The Orange skies over Auckland and fires in Australia are a problem for climate deniers

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
85
3561

Hey Auckland – look up to the sky and see your climate change future – anyone else still believe being carbon neutral in 30 years is a solution?

Ultimately the problem for NZ climate deniers & their corporate polluter mates is the sky over Auckland right now and the catastrophic fires in Australia that are causing it.

While they attempt to minimise & underplay climate crisis, the rapid decline in the environment will keep interrupting their lies.

This isn’t a one off, it’s just the start.

This is our future.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

We can pretend the world will come together to find a solution or we can accept the limitations of human nature and the corrupted political process and adopt a radical solution.

How will you explain this sky to your children as you tuck them in tonight?

Oh and when climate deniers and climate minimisers attempt to claim these bush fires are normal and the fault of arson and incompetent bush management – remind them the wet forests are on fire for the first time and that those claims are lies…

Bushfires devastate rare and enchanting wildlife as ‘permanently wet’ forests burn for first time

Factcheck: Is there really a green conspiracy to stop bushfire hazard reduction?

What are the links between climate change and bushfires? – explainer

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

85 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Wokester… Jian Yang is still an MP… lead story, every day, until the spy is gone 😉 too non-mainstream for ya?

  2. By now, most Kiwis will have seen & been affected by the tonnes of Australian carbon in the atmosphere.
    Even the most slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, anthropogenic-induced-climate-change-denying fuckwit will have seen it.
    I wonder if THIS is enough to awaken the sleepwalking troglodytes in this godforsaken kuntree.

    • “Even the most slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, anthropogenic-induced-climate-change-denying fuckwit will have seen it.”
      While I agree with your sentiment, don’t underestimate the fact those people may actually be looking forward to the coming destruction and disorder accompanying climate change and growing inequality.
      Those you describe believe a god will save them and the rest will go to hell. And the power brokers who promote such worship of fictitious deities in the pursuit of power and wealth believe they will be safe with their billions and Hawaii holiday homes or bunkers in the high country.
      I hope those who read and contribute to this blog will understand now is to late for the education argument. You are dealing with extremist right wing nutter religious fundamentalists who will pursue their calling as prescribed by the new testament or Quran no matter the consequences.

      • You are so right.
        Two dangerous modes of thought percolate amongst the masses.
        (1) Business as usual, and somehow, if you build up enough resources and isolate/insulate yourself from the world, you can ride out/survive the Anthropocene.
        As I understand the science, even if the whole planet went Carbon Zero today, there is a lag between greenhouse gas release and the atmospheric/oceanic heating it eventually results in. Things will get worse – much much much worse. Depressingly, this will produce an environment so hostile and unfit for us “creatures of the Holocene” that mere existence may be a life not worth living.
        (2) The magical Sky wizard will sort it all out. Well…..insert Tui ad here.

        Both equally as dangerous. Someone adhering to the first belief may in all liklihood live longer than someone clinging to the second, but not by much.
        And life will be the opposite of pleasant as global resources dwindle.

        Whilst the differences between 2010 and 2019 may be superficial to the casual observer, the differences between 2020 and 2029 will be stark and meaningful.

  3. Another illustrating example.

    …one of ten-thousands cases allover the globe.

    This needs to lead to organized climate resilience and civil resistance by everyone who still has his / her senses together.

    The present NZAO party structure and personnel composition will not be capable to respond adequately to the upcoming challenges.

    A radical political platform is required that is gradually able to build up local, alternative systems, simultaneously putting political pressure on Labour and the Greens, potential spill-over effects to the other parties.

    No need to wait for 2023.

    If the queen does not come to the people, the people have to come to the queen.

    System Change. Now.

      • Parliament have no plans for greater community resilience nor of local food supply and co-operative community employment project. Nor have any political party at present.
        Even implementing the UBI would start to free up co-operative community thinking.

  4. Tree let your naked arms fall

    nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
    This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,

    no dashing trade wind’s blast.

    The fading green of your magic

    emanations shall not make pure again

    these polluted skies . . . for this

    is no ordinary sun.

  5. It is a one off. You can only burn this massive amount of fuel they have in the states of Australia once every generation (sensible people would have burn offs when it is safe as has been done in the past 50,000 years before woke. 50,000 BW).
    Because of the non fortress thinking, Australians that wanted to let the place become an out of control stake in the sand seem happy to apparently show us that MM climate change is real. Fuckwits. MM sabotage is real, and I’m sure will be proven when the arsonists get to court.

