Capitalism must change because the biosphere it exploits is dying…
The Earth, as we know it, is fucked. We’re currently at 417 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, up from 280 ppm pre-capitalism. And that’s still not enough to satiate the shrieking, sucking mouth of the market.
Russia sees the melting Arctic and has decided this is a wonderful opportunity to extract the region’s hitherto inaccessible oil. Burning this will melt the Arctic further, making more oil available, in a virtuous circle of suicide. While making false promises in the fight against the climate crisis, America took the lead in crude oil production last year. Right behind us are the world’s other oil producers, from the despots of Saudi Arabia to the bland democracy of Canada. It’s like a “Murder on the Orient Express”-style mystery, where humanity is killed by every passenger.
It’s getting pretty close to night-night time for ocean life, most of the insects on Earth, half of the birds, too. Oh, and a third of the trees. When this will take out people is hard to predict, just as you never know which piece you have to remove to cause everything to collapse in a game of Jenga.
If you find this distressing, consider the more distressing fact that even if we develop massive amounts of green energy and stop global warming, capitalism will still probably destroy a livable biosphere.
…we are so far off the maps in terms of pollution and what that dramatic sharp increase in heat will do to our biosphere.
Nothing else matters in politics right now more than radical adaptation for the climate crisis that is upon us.
Watch for more climate refugees and the inability for some places to rebuild in time for the next storm as agricultural calendars are irreversibly disrupted.
…I didn’t need any crystal ball to predict that we would see climate change wreck NZ and the usual push back from the industry that creates most of the climate change pollution because that’s the kind of denial we New Zealanders love.
Unfortunately we can no longer pretend to be in denial.
As Kiwis we are a very laid back culture and we are fastidious about ignoring things that might lead to conflict, until conflict is upon us and then we are unrelenting in fighting for a righteous egalitarianism.
I believe we are at a turning point on climate change.
For many of us, climate change has been a theoretical argument about something that might happen in the distant future.
It is no longer that.
It is now a present on going risk factor.
I’ve been following the IPCC reports on climate change from the beginning, and the criticism made against the IPCC was that due to its strict need for only unilaterally agreed science to make the official report, it was always underplaying the urgency and severity of the climate crisis.
There was always a section in each report where the science was presented that wasn’t universally accepted but included to show the reach and scope of debate.
Increasingly over the years, the worst case scenarios in the IPCC are playing out in real time.
The scientists were wrong, but only in their optimism.
You understand that each year that passes now will get worse or remain as starkly bad as they are now right?
You get that it doesn’t go back to normal after this right?
The extreme weather will get worse and worse.
More extreme than these extremes now.
Consider the baseline extreme current normal.
Sure the war run Ukraine is hurting food prices, but that’s damage on the baseline reality of a mega drought that has interrupted the agricultural calendar of major food producers globally!
The radical adaptation required to get us ready for what’s coming will splinter the political spectrum whether we like it or not.
Why shouldn’t we have our own basic pharmaceutical industry?
Engineering industry?
Industrial industry?
The supply side shocks caused by Covid and war are not going away, and they are being compounded by catastrophic climate change.
Radical adaptation and communal community resourcing alongside a Big State approach to lynchpin infrastructure for basic self-reliance as an Island country facing enormous economic shockwaves is the only means to build the muscle mass to respond to the ever intensifying external disruption of late stage capitalism.
The need to increase military spending to 3% alongside the new costs for this infrastructure must be funded via new taxes aimed at corporations and banks.
A financial transaction tax and windfall profit tax would take the yoke of taxation off working people and place it upon the shoulders of the wealthy.
National and ACT see mass immigration as a means to create fake growth at a time when we should be focused on de-growth.
Climate Crisis is here and adaptation is now.
We need to start rethinking Isolationism as a strength and Hyper-Regional Think Big as Economic Sovereignty.
The geopolitical shock waves are only getting more intense.
As you look around at the devastation these extreme weather events have caused, doesn’t being carbon neutral by 2050 look pathetic now?
