It’s funny seeing many NZ outlets reviewing the past decade when the vast majority of them are incapable of reviewing the very week they are publishing in.
As the mainstream media scramble to make sense of the last 10 years in an arbitrary manner that attempts some hegemonic narrative, I think the only review of the past 10 years that matters is one that myopically focuses on the horrific enormity of the rapidly unfolding climate crisis…
Climate change: Current warming ‘unparalleled’ in 2,000 years
‘Catastrophic’ climate change is accelerating faster than predicted
Unprecedented, off the scale catastrophic Greenland melt
THE STUDY ON COLLAPSE THEY THOUGHT YOU SHOULD NOT READ – YET
…it was a decade of extreme weather events at a terrifying speed and acceleration…
2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather
Madrid, 3 December 2019 – The year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record. 2019 is on course to be the second or third warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO provisional statement on the State of the Global Climate, says that the global average temperature in 2019 (January to October) was about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record level of 407.8 parts per million in 2018 and continued to rise in 2019. CO2 lasts in the atmosphere for centuries and the ocean for even longer, thus locking in climate change.
Sea level rise has accelerated since the start of satellite measurements in 1993 because of the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, according to the report.
The ocean, which acts as a buffer by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, is paying a heavy price. Ocean heat is at record levels and there have been widespread marine heatwaves. Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era. Vital marine ecosystems are being degraded.
The daily Arctic sea-ice extent minimum in September 2019 was the second lowest in the satellite record and October has seen further record low extents. In Antarctica, 2019 saw record low ice extents in some months.
…with a recognition that we have tripped tipping points that will make the worst case scenario’s the only scenarios…
Climate emergency: world ‘may have crossed tipping points’
The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.
Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.
The planet has already heated by 1C and the temperature is certain to rise further, due to past emissions and because greenhouse gas levels are still rising. The scientists further warn that one tipping point, such as the release of methane from thawing permafrost, may fuel others, leading to a cascade.
The researchers, writing in a commentary article in the journal Nature, acknowledge that the complex science of tipping points means great uncertainty remains. But they say the potential damage from the tipping points is so big and the time to act so short, that “to err on the side of danger is not a responsible option”. They call for urgent international action.
…the graphs are shocking…
…and the mass protest movement of citizens who see the reality of the climate crisis that is before us has built recently this decade to ensure it is the main means of forced change before desperate political violence replaces desperate non-violent political action in the coming decade.
The generation of school children now galvanised by Greta to strike for climate change will be unforgiving in their radicalisation once the lip service of todays inaction bears a burnt harvest of spite.
This decade was ruled by our wilful ignorance to deny a super heated future by fracturing the debate into a billion different social media shards all screaming our pain and oversharing our wounds to an indifferent consumer culture that manipulated those fears and insecurities into a mass surveillance Pavlov’s dog apathy.
The next decade will be cut to the bone radicalism borne from a fear of survival. The time for pretending will be over and the ramifications of the climate crisis will be upon us. The next decade will be ruled by which extremists are in charge of the Walls.
Wellington CBD has shocking air pollution as tested very recently.
Electric trolley buses have been dumped and replaced by more diesel buses.
Absolute stupidity.
Multi million overhead trolley buss wiring torn down and scrapped.
No time to given rethink about trolley buses in spite of numerous overseas reports.
Big oil has its way again as it did when trams were scrapped.
Tell me there is no corruption.
Common sense is over ridden regarding human health and health of the planet.
“citizens”… lol
Human driven climate change is also “intensifying Earth’s natural wobble”, according to a NASA study.
VICE mag link here
“The effects of Greenland’s ice loss over the past century has had a particularly pronounced impact, according to the research, because this Arctic nation is located at an ideal position to throw Earth’s spin off-kilter…”
Weather.com linked here This link includes a brief video with graphics.
Yes. Stupid annual surveys are AI nothing to do with real humans looking back and looking forward assessing their prospects of survival.
