The Age of the Cage & Aquarium:  Why the Wuhan Virus and Australian fires are our climate crisis future 

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The speed of the global warming climate crisis is causing a cascade of events.

The Australian bush fires and the Wuhan virus outbreak are both connected to the climate crisis. The bush fires because of the extreme drought have been unprecedented and as over population and depletion of the natural resources continues at pace, novel virus outbreaks will start becoming the norm not the exception.

NZ is already in the grip of its latest drought, and our underfunded firefighting infrastructure will come under immense scrutiny if NZ is unlucky enough to have a major fire.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get much worse, oh it is…

The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change

Nature is in freefall and the planet’s support systems are so stretched that we face widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. That’s the warning hundreds of scientists are preparing to give, and it’s stark.

The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May.

…the billions announced for more roads lives in an utterly disconnected world from what is actually going on.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

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 the climate crisis. It will require a radical Political Movement that elects a Party to implement Fortress Aotearoa…

  • Move away from intensive farming and look to become domestically self sustainable in terms of food.
  • Immediately ban all water exports.
  • Empower local communities to make local decisions and set up resilience programs.
  • 5 year Parliamentary term so Governments can actually plan for change.
  • 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 huge 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 10 000 per year
  • Fully funded public services focused on real welfare of people.
  • 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
  • Capitalist monopolies in energy, transport and finance have to be brought into public ownership and control. They should be subject to democratic plans drawn up by the whole community. Workers should have much stronger decision making powers within them.
  • All economic sectors to be made take steps needed to decarbonise the economy as much as is needed to reach zero net emissions by 2030.
  • Free and frequent public transport on electric buses and/or trains in all main cities.
  • Health care and education for life should be free and universally accessible.
  • Welfare, pensions, child allowances, should be universal wherever possible.
  • Public housing at fixed and affordable rents should be a right of all not just the desperately poor.
  • All workers should have a right to a job and the workweek reduced with no loss of pay to make that possible.
  • Local communes should be supported for control and delivery of as many functions of the centralised state as possible – including housing, education, health care.
  • Local communes to support cooperative forms of production of food, solar and wind energy,  electric transport, and media.

On a rapidly warming planet, NZ will increasingly be the life boat for Earth and the tyranny of our distance will become our blessing.

38 COMMENTS

  1. Agree 100% with The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change.

    Sadly just when this is becoming obvious to more voters in NZ, and that our clean green NZ is now fake news, our Green Party has been highjacked away from protecting the natural environment, into identity politics, expanding the human population here at the expense of the natural environment (and good sense) and fringe issues…

    Labour is going on it’s merry neoliberal way post Rogernomics which is anti the environment and supporting the rest of the world’s rich at the expense of it’s own citizens . Jacinda’s nuclear free moment of climate change, is missing in action as billions are borrowed to build more roads so that another 800 cars per week can hit the roads, as hundreds of thousands are becoming resident here per year in our lazy Ponzi of take the pittance of short term gain, and then do nothing about all the costly social and financial and environmental issues from that decision.

    NZ First has u turned on everything they used to stand for on immigration and protecting NZ from foreign powers, although still seem against the environment in their mistaken blooper, of trying to appease Fed farmers who probably don’t even represent most of the farmers anymore. Should have stuck to policy the oldies, as NZ First (NZ last) probably won’t last past this election!

    Natz hate the environment, probably happy to follow Trump if they got a chance https://twnews.us/us-news/trump-eases-pollution-controls-on-streams-and-wetlands as well as their new social policy to solve homelessness and poverty https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Victorian-Workhouse/ bring back the nukes https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0507/S00101.htm while their spin doctors are happy to set up a alternate Green Party and pretend to have green policy to compete.

    Environment is now a disaster in NZ, but our political parties on this are missing in action. It’s all spin, spin, spin…

    The anti environmentalists have taken over NZ parliament, judging by the lack of interest in environment.

    In addition our environment courts are legalising pollution and massive environmental risks and the ‘consultation’ is done by lawyers on behalf of the polluters. If you disagree it will cost you $50k under our ‘democracy’ but you won’t win anyway as the legislation is for the polluters. Steal the harbour, no problem! Take the sand and water for 35 years for nothing, no problem! Steal water for golf courses and make another species in NZ extinct.. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/12/19/953508/dam-delays-half-soon-half-later-maybe no problem!

