While our Government spends all its political capital on woke overreach legislation like criminalizing free speech, imprisoning Parents for 5years for stopping puberty blockers, announcing climate emergency virtue signals and doing sweet fuck all on the housing crisis and child poverty, the planet is burning.
As the reality of the enormity of climate change starts to dawn, people & Billionaires will be looking for ‘lifeboats’, NZ is one of these ‘lifeboats’…
Why NZ could be humanity’s ‘lifeboat’ in an extinction
Scientists have singled out New Zealand as a potential “ark” to reboot civilisation if a deadly pandemic swept the planet.
In a study just published in the international journal Risk Analysis , researchers found that New Zealand, along with Australia and Iceland, could serve as “lifeboats” to help humanity recover from a full-scale extinction event.
…while the focus here is on a pandemic, the same is true of NZ being a lifeboat for climate change.
The reason I believe climate change is an existential threat to our species is because it is an existential threat to our species.
We have inbuilt tipping points in the biosphere that once triggered can’t stop. They catastrophically cause vast climate changes that occur within decades that are too fast for species to adapt to and that causes mass extinctions.
The heating planet melts the Greenland ice shelf when pours fresh water into the Labrador Sea which desalinates one of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’s most important pumps causing it to shutdown and plunge most of Europe into a mini ice age that lasts for 1000 years while causing mega droughts in Africa and India while killing off the Amazon Rain Forest.
The latest research tells us we are witnessing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation shut down now…
A critical ocean system may be heading for collapse due to climate change, study finds
Human-caused warming has led to an “almost complete loss of stability” in the system that drives Atlantic Ocean currents, a new study has found — raising the worrying prospect that this critical aquatic “conveyor belt” could be close to collapse.
In recent years, scientists have warned about a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which transports warm, salty water from the tropics to northern Europe and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. Researchers who study ancient climate change have also uncovered evidence that the AMOC can turn off abruptly, causing wild temperature swings and other dramatic shifts in global weather systems.
Scientists haven’t directly observed the AMOC slowing down. But the new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change, draws on more than a century of ocean temperature and salinity data to show significant changes in eight indirect measures of the circulation’s strength.
….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
- legalise cannabis & hemp
- 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.
- Ministry of Works that builds state housing
- 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 10000 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.
Overstretched supply lines and exploitation of cheap labour have been the hallmarks of the neoliberal agenda and the cheek to jowl overpopulation of unregulated wet markets the perfect breeding ground for zoonosis. As global capitalism reorders itself local jobs and secure trusted supply chains will be far more important than the latest consumer toy from overseas. Increasingly we will see the rise of the local hero artisan who crafts local products aimed at a new practical and sustainable consumerism.
The need for community reliance has never been so urgently highlighted than by this pandemic. Local communities must be given the resources and power to build resilience infrastructure and Pakeha have lots to learn from the communal values of Māori. Maraes, schools and community boards need to be empowered and resourced to take on this new challenge.
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 31 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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Lol. As part of our nuclear moment we are banning plastic cotton buds however burning diesel and importing coal from Indonesia. Noone does hypocrisy like the Blairite.
Think I’ve seen that movie, doesn’t New York freeze solid?
I’m less of a doomer on the actual climate change at least re the human species – we are just in it for the ride (unless we are the Chinese or US government or a mega corporation) and humans are adaptable.
What is also true of humans though is that in times of famine, resource shortage and high population, there will be war.
Being seen as the lifeboat or bolt hole just makes us a juicier target, with a drop kick government which has destroyed our ability for energy self sufficiency – allowing Marsden point to shut and stopping oil and gas exploration, and wants a woke, useless armed forces.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/essay-that-won-defence-force-competition-has-mysteriously-vanished-from-the-internet/
Agree with you re the armed forces build up needed to deter and protect our sovereignty (such as we have left).
Theft of diminishing resources is already underway https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-10/png-daru-fishing-park-china-australia-tensions-james-marape/13136188
If China move their massive fishing flotilla to PNG after plundering the Galapagos, what will NZ and Australia do?
Well before any human extinction from climate change, there will be world war.
I would like to add, to the list,
1) limit population growth
2) have at least a debate, about alternative, non greenhouse gas producing, energy sources such as nuclear.
Agree about the over population. It says a lot when the leader of our so called enviromental party has 6 children .
Lifeboats imply survival.
Unfortunately that would still leave the planet with it’s worst contaminant – humans.
All our political systems. All our economic systems. All our religions. Our philosophies, knowledge, cultural values. Whatever shape the society we live in conforms to, it will always converge to one thing.
We can’t help ourselves. It’s written in our DNA.
Reminds me of the fabulous classic Planet of the Apes movie, when George Taylor proclaims: “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”.
His moment of realisation, as for us, came way too late.
From just the anecdotal evidence it is easy to justify a conclussion that the environment is already past the ‘tipping point’. Given no real urgent changes are being introduced by the major players one could conclude Ark NZ is a comforting possibility. Given our limited defence capabilites such an idea can only ever be considered a pipe-dream. When the realities of climate change sink-in, wars will be fought and our piece of paradise will become a prime target, quickly over-running our bunker. Sorry to rain on your parade Martyn.
We all know what happens when there are insufficient lifeboats for increasingly desperate people, don’t we.
You Tube/Facing Future/Arctic Apocalypse.
Agree with Martyn on this because there is very little evidence of global capital moving one centimetre to do anything serious about climate action. Yes Ford is making F150 EVs, and greenwashing all manner of products and services keeps the tills jingling, but…when it comes down to heavy duty moves…NADA.
