Friday’s historic climate change march puts the National Party, ACT, NZ First, Hosking, Garner, Kiwiblog and every other climate denier & minimiser on the wrong side of history – tremble at our fury – there is no going back after this climate protest.
This is what democracy looks like.
This is what democracy sounds like.
The fear of 3.5% of NZ taking to the streets amongst the Right is as understandable as it is impotent.
Right wing trolls on Twitter have attacked the percentage as meaningless…
…unfortunately for this right wing Troll, 3.5% IS the magic number…
The 3.5% rule: How a small minority can change the world
Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
…and hard right Troll, Judith Collins has been quick to denigrate the protestors by claiming climate change is a hoax…
…Like the way Kauri contractors grow out of cutting oil pipelines Judith?
The fear from the older generation who have a culturally vested reason to deny climate change is understandable because the end of old white boomers running things is rapidly approaching.
As Bernard Hickey has pointed out many times, 2023 is the first election when Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials will numerically outnumber Boomers, and the millisecond we have the democratic majority at the ballot box, their boomer privilege ends.
Climate change is as much a class issue as it is a generation war, and the fear many felt as 170 000 took to the streets this week is well placed. The Hoskings, the Garners, the Judiths – do all you may because once we have that democratic majority, we will end your denial.
The radical changes to the political, cultural and economic system are coming whether the National Party deniers like it or not.
My personal favourite sign from the march?
This one.
By 2023, we will have the numerical numbers at the ballot box and we will no longer have to pander to climate denial boomer interests.
You have been warned.
As long as China does nothing (which is responsible for well over 25% of all global CO2 emissions with India rapidly rising – 300 million Indians don’t even have electricity), this is a total waste of time. Keep in mind New Zealand represents just 0.1% of greenhouse gas emissions and the whole planet breathes the same air. Anything we do (e.g. cutting cow numbers) will simply be off-shored to somewhere else (e.g. Argentina, the U.S., Canada, Poland etc) while global demand remains the same. If global demand can be somehow lowered, then the market will automatically adjust regardless of what NZ does or doesn’t do. New Zealand climate screamers just aren’t thinking this through – we have exactly zero influence over other nations, so at best we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot by doing “the right thing” causing needless local impoverishment while achieving nothing of global consequence.
Nitrium your climate denial keeps us all amused, I’ve enjoyed how it’s developed over the years as the weight of evidence keeps piling up atet you are wrong. Early Nitrium just screamed it was all a hoax, but you are smart enough to appreciate that infowars style of denial doesn’t work, so Minimiser Nitrium plays the ‘we are too small to matter’ card. Where this falls down however is your failure to appreciate that catastrophic climate change will be damaging those other countries at rates far worse than us, because NZ effectively becomes one of the few places where a temperate climate to grow things resides. Our move to a sustainable system is required because the hegemonic global superstructure will collapse. That what makes the change more than virtue signalling, it will become a matter of survival.
😉 – I really do appreciate your platform Martyn (not being facetious – I’m very much a socialist wrt to pretty much anything except Climate Change). An additional point: I still have yet to hear anyone acknowledge that anything other than forced population control will ultimately mitigate the looming climate “doomsday”.
While I can not comment on Nitrium’s history, I think there is some depressing truth in what Nitrium has posted.
For every one of us here in NZ, there is close to 300 people in China. Add a similar amount for India. That’s a lot people eating, breathing, consuming and defecating. And breeding. Unless we are all to commit to change, there is a sense of being hopelessly insignificant if other countries don’t follow.
And isn’t growth viewed as the way forward for countries like India and China? They want to have some of the life that we enjoy. Will they listen when we tell them they can’t have it?
The human population hit 3 billion in the sixties. As of today we have added close to another 5 billion on top of that. In 60 years. Not only more people, but also a lot more fatter, hungrier bastards. There is that insignificant feeling again.
There are few things we can get global consensus on, Robert Redford’s good looks is one. But look at how long Palestine has been left to fester. We dispute borders, fishing zones and nuclear weapon limits. We argue over our gods, bloodlines and sexuality. We fight over pretty much everything. Forget a global consensus on climate change, we won’t get a national consensus.
I hope the optimism of people who want positive change is rewarded. But, I have a feeling that it is more realistic to prepare for climate change than expect it to be prevented.
No one has any time for this bullshit
Amazing that Judith Collins in her realms of hypocrisy and arrogance demeans 3.5% of the population whilst at the same time forgetting those 3.5% are future voters at future general elections.