Capitalism is in terminal crisis because is is killing the exosphere and nature which includes human beings will not go to their death like blind sheep.
Look around the world, the terminal crisis started in 2008 and the fight back has been building year on year ever since.
Today in many countries, in many big cities, workers are on the streets being meet by authoritarian and fascist regimes with live ammunition and other means if execution.
There are not enough fascist shock troops and mercenaries resorting to genocide to stop angry and organised armed masses who have nothing to lose from trampling over them.
Climate Change in our faces:
‘Everything is Burning’. Australian Inferno continues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH87xXWnnXM&fbclid=IwAR3m5F550jQbGTntRIPEBi-oeGFzHJkBTFAT2sAcRiGCdrEHKGtCpDnCq3I
Jexpat says:
I don’t think most people grasp just how profoundly corrupt and overtly hostile to science and evidence based policy that the New South Wales government is.
There’s literally nothing like it in the rest of the developed world. You’d have to look at certain Asian, South American and African nations to find correlates
“nothing like it in the rest of the developed world.”
Yep. From this link excerpt below:
“When you talk to some Europeans, they look at Australians like they’re from a different planet,” Mr Merzian said.
“They cannot comprehend how a country can literally be on fire and admit the fire emergency is unprecedented, its experts knowing that climate change exacerbates and supercharges fires, and at the same time and in the same breath lobby for special consideration to do as little as possible on climate action.
“It beggars belief. In some corners, Australia is seen as being totally disconnected from reality.”
Thousands of people in East Gippsland, Victoria, have been told to evacuate.
New Daily Link here and Melbourne Age here. Around 30,000 are visitors in the Lakes Entrance area alone, and about 9,000 were attending a festival. Three raging bushfires are bearing down on them.
“You should not be there tomorrow, and we want you to get out now.” – Emergency Management Commissioner, yesterday. And on the Fire Chief on Twitter, “Leave Now!”
ABC covers it here
Evacuations are also being urged in W.A, SE of Perth.
Update on East Gippsland:
Many didn’t get out and now thousands have fled to the beach, where the fires are bearing down on them. Town of Mallacoota – was pitch black at 9.00 am today. Watch the vid at this link and see – it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The temp there went up to 49 degrees – shot up and down as the fires moved around. (extraordinary graph at link too.)
In that pitch darkness, burning embers were blowing around the 4,000 people gathered on the shore.
Excerpt:
Larry Gray, a kayaker born in the town and visiting from Sydney, was at the end of a jetty at Mallacoota wrapped up in a blanket shortly before 11am. He described the scenes as “grim”. Houses were going, he said, and visibility had vanished into darkness as the fire moved in.
“We can see the fire coming towards us, there’s hot embers flying through the air – small ones,” Mr Gray said. “It sounds like a freight train. It’s completely black like midnight. There’s a weird red glow.”
Gas bottles from caravans on the foreshore had been dragged into the ocean to stop them exploding, he said. A Mallacoota local at the foreshore told ABC Radio he could hear gas bottles exploding from there. SMH Link here
It is not just East Gippsland (Victoria), – all along the South Coast of NSW thousands of people have fled to the beaches, to the shoreline, and are experiencing similar conditions, – blackened sky, hot embers, fires raging around them. Here is a live-updates link also from SMH
Extreme conditions are set to continue today in Aus. Yesterday every state hit 40 degrees, including Tasmania, where this was a record-breaker for December. The fires are closing in on Melbourne, now only 16 km away. More than 100 are burning around NSW.
More than a quarter of a million people have signed a petition asking for tonight’s Sydney fireworks to be banned and the money to go to volunteers fighting the fires and people who have lost everything to them. The crackers cost $6.5 million. But the money has already been spent, Morrison says, and he and the NSW prem just want the show to go on. Hey, celebrate the world burning, with more $$$s burning, why not! (silent screaming)
SBS link here
Phys.org link here
bbc link here
Correction: It was Sydney Mayor Clover Moore who, together with Morrison, was so set on the fireworks going ahead (not the NSW premier as written).