  2. Agreed Martyn I have lived in a mountain retreat i n the Gisborne hills for 15yrs now and have seen weird weather events not formerly experienced here 1660 ft above Gisborne as records show this was formely a weyt region but since 5yrs ago the weather shifted to hot dry weather events and sometimes so dry we were all forced to cut any dry grassed paddocks i n January as the dry season has gotten worse, I even was forced to cut our own house paddock for the first time just in case a fire could start and spead to our home.

    We must stop Government and all councils from illegally putting chlorine in our municipal water supplies and ban the use of chline in pools also as destructive emissions of climmate change gasses are being released from waste water that has chlorine added.

    This disaster of adding chlorine to water will emit large amounts of “climate change emisions” that no one has so far waken up to.

    Simply put – from a ‘common law of physics’ called “substitution reaction” the process begins – with the development of ‘alkenes and alkanes’ from a change in water chemical composition when the chlorine is mixed with waste products in our water entering our enviroonment we are incidentally inceasing ,more climate change emissions being released from our own watse water.

    Read in ‘GENERAL CHEMISTRY” BY P.W. ATKINS (OXFORD UNIVERSITY). under ‘substitution reaction and ‘the alkanes and alkenes’. pg 851.

    Lastly we must use rail as it is a low emission transport that does not use tyres; – we must stop using tryes made from oil as the oil distilates that produce our common tyre today is toxic and tyre dust is toxic to all life on our planet today.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/where-is-the-one-million-tonnes-of-toxic-tyre-dust-and-particulates-discharged-into-the-environment-each-year-in-the-us-and-europe/5667922

    • There’s also the toxic effect of chlorine on people, such as myself.
      I’ve just moved house and had to put filters on all the taps as ingesting it from the water supply gives me major stomach cramps, drys my skin out after a shower, makes my washing stink and my loo smell like a swimming pool when I flush. (a household filter isn’t appropriate in my apartment complex)
      Have a read here: https://chriskresser.com/is-your-daily-shower-making-you-sick/

    • It’s not weird SaveNZ it’s a corrupt NZTA and the lobbying power of the
      Truckies.
      Here in the top of the South Island we have roads rebuilt post earthquake “future proofed” by enlarging road tunnels to allow bigger trucks on the narrow roads.
      The road surface can’t take these big trucks, they can’t stay inside the lanes, we have Endless car vs truck accidents and no kidding already the 4th round of re-sealing since the quake.
      The roadworks are literally never ending.
      Why can’t the big long haul containers go by sea or rail? Because the truck firms own Nz First and National and labour/greens are absolutely clueless in their Wellington bike bubble.

      • Keepcalmcarryon, sadly this is everywhere. Roads, roads, roads, they never end, as soon as they finish one roadworks they start another one further up the road. Probably 50% of the congestion is actually caused by roadworks everywhere.

        Also roadworks take about 20 x longer than they should. There is zero quality control. The councils spend much of their money on roads too, with trucks being left to destroy the roads, everywhere. It’s a virus.

        It seems that COL are so worried about attack adds from the Natz, they are implementing the Natz own road/truck/housing/PPP policies, to their peril. it’s NUTS!

  3. How employers are freezing the over 50s out of the job market
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119159518/i-cant-survive-over-45s-struggling-to-make-ends-meet-ahead-of-retirement

    Most of NZ issues are also to do with neoliberalism pushing in more and more consumers into NZ for our fake employments shortages, while being blind to discrimination of taking experienced people out of the workforce.

    This is also why the quality of work is getting lower and lower in NZ as more and more people are employed in a Ponzi, don’t seek the language very well, everyone is falling over themselves to make quick buck and do what ever they are told without having a clue about the country and it’s rules!

    Why being made redundant in NZ is so tough
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/365540/why-being-made-redundant-in-nz-is-so-tough

    Jobseeker is up 11% per year! There is not an employment shortage, there is a discrimination issue in NZ.

    Even the unions, who lost the employment contracts act argument in the 1980’s, seem more interested in making a buck out of migrants joining them and supporting the continued temp visa Ponzi, than actually challenging the discrimination workforce rules that allow experienced workers to become redundant at a whim with no compensation, and then be re employed by people coming to NZ under student and temp visas that they pay a fortune for so they can make permeant residency and bring relatives over to NZ to be supported here as there is no welfare in their own countries.

