I’ve been following the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports since they started started in the 1990s and what has become apparent over that period of time is how quickly the worst case scenarios in terms of catastrophic climate change are quickly becoming the only scenarios.
Every year we are blasting records for extreme weather and the speed and intensity of those extreme weather events are openly exacerbated by the pollution we have pumped into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
Short of creating AI, I don’t believe we are capable of creating technology that will do anything other than adapt us to climate change rather than prevent it or stop it.
The current pandemic is a symptom of the climate crisis!
Indeed I believe we are at the edge of tipping points that once crossed can’t be reversed…
Earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year. And it’s going to get worse.
Global ice loss has increased rapidly over the past two decades, and scientists are still underestimating just how much sea levels could rise, according to alarming new research published this month.
From the thin ice shield covering most of the Arctic Ocean to the mile-thick mantle of the polar ice sheets, ice losses have soared from about 760 billion tons per year in the 1990s to more than 1.2 trillion tons per year in the 2010s, a new study released Monday shows. That is an increase of more than 60 percent, equating to 28 trillion tons of melted ice in total — and it means that roughly 3 percent of all the extra energy trapped within Earth’s system by climate change has gone toward turning ice into water.
“That’s like more than 10,000 ‘Back to the Future’ lightning strikes per second of energy melting ice around-the-clock since 1994,” said William Colgan, an ice-sheet expert at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “That is just a bonkers amount of energy.”
…I think there will be some places on earth that simply become uninhabitable thanks to the extreme heat, massive storm surges, drought, forest fires, rising waters…
10 steamy signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up
As the world turned its eyes to a dire pandemic, another global catastrophe was not-so-quietly gaining steam: Climate change has been simmering since the Industrial Revolution, but 2020 was a year that really drove home how fast it’s accelerating. We blazed past ominous milestones that were supposed to take decades to arrive, broke records every month, and watched the frozen North melt even faster than anticipated. From record wildfires to a bumper crop of hurricanes to melting poles, here are some of the biggest signs in 2020 that climate change is speeding up.
…The tipping points of mass methane release from the warming oceans or permafrost and the tipping point of fresh water from Greenland Glaciers disrupting the Oceanic currents, plunging the Northern Hemisphere into an Ice Age over the space of a decade are all upon us…
Climate change will be sudden and cataclysmic. We need to act fast
-
- Tipping points could fundamentally disrupt the planet and produce abrupt change in the climate.
- A mass methane release could put us on an irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 metres.
- We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.
…these things are happening. Extreme climate change is here. Pretending anything we can do now will change the climate crisis seems insane, instead we should see this as the urgent moment to force radical adaptation to our country, especially because New Zealand will become a lifeboat and Ark as the planet burns.
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
- 5 year Parliamentary term.
- Upper and Lower House (Upper House 50-50 split between Māori & Pakeha that can hold up legislation if unhappy about Treaty issues)
- Massive investment into R&D from Government with the understanding research is to benefit NZ first before sold offshore.
- Large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce.
- Mass limiting of tourism numbers with increased tourist taxes.
- Only citizens can vote.
- Sustainable immigration and an end to exploitative migrant workers.
- Resettlement Programms for all pacific island neighbours.
- Increase refugee in take to 10 000 per year
- Fully funded public services.
- Mass Green housing rebuild.
- 100% renewable energy for entire country.
- Massive tree planting across previous farming land.
- Wholesale re-write of state services act to end commercial values.
- Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
- Financial transaction tax
- Wealth tax
- Multinational tax
- Inheritance tax
On a rapidly warming planet, NZ will increasingly be the life boat for Earth and the tyranny of our distance will become our blessing.
As the climate crisis unfolds more and more people in fury will turn against the current political system too wedded to the economic profits margins of the polluters. It is just a matter of time before the NZ electorate rejects the limitations of the current political spectrum.
The only thing that makes the Carbon Zero Act ‘historic’ is the future generations who will look back in spite & anger that we thought this sophistry was a legitimate response to the climate crisis – if you think maybe acting in 30 years is a solution, you are the problem.