Bolsanaro is setting the Amazon alight, palm oil goes crazy in Indonesia and Orangutans are pushed into tiny ghettos. Australia is going to be Mad Max Fury Road before anyone apart from immolated kangaroos and Koalas imagine. Bad shit is here.
2023 and 2026 are going to be the electoral test–right wingers often say that it should not be assumed that boomer replacement generations are going to go left/green or whatever–we are about to find out I guess. But why the fuck would working class, the 50% that own just 2% of the wealth vote Nat or ACT apart from some false consciousness and aspirationalism? The NZ neo liberal state needs to be urgently rolled back with mass re nationalisations, particularly power generation and supply.
Apart from the buorgeois parliamentary system, extra parliamentary mass peoples actions and organisation needs to happen to bring about our esteemed Editors list.
I must say, Martyn, that I’m with Tiger Mountain on “The-Younger-Generation-Is-Radical” trope.
What I see looming up behind me is a truly odd mixture of ruthless personal ambition, hardline “economic rationalism”, massive intolerance of dissent re: socio-cultural issues, and a sentimental environmentalism largely untethered from any kind of practical action. I do not consider it in the least bit remarkable that this sounds like a Police identikit picture of the Labour and Green parties!
Barring the rise of a truly scary populist leader – a latter-day Muldoon – these younger voters, in alliance with Boomer women, will return the present government to power.
Whether that means real – let alone revolutionary – change, or just more of the same, we will no doubt discover post-2023.
As for defending our borders in a post-climate-apocalypse context. Personally, I’m in favour of letting in every billionaire who asks. Their presence here is the best possible guarantee of effective national defence that I can think of!
It seems to be “let your mind wander Sunday” on TDB, but hey “Even lovers need a holiday
Far away, from each other…” as the Chicago song went.
I am more the Bob Seger fan, the 76 year old recently retired Michigan rocker’s “The Fire Inside” included a stab at existentialism–
“And it comes to you how it all slips away
Youth and beauty are gone one day
No matter what you dream or feel or say
It ends in dust and disarray
Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard and we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside”
Lets hope the millennials and all the rest prove to have some class left fire!
Excellent point! It would be good if the government could put some stringent conditions around the usefulness of the 1% if they want to become New Zealanders, ie take money off em and redistribute the wealth to the whole population or something like that…let’s look to Butan for some suggestions on how to go about taking care of this land and people, esp once they start banging at the door in earnest… (hang on, why wait for that…do it now) However the idea of a life boat NZ is a relatively short term solution and suggests a rescue, but we all live on the same planet and it seems sooner – decades or a century, rather than later ie the next snowball Earth or when the sun boils the water off, conditions for life on earth as we know it for all species living now, will no longer exist. One comfort amidst the destruction humans have wrought on the natural world is that this ebb and flow of existence has happened many times before on planet Earth and in the end we are merely a part of that. However before we are completely extinguished will be tough times. According to a 1970s projection all the markers for the collapse of civilization are occuring as predicted heading for the date 2040. As some poor soul in Granity said who lost her home to the sea “we knew the sea levels were going to rise, but not this fast”. Our time is nearly up, all the signs and science point to it. Make hay while the sun shines, to quote that crazy visionary James Lovelock.
The problem with the 2023 and 2026 elections are absent a REAL left wing party, LINO (more soft right wing, see Tony Blair) will get in and yet again do NOTHING.
So it’s all over for the working class. They are royally (and planned IMHO) screwed.
This is more bad news, but planting more trees will not help as once temperatures rise above a certain point, as forests will exhale more CO2 than they absorb. This is already beginning to happen during certain months of the year in some significant areas. Read insideclimatenews.org “Many overheated forests may soon release more carbon than they absorb”.
Well … vomited. My friend.
How to deal with climate change is everything, followed closely by finite resources. Ridiculous that we prefer the present silly comfort before the exact science of ‘The Road’. The cliff our brilliant scientists know is coming.
Haha Martyn, I’m 20 years older than you, so I won’t see as much of the shit hitting the fan. I can be a small-minded man. Many of my pleasures.
LETS NOT FORGET THE PERMAFROST
1. On tipping points .
Scientists seem to agree that it is too late to stop Greenland , the Arctic and Antarctica from melting even though this may take 200-300 years.I recently had a disturbing lateral thought which presumes, if they are doomed to melt so will the massive ring of permafrost .So what ?
The accelerated melting of the permafrost will gradually release multiple gigatons of co2 and methane trapped in the permafrost and gigatons more of frozen methane hydrate currently trapped under the Arctic sea as the waters warm . The release of this much gas will result in an approx 12* rise in world temperatures and effectively they only life left will be similar to bacteria.Have a nice day .
2.If we have any chance of averting this , buying a hemp shopping bag, organic fair trade coffee and a Nissan Leaf by 2050 just ain’t enough happy hobbits. Planting forests one year .which burn down the next year just ain’t enough .(Heat waves +Wild fires: California /Canada/Siberia/Turkey/Spain/ Greece .).A carbon neutral world by 2050 is simply not enough .
Before civilisation collapses and reverts to Mad Max Kookynanaland we need to invest in technologies which suck the carbon back out and put it back in the ground .Carbon Capture , on a grand scale .Lets take the worlds military budget and spend it on saving lifeboat earth ,rather than just Lifeboat NZ .
3. The only vacination for climate breakdown is leaving the coal in the hole , the oil in the soil and sucking the carbon back out .The price of failure is extinction.
4. It is logical that if you release carbon from a car or aircraft journey that you pay someone to put it back .EG : Direct Air Capture Corporation .(DACT) Whether your travel is modest or frequent the planet remains in equilibrium .
5.Before Elon Musk becomes the 1st president of Mars it would be appreciated that he saves the Earth before he goes .
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