cultural and political settings.
When climate deniers like David Farrar and his National Party scum can continue to minimise the threat we face with impunity, and the Greens and Labour hold up carbon neutral by 2050 as a solution, the need for radical action that smashes both paradigms will only build, not dissipate, especially as catastrophic climate change is now accelerating…
‘Catastrophic’ climate change is accelerating faster than predicted
Climate change is accelerating, with carbon dioxide levels increasing, sea levels rising and ice sheets melting faster than ever, experts have warned.
The warning from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) forms part of a “united in science” review for a UN climate action summit at which countries are being urged to increase their ambition to tackle emissions.
…the current political spectrum in New Zealand can not radically adapt fast enough to adopt the changes we must make if we are to survive what is coming. It will require a radical Political Movement that elects a Party to ruthlessly implement 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 exploitative migrant workers.
- Resettlement Programms for all pacific island neighbours.
- Increase refugee in take to 10000 per year
- Fully funded public services.
- Mass Green housing rebuild.
- 100% renewable energy for entire country.
- 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
As the climate crisis unfolds more and more people in fury will turn against the current political system too wedded to the economic profits margins of the polluters. It is just a matter of time before the NZ electorate rejects the limitations of the current political spectrum.
The revolution is coming whether you are personally ready for it or not.
I”ve felt for a while that political leaders who haven’t done anything about climate change should be stood for a judge in a Nuremberg-type trial. That day may yet come
It very likely will come. But, I fear, it will happen without the rule of law. Think Mussolini more than Goering. When humans become enraged because of betrayal [and this is the biggest betrayal by our leaders EVER] people don’t wait for retribution. We are heading not just towards physical oblivion but also moral and political disaster. Never think that, bad as it is already is [thank you, Mr Trump], it can’t get hideously worse. History tells us all we need to know about the human being. I wish it were different. 🙁
+100 Greta Thunberg
Also agree with,
Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self sustainable in terms of food.
Immediately ban all water exports
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.
Mass limiting of tourism numbers with increased tourist taxes.
Only citizens can vote.
Sustainable immigration and an end to exploitative migrant workers.
Fully funded public services.
Mass Green housing rebuild.
100% renewable energy for entire country.
Massive tree planting across previous farming land.
Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
Financial transaction tax
Also agree with some of your other ideas but again it depends on how all these things are executed…. aka I think navy, army and defence should be utilised for disasters a lot more, but their current charter now has been changed to protect foreign profits rather than people, so that leaves a lot to be desired if they are to be increased in size, their charter needs radical reforms and a culture change away from the Operation Burnham approaches.
That is probably why their resources are spent are spying on some Greenpeace activist while Tarrent guns down 52 people for example and Christchurch earthquakes could use labour to rebuild… instead.
NZ state services priorities are too neoliberal and they all need a total change of charter to be updated for NZ people protection and disaster and climate changes.
Too much commonsense.
“they all need a total change of charter to be updated for NZ people protection and disaster and climate changes.”
Absolutely! And soon!
“It will require a radical Political Movement that elects a Party to ruthlessly implement Fortress Aotearoa…”
I believe that we have been given a truly remarkable leader, right now. One that many people in many places around the world respect and acknowledge. (Heck, even Aussies were asking if they could please swap their leader for ours 🙂
As they say though, the most inspired and inspiring people are often unrecognised in their own hometown. If we fail to recognise and to appreciate the opportunities we now have, we will lose them.
If we give her our full support and sufficient time, invaluable changes can and will be made.
Good checklist Martyn.
It is not a cultural norm in America especially for women, to ‘break the face’ of the media driven norms and ideals of how one should look and behave on screen.
Still it is more acceptable that a man should grimace, yell, show anger or frustration, than a woman, and that a woman may get a little emotional but remain composed at all costs.
It’s nothing short of marvelous to see Greta showing that up, -to hell with that! She is unswervingly real and just look how many men are threatened by her very demeanour let alone her actual message and in the UN.