In 2023, for the first time in NZ history, Gen x + Gen Y + Millennials will be a larger voting block than the boomers.
2023 is our date for revolution comrades.
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You do realise that man has managed to live through far far worse scenarios than you’re painting? Around ten thousand years ago the sea levels were 400 ft lower than they are now, and yet we’re still here? How can that be? What did mankind do? They simply moved. Islands have come and disappeared all through history, big deal. Remember the original Australians walked to Australia, they didn’t need boats. And I won’t even start on the Youngest Toba, which may have reduced the entire human population to only 10s of thousands…yet here we are.
I do believe in humans living on planet earth are affecting climatic conditions but I also know enough history to understand that this is not going wipe people off the face of the earth…that will be a extraterrestrial high impact body, from that there is no doubt.
I’m very much philosophical on man kinds existence, we will not be immortal, we will eventually not exist at all and sometimes think those who believe they can save human kind are so delusional they actually know no history. We are blip on the cosmic time scale so massive we struggle to imagine it’s length, and one day we will cease to be at all.
Btw I know you won’t post this…alternative ideas are not permitted
The big difference between then and now is that then the human population was less than 8 million and they were all living within the constraints of natural systems, but now there are nearly 8 billion – more than a thousand times as many hungry mouths- and very few are living within the constraints of natural systems. In fact the whole basis of life in a ‘civilised nation’ is the ruination of natural systems at an ever faster rate. So that’s what we get.
I think you will find that there was still deep water between Asia and Australia when humans made the crossing [60,000 years ago?] but the distance was not great and they could have used rafts to make the crossing.
I suggest you examine what a 3oC or 4oC rise in average temperature will do to the species that make life-as-we-know-it possible. Because we are headed for a multi-degree rise in average temperature. (How could we not be when CO2 and CH4 emissions just keep rising?)
That rise in average temperature will not be evenly distributed across the world: in equatorial regions it will probably manifest as only 1 or 2oC, but in the Arctic it will be 8 or 10oC, leading to very rapid complete loss of ice and eruption of methane that will greatly add to the climate forcing…and could well take the average up another 2 or 3 or 4oC to plus 6, plus 7, plus 8oC….
That is what our worse-than-useless politicians have been, and still are, orchestrating for our children and grandchildren.
It is only the humungous ‘heat inertia’ (thermal mass) of the oceans that is preventing ultra-rapid meltdown.
However, in terms of the Earth’s geological history what we are witnessing IS an ultra-rapid meltdown, far surpassing anything that has happened before, including the Permian Extinction Event of 252 million years ago that wiped out 80%+ of life on Earth (Siberian Traps eruptions releasing humungous amounts of CO2 over thousands of years).
I know you have great faith in the inertia of the oceans to prevent a really rapid heating, and that this was at the heart of your falling out with G.M..
However it seems to me that the “heat blob” effect, where lack of mixing of surface water with deep water, will be sufficient to cause LOCAL HEATING sufficient to disrupt or destroy food production, here there and everywhere in short order.
I remain convinced that wide spread die off of human beings will commence in but a very few years.
Extinction may take a little longer.
This graph takes us as far as March 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_heat_content#/media/File:Ocean_Heat_Content_(2012).png
It’s clearly not linear but does not have a slope that is getting significantly steeper.
We have not seen the ‘jump in temperature’ that Guy McPherson predicted would occur when fewer aircraft flew and there was less industrial activity. That is because GMP misquoted and misused the work of Travis after 9/11. Although clearer skies allow more heat in they also allow more heat out.
I se no evidence for ‘extinction by 2026’ that GMP declared [in 2016] would be the case. But I do see plenty of evidence politicians will continue to make matters worse faster, and lie to the masses.
I’ve just seen Joe Biden on Aljazeera declare mutually exclusive concepts as policy…all the usual hogwash of jobs and increased wealth, and economic growth, along with energy independence, and fixing the climate included.
