ROD CARR reminds me of God. Seriously, that beard. From a distance, in poor light, the God of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling could easily be mistaken for the Chair of the Climate Change Commission (CCC). More to the point, Carr seems to believe he possesses at least some of the powers of the Almighty. How else to explain the “transformational” plans he has developed to meet the, frankly, unachievable goals this government has set itself vis-à-vis greenhouse gas emissions? Contrariwise, maybe that’s exactly the message Carr is trying to send: “From here on in, folks, only divine intervention can save us!”
That the CCC and the Government have got this far without encountering very much in the way of pushback from the public (farmers don’t count as the public) is because New Zealanders have no idea how much their day-to-day lives will be affected if Carr’s masterplan becomes Government policy. Everybody pays lip service to fighting global warming, but beyond occasionally catching a bus, or walking – instead of driving – to the chippie, it’s business as usual. Hardly anyone is prepared for the radical change of lifestyle which Carr’s recommendations would require. So, when the climate change penny finally drops, all hell is going to break loose.
In a country currently engaged in a such a passionate love affair with the SUV, does the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the Climate Change Minister, James Shaw, truly believe New Zealanders are going to embrace electric motor vehicles without a backward glance? Do they seriously expect their political opponents to rise selflessly above all the opportunities for inflicting mortal injuries upon them by telling the voters that although they may not wanna – they hafta?
Four words: Not. Going. To. Happen.
Act’s David Seymour has already indicated the Right’s general direction of travel. He has called for Carr’s report to be thrown into the rubbish bin. Picking apart his response, it’s not difficult to predict the core content of the emerging right-wing narrative.
Carr’s plans are typically elitist in their lofty disregard for the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. Indeed, the burden of this plan of his will fall most heavily upon those Kiwis least able to bear it. Is the cleaner living in South Auckland, who travels miles each day by car to reach her workplace, seriously being asked to buy an electric vehicle? And even if the government finances her into one, how is she supposed to power it up?
When the whole global warming schtick is about not being able to take for granted all the weather events that make it possible to rely on hydro-electric energy and those godawful windmill thingies, what makes Carr and his minions so sure there will be enough electrical energy to keep a vehicle fleet of millions powered up? What if the snows don’t come? What if there’s a prolonged drought? What if the winds fall away to nothing for weeks at a time? I mean, presumably, the scientists call it “climate change” for a reason!
Seymour is also pointing the way, right-wing wise, when he counsels against New Zealand attempting to lead the world in its response to climate change. Why would we want to do that, he asks? What’s wrong with being a “fast follower”? Let others invest the billions in research. Let others develop the technological fix. Why shouldn’t we just do the best we can and await developments?
The Taxpayers’ Union is running a very similar line. This is what Jordan Williams had to say in response to Carr’s recommendations:
“You might read in the media that the Commission has softened the hard edges of some of its targets (like electric vehicles and renewable energy). But working through the detail I’m sad to report that the plan doubles down on its most egregious and costly elements. Let me be very clear: this plan will not improve our ability to fight climate change. It deliberately shuns the ‘least cost’ approach and the Emissions Trading Scheme in favour of a ‘transformation’ of the New Zealand economy. This isn’t me saying this. The Commission’s own experts say that the ETS would actually get us to our emissions targets without radical interventions.”
You can see where this is going, can’t you? This is going straight to the Right’s happy place, where calm and reasonable folk can say: “Look, we don’t have to change our lives in the way the CCC and the Ardern Government are suggesting. There’s a perfectly sensible scheme already in place. What’s wrong with telling people that if they want to consume a more-than-sensible amount of fossil fuel, then they’ll have to pay for the privilege? What’s wrong with letting the market decide?”
Oh, sure, the likes of Shaw, Marama Davidson and Julie-Anne Genter will wax eloquent about Aotearoa’s responsibility to do all it can to meet its Paris (and, in a few months, Glasgow) targets. They will insist that we have a moral duty to save the planet for our mokopuna. But by then, nobody will be listening. Why? Because the Right will be beating on the deplorable drum.
The deplorable drum? WTF is the deplorable drum? Well, that’s the drum that beats out the message that undermines everything God – I mean Rod – Carr and the Labour Government are trying to do.
And what message is that? The Right’s deplorable – but irrefutable – message is this. Read it and weep.