Meanwhile the navy has been sent in to rescue those on the beaches – in Vic, anyway. All communications are gone on the NSW South Coast now, – no landline, phone, internet or power. The army too has been sent in to help, – first with evacuations. Why did it take so long for that to happen? Morrison was asked about bringing in the army a couple of weeks ago and he said something about the fireys “like to do that work”. That was right before he flew off to Hawaii. Here is the ABC live-update link
Iwi Leader is Showing the Way
– He is doing what our politicians, for whatever reason, are unable to do.
Mike Smith has “started legal proceedings in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Rainer Seele, the CEO of Austrian oil giant OMV. He said oil company executives deserved to stand trial for genocide and other climate crimes impacting on indigenous communities now and in the future.”
“We’re in a climate emergency. We’ve got to pull out all the stops against the fossil fuel companies.
“They choose to put profit ahead of millions of people all over the world who will suffer the effects of climate change. It’s a crime of global proportions. I know it sounds dramatic but that’s because it is. We need to hold these people to account.”
“The oil company is the last international giant still operating in New Zealand. OMV NZ owns the majority share in the country’s largest producing oil field off the south coast of Taranaki. It also operates two other fields and holds exploratory licences.
“The government stopped offering new oil exploration permits in April last year. Smith wants OMV to cease operating in New Zealand.” More at this Stuff link
Kheala,
NZ needs to do much more in community preparation for food production and local distribution without use of fossil fuels. This is a huge area of neglect leaving the population exposed to potential starvation.
At the moment our food supply is set up so we cannot grow food to feed NZ without using oil, which means we have to change. Dairy is shocking although completely necessary.
Plant based food grown locally is the only answer long term. Rail transport fired by wood has been prototyped in NZ but not backed by govt.
Corporations and investor profit model is out and community co-operatives are desperately needed.
This is all stuff we can do but apart from a few small groups of “Preppers” setting up their own local networks, nothing is happening.
The govt don’t seem to have a clue of what a fossil fuel free community look like.
John, I totally agree with you! I feel very strongly about that too. And, here in Aotearoa it is still quite possible at this time. We’re already producing a great array of produce. It is incomprehensible to me that there are children in Aotearoa whose families often cannot afford these basics. Eg, we (NZ) produce our own honey, yet it is priced out of reach for some locals who need it most – families have to choose imported sugar, while our home produced honey goes overseas.
One thing that could help drive the needed changes would be if the GST were removed from all NZ-Grown fruit & veggies, honey, etc.
Mike Treen’s ‘A Green New Deal with People’s Power’ on TDB references some of this too
Attempt to correct link to Mike Treen’s article:
thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/12/19/for-a-green-new-deal-with-peoples-power
On Stuff yesterday, this community garden (“farm”) in central Auckland, is very impressive. It’s right there in Symonds St. Link here A Farm in the Middle of Auckland
They produce enough to supply nearby cafes and restaurants as well as families. People can pre-order or buy at the gate and “are priced at $25 for a box of 12 different spray-free, hyper local, in-season veges”.
“The aim here is to demonstrate climate change infrastructure that can be resilient and healthy for cities and their communities,” says Brinsdon-Hall. “We want to show that regenerative agriculture and micro urban farms can be sustainable and commercially viable… in a way, there is a dream and a goal for every square metre and type of kai that comes out of here.”
A bit more from the link I just posted, as what this community group are doing seems exactly on target for what you (John) had just written.
“So Brinsdon-Hall is acutely aware that the market garden must also function as a showcase of sorts. It is part of Auckland Council-funded For the Love of Bees, which works to create teaching tools and models of change.
“The garden is supported by City Rail Link and collaborates with a number of community groups around New Zealand that all work – in various ways – to reconnect food consumers with their food growers.