    All this is destroying the natural environment as more hundreds of more cars on the roads per week, more beach closures as the sewage system can’t provide for the amount of people and the workers working on it and materials being used are less likely to do a good job and the work is failing from sewers to houses.

        • Yup well Fortress Aotearoa doesn’t just promote Universal-Education it’s also implied that if you’re truely succeful and those ideas bubble up to the surface then you’ll pay slightly higher tax to maintain Universality. So instead of owning 100% of a shrinking economy, Fortress Aotearoa would require entrepreneurs to own a 5% stake in an exponentially rising economy.

    • @ Kheala, If there is a plague and more climate disasters, you can be sure all the new NZ ‘passport’ holders will flock back here and use the health system or hole down in their private bolt hole.

      The government are already sending a private plane to evacuate all the Chinese “NZer’s” from Wuhan for the most part.

      Pity our government can’t be as pro active for the Pike River and CTV victims, when the help never did arrive in our own country.

      The risks of bringing Coronavirus into NZ by flying in the (mostly) Chinese dual residents in Wuhan is not an issue! Nothing too much trouble for some parts of the community and safety and risks are fine.

      Any risks are not to be outwayed by the Chinese cherubs who need to get to NZ schools on time, for their free education here.

  4. The gulf between the empty rhetoric of politicians and what needs to be done [to provide a future for young people and prepare to the inevitable collapse of Industrial Civilisation] grows by the day. Cowardice and mendacity prevail in political circles, along with gross ignorance.

    As things stand, industrial societies are exploiting energy resources that require huge inputs of energy and resources (fracking, tar sands, deep water drilling etc.) in order to prop up global and local economic arrangements that have no long term future in the post peak [conventional] oil world that we inhabit. These ‘desperation measures to prop up dysfunctional economic arrangements and dysfunctional social arrangements have inordinately high carbon footprints.

    In a sane society measures to wean society off liquid fuels would have been implemented long ago. In the insane society we endure governments look for ways to INCREASE fossil fuel dependency and per capita emissions whilst also promoting population growth to keep the Ponzi financial system from melting down.

    Is it any wonder that we frequently see data such as this:

    Daily CO2
    Jan. 31, 2020: 414.89 ppm
    Jan. 31, 2019: 410.73 ppm

    Needless to say, the financial system is doomed to meltdown fairly soon anyway, since perpetual growth on a finite planet is one of the most absurd notions ever invented by bankers and [orthodox] economists.

    Sadly, we ‘need’ large swathes of the Australian landscape and a large numbers of homes to go up in flames and large numbers of people living in cities to be burned to death before any kind of sense will come from the mouths of politicians….and even then sense emanating from politicians mouths is probably a vain hope.

  5. Sustainable immigration and an end to exploitative migrant workers.
    Resettlement Programmes for all pacific island neighbours.

    Yes. If we re-focus all immigration towards looking out for our Pacific neighbours/ family first. Tuvalu is in trouble. Other islands are too. Let’s help them first!

  6. Mass Green housing rebuild.
    100% renewable energy for entire country.

    Absolutely! AO/ NZ is in the process of building more houses, and many people are renovating older ones. That provides an opportunity which should not be missed! Or, we’ll be looking back from the future and asking, “How stupid were we? How slack was that!”

    All new homes, and all newly renovated homes, should now now be required to include at least some solar panels, a rainwater tank, a garden-growing area (whether community centred or private), composting bins, etc.

  7. Immediately ban all water exports.

    “Exporting” our water concerns me more than anything else. It’s on a par with selling our land itself to foreign owners, foreign corporations, foreign nations. Why we are allowing this, a kind of vampire system that is sucking the water of life out of us, I have no idea. It is the single worst thing that is happening to Aotearoa right now, imo.

    Our planet is running out of groundwater. The world’s aquifers are running dry.
    “More than a third of the world’s groundwater basins are distressed, according to a new study.” That from 2015, so we have already known this for five years, yet we are failing to act!

    From this link: nbc/science/environment/third-worlds-groundwater-basins-distress

    Researchers from NASA, the University of California, Irvine, and other institutions analyzed satellite data and found that eight out of 37 of Earth’s largest aquifers were “overstressed” or “extremely or highly stressed,” meaning they had no natural replenishment or very little, respectively. – Study from the Water Resources Research journal.