“Don’t listen to all those greenie idiots. Don’t let all this nonsense about New Zealanders having to step up to the challenge of climate change fool you. To hear people like Carr and Shaw and Ardern tell it, if we sacrifice our way of life, if we pull on the hair shirt of social and economic decline, then somehow we’ll be saved. Somehow, all over these blessed islands of ours, the climate will return to the norms of the Holocene. All BS, of course, because Climate Change is a planetary problem. And do you know how much this country contributes to the emissions that are threatening Mother Earth? No? Well, let me tell you. In 2014, our contribution was just 0.17 percent. That’s right. If we stopped using fossil fuels altogether. If we took ourselves back to the stone age in the name of saving the planet – no one would even notice. The only people who can save the planet are China and the United States. Will they? Well, that’s the only question that really matters, isn’t it? And we can’t answer it.”
A bitter truth? Oh, yes. But prepare to hear it spoken more and more forcefully in the years ahead. As the sun goes down on humanity’s hopes, and not even Rod Carr’s godlike self-confidence can disperse the encroaching darkness, I can’t help recalling the words of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”:
“No reason to get excited”,
The thief he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now,
The hour is getting late.”
A windmill grinds grain into flour. A wind turbine generates electricity. How can I take an article talking about cars and EVs seriously when the author doesn’t know the difference between the two.
Explaining is losing, boy.
Explaining is losing? Good bumper sticker mate, but how else are intelligent people supposed to correct the delusory misapprehensions of people who believe anything they are told?
A wise person once said that the master teaches when the student is ready.
More inane bumper sticker philosophy. You’ve got Brainyquote.com bookmarked, haven’t you.
Brainyquote.com isn’t even narratively implied. It’s not even a complicated so called “bumper sticker.” LMFAO!
Oh, get off your high horse, CD! If your reading skills are so poor that you can’t discern the jocular from the serious, then your opinions are hardly worthy of consideration. Indeed, a psychologist might describe your comment as evidence of avoidance – an unwillingness to face reality by shifting the focus of discussion onto something utterly irrelevant. Let’s hear a reasoned argument: a point-by-point refutation. Not this “I’m too clever to bother” malarkey.
“… a psychologist might describe your comment as evidence of avoidance – an unwillingness to face reality by shifting the focus of discussion onto something utterly irrelevant”
Oh Chris, I think I love you! You say this, yet I have just read your article published in a local paper about how colonisation, “with undeniable justification,” is to blame for the fact that Maori perform so poorly in nearly every metric. You think “Pakeha” (whoever they are) are “indebted to Maori.” No amount of florid Lincoln quotes can justify such wrong-headedness and refusal to accept the obvious.
I think Chris imagines he is Don Quixote and the godawful (really) windmill thingies are monsters to be attacked.
The only thing missing from the piece was an “OMG”.
It is obvious that all those who get there undies out the right hand draw know better than scientists, Nasa and all the evidence of industrialisation causing Climate Change. Yep, listen to your elders everyone, they know best. This is all a hoax. FFS. Politicians will have to regulate to force change at business and industry level to allow consumers more green options so we can help do our bit. Saying it’s going to be too hard and upset too many people is why we are in this situation. A long long way to go with so many attitudes still in denial and that the only thing that matters is the economy.
How money scientists do you know that became Prime Minister?
Off the top of my head, Angela Merkel (physicist) and Margaret Thatcher (chemist). David Seymour, who is not a PM, qualified as an electrical engineer.
But your implied point that there is much scientific illiteracy among politicians (and journalists) is not inaccurate
My point is science can instruct a Prime Minister in the ideocincracies of wielding power Labour Party style.
I swear I typed “can’t” fuck it. I’ll leave it. I think it’s my subconscious track record fighting back. Meh.
I mean honestly why the fuck would we even try and explain climate science to a bunch of unemployed proffesors who got there degrees for free and functionally left the education system at 15 years old.
There’s a whole bunch of other shit we can do like cut speed limits in half and prosecute polluters, no matter what jurisdiction they’re in, for crimes against humanity, in the international courts. Begin issuing Interpol arrest warrents.
I prefer Hendrix’s version to Dylan’s.
Jimi Hendrix Experience All Along The Watchtower
https://youtu.be/qmGFFJtkDXA?t=11
Each to their own, but you are talking my language. Id love to meet you some day. I really think you’d be an awesome person, Chris . Despite our past disagreements, I think your awesome dude.