  6. Sorry Martyn, this is not evidence of climate change. It’s summer in a most Bush-fire prone part of the world with fauna dependent on fire. You’ve not mentioned the fires that have been deliberately lit? You’ve also not mentioned that lack of cool burning of fuel buildup. In the major fires in Victoria, protests stopped the burn off and now you’re seeing the result.
    Suggest you read the story on the lose of the town named Paradise in California. One of the major fires that have occurred in that state in the last 15 years was caused by one tree next to a power line.

    • With all due respect, what a load of climate denying bullshit Michael.

      The extreme heat and drought has set the bush alight in places it’s never fucking burnt before. Wet forest are on fire, that’s climate change.

      The attempt by climate deniers like you is to try and claim these are just natural events, not enough scrub born off + some deliberately lit fires and pow, just a normal fire.

      What you are ignoring is the the fact that the bush is so tinder dry (as it was in California) because of climate change, the super heating of the planet is allowing for forests to burn where they’ve never burnt. That is the reality.

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-27/bushfires-devastate-ancient-forests-and-rare-wildlife/11733956

      • The reports I’m reading from Australia, put the blame squarely at the lack of forest management in burning off fuel. We in NZ can blame whatever we like, but it should be realised that eucalyptus requires fire to propagate and the indigenous peoples of Australia realised this and cold burnt their forests for the past 50,000 odd years.

        Id rather believe peoples that have been doing this for thousands of years that people trying to claim political points regarding thier ideology

        • What you twits believe is neither here nor there. Thinking people look for facts and reasoned action while you are spouting your ancient wisdoms. Please just move to the side and let real ‘woke’ persons get on with looking disaster in the face and working out how to act for safety and practicality now, and introduce new behaviours and models for the near future to alleviate the people’s and planet distress. You twits can run stress-relief workshops, and alternative meditation for people who are psyched out by the reality and need to give their minds a break.

        • “Id rather believe peoples that have been doing this for thousands of years ”

          Well if you’ve suddenly taken to heeding the words of the ancients of the land, you’ll need to step up and play an active role in ending toxic mining – righty-Ho? Including of uranium, the mining of which has poisoned Kakadu and the people who have lived there forever. Including the multi-billion $ coal digging frenzy.

          This by Oodgeroo: “Time is Running Out”

          The miner rapes the heart of earth
          With his violent spade.
          Stealing, bottling her black blood
          for the sake of greedy trade.
          On his metal throne of destruction
          He labours away with a will,
          Piling the mountainous minerals high
          with giant tool and iron drill.

          In his greedy lust for power
          He destroys old nature’s will,
          For the sake of the filthy dollar
          He dirties the nest he builds.
          Well he knows that violence
          Of his destructive kind
          Will be violently written
          Upon the sands of time.

          But time is running out
          And time is close at hand,
          For the Dreamtime folk are massing
          To defend their timeless land.
          Come gentle black man, show your strength;
          Time to take a stand,
          Make the violent miner feel
          Your violent
          Love of land.

          – From, ‘My People’

          (Note, her poem was not a call for human violence but an invocation of the spirits of the land, …who might be seen to be expressing some anger atm)

      • Micheal is a a perfect example of a professiomnal company climate denier, sent to quell the flames of disconent.

        No use arguing with these deadheads.

        Best medicine is to ay back ignorence to their bold ignorence – is best policy here.

      • from a independent NZ journalist ( and a good one to I think and it aint you Martin, ,,hope the 30 pieces of silver were worth it … ) anyway he writes, and to which I agree with ( as I also have discovered ) Snip; ” According to Herald this is all climate change nothing to do with the 100 arsons, council ineptitude (e.g. banning fire breaks), fire department funding slashes, spending on war and spy toys not critical local infrastructure, ignoring indigenous habits learned over 50,000 year, Antarctic draft – a non climate change phenomenon, flammable retardant in rain making aerosols (used ironically to fight fires), water sold off to water miners (instead of used for local purposes such as combating drought and fire), a seventy year weather cycle that has brought major fire crisis after major fire crisis since Australia European colonisation. Or a naturally occurring solar cycle, or the mass rape of Australia water supply (such as the Murray Darling basin fiasco) were through bipartisan (corporate backed lobbyist) permitted water harvesting and private dams the valley has being pushed into a drought that is entirely man made.”…and if ya had done ya research you would have found it WAS hotter in 1906,,,

      • Many climate deniers are ignorant and because of their bias do not seek out information to educate themselves and their circle of friends. They cling hopefully to their denial and accept any bullshit that supports denial.
        The bigger picture and change is just too frightening for them.