More will comment and ridicule her over the next 48 hours, and I hope more will amplify what I’ve said here, and point out what she is doing on behalf of women, as well as children, and the rest of us.
Of course women should be able to get angry on screen. Of course they should be able to ‘break face’ in a circumstance such as this without petty accusations of ugliness, and girlyness… Look who is actually getting shown up here.
It’s America’s power of Veto that immunizes it against justice in the UN, but it’s America’s toxic masculinity that will crumble a little at first sight of this and lash out in the way it best knows how…
accusations against Greta, that she is a girl.
On board with all of your points Bomber except for the 50/50 split between Maori and Pakeha and the increase in refugees.
The 50-50 upper house will empower the Treaty to protect Māori AND Pakeha interests from the rampant neoliberalism of the lower chamber by holding up legislation that breaches the agency and sovereignty the Treaty promises.
As for the increase in refugees, I believe it would be immoral in the extreme to not take in more refugees from a burning planet.
If the upper house is 50% Maori then won’t Maori have the ability (whether they choose to use it or not) to block anything that they feel is not serving their own and only their own best interests?
Plus I am personally averse to anything that discriminatory (positive or otherwise).
Ok fair enough . . if everything goes to sh*t then yes it would be immoral to refuse refugees (but let’s make sure these people are genuine ‘climate refugees’ and not just those looking remake NZ in the image of where they have come from).
Well right now maori already block legislation they don’t like through protest. I would propose formalizing that Y’know? With a 50/50 Māori/non Māori upper house ect.
yes
“Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self-sustainable in terms of food.”
Aotearoa is self-sustainable right now in beef, lamb, venison, chicken, milk, butter, cheese, fresh green and root vegetables, apples, kiwifruit, stone-fruit, smashed avo, oats, barley, beer, wine and can easily produce more wheat. Most of our agriculture is relatively extensive – animals wandering around hills and fields rather than intensive, animals locked up in buildings or on feedlots with humans harvesting and delivering their food. We don’t produce luxury vegan stuff like gluten-free almond flour this comes from California. Our fertiliser input can be adapted to become a perma culture system. Fossil fuels can be replaced with electric tractors run off wind and solar generation at each farm. However we are still going to need to export primary products to pay for our vehicle and technology imports.
Hush now with your common sense.
You are stopping another perfectly good “hair on fire” anti farmer pile on.
Rod Oram has written a couple of very good articles on the need for a change of approach within the NZ farming sector, particularly dairy farming.
“So, how did Ireland usurp our leadership as a global leader in dairy farming?
“Because almost all our farming leaders — individuals and organisations — choose to be oblivious to the world’s climate crisis, their role in contributing to it, and their responsibilities for tackling it.
“They can’t even see the abundant business opportunities for them in helping to make dairy and meat farming more climate compatible and more attuned to rapidly changing diets and attitudes around the world, the very factors that will make farming more sustainable in environmental, economic and social terms.”
Oram goes on to refer to a Primary Sector Discussion Policy Doc that had just been released by the Nats (this was in June). Oram notes, “the document lacked any insight into the global threats and opportunities the Irish are intensely focused on and committed to.
“Instead, the document Bridges was so proud of covered 16 topics in 30 pages of lavish photos and vacuous content, of which two pages were devoted to climate change and one to horse racing.”
We can do better than that!
Good piece Martyn. Thanks.
Greta Thunberg is a shining light in a very dark world. Instead of ridiculing her, we should sit up and listen carefully to her message and act positively.
Go Greta …
Feeling bad about the environment just go to confession
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/specials/climate-confessions-share-solutions-climate-change-n1054791
For me this speaks more loudly than ever for the need to have new parties and new governments that are progressive not capitalist dinosaurs. Of course this means people need to change their attitudes too and that’s a big part of the problem.
When’s the movie coming out? Will it be called simply… “Greta”?
That speech was…bad!
Sure, the converted will find inspiration in her message, but it won’t sway the doubters. Tomorrow we will be where we are today.
I’ll admire her conviction, but her delivery was overcooked. I haven’t seen such bad acting since the VHS-era of porn, when they tried to add some plot between scenes.