Hypocrites like Judith Collins, Mike Hosking and so many others are living on toilet-free Planet Key. They don’t have a clue as to how people feel. They “Assume” they know how NZers feel but the reality of the matter is they don’t know and don’t care. As long as THEY(Collins, Bridges, Bennett, Brownless, Hosking…etc.etc.etc.)remain in the News cameravision for their OWN self promotion they don’t care about anyone else but themselves. They are a totally selfish and also unpredictable(lets call them unstable)part of society that has created a mess and will naturally blame everyone else but themselves for the mess.
I am a baby boomer and know this planet is in trouble. Something needs to be done NOW for the future generations on this planet to live and thrive on. Not destroy parts of it over a period of time because those living now(the selfish and unstable ones)are more obsessed for money for themselves this instant and NOW.
Lets face it but if Judith Collins in leader of the National Party(if it still exists in 2023)she will be courting the 3.5% of the population she recently disparaged for votes.
Don’t get too hung up on 3.5% of the population being too big to ignore and having to be pandered to.
Firearms license holders make up more than 5% percent of the population but the tyranny of the majority and this government decided to effectively exclude them from law changes effecting them and punish them.
Both main parties do it, I’m sure the Nats when back in power will studiously ignore climate change just like JC is signalling here.
Judith Collins is horrible.period.
I’ve not followed the climate strike in detail but I’m curious as to who organised it. I can see various references to individual student organisers, but who coordinated between schools and businesses, which Organisations?
As someone who is trying hard not to be a cynic (too late!) I note many climate change initiatives are part of the globalisation agenda.
I’d like a much more balanced approach to lowering emissions, blaming agriculture for its proportion of emissions without accounting for carbon sequestering in grass and soil is misleading.
Plus:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/07/25/vegetarianism-climate-change-meat-vegan-livestock-column/1804090001/
“We’re often told that going vegetarian is the biggest thing that any of us could do, with headlines telling us: “Cut your carbon footprint in half by going vegetarian.” Statements like that are misleading for two reasons.
First, that cut isn’t to our entire emissions — just those from food. That means Four-fifths of emissions are ignored, according to an analysis of emission from the European Union, which means the impact is actually five-times lower.
Second, the more optimistic figures about how much of your emissions you can cut are based not just on a vegetarian diet, but on an entirely vegan one where we avoid every single animal product altogether.
A systematic peer-review of studies of going vegetarian shows that a non-meat diet will likely reduce an individual’s emissions by the equivalent of nearly 1,200 lbs carbon dioxide. For the average person in the industrialized world, that means an emissions cut of just 4.3%.”
“This still overstates the effect, because it ignores the well-established “rebound effect.” Vegetarian diets are slightly cheaper, and saved money will likely be spent on other goods and services that cause extra greenhouse gas emissions. In the U.S., vegetarians save at least $750 on their food budgets every year. That extra spending will cause more carbon dioxide emissions, cancelling about half the saved carbon emissions from going vegetarian.
It’s not you, it’s big business: You can’t save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable.
In a first world setting, the reality is that going entirely vegetarian for the rest of your life means you reduce your emissions by about 2%, according to a study of the environmental impact of Swedish vegetarians. ”
Get our long haul trucks on to rail, tax the hell out of air travel, don’t just bankrupt farmers for little reward.
Don’t forget that the price of solar photovoltaics has tumbled by 99 per cent over the last forty years in real terms. I.e. an amount of solar electricity that cost $100 in the days of Nambassa costs $1 now, after correcting for inflation. That’s one reason the boomers couldn’t do a sustainable lifestyle, but we can do it now. Battery powered cars (and trucks, and tractors) have also become practical. And so on. So we can do this stuff: it is just getting the knowledge out there and forging the political will, which makes the protests all the more relevant.
tell the govt the hurry up and lower the voting age the SNP in Scotland already has and there way ahead in climate policy as well
So good to see photo of Greta on the train with all the plastic food containers and drinking bottles scattered around.
The children of the world can finally see what a fake this whole world surrounding this kid is
So when is the CP-TPP supporting current government going to do something substantial about climate change? Strikes me they mostly on the same page here……
Media are a fortress of ignorance Brother.
I was marching among the young 700 walking down Emerson Street on Friday and was lifted up by the enthusiasm of the youth today.
In Chch people camped out overnight to be among the first through the door at the latest Doughnut shop. Some will join a crowd just because it is there. I am concerned for the mental wellbeing of these young people that are being sold the doomsday message. The real lesson they need to learn is that life is never certain and for people to survive they need to be adaptable to changing times.
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