How many time’s do I got to show you people about free energy? And why is it always left up to the Scots to show you people the way? Get off your dammed arses and do some research. Its basic !!
In search of the Effect of John Searl. Part 23
https://youtu.be/n2RJ_kPEkt0?t=15
Actually your comment about horse and cart is most relevant. A solid horse will run on grass, water and kisses for years and years whereas EVs have comparatively short life (10 yrs or so I’ve heard) A well maintained internal combustion engine in an older car is still a thing of beauty and that’s why CCC want them off the road, into private collectors’ garages awaiting the time that the EV market shrivels into insignificance
“ …
In a very little while, it may be,
When our impulsive limbs and our superior skills
Have to the soil restored several ounces of fertiliser,
The Mother of all will take charge again,
And soon wipe away with her elements
Our small fond human enclosures.”
Ursula Bethell. ‘ Pause ‘
All too true Mr Trotter.
And I note today, without many electric cars at all, NZ has burned more coal in 3 months than the entire two years before Labour took office.
We do not have enough power for electric vehicles or the grid to handle a fleet of EVs and it takes years to build new dams (shouted down by greens as the last one was btw). Government hasn’t lifted a finger to start building the infrastructure
We do not have enough charging stations.( there is one in our small town, how long is the queue going to be when a “fast” charge takes 20 minutes?)
We do not have anywhere near the range in an electric vehicle necessary for rural people -200km is not enough -these new rules will all attack country people over urban, there is no public transport option rurally. Forcing animal numbers down will further destroy communities just as foreign pine plantations are.
But we still import more people and have done so at the fastest rate in the western world.
What has more emissions, a population of 4 million or 5 million?
So we – especially rural NZ- are being told to give up livelihood and lifestyle to finance Labour/ Green and Nationals great immigration Ponzi scheme, not only will your wages be suppressed but now you can give up your lifestyle and community so we can settle more people here, because?
It surely says something about the kiwi psyche when there,s 10 comments here but sadly only a couple of positive ones ?
It says a lot about elite leftist group-think that these proposals have not been logically thought through.
And also that rather than debate or work through some of the pie in the sky rationale (large electric passenger planes?) which read more like a science fiction guess at what the future might be than an attainable science based roadmap, there must be a problem with the Kiwi psyche.
Just use the word “deplorables”, saves time.
You could have said the same bullshit about replacing the horse and carriage with cars.
As soon as labour does something the hysteria starts oh the commies ate coming.
Business will die.
Wages will fall.
Welfare queens are getting rich.
That is the track record that you now claim as an accurate tool for predicting the future.
@keepcalm
Reality must always give way to ideology for you guys, right Chris? Dear God, the fact of the matter is, NZ could disappear under the waves forever tonight and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the world’s climate. All that our “efforts to combat climate change” will do is make energy more unreliable, more expensive and generally lower all of our standards of living, and for what? IDEOLOGY. Your (alleged) friends in NZ’s chronic underclasses will bear the brunt too, while the luvvies who are pushing this ideology will be just fine, as always are whenever they come up with some hare-brained scheme to make themselves feel better about themselves.
What I really don’t get is, if it’s true that the Commission’s own experts say that the ETS would actually get us to our emissions targets without radical interventions then why do we need to be radical? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Why put so many things at risk when there’s already a system in place that is working, will enable NZ to meet its commitments and won’t require all this insanity? It should also be noted that it was David Parker who introduced the ETS as well so it was created and delivered by the left.
It really does look like the ETS just works but doesn’t provide a platform for politicians to demonstrate their virtue and God (not Carr) knows what else.
Rather than attacking car owning citizens and farmers again, the government should immediately:
Get all long haul trucking on to rail or sea – can someone please tell me how government have allowed more and bigger trucks on our roads when we are supposed to be reducing emissions? Aside from the extra congestion and road destruction and its carbon cost.
Begin daily cheap commuter rail two hours either side of all cities, ultimately electrified. Eg incentivize less car use by government doing its fkin job and providing infrastructure.
Stop the immigration ponzi- what’s NZs human carrying capacity? Why kill the cows off when we keep importing more carbon contributing humans?