  7. The worlds going to be fucked sooner than we think but the good news… it will recover once the parasitic scourge called homo sapiens kills itself off by destroying the only environment it had. Time for a new dominant species to evolve and fill the gap. It’s going to be tough on the coming generations but mankinds demise will be not too lingering now that theres a good chance that a major catastrophic war will speed things up.

    • ANDREW you said; “The dust is a valuable micro nutrient for our selenium deficient soils”

      That is sush an idiotic assertion you made here; – to assume our lungs can breathe in dust and be medically o/k with the buildup and deposition of all that dust particulates insiide our lower lung areas of our blood oxygen transfer areas for our human health, you are implying very dangerous ideas that may harm the health of many here, so be careful.
      https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/lungs_dust.html

      What are the reactions of the lungs to dust?
      The way the respiratory system responds to inhaled particles depends, to a great extent, on where the particle settles. For example, irritant dust that settles in the nose may lead to rhinitis, an inflammation of the mucous membrane. If the particle attacks the larger air passages, inflammation of the trachea (tracheitis) or the bronchi (bronchitis) may be seen.

      The most significant reactions of the lung occur in the deepest parts of this organ.

      Particles that evade elimination in the nose or throat tend to settle in the sacs or close to the end of the airways. But if the amount of dust is large, the macrophage system may fail. Dust particles and dust-containing macrophages collect in the lung tissues, causing injury to the lungs.

      The amount of dust and the kinds of particles involved influence how serious the lung injury will be. For example, after the macrophages swallow silica particles, they die and give off toxic substances. These substances cause fibrous or scar tissue to form. This tissue is the body’s normal way of repairing itself.

  9. There’s a good explainer of the interaction of the droughts in Aus making the fires so extreme and the climatic conditions that seem to be causing it. More heat causes more evaporation causes more rain, but it’s falling on the wrong side of the Indian ocean.
    ” Climate deniers” don’t in the main deny the existence of climate. Neither do they deny the existence of climate change, in fact they point out that it is normal and that it has always changed and that it always will. It is those on the other side of the argument that insist that the only reason the climate could possibly be changing must be because of something mighty man is doing. It couldn’t possibly change by itself.
    You are the climate denier Martyn not me.
    D J S

    • I see you are still banging your ‘I am right and all the scientists are wrong, it’s not CO2′ drum.

      ” Climate deniers” don’t in the main deny the existence of climate.’

      Let’s get this right. It’s not climate. It’s not climate change. It’s not just warming. It is extraordinarily rapid overheating of the Earth.

      Current rates of change in geochemistry -particularly the surge in atmospheric CO2 and acidification of the oceans by CO2 that dissolves- outstrip anything in the geological record going back at least 250 million years i.e. faster than the CO2-induced Permian Extinction Event.

      ‘[The Permian Extinction] is the Earth’s most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species[6][7] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.[8] It was the largest known mass extinction of insects. Some 57% of all biological families and 83% of all genera became extinct. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of land-dwelling life took significantly longer than after any other extinction event,[6] possibly up to 10 million years.’

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian–Triassic_extinction_event

      Humans are known to have caused the extinction of a multitude of species since the time humans invented weapons but the rate of extinction went into ‘overdrive’ with the advent of industrialism and the human population explosion that industrialism based on burning ancient carbon facilitated.

      The rate of overheating the Earth by industrial humans is best indicated the heat content of the ocean, and you will note that CO2 imbalance started to really dominate from the 1970s on:

      https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-ocean-heat

      • Thanks Afewknowthetruth for that exellent depiction of the scientific truth of what is facing us going forward here as the truth cant be soiled by simple minimisation as the climate deiers are always persuing.

        Truth riegns over ignorance.