Totally agree, however as mentioned, no one is getting out alive. We can what we want but no matter what we do the end result is going to be exactly the same so my question is why?
I say this as a person who walks a round trip of 10km to work every day, recycles as much as possible, grow as many fruit and vegetables as I can and absolutely hate littering or any pollution…i know makes me a hypocrite as I shouldn’t care, but I do.
Btw thanks for allowing my post, I know it’s against the grain a little but Ive thought deeply about and changed my opinion many times but the sharing of ideas is what it’s all about isn’t it?
I think we the left and these kind of swing voters should avoid the self satisfaction of having Jacinda trending above 50% especially not as a solution to all of our problems, the terrorism, the corona, the hate speech. Being a majority government does not instantly make a genius.
It seems like the more power someone has the more they turn rotten as of to say oh my job here is done. So I don’t believe we need more government regulating hate speech and other nonsense and less self pitty and self lothong. What I believe is we need more coordination.
Yes desertification is happening bit so is previously cold inhabitable regions are also warming opening up new areas for food production and all this needs to be coordinated so that organised human existence can continue.
Looking at the data, climate change is a part of the pollution consequence. That pollution while pushing heat absorption also has many other effects changing the viability of human habitation and the environment that has been ravage by human ignorance.
Our soils took many generation to millennia to form, created by bacteria and microorganism, assisted further up the chain by macrorganisms, fungi, invertibrates, insects and animals of various sizes together with plants making up an ecosystem which depends on all constituents life forms. A delicate balance that can be upset or destroyed by modification of the hierarchy of life within it.
Soil is usually bound together with roots, foliage, layers of rotting matter rocks and debris.
Apart from humans in much smaller numbers there were millions of other species of all sizes interacting to create a balance that while fluctuation “naturally” was in fairly consistent equilibrium until mankind started harvesting energy.
Human habitation has expanded creating serious degradation of soils with over one third of soil being lost since 1980. Wilderness is being lost rapidly and with it the balance wild inhabitants.
Both fertiliser use and industrial cropping depends heavily on using polluting fossil fuels. Toxic biocides are now prevalent harming soils, ground water and living organism we must have or rely on heavily.
Peak grain per capita was back in 1987. The whole ecology is strained well past equilibrium by human habitation.
Harvesting of energy is the key to humans suicidal quest.
Wood was used for burning giving heat and energy. Forests in some parts of Europe disappeared.
Coal was next and steam power expanded energy demands. This mechanisation allowed a temporary improvement in food supply and expansion of population.
Oil came next and the expansion rate increased with population rising from about 1 billion in 1800 to well over 7 billion today.
But to harness that energy used humans had to mechanize using Non Renewable Natural Resources.
Energy harvesting demands consumption of Resources which in turn creates pollution.
Pollution is directly tied to Non Renewable Natural Resource consumption involving harvested energy.
To simplify that our energy harvesting is the problem.
A much smaller population with low energy use living much simpler lifestyles, is where we will return to without choice in the matter. Food supply will be the pivotal issue for any community to have survivors.
Most Western Government will not accept or be allowed to contemplate population reduction nor a drastic reduction in energy use.
It will be up to small groups or possibly rural towns to prepare for the decline by growing food and organising labour exchange, building up of resources such as horses and oxen as well as establishing regenerative agriculture or permaculture.
Metal hand tools will be invaluable items to collect now.
A collection of reference literature could become invaluable
We will loose the WW Web.
Jacinda and company intend to do nothing whatsoever about the prime cause of Planetary Meltdown -emissions caused by industrial civilisation based on fossil fuels- but will likely present a few non-starters when it comes to mitigation. And will continue to pretend they care about the future of NZ whilst making everything that matters worse faster and destroying the future of NZ..
Two days of 37oC in the shade here. And Ashburton broke through 40oC!
No worries if you are a politicians. The only things that matter to them are the banksters’ Ponzi scheme and maintaining [in the short term] per capita consumption at a level around 100 times what the planet can stand. And their personal wealth -even if it’s all going to be taken away from them.