“Many in these groups believe that innovative micro urban farms are a true alternative to industrial agriculture, and can lower the high environmental impact of standard food distribution networks.” (Again, from “The Farm in the Middle of the City”, Stuff, 30/12/19)
Coping with shrinking oil supplies caused either by reduced supply or increased pricing, is an inevitable future prospect we are totally unprepared for.
We can learn from Cuba which had its oil supply from the USSR cut. After a period of struggle, hardship and weight loss, the power of community found solutions to hunger. Cuba was lucky to have a socialist govt.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-02-25/power-community-how-cuba-survived-peak-oil/
A must watch.
https://dotsub.com/view/a5d410d4-82b6-410e-9c12-baab77d62c14
The point is that NZ govt has no plan for an oil free period ahead. Corporations and banks won’t allow it. Our govt has shrunk over recent decades are various govt activities have be privatised or partially privatised with contractors.
Although nuclear is off the radar for NZ ( and should be for the world) Sweden shows us how to think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Sweden_an_Oil-Free_Society
NZ needs free medical care, free tertiary education and more scientists, medical training and social initiative leaders.
Building a strong community ethic is what we need above all else. Its a social revolution that will give us a future.
Couple of permaculture links:
http://www.permaculture.org.nz (Local 2020 Workshops & more)
Auckland Workshops apw.org.nz
Edible Backyard http://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz
8 min Video Suburban Abundance
Permaculture Principles – Holmgren permacultureprinciples.com
The new housing-build initiative presents a great opportunity for a greener future, insofar as solar panels could now be installed in these homes of the future. I do hope the Greens push for that soon!
Rainwater tanks could also be included, as well as a dedicated area for growing essential food (whether that’s a community garden or a private one). Schools also need to have their own food producing gardens wherever feasible.
Kheala
Agreed with the initiatives.
We actually need to use less energy and while solar will help while we adjust our lifestyle to a low energy, fossil fuel free existence, manufacturing of high tech solar will not be sustainable for several reasons, one being that we don’t have the raw materials nor ability for production locally.
But we can make traditional style windmills, sailing vessels, use horses, oxen, goats and dogs to provide assisted transport. Tools of trade for blacksmiths. rope makers, timber adzes and saws, carpenters tools and the like can be expected to be in demand.
Harvesting of metal from ores will be a challenge.
Population globally and locally will have to reduce and life expectancy will adjust downwards.
“timber adzes and saws, carpenters tools and the like”
Some of these can be picked up at rural tips and recycling centres from time to time, I’ve found. Local rural tip… (Then some damned “antique shop” saw there was a demand and nabbed them to sell at a fortune.)
When I was a kid an old guy resuscitated the old blacksmith bellows in his hay barn and was in some demand, making horse-shoes mostly. I still remember the sparks flying, the metal glowing on the anvil, the ring as he bashed and shaped each piece of metal.
I think the Aborigines in Aussie have got the right answer. Sit this one out and watch it all burn and then rejuvenate, and then adapt.
Life will go on, but not as we know it, Jim’.
It has indeed been happening there for ever. Not only the people but the vegetation and fauna are adapted;for species to recover if not to survive.
But I expect there is much less wildlife keeping dead litter trampled into the ground, and that undergrowth that would once have been browsed on is now allowed to die and dry to tinder on the floor of the forests making the place that much more combustable.
I read that 2.7m Ha has burnt in AUS c/f 1.3 in the California and only .9 m in the Amazon that got so much more media attention.
D J S
The Amazon is dense moist forest and is credited with being important lungs of the world. It is under attack with about 0.8m sq kilometers having been felled to make way for cattle grazing and crops for cattle feed.
There is global concern about local govts allowing the destruction of Amazon forest so it is a hot news item directly connected with climate change. The 0.9m sq kms burnt compounds that destruction.
Ozzie bush is not of the same density as the Amazon nor of similar CO2 capture capability. Ozzie is doing little regarding lowering Fossil fuel emissions, as it is increasing its emissions and exporting coal.