    • @DJS.
      You’re incorrect on a broader and much more critical level than you might imagine @ DJS.
      Sure, the weather changes. I mean Duh?
      However:
      Co2’s a funny little thing.
      Anyone who still believes in Unicorns, flying invisible wizards who smite the wicked and watch keenly for Fairies at the bottom of the garden of an evening while denying man-made climate change should watch and read this.
      RNZ.
      Climate pioneer Dave Lowe: ‘We only have one atmosphere’
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018724130/climate-pioneer-dave-lowe-we-only-have-one-atmosphere
      There’s also the findings of the 11,257 other scientists globally so… just sayin’.
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12282733

      • @ C B
        It’s fair enough that someone like Lowe is afforded far more credibility than me. But for my part , having tried to understand the machinery as much as possible in the past year, having totally accepted man made warming for 30+ years without questioning, I have a different view. And I share this with many very highly qualified scientists.
        The water vapour c/f CO2 multiplier argument leaves out what I think is the absolutely critical fact that water vapour reacts to warming at both ends . CO2 is insert.
        WV lasts only about 9 days in the atmosphere before it raises up into cold air and warms that air as it condenses into rain; carrying the heat that caused its formation with it to where most of it can escape.So the more WV that is created by CO2 or any other agent, the more vigorously WV will react to cool the earth. I can’t see how this effect of WV, at the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere, can detect that a tiny part of the GH effect it is reacting to is contributed by the CO2. I think would be almost exactly the same if there were none. I think humans are doing emend and wanton damage to our environment with poisons, deforestation plastic solution and nuclear pollution, and the one thing we are putting into the environment that is not only harmless but essential to life is the thing that everyone is hyperventilating over.
        The reference in Lowe’s discussion to the isotopic signal of the makeup of increase in level needs identification if it is other than what I have read elsewhere that the added CO2 has no C14 component meaning that it is assessed from a reduced proportion of C14. (C14 CO2 is around one part per trillion of atmospheric CO2) . This has to be an extremely fine measurement and it must assume no fluctuation in the creation of C14 in the atmosphere. Also it must be somehow separated from the known continued reduction in C14 as the atmospheric content settles back to the pre atmospheric nuclear testing that almost doubled it in the 1950s and 60’s. The distortion has been reducing by half every 11 years since the testing stopped in 63 giving a definitive guide to the rate of mixing of CO2 between the atmosphere and the ocean. A guide which is logically incompatible with the fossil component remaining in the atmosphere long enough to establish the source of such a change in composition.
        D J S

    • This is not rubbish.

      https://ecoscenography.com/ecological-thinking/

      Ecological thinking helps to understand the complexity. Climate change modelling and associating relevant adaptation skills are by no means ideology but science-based theory and practice.

      Humans play an essential role in terrestrial interacting processes, unfortunately including significant release of GHG emissions, mainly through production processes since start of industrialization.

      Philosophy may help a bit, too – if you find time:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4W4M8Z8VQ

  10. There is not the political or social will to do anything meaningful to stop a climate catastrophe. Those on the left who believe there is or that there eventually will be, are delusional. The only hope for mankind is some sort of technological breakthrough where we can control our weather system. That’s not going to happen anytime soon, so I suggest prepare as best as you can for a warming planet.

      • Geoengineering at its best can only postpone the inevitable rise in temperature. Its a reductionist discussion ignoring the overall consequences including resource depletion and energy harvesting to implement such a scheme over an idefinite time frame.

        • The answer to Climate Change is as Theodore Roosevelt did to solve The Great Depression and employ millions of workers is to tax corperations and the rich. No mai haere mai Fortress Aotearoa.

          • Agreed Sam.
            Those that extract their wealth from communities, owe that wealth to those communities so need to pay back taxes to make those communities function well for all the community members.

  11. The inexorable rise in atmospheric CO2 that comes from burning coal, oil and natural gas -desequestration of ancient carbon- will see 418 ppm broken through this year

    Daily CO2
    Jan. 4, 2020: 413.65 ppm
    Jan. 4, 2019: 410.03 ppm

    In addition to megafires and firestorms we have increased torrential rain and catastrophic flooding to look forward to as a result of the fuckwit mentality that is endemic in political circles throughout the world.