We’ll soon be coming up to the fifth anniversary of Jacinda exposing herself as a political fraud -blabbing on about climate change, as she does. And the 24th anniversary of the Kyoto fraud.
I guess the politicians and bureaucrats will organise another ‘save the planet’ international talkfest that achieves nothing later in the year, and will be disappointed if they have to do it by Internet instead of flying to some distant location.
Daily CO2 (CO2.earth)
Jan. 26, 2021 = 415.46 ppm
Jan. 26, 2020 = 412.96 ppm
Our fate has always been guaranteed Bomber.
It was written into our DNA by natural selection.
So much to ponder……so many questions about this Universe……but we’ll never get the chance to pursue the answers.
Oh well.
Hmm! 21oC cooler than yesterday this afternoon (15oC versus 36oC) and raining hard.
Weather instability. Climate chaos.
Reality Check.
Whilst many on the Left continue to assume upcoming libertarian and emancipatory changes, Neoliberalism simply and ruthlessly uses the situation to further expansion of the capitalist political economy.
The next major breakdown that we can expect is the demise of industrial production for the masses, hand-in-hand with appropriation of natural resources by a few, and increasing surveillance and ‘securing’ of the many.
Left framing of political action can basically only operate under such (realistic) overarching scenario.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl683lxBePY
Climate Reality Check
There is nothing that can be done to prevent global warming, until world population reaches a strong agreement on what must be done to save the planet as a whole.
This is an unachievable objective. Looking at Bryan Bruce’s list of aims I agree with probably less than half (and think a good many more are totally irrelevant). Ask any other TDB’ readers opinion and you will get a different list. Now deal with the opinions of the approx 200 other countries. Where do we go from there?
You need to prioritise objectives starting with the most achievable first. I propose that we reduce world population by 50 % by the end of the year. Next….
Reducing world
Science Update: January 27, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjtBT-xwkA
Egalitarian Vegan
14 hours ago
All of this at the same time we are facing the collapse of our ponzi scheme economy. A pandemic, and social degradation. The handwriting is on the wall, if anyone cares to read it.
Reducing the world population could be a catch 22 though.
Of course having far fewer humans on earth must be better for the global environment, however on the other side of the coin, you probably want to have as many breeding pairs when the cataclysmic global event happens. It is certain that that earth will have a major shock, be it a giant volcano or meteor strike, so having a large population just may increase the chances of repopulation when that happens, purely on the law of percentages.
These doomsday nut jobs may actually be on to something lol
The Earth is already having a major shock; it’s called Industrial Civilisation. Atmospheric CO2 up 40% on the pre-industrial level (and rising); ocean heat content highest in millions of years (and rising); biodiversity lowest in millions of years (and falling).
If anyone is going to get through the meltdown of industrialism and attempt to make it through the planetary superheating, they are already born: they are the sons and daughters of people who have military training and experience; they are the sons and daughters of people least caught in the web of industrialism, i.e. indigenous people of Australia, the last of the Amazon tribes etc.
The deeper you are in the Matrix, the harder it is to get out and the worse will be your fate. Rich kid in New York apartment who lives on fast food and spends most of the time on digital devices = completely fucked.
Don’t forget that as the quantity increases the quality decreases. There have never been more less-fit people on this planet -a direct consequence of Industrial Civilisation.
” Should we acknowledge climate crisis can’t be stopped? What would happen if we did ”
We have acknowledged it cant be stopped with our lack of concern and that it is decades away so why would i give a shit about the world in 30 years when i can carry on with my privileged arrogance.
Inaction is tempered with climate fatigue and the neo liberal environment which has created the mindset of dog eat dog mentality which encourage the worst excess’s of greed and selfishness. We were a proud independent egalitarian country once before the capitalist free market revolution poisoned our population for generations to come. While our short term survival and outlook is controlled by the current economic narrative no real change will be accepted or proposed as to not upset the personal wealth and status quo of the current population. Without realising it Jacinda’s throw away political marketing slogan of this generations nuclear free moment will come back to haunt her because to make real sacrifices and change will mean attacking neo liberal privilege and public servants that held their nose and voted for her last year to keep the current unsustainable road we are on while keeping corvid from attacking their way of life.