    From The Guardian March 2017: Aquifers, the world’s reserve water tank, are running dry… We live on a parched planet. Farmers till arid pastureland and policymakers fret over empty reservoirs, dry rivers and thirsty cities. And that only scratches the surface – literally – of the world’s water problem. Subterranean aquifers, the world’s reserve water tank, are also running dry…
    ——

    But the problem extends beyond water depletion. Over-pumping groundwater leads to soil subsidence, causing some Asian cities to sink. By 2030, 80% of North Jakarta could be below sea level, while parts of Beijing are sinking by several centimetres a year. Depleted aquifers near coastlines are prone to contamination from saltwater, rendering land barren. Some are contaminated by arsenic, which can occur naturally deep underground.

    And, from The Guardian June 2018:
    According to James Famiglietti, co-author of the Nasa Grace study, some of the areas most vulnerable are “already past sustainability tipping points” as their major aquifers are being rapidly depleted

    From Physics World October 2019: Within three decades, almost 80% of the lands that depend on groundwater will start to reach their natural irrigation limits as the wells run dry. In a world of increasing extremes of drought and rainfall, driven by rising global temperatures and potentially catastrophic climate change, the water will start to run out.

    It is happening already: in 20% of those water catchments in which farmers and cities rely on pumped groundwater, the flow of streams and rivers has fallen and the surface flow has dwindled, changed direction or stopped altogether. (my emphasis) physicsworld.com/a/water-stress-rises-as-more-wells-run-dry/

  8. 5 year Parliamentary term so Governments can actually plan for change.

    The way it is now is not working. Certainly not for the present govt. I’m not sure about 5 years but it definitely needs to be at least four. The present coalition govt have simply not had the time to really move ahead as they would have liked. Not when there was so much that was wrong, that was waaaaay out of kilter, after the previous nine years.

    And there is a misrepresentation of the situation underway now in the media. The idea seems to be out there, that this govt have had a full three year term on which they can be evaluated. They have not had that. Their first parliamentary sitting was in November 2017. And yet ‘November’ is being equated with the beginning of that year rather than the end of it.

    Here is an example from today’s news, this from a quote by Tau Henare in Stuff:
    “I think the Labour Party have handled Māori politics the last three years pretty well”.
    “They haven’t pissed people off – although there are some pissed off people,” he said.
    [my emph]

    A large photo of Jacinda at Waitangi is set between those two sentences of Henare. So again, the falsification of the amount of time that Jacinda has served as PM is being perpetuated.

    You can check it out here: as-jacinda-ardern-heads-to-waitangi-labour-ponders-reelection

  9. How about only citizens (no, trusts are not citizens) can own property? Or wait until; after the NEXT civil war in No Zealand for that?

    • Yes, property should only be owned in individual names and any companies pay an extra yearly tax to keep property assets in business or trusts. But if we do that the truth of how many properties are owned by certain individuals will be revealed and a lot of people don’t want that when they are hiding assets.

  10. Max Keiser recently talked about the Health VIX or economic volatility index associated with these type of medical events, such as effect on the ‘market’ in general or within certain markets for example shareholdings in face masks. The social effect of this flu is definitely being driven by the hysterical media whose daily reports include a telethon-type update of the death tally. Seriously, NZ should think about evacuating travellers from the US rather than China as 4 times more people have died from gun violence in America than this Wuhan apocalypse this year. Bat shit.

    • Well The Government has been pulling back on essential services like NZDF for decades as away of simulating the economy and paying off debt and now all these services that the public was told was no longer required and well the public are asking well where is everything?

      It seems that in the foremost minds of Labour Strategists is not the long term but the short term underperformance of essential services. The government is adding to quick fixes instead of going out and increasing the types, numbers, payload, range and availability of RNZAF air fleet and NZDF biological capability instead they outsource government responsibility to a lease AirNZ plane because some one at treasury is really good at calculus.

      So I think that is another sort of stretched indicator and if you look at implied-volatility compared to realized-volatility in Max Keisers indicators what we are starting to see is that the stock-markets is not the real economy and for those not aware of the terminology the implied-element is essentially the unknown elements of a price. So once the time value is removed and take out the strike-price relative to the real-price ect, at the end you’ve got this unknown price which is essentially implied volatility.