    ‘JAKARTA: Floods that killed more than 50 people in Indonesia’s capital after the biggest rainfall since records began should be a wake-up call to climate change in one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters, environmental groups said.
    But, despite the catastrophe in Southeast Asia’s biggest city, authorities see no greater impetus for more cuts to planned carbon dioxide emission reductions or other measures to address climate change.’

    https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/jakarta-floods-indonesia-climate-change-environment-wake-up-call-12233124?fbclid=IwAR1KX68Fkby9_3sfGGDHtLnUzkIwOEwciEsWBcN7kVYQQzSWoctnoo1gpqU

  12. Only the onset of apocalyptic conditions will bring about radical change. I think Trotsky may have also had such KAOTIC thoughts. I’m an old, white, toothless & graying (it’s all our fault) boomer with nothing to loose, & the few comrades I have left are dying of cancer, so bring it on.

  13. The climate change denialists will defend their positions by pointing out that bushfires have always been a problem in Australia ever since humans settled there, and this season is just a particularly bad one and it doesn’t prove anything.
    Future projections from scientists warn that the scale and duration of fire seasons will be greater, not MIGHT be greater, but WILL be greater as time goes by and in a decade this particularly bad season will likely seem like a normal one.
    The wisdom of building settlements and towns in forested areas has been questioned in the past but things have pretty much carried on as usual.
    One reason is that these are areas largely controlled politically by the climate denialist Nationals who interpret any questions about this as being communist-inspired threats, thus they campaign on this at elections and hardly have to raise a finger to maintain their huge majorities and their arse prints on the same seats in Canberra year after year.
    Scott Morrison might be the whipping boy of the moment, but the real culprits are the Nationals – the rural rump of the coalition who apparently are the real power of this government.

    • But ultimately it is the lazy non-thinkers who vote these good ol’ boys back in and in, who are to blame. They are so blown up with how clever they are, and how stupid the opposition is, that they can hardly keep their feet touching ground. I think it illustrates how universal voting is a mistake. There must be a reasonably simple test that they know something about what they are voting for. The vote should not be limited to those who have land, or one gender, it should be for people who have information in their head, and understanding of the broad requirements to be dealt with by government.

  14. I lived in East Gippsland for a few years. This area of OZ thru to southern NSW is heavily forested and agriculturally productive. The Bega valley supplies much of Victoria and NSW dairy. Mallacoota was an important fishing port.ALL of Victoria is in the most severe sustained drought on record. This is NOT NORMAL. Yapoon in Queensland an important horticultural area has burnt for the first time ever .A great deal of agricultural livestock has been lost. These fires are 20 times larger than the ash Wednesday fires of February 1983. This fire season started in the Spring. this has never happened before in recorded history. Just a few facts from my personal experience for deniers to chew over.
    My daughter is a Melbourne resident and reckons that no one in the city wants to talk about what’s really going on. She is perplexed by normally up front people going into deep denial.

  15. The blame is capitalism and our altered consciousness after getting a big heaping of it. This shows as aspirational thinking, to get all the goodies that can be made under modern conditions. And when we have them to throw them out or get better ones – then repeat. Also to ignore the needs of people living simply, even to deprive them of their water sources, their productive land, their productive trees, and their wide acreage required for the simpler gatherer and hunter way of live that allowed them to be almost self-sufficient.

    So stop doing that, would be a good step. And stop the hoity-toity from feeling so clever at being able to borrow money and buy up houses and charge rents that many now can no longer afford. What is clever about that. A little bit of physical work and you have an asset that is inflating by the hour. And it is part of the moving in of hyper-capitalism on people living simply and doing stuff. Not riding round in flash cars like a bunch of mafia crims, looking for people to ‘milk’. The milking of real estate and cows is our main claim to fame, so that’s not new and innovative, and add tourism to that; that’s been an earner since pakeha settled here – that is being done to death, our country’s death.

    And Australia is no smarter. They have been affected by the neolib disease, that rotten economic trick that has brought us back to laissez faire under another name. The world has swallowed that one, that’s not smart or innovative. People who still have a brain that isn’t saturated with propaganda, need to do individual thinking and reflection and join together so we are not taken over by those authoritarians who would prevent thought; whatever the rock they emerge from, religious or not. Stick together and check all the ideas that are put forward, and then press forward. As I talk to the comfortably off, they seek to divert direct questions with prevarication and inadequate responses that show they are off on Cloud Nine, where they hope to sit apart from the hoi polloi. Try reading The Day of the Triffids, and John Christopher’s The Tripod series and The Prince in Waiting series to get your mind on fiction formed around how humans think in emergencies.