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If New Zealand was carbon neutral last week it wouldn’t have stopped the cyclone. If we’re carbon neutral next year it won’t stop cyclones from happening. If and when we are carbon neutral and extreme weather events continue, who do we blame? Being carbon neutral in New Zealand will not stop extreme weather events.
The most rational observation I’ve read recently is by Damien Grant:
‘The carbon that we emit isn’t the carbon causing the flooding. We are enjoying the pollution generated in New Delhi, New York and Beijing.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/131138230/damien-grant-we-can-make-ourselves-poor-but-we-cant-stop-the-rain
Another f’ing stupid conclusion. We are always “it’s someone else’s problem”. So when those major nations move on what will we do? They will say you are a first world country, pull your weight, or f*ck off we won’t trade with you. All that shit about us feeding 40 million people, on a planet with billions of people . Yeah that will convince them….not.
Yes RAF. Martyn doesn’t seem to have got the memo that NZ is responsible for only 0.13% of global emissions. We need to focus on adapting our infrastructure and landuse to the inevitable climate change that we as a country have no power to stop.
Labour and the Greens are also into mass immigration.
Everyone is into it except for perhaps NZ First. I’m an immigrant and I support their stance for the reason here.
Well we done a good job ignoring it for the last 50 odd years, building just what serves to greenwash with climate change in mind, and other then that, can we build some low income/poor peoples housing in these flood planes? Well yes, of course we can.
Can we concrete over every square inch of dirt with concrete so that the water can stand on top of it, why yes, we can.
Can we pay for billionaires to fly in with their entourage for an expensive taxpayer subsidised junket to sail some boats and fuck climate change?, why the fucking yes we can.
Can we import food so that we don’t have to grow it here? Totally yes, we can. And if we can no more go munch on some grass.
Can we import coal from overseas so we don’t have to mine it? Hey, that is just good business. And besides when Government OKs it its not adding to the climate change problem. And besides you got yourself and e-vehicle with government subsidies, the same government that still does not offer free public transport? Totally awesome car btw, and did you know that the mining of the rare minerals that make your battery work is happening overseas so that one does not have to pollute their beautiful green mind with the nastyness of open pit mining by cheap very cheap labour? yeah…..so us.
I am sure that Mr. Shaw will find again an excuse to fly somewhere for his professional career advancement on the government dime to preach about the rest of us needing to not fly, drive, eat meat, drink milk and so on.
You might also want to ask the Greens/Labour about the carbon footprint that is created by de-sexing children with chemicals and surgery in the name of gender woo. And then ask the same but in regards to the revision surgeries and other follow ups that these botched surgeries and chemical intake bring with it. I bet they will not answer.
We – the people – many of us have known what needs to be done for a while now, many already are doing it. But the misery of Auckland and elsewhere can be laid square at the feet of town planners, developers, government local and national that signs of on developments and new builds, infrastructure works and the likes. Also the neglect of many areas in this country when it comes to roads, slash flowing down rivers causing flooding, taking out bridges, old infrastructure never upgraded – not under Helen Clark, not under John Key and most certainly not under Jacinda Arderns five and a half years Prime Ministering. Maybe some of our suits will wake up and realize that they are sitting in the same boat with us.
The last person that articulated a firm position on climate change and what to do was Jeanette Fitzsimmons.
Sadly no one in the current Green Party today can even begin to think about filling the gumboots that she left behind.
So prepare comrade, because this will happen again.
Global heating is as a direct result of the manipulative psychopathy of banking. Over production as is evident in our over consumption ( Example: fat, sorry, weight challenged, american Wall Martians consuming for the addictive sake of it. * https://clubgiggle.com/random-stuff-pictures/30-wall-martians-out-there-2/) and over consumption is feverishly demanded by the bankster mafia ( I nearly wrote banking ‘industry’ but banks are not industrial. They’re merely manipulative crooks who’ve got us all brainwashed via the media they own, which is all of it.)
‘Banking’ is a strange beast. Banking has us believe that we need them to function as human organisms. The banking mafia have us looped into a logical fallacy and now that they have control over the very homes we live within so now we must do as they demand or they’ll put the dreaded mortgage-squeeze on us. Well sir, to that I say fuck. The global banking racket is uniquely and directly to blame for climate change. Banking underpins waste, gross over production, of exhausting natural resources and of exhausting us.