      And this is all in contrast to the real variables of what the government is doing at the moment. Normally the 4th estate would track what the government says and what’s required with what’s actually happening and now we can see a disparity emerge and Yknow there’s no better illustration of an austerity ridden NZDF when we see AirNZ trying to do a mans job.

  11. Eugenics! Its a German VW led Conspiracy!

    7.5b people just cant survive on one planet.

    Its Capitalism or Bust!

    Or, the world just whimpers out, just like granddad lets out squidgy bumfart.

    If the middle class cant rein in their voracious consumption addiction then the worlds poor and vulnerable just dont have a chance.

  12. Another comment by Johnny Overton has been suppressed by TDB. It seems M.B’s delicate ego is more important than anything else. What has he got to fear from an old bikie like me. Reckon I’ll have to round up a few old rebellious comrades, pop into the prog/lib watering hole & give em an ole fashioned free speech lesson. Of course this will never see daylight but bloody good therapy.

  13. How many people can the planet have sustainably. We currently grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet, we just don’t share it.
    From ‘grist’
    ‘A popular misconception is that providing the developing countries with more food will serve to increase populations; in other words, it is a self-defeating policy. The more food women have, the more children they will have and the greater will be their children’s survival, leading to population growth, so goes the argument. However, the experience of the demographic transition described above suggests the opposite. As people become more prosperous, which includes being better fed and having lower child mortality, the fewer children women want. Providing they then have access to family planning methods, the fertility rates will drop and the population will cease to grow.’

    Large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce.
    NO NO NO – we do not want this at all we need to be seen and be acting as a peace loving country, prepared to mediate as we did for the Bouganville.

    • The greater portion of the food currently feeding the masses is produced and distributed courtesy of oil. So feeding over 7 billion humans is exacerbating planetary overheating.

      And when the oil supply fails to meet demand, which will surely happen in the next decade (conventional oil extraction is already in terminal decline) the globalized food system will fail spectacularly.

    • More direct population control is needed.
      China is the only state doing it.

      You cab leave it to the oligarchs who will use war

  14. ” To put it simply, our fate as a species is sealed. We’re headed for extinction in the very near term despite warnings dating more than 150 years. It’s a tragic tale. And, as foretold by evolutionary biologist George C. Williams, our species hardly made a squeak as the hammer dropped. ” *
    https://guymcpherson.com/extinction_foretold_extinction_ignored/
    * We just kept right on building more roads, flying everywhere we could, logging forests destroying the oceans etc. etc. etc Won’t bore you with the endless list that follows! O YEH! F*cking knocking out babies like no tomorrow! Quiz… will there be a tomorrow….?

  15. More exponential CC to come:
    Stop dithering Boris, and give us lift-off for Heathrow’s vital third runway: Business leaders join forces to demand the PM publicly endorses the £14billion airport expansion
    Boris Johnson is yet to throw his weight behind the Heathrow Airport expansion
    Project was delayed by ‘at least 12 months’ after spending plans were rejected
    EasyJet, JetBlue, Balfour Beatty and trade union Unite are calling for action
    ‘We’ve spent too long dithering over Heathrow’, a member of London First said

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7957039/Stop-dithering-Boris-lift-Heathrows-vital-runway.html

  16. Industrial humans are ‘killing’ the seas and oceans of the world through a combination of CO2 emissions lowering the pH and overheating the planet, using the oceans as dumping grounds and over fishing. And then there are the mountains of plastic waste accumulating in the oceans and even worse, micro-plastics that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

    ‘Empty nets and tropical fish in Tasmania as climate change hits Southern Ocean’

    https://desdemonadespair.net/2020/02/empty-nets-and-tropical-fish-in-tasmania-as-climate-change-hits-southern-ocean.html

  17. So the Wuhan virus is the result of global warming is it?

    Wuhan is a northern Chinese city; bitterly cold in winter and the virus appeared in December.

    LOL

    • Andrew your arrogance is almost as fun as your ignorance. As the climate rapidly changes, as overpopulation pressures and destruction of habitats increases, animal virus transfer to humans will increase alongside alpha viruses coming from places we haven’t exploited yet.

      Please keep up

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