    And lastly look at where Australia, our close neighbour and theoretical and erstwhile friend acts under the pressure of neolib economics. New South Wales Fire Service makes claim to be one of the most important in the world. And present disasters would confirm this. This is what the NSW Government did to their budget last year. This was from a commenter on The Standard who noted this illustration of deadbeat government that seems all too common in the English-speaking world; I don’t know about other advanced countries, or the poorer ones.
    dv 5 6 January 2020 at 10:47 am
    AND budget cuts will not have helped.
    https://exhalantblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/03/a-standout-example-of-right-wing-truth-inversion-debating-responsibility-for-the-australian-bushfires/
    Under the 2019-20 NSW State Budget, Fire and Rescue had its capital expenditure budget cut by $28.5 million or 35 per cent.
    The Rural Fire Service has its capital expenditure budget cut by $49.9 million or 75 per cent.

  16. Stephen Watson
    Stephen Watson from a independent NZ journalist ( and a good one to I think ) anyway he writes, and to which I agree with ( as I also have discovered ) Snip; ” According to Herald this is all climate change nothing to do with the 100 arsons, council ineptitude (e.g. banning fire breaks), fire department funding slashes, spending on war and spy toys not critical local infrastructure, ignoring indigenous habits learned over 50,000 year, Antarctic draft – a non climate change phenomenon, flammable retardant in rain making aerosols (used ironically to fight fires), water sold off to water miners (instead of used for local purposes such as combating drought and fire), a seventy year weather cycle that has brought major fire crisis after major fire crisis since Australia European colonisation. Or a naturally occurring solar cycle, or the mass rape of Australia water supply (such as the Murray Darling basin fiasco) were through bipartisan (corporate backed lobbyist) permitted water harvesting and private dams the valley has being pushed into a drought that is entirely man made.” ANYONE realise it was hotter in 1906? 50 deg c ! and the grapes of wrath would have been a short book if it WASNT HOTTER but hey , brainwashed cult members will never leave the cult,,,

  17. Here is news from Oz and some stories from survivors, who saves themselves and some of their animals and are waiting to see what they can do now.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/406747/australia-fires-mega-fire-will-form-when-huge-blaze-in-victoria-joins-up-with-fires-over-border-authorities-say

    And donations – money is best as goods need sorting and then sending to destination. Money can go to the spot and buy whatever and go direct where to.
    https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/bushfire-crisis-how-can-i-donate-and-help/11839842

  20. Air polution from Australian fires advserly affecting the air quality of NZ air today.

    Our Company CER Ltd (registered since 2002) has recently carried out air quality ‘Measurement of Particulates’ in the air above the Bay of Plenty regional hills last night, after repeated signs of air polllution recieved in the region since the Australian bush fires and was was measured to be at extreme levels so we post the measurement here now.

    At 6pm on sunday 5th January we observed the high lavels of ‘yellow sky’ developing so we took “spot samples” of air quality then and we observed readings reaching 61 ppm (parts per million) of pm 10, (a particle about one tenth of the size of human hair)

    Results of the ‘first logging of readings’ beginning of the monitoring;

    10pm 5th January 2020

    Particulates (PM) – 2.5 ppm – (parts per million) was at – 13ppm.

    Particulates (PM) – 10 ppm – (parts per million) was at – 45 ppm.

    Usual air quality readings are at near zero measurement of either 2.5 or 10 parts per million so readings such as we have witnessed here now are extremely rare or never seen as sustainable levels as seen here today.

    The measurement location was at remote farm located at 1650 ft above Opotiki on a rural site on Te Wera Rd Matawai in the Rakauroa ranges,

    This region is a remote low air pollution area historically because of the Urewera ranges park surrounding the area and is widely considered to be a very clean air pristine region due to the heavy mountainous region covered in dense pristine native bush and primeval forests.

    These readings are very worrying to the whole farming community here now.

    Measurements will now be continued for public safety and will be posted when other significant signs of air pollution are sighted.

    • I’ve lived in this Newlands Wellington house for 28 years. We’ve had Australian bushfires before which gave us colourful sunsets. This time it’s different. We’ve had tangerine coloured suns and actual smoke and could smell and taste the burnt bush.
      I’m asthmatic and the air pollution has aggravated my lungs and I’m wheezy and bringing up green mucus as a result of particulate irritation.