I think her opponents will be enjoying this as much her followers.
Give her a break. She’s only 16 years old.
Anyone delivering a speech with conviction in a second language could be described as acting badly.
It’s a way of discrediting those who sound emotional when speaking with authenticity (women), the young and those with an accent.
Fuck it! I’m rich, I can afford to waste the earths resources. I dont care gasoline cost 3 bucks a litre, I just want to know theres plenty of it.
So the rivers are sick. The answer is simple, don’t swim in them, buy a pool! It aint rocket science.
Greta is not the world’s leading expert on climate science and I’m sure she would not claim to be. She entirely justifiably accepts what the IPCC scientists are telling the world. And reacting eloquently (doubtlessly with some assistance ) and passionately to the fact that no one in authority is doing anything meaningful about it, or is ever likely to. I think those scientists are giving her and the rest of us a bum steer myself, but criticising Greta is ridiculous. She is doing wonderfully. Will have a great career in the movies if she is wrong about the world ending in 11 years.
D J S
“The problem with Stuff’s climate change journalism and all of the mainstream media’s coverage is the fake hope that this can all be managed and our comfortable little lives in the Shire will dance along with just a few tweaks and tinkering.”
It will sadly be ‘managed’, as Greta and her school strikers are just a tiny percentage of the global youth, and as they are due to better education and secure economic circumstances somewhat privileged, thus not representative of the vast majority of youth in poorer, underdeveloped countries, who want to eat, drink cleaner water, get any kind of job to earn a living, and that comes only with the kind of economic extraction and exploitation of the planet as we have seen for decades or two to three centuries now.
One solution to stop the disaster will have to be to stop population growth, and to force people to live within the planet’s means, and we have long overshot the sustainability level for that to be the case.
Hence governments, criticised by Greta and activists, they will not do what they hope, as other humans will vote in and demand governments, or support dictatorships, that provide them food, water, shelter and employment and business opportunities, in disregard of the environment.
The battle will be between economics (business and people relying on the status quo) and environmentalism (defended and fought for by the ones who put nature and resource protection and so before the economy, and before too many humans).
There will not be any peaceful solution, as we do not get peaceful solutions for other global issues either, look at the arms race, fight over resources, and so forth.
In the end people making poor choices for humanity as the whole are the true challenge and need to be the target for action, governments only represent them, or their elites and vested interest holders.
lets take it onboard all the points and get the party up and running by next elections .
any body with any idea of how to do that ?
not to argue about it to do it .just like that .
Martyn
Please add Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary Generals’ leadership to your list, as it would change the economic paradigm, and if adopted would massively incentivise the right behaviors and investments, and dis- incentivise the wrong ones:
“My messages to governments around the world are:
First, shift taxes from salaries to carbon. Tax pollution, not people.
Second, stop subsidising fossil fuels. Taxpayer money should not be used to boost hurricanes, spread drought and heatwaves, melt glaciers, and bleach corals.”
So no income tax.
Same overall tax collection.
Everything using fossil fuels would become much more expensive.
Alternatives would suddenly work economically.
THAT IS LEADERSHIP
And Antonio is spreading the message worldwide, NZ could lead.
Thanks, I hope this makes your list which you repeat regularly.
“It is just a matter of time before the NZ electorate rejects the limitations of the current political spectrum.
The revolution is coming whether you are personally ready for it or not.”
Unfortunately it may be a Trumpian revolution bring in a rightwing populist demogogue promusing miracle solutions and giving false hope to the plebes
Its happened before
Hitler was elected into power offering false hope and restoring German pride, living standards, and rejecting foreign interference
History shows us what happens when a society is stressed It isn’t a good thing
“How Dare You”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/06/waikato-coal-exploration-permit-for-bathurst-resources-branded-hypocritical.html
Speaking last month at the Pacific Forum conference, Enele Sopoaga, the prime minster of Tuvalu said money was not enough.
“How Dare You”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/06/waikato-coal-exploration-permit-for-bathurst-resources-branded-hypocritical.html
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