Every cow we reduce here on a mostly pasture system, must be replaced overseas in a more carbon intensive system to produce the same food hmm? Makes our emissions look better but the planet is worse off, have some not figured that out yet?
Build Biofuel diesel plants ASAP. We need energy security in an unstable world.
Explore and utilize kiwi natural gas with a view to replacing most petrol where possible.
Begin building hydro dams in the North Island closer to where most power is used.
Congestion charges in cities with public transport on offer to pay for cheap or free electric buses.
Government seem to be importing the humans to look after the cows cheaper. LOL two Dino birds with one stone age policy!
Aka yesterday the government announced up to 150 dairy farm workers in management roles on farms, 50 workers in dairy assistant roles, and up to 50 general practice vets, along with their partners and dependent children, would be allowed into NZ on visas .
You have to ask where are the 250 new houses coming from to provide housing for these new migrants so we can keep more intensive cows going and keep the wages low! Where are the new hospital beds and doctors, nurses and teachers needed for the endless new families coming into NZ?
In addition it looks like the salary levels fall below the WFF thresholds so they will get WFF top ups and accomodation etc so already the tax payers are propping up those farms and workers! One thing to realise is that Dairy workers may work 60+ hours per week and it’s anti social hours so the jobs are underpaid for what they entail in many cases.
The other things to consider, is that traditionally farm workers were the farmers themselves aka they had smaller farms and their animals were farmed with the family labour so they didn’t need any additional workers and Dairy assistants – now the idea is to drive off Kiwi farmers with red tape and stupidity and high land prices so share milkers can’t get their own land, so that large mostly foreign corporations like Ocean Dairy can take over and intensify Dairy here, then import in their own workers and pollute NZ. Ocean Dairy is Chinese owned and have billions invested everywhere so this just a tiny blip on their spread sheet and it’s all about money for them.
Good to know we are know our seas are now an official cow toilets and our taxes subsidise intensive Dairy expanding while driving off family farmers who are not intensive users of Dairy and land.
Oceania Dairy wants to discharge 10 million litres a day of treated wastewater into Pacific Ocean
https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/117493826/oceania-dairy-wants-to-discharge-10-million-litres-a-day-of-treated-wastewater-into-pacific-ocean
Update to that article, they got resource consent!
Now I guess the NZ taxpayers can top up their Dairy workers too with WFF and then we can pay to remediate the seas and diseased sea life on top!
The other thing to consider is this is all part of the neoliberals long term plan to destroy Fonterra as we know it and the co operative mode and take any asset out of this countries control.
Fonterra will probably end up being globally owned (including the NZ farms) and probably by the 50 people who own most of the worlds wealth already… And the people making this happen will get a short term massive pay out – they just need to get rid of the troublesome ‘mums and Dads’ farmers to make this happen just like they need to get rid of the troublesome ‘mums and Dads’ rental owners….
Some great input there KCCO. Retail and Trade services want overnight deliveries for everything nowadays.
Hence big trucks driving all night to satisfy our immediate consumption addictions. A lot of painful change is a coming.
Funny how the elite’s in this country can always come up with a way to once again bugger the poor. Be they left or right our elites are out of touch. Just look at the casual racism of the right, or the smug self righteous of the left.
Both don’t actually give a rats about people. Climate change is a existential threat, no if’s, no buts. And what do our smug self serving ruling class do – the usual – bury there heads in an ideology which means they don’t have to face reality. Be it the right or the left of the political game.
The reality is – a few are hell bent feeding a greed which can never be quenched. And in the process they don’t care who burns. Us, that’s who will burn.
What can we do to stop it? Stop the machines which make this a problem, and those machines are all military. We need to stop the worlds military – it is the only answer. Everything else is ideological shitfuckery.
“Carr’s plans are typically elitist in their lofty disregard for the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. ”
Get off poor old Rod Carr’s back – he is clearly only playing ‘follow the (our) leader. A lofty disregard for the lives of ordinary New Zealanders seems to sum up our government and most local government today.
And whilst I am no fan of the liberal elite policies of this government, this kind of authoritarian elitist rot (NEo Libs anyone?) has been around since the Key years (privatising power despite a referendum) and possibly going back to the Clarke government. At some point, what people wanted and what they voted for started to be ignored as standing operating procedures for political parties.