  21. What if … this fire swept across Australia and made most of the inhabitants refugee’s?
    Will they be ‘relocated’ to Manu Island? Just a thought.

  23. Ladies and gentlemen, the right-wing fight-back has begun!
    There are several videos circulating on You Tube at the moment that are obviously engineered by the right featuring people who declare that climate change has not caused the bush fires and then simultaneously claim that the Greenies are responsible because they have blocked the clearing away of dense undergrowth which has fuelled the fires.
    The first claim is simply a red herring.
    The only people who claim that climate change CAUSED the bush fires are people that either want to spread misinformation or those who don’t know any better.
    Of course climate change didn’t cause the f…n fires! The fires were started either by natural causes (lightning) or humans.
    But what climate change has done is upped the conditions under which fires burn hotter and longer.
    As for the second claim.
    It is also a red herring.
    Total clearing of undergrowth vegetation used to occur with little restraint until a decade or so ago but it was responsible for a lot of land degradation and wildlife depletion so many rural councils sensibly began to put some restrictions on it. Not ban it all, you understand, but put some conditions on it.
    They realised that the marginal nature of the soils in many rural areas necessitated action.
    What the political right want you to believe is that these rural councils are run by urban greenies!
    The (non-existent) Greenies in rural territorial councils are responsible for this.
    Just think about how absurd that sounds!
    Since when have Australian outback territorial authorities taken orders from urbanites?
    Yet that is what the political right want people to believe and it is an example of the downright lies and misinformation that they are organising and circulating around social media.
    There are plenty of people who will swallow each and every lie that they circulate.
    Those that are battling for better policies to combat climate change must be ready to counter with superior arguments or it will all be lost in the political right’s aim to reduce the questions to a tit-for-tat blame session and make people switch off.

  24. For anyone who actually understands the science behind the rapid overheating of the Earth the numbers get increasingly scary:

    Daily CO2
    Jan. 5, 2020: 413.99 ppm
    Jan. 5, 2019: 409.05 ppm

  25. Hey Martyn, come on down to Dunedin, its 11.5 degrees here….
    Still waiting on summer to start here, xmas was terrible.
    Im not for all this climate change BS to me its just an excuse to create a wall street trading scheme literally out of thin air!
    Im yet to see the climate change down here, and Im not just narrowly looking at it from the perspective of this summer, Im talking the last 20 years, nothing has changed. if climate change is real, shouldnt I have noticed a change???

    • You are right about an excuse to create a wall street trading scheme literally out of thin air.
      The only way the political right could deal with the issue of climate change was to construct a way of making money out of it.
      Voila, the ETS.
      But remember the Trumpismo a couple of years ago being filmed standing in sub-zero weather and saying that because it had been a cold winter that proved that climate change was a myth?
      Climate change does not necessarily mean that every region will get warmer, the complex weather patterns actually mean that some places may get colder because the polar-tropical air currents are being disrupted.
      It also means that wetter areas can become drier and vice versa.

  26. Why do we still have such polluting energy systems around the world, contributing to climate change, when cheaper, less polluting forms of energy are freely available?

    The energy charter treaty considered one of the world’s most dangerous treatys and operates largely out of the public eye…

    Australian company sues Sweden for $1.8 billion for phasing out uranium mining

    Aura Energy Ltd, an Australian company also listed in the UK, has lodged an ISDS claim under the Energy Charter Treaty for US 1.8 billion compensation from the Swedish government because in 2018 it decided to phase out uranium mining for environmental reasons.

    Read more: http://aftinet.org.au/cms/node/1823

    https://www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org

    • Free trade agreements are STOPPING poorer people accessing cheaper energy, while strengthening the march towards climate change…

      “new ruling by the World Trade Organization could be a big blow to the growing renewable energy movement around the world.

      A WTO tribunal ruled Wednesday that India’s national solar energy program violates trade law, in a lawsuit initiated by the U.S.

      Almost half of states in the U.S. have programs that are similar to India’s, which subsidize the renewable energy industry and create local, environmentally friendly jobs.

      Environmental groups say the deal shows that the WTO and U.S. care more about free trade policies and profit than they do about moving toward renewable energy sources.”

      https://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/profit_over_the_planet_wtos_lawsuit_ruling_could_be_a_giant_blow_to_the_renewable_energy_movement/

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