We passed the point of no return with the climate extinction some years ago and now it is to late to act even if we were serious about it.
I think the outlook is dire and we are on track to make the blue planet uninhabitable in a few short decades as i believe we are much closer to seeing and feeling the effects sooner rather waiting for the 2050’s 60s or 70s.
It’s game over.
Here’s an example of the pathetic, snails-pace action on what the government declared to be ‘an emergency’.
‘The Government will require importers to ensure the mix of cars they bring into the country has a 40% lower emissions profile than is currently the case by 2025.
It on Thursday announced it would pass legislation this year to introduce a ‘Clean Car Import Standard’.
Each supplier will be given a different target, reflecting its fleet. Suppliers will have to progressively work towards the 2025 target, which is that the average import emits 105 grams of CO₂/km – down from 171 grams.
Classic cars, “agricultural vehicles” and farm equipment like tractors, harvesters, mowers, toppers and bailers, will be exempt from the scheme.
NZ First blocked the introduction of the Clean Car Import Standard in the last term of government.
The Government said New Zealand is one of two countries in the OECD that doesn’t have such a standard. It said Europe reached the 105-gram target in 2020 and Japan in 2014.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/108798/govt-commits-introducing-clean-car-import-standard-year-giving-importers-until-2025
Whether the globalised economic system will still be operating in 2025 is in considerable doubt, of course. There is more evidence it won’t be than evidence it will be.
All while the global media ignores the comming ‘disaster of chaos as global weather instability of our climate’ begins to destroy the habitat/ homes/lives of masses of people.
LOOKING AHEAD
‘On Sunday afternoon the Climate Change Commission is releasing a major report on what New Zealand needs to change to meet its climate commitments and goals. It has been classified as “market sensitive” so the presumption is it will promote highly disruptive solutions. We will have full coverage on Sunday.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/108820/review-things-you-need-know-you-go-home-friday-another-bank-draws-flp-better-jobs-data
Too many people in the world is a big problem with climate change. We can’t just keep expanding the world population and it’s now normal that everyone in the world flies around for work and holidays, all food is not local but shipped everywhere – the original Green Party understood sustainability and using local products and services and cutting down on the carbon footprint…. now everyone is brainwashed into globalism and consumption. Covid has shown its folly.
Governments need to encourage their population to have two children or less with tax breaks and incentives…. everyone is living longer… like the Paris agreement, population controls need to be a world government issue.
Even with Catholics, Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, so possible with all religions to do their bit to help the planet survive.
China became more prosperous when they implemented their 1 child policy, but before it gets to that draconian point, governments need to gently try to get their population having less children.
‘do their bit to help the planet survive.’
As George Carlin said, “The planet is doing fine. It’s us that are fucked. Pack you shit folks, we’re going away.”
It sure is a pity industrial humans are going to take down most vertebrate species with them when they superheat the Earth to the point of it becoming largely uninhabitable for mammalian species and pollute it to the point that EVERYWHERE is contaminated with microplastics and dioxin etc. But that’s what humans do; exterminate other forms of life. And industrial humans are particularly good at it. It used to be for fun; thus a ‘great white hunter’ on a tour of India in the 1930s killed something like 60 tigers over a period of a few weeks. Because he could. The dozens of ‘natives’ who formed cordons and forced the animals towards the hunter helped of course.
Yes, overpopulation is a ‘problem’ -almost as much of a problem as overconsumption, i.e. one average American does as much ecological damage as 300 average Africans or Asians.
But it’s now far too late to deal with overpopulation at the procreation stage. The shit has been hitting the fan on the environment for 20 years and the rate of fucking-up the chemical balance and ecological balance is INCREASING, not decreasing. Population dynamics occur over periods of decades (other than when severe plagues or pandemics occur).