But all those fires are disastrous for the planet in its present state. The biggest news is the lack of planning and action by govts to change how we live and drastically reduce fossil fuel harvesting and consumption.
For many reasons we have to use less energy yet there are no plans for that.
Geez,… it was cold this morning.
Right in the middle of ‘summer’… well I recall the winters getting severe in 1975.
Pissed down all over the place….then in the 1980’s it was Fohn winds, El Nino and El whatever….seemed like the earth had a major case of flatulence.
Whatever.
Polar bears copulating with grizzlies?
What do they call that ? … Pizzlies? … so what. It happens. No one wears a snow white polar bear coat these days anyway. Climate change happens. No politician can change that and no politician wants to. If you think you’ve got problems , then welcome to the Ice Age. Neanderthals coped, so why cant you?
Oh that’s right.
Global warming, aka global sausage sizzle.
So your going to compare Mt St Helen’s, Mt Vesuvius, , Krakatoa with human induced climatic change? Have you even read up on what the effects of just these three volcanoes did? Are you going to try to stop the planets from turning? Seriously?
Now, the planets climate is a-changin’. That much we know. But that isn’t something new to this pretty blue orb hurtling through space. And you know what?… get out into the wild areas. Breath in that mountain air. Look around at the puniness of mankind. Get some perspective.
I guarantee you and your kin will still be here in over 100 years time.
Breathing free and breathing easy.
Some places will be flooded, others wont.
Do what you can now. Look after the environment as good stewards should. Be a good farmer. But I can can guarantee you wont be frizzled up like a newspaper bag full of Kumara chips.
Compared to nature?- mankind is puny.
Not even all the conducted atom bomb tests since the 1950’s moves nature unless she wants a mountain moved. And that’s REAL power.
“get out into the wild areas. Breath in that mountain air. Look around at the puniness of mankind. Get some perspective.”
Yep 🙂 Works miracles.
Here is a brief excerpt from some things Greta said yesterday:
In addition to Attenborough’s work, Thunberg said, she was driven to take climate action after spending several years coping with depression.
“I think it was a medicine in a way to become active,” she told the BBC. “I felt like I’m doing everything I can…so there’s no reason to be sad and feeling depressed.”
Above all, Thunberg said, convincing politicians to make the policy changes necessary to protect the Earth for future generations—instead of remaining beholden to fossil fuel corporations—will take an engaged global citizenry.
“Read up. Inform yourself about the actual science and situation,” she said. “Be an active democratic citizen. Of course to vote, but also to be active, because democracy is not only on election day, it’s happening all the time.” [my emphasis]
Link to the full episode here
There is absolutely NO honest commitment by this government, nor by most governments on this planet, to bring about the needed change. I sense there is too much awareness of the total dependency on fossil fuel energy, which is what keeps the economies going as they are, with the totally unsustainable population we have on this planet.
There is NO honest commitment by industry and business to bring about change, and that is, because they will not want extra rules and costs. So business as per usual.
We are told endless BS, but nothing is being done, nothing of substance.
We will face a future where the human population itself will become absolutely unsustainable and hence we will have some call for the destruction of much of humanity, to sustain the rest.
That is the sad and shocking truth about where we are, and it WILL happen, as all idealistic left leaning thinking has never succeeded much. Humans are selfish, will kill each other and do anything to survive, no matter what.
We are doomed, it may be better we are dead before the grim future will really come and hit us, as it will be hell on earth, hell on earth. Forget the dreams of common sense to prevail, if that was the case we would never have had Trump as President, Brexit, we would never have Putin or Xi as rulers of the second and third most powerful nations.
Those that carry on with dreams of getting benefit increases to fight poverty and so forth, forget it, learn to fight and survive, Darwin style, Jacinda and her lot are traitors and will NEVER give those in need what they need, empty words and endless lies.
Blind and one sided ‘news review’, wtf.
Sean Plunket says it is all Action Station make belief.
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