Now we have a government by the people (oops I mean the elite) for the people who will do what we tell them for their own good (Labour) or for the economy’s (me and my mates) good. This is democracy today, vote for one lot or the other but never expect to see any beneficial change for the majority.
Vietnam has boosted its solar capacity by 25,000% by building new solar panels equivalent to 6 coal plants in one year.
NZers need to take their heads out of their arses, grow some balls and take control of their future and protect the lives of their their grandchildren.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1403084109837221895
Sadly it’s hard to believe we have a Labour, Greens government.
Less about identity politics more real results from the environment please not marketing spin that everybody can see through.
Also the starting point for environmental reform is obviously government and council land and industries they control themselves to lead the way and not endless consultation with private land owners and business. aka SNA’s are already under fire but it’s also hypocritical when nobody is seeing the councils and government looking after it’s own holdings environmentally.
Climate change: New Zealand burns most coal for electricity in nearly a decade
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/climate-change-new-zealand-burns-most-coal-for-electricity-in-nearly-a-decade/MH6J3LMMFMMHRY2TH44G2PJSRU/
Again see the absolutely hypocritical behaviour again and again. AKA rental healthy homes, only 1 in 5 state houses and community houses meet them. But wait, wasn’t healthy homes supposed to be for the most vulnerable tenants and children who seem to be getting their healthy homes last or maybe not at all with a change in government!
Where shall I start?
Rod Carr is the spokesperson for a commission that was set up to advise on what must be done if we are to reduce our CO2 and methane emissions to meet the agreements of the IPPC. Not to explain how that can be done without pain though he was trying that on on majic radio last night.Nor to explain how the government is going to implement these requirements and still be in power after the next election.
The changes necessary to reduce carbon emissions to net zero will never happen in a democracy. People don’t vote for the total destruction of their way of life any more than turkeys vote for christmas.
However if the world is to make these changes to zero carbon New Zealand will certainly have to be right up there with any other nation in playing our part, because we are so much better off than nearly everone else in the world in terms of climate and natural resources, and manageable population size in re food supply and living space.
But for all that I think we can afford to watch the temperature gage for a while longer before taking drastic action. Has anyone else been looking? April in France was the coldest for 30 years; in Germany the coldest in 40 years and in the UK after the Thames freezing over in January or February they had the coldest
April since 1922. May in the northern hemisphere was only slightly warmer.
OK so seasons vary and it might be an aberration and CO2 might take over again next month or next year and resume it’s overpowering influence above the multitude of other things that control the climate, but the man made climate change community is going to need to explain what has so suddenly brushed it aside this year. So far all I have read is that it has cooled because the La Nina has ended. But La Nina is a cooling phase in the Pacific where La Nina and El Nino interplay. El Nino is the warm phase. La Nina coincides with warming in the Atlantic presumably because warm surface waters are blown through the Indian inti the Atlantic where they are trapped, so the surface water is relatively warmer in the Atlantic. But what is happening in the Pacific is that very cold water from deep under the sea is seriously cooling the surface, sometimes by 4C. The net global effect of La Nina has got to be cooling and nobody was blaming La Nina for global warming during the last couple of years.
Watch this space I reckon .
D J S
Forgot to add that the changes will have to be made sooner or later anyway because the oil reserves must be finite.
D J S
Comment on it the absurdity of it all, Chris, but don’t worry about it. The goose is already cooked!
The US is unlikely to get through the rest of this year,
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
let alone the rest of this decade.
450 ppm (the supposed ‘safe upper limit’) would be exceeded by 2033 if current trends were to continue. But when the positive feedbacks of melting permafrost and methane clathrates accelerate over the next 3 or 4 years, they portend complete meltdown around 2030.
Add to that dismal scenario the global decline in availability of liquid fuels now underway -which will terminate current economic arrangements fairly soon – methinks it could well be ‘all over’ for clowns and criminals like Rod Carr by around 2024.
Praying isn’t going to fix any of this, which has been building up to the present monumental crisis since 1712, when Newcomen got his coal-fired steam pump perfected so that the coal miners could gain access to more coal.
I guess Rod Carr would have been paid $200,000 or $300,000 (maybe more) to produce hot air, otherwise know as bullshit of the highest order.
the beard and god segue is pretty poor – the rest is superfluous – any move away from fossil fuel dependancy is a move in the right direction
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