The questions the dying remnant of humanity may ask 10, 20 or 30 years from now might be: “Were the hundreds of millions of inflatable Santa Claus worth it?” Why did you allow cars to go round and round in circles?
https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png
The self-healing mechanisms (such as the slow conversion of silicates to carbonates) will heal the chemical imbalance of the Earth once we’re gone. It might take a few thousand years. And a few million years from now biodiversity will recover.
It’s the period when the oil supply diminishes (leading to mass starvation) and the Earth continues to overheat (adding to mass starvation) that is the real worry. That period has commenced.
Sorry to be posting so much but this is important and exemplifies the danger of industrial waste, and the ineffectiveness of councils in dealing with it.
A used tyre pile was set alight on Friday (out of frustration with official inaction) and the smoke plume was visible from Christchurch, 45 km away.
‘…The tyre pile on Racecourse Road has long been controversial and it’s not the first time they’re been set alight.
Their removal was ordered in 2018 after a large blaze, caused by arson, at the site.
Environment Canterbury says it’s “disappointed” to see the tyres on fire again “when we were so close to reaching a resolution to deal with them”.
Last May, a man who lived on a neighbouring property was sentenced for arson for the 2018 blaze.
[Garry Robert Grimmer, 62, was sentenced to nine months of supervision on a charge of arson at the Christchurch District Court this morning, with the condition he attend a counselling programme.
The fire he lit ripped through a stockpile of around 20,000 tyres on a rural property near the Canterbury town of Amberley in February 2018, sending toxic black smoke billowing into the air.
Canterbury man who caused toxic tyre fire that terrified community sentenced for arsonPlay Video00:40
Garry Grimmer, 62, was charged with arson after setting alight a stockpile of 20,000 tyres.
Residents were forced to stay indoors for hours and cover their windows and doors with towels to avoid the smoke, as firefighters battled through the night to extinguish it and narrowly avoided a much larger pile nearby.
The court heard how Grimmer had owned a property across the road and became frustrated as the landowner had leased the land to a tyre collector, who continued to dump tyres over several months.
Judge Jane Farish said both Hurunui District Council and Environment Canterbury had been contacted about the pile before the fire, and while the activity had been monitored, the pile had not been removed.
The court heard Grimmer attempted to sell his property and move but that failed, and his mental health suffered. He lost his job and went through a mortgagee sale.
Judge Farish noted that on February 26, after continuing to watch the tyres build up, Grimmer “effectively snapped’.
“He took some petrol and some paper, and went across and lit a fire in the smaller pile that contained 20,000 tyres,” she said.
“He immediately, however, returned to his property and rang the fire brigade.”
A lawyer for the victims, who had leased the land to a collector but became overwhelmed by the dumping, said his client had suffered “emotional harm” from the fire and was now looking to sell some land to cover the costs.
They had spent a long time afraid more fires would be lit and had to front up the cost of clearing the debris, remediating the land and faced “community ridicule”, he said.
They had only agreed to hold the tyres for a short time, and have now been left with a significant bill to work with the council to remove the stockpile. Action was being taken against the person who dumped them, who has now failed to remove them, he said.
“The actions of Grimmer have had a deleterious affect on the community at large as well.”
However, the judge refused to order a reparation payment of $159,000, saying Grimmer did not have the wherewithal to pay it, and opted for a community-based sentence.
She noted he was “very sorry” and said his intention was bring attention to the stockpile.]
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/police-charge-63-year-old-arson-over-large-amberley-tyre-fire
Yes Afewknowthetruth,
The Change Commission is releasing a major report on what New Zealand needs to change to meet its climate commitments and goals is another waste of time as it will not address the over-use of diesel used in trucks and heavy vehicles so we are now really fucked as rail was totally ignored by this useless commision – what a sad day for our futre generations now are sure to be extermiatated along with all living amimals and creatures sooner than later.
Labour needs to disaregard this uiseless diesel/road friendly commision.
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