Unfortunately for all of us that while conventional banking is an unnecessary scam the result of bankster interference in life and living looks like it’ll end all life on earth.
* My favourite was the person with the duck on a lead.
isn’t it time we talked about *****
the fragility of power network
the state of our roads
the inability to provide potable water
building on fragile land
the cell network and internet going down at the drop of a hat, making apps useless (and they still insist on digital governance)
now none of this would have stopped the cyclone but may have lessened it’s effects
You could but we would need to pay a higher tax or more for the various services to pay for the improvements.
so kiwis should stop whining when this shit happens…we ignore stuff because we’re cheapskates it’ll bites us on the bum….simples
We wouldn’t necessarily have to pay higher taxes to have decent infrastructure if the government didn’t waste money on woke fripperies, and on consultants and PR firms. It’s a question of priorities. Key oversaw the rundown of our infrastructure because he wanted to keep taxes down. He also slashed the Department of Conservation’s funding – “they’ll have to do partnerships” said Key. He didn’t have the brains or daring to instead get rid of the useless demographic ministries, as Seymour has more recently suggested.
Martyn
I’m all for saving the planet but shouldn’t your questions be directed at China, USA, India and all the other genuine big polluters? Truth is, to be carbon neutral has massive massive costs we simply can’t afford with the few willing taxpayers that we have. And our govts refuse to indulge in profitable business. So will AirNZ no longer use fuel but only batteries? No. So what is the point of the massive costs in buying way the ‘guilt’? The recent storms were started up in the tropics just like 10000000 years ago. So once we’re carbon neutral, the storm goes ‘let me spare New Zealand’…no. I say let’s jump on board once the rest of the world makes genuine progress. And I don’t mean a carbon stock exchange that’s only there to absolve guilt with money. You want NZ to be a world leader? You’ll be a bankrupt one. As they say…go woke go broke.
While what you write has logic as a country we rely on selling goods & services to those big countries & if they insist on carbon zero we basically have to obey.
China insists on carbon zero cheese and eggs? Yeah right
Bonnie
This illustrates the situation we are in as an unproductive, unprofitable and basically bankrupt country. Yes, if we had to pay our debt right now we’d be fucked! We mostly rely on borrowing money and selling stuff that is subject to those ‘woke’ carbon zero demands – food. Meat, dairy, fruit, wine, farmed goods, maybe some timber. Yes we have a few tourists but not like we used to. And when they arrive these days, say by ship, then our ports are like ghosts towns. Not long ago 4000 tourists were greeted by one dairy open with a few ice blocks. That’ll be good for word of mouth. Our natural attractions are nice, awesome even, but we act like we are the ONLY country that is ‘spectacular’ – no no, 100% pure!!!! Ever been to Patagonia? Or the Nordic countries? Put NZ to shame in many respects. On top of that, NZ is now ‘fuuuuucking’ expensive, thanks to ideology pushing us out of competitive markets. How is all this funded? Taxes! We don’t do highly profitable oil, we don’t do gas, we don’t do coal (FFS we now import crap coal), we don’t do minerals, we don’t do precious metals, we don’t do big industry, we don’t even do decent fast track highways to get from city to city or port to port (yes yes, with fast electric cars!). We don’t do anything that makes the country real big money. Business make money here and there for them selves, but not the country itself as going concern. But we do one thing big time – taxes! We steal from each other, instead of profiting much much much more from other countries. And now green and red folks are calling for us to lead the world in ‘carbon zero’??? What does that mean anyway for a country that doesn’t even really pollute? On the scale of a toxic waste dump, we are one tiny single little fly shit. But no, we have to lead the world – even we go more bankrupt than we are, just so we can say “Yay, we lead the world”. I say let’s get this country back to profitable and productive before we indulge in solving other people’s carbon zero problems.
Now before any of you hypocritical wokesters snipe back at me, first please sell your petrol/diesel cars immediately, switch from gas to solar power for cooking and heating right now, ditch your gas BBQ, get a steam bike ( no a fucking ‘yuppy’ e-bike because the batteries are made with African child labour, and stop eating meat and dairy and don’t ever fly anywhere again. Not? Thought so.
We can’t solve every transportation mode instantly so let’s do nothing at all. Pathetic
All this is commendable but it’s finger-in-the-dyke stuff until the world addresses the “supply side” of climate change. To do that, fossil fuels have to stay in the ground. How do countries pay for their damage control measures? Apart from the financial transaction and windfall taxes suggested, big oil and coal must pay reparations as they have known of the damage they’re causing for decades.
People need energy. Just existing requires a lot energy. 8 billion people requires an incomprehensible amount of energy. Let’s say all of the coal and all of the oil stays in the ground: how do you expect to replace all of that energy with enough to provide for the needs of 8 billion people (and rising)? I think most people who advocate Net Zero think that we can achieve this simply by transitioning to so-called “green” energy and going on as we did before. This is delusional. “Green” energy is neither abundant nor reliable. Where is the infrastructure? Where does all of the extra electricity come from to supply everyone’s EV? It doesn’t come from anywhere, and it’s not supposed to. Climate change initiative are meant to remove personal autonomy and replace it with technocracy-based servitude.
“Net Zero” means a dramatic reduction in standard of living and the ability to exercise personal agency. “Net Zero” means everyone living in heavily surveilled and controlled “15 minute cities” wherein your movements are heavily curtailed, and currency in the form of centrally controlled CBDC’s that can decline your purchases if the government sees fit, as well as being able to cut off your access to funds should you express any dissent regarding your new “green” open air prison you advocated for.
Nuclear energy would of course solve the fossil fuel issue and provide abundant energy as an alternative. But that isn’t the point: being able to provide abundant and reliable energy would mean that, as a consequence, there would be no justification for centralised control of everyone’s life, under the pretext of “reducing emissions.”
Think it was just a deep low that tracked the northeast of the country. The rest of the country is not in emergency. The lesson is to don’t build in riverbeds, around cliffs, on flood plains and on beaches. The takeaway is to build roads and bridges like they do overseas, structures which can handle large volumes of water and the elements. The advice to the government is to stop playing politics with the weather and look after the 30,000 families already on the house waiting list as well as the 3000 just added to it.
So why bother building roads in those areas if you are not going to live there/build houses there?
Wonder if the government will treat this emergency like they did with the covid human experiments, lock the country down just because they can and then wheel out dancing roadworkers like we saw with the nurse flash mobs.
Hey, nobody said that removing people’s rights and restricting their agency under a confected sense of emergency couldn’t also be fun. Thank goodness for TikTok and teddy bears in windows.
Usual waste of space comment.
double barreled names always an indicator of insecure social climbers
Good analysis. Thanks for your input.
Jody climate change like covid is no human experiment its real and on our doorstep. Only fools and conspiracy theorists will deny this. I know which government will look after us and it ain’t blue and Seymour. Unfortunately your glib comments will not be helpful to the thousands now in strife, a little levity certainly won’t do any harm.
So now we start fearing the climate change sky wizard?
Indeed. Give them “the current thing” and just point them in the desired direction. Repeat as necessary.
Isn’t he real, the climate Wizard?
Gosh I’m devastated.
What Martyn is suggesting will inevitably become an unstoppable political force for one simple reason — everything he is talking about has been done in this country before, and existed at scale up until the mid 1980s.
However, the number of people who actually remember the ‘glory days’ of the 1950s-1970s is rapidly dwindling. Clearly the plan is to prevent the corporate media from ever discussing the achievements of the labour movement (which they don’t, and haven’t for 30 years).
Any new generation of organised labour can then be prevented from being mentored by the veteran union leaders, so that their institutional knowledge dies with them.
Martyn is right that people will demand an end to globalist trade policy, and that high value-added, high-wage production of complex goods will inevitably return. However, building a largely self-sufficient economy will be a slow grind if there isn’t international collaboration.
Countries such as China, the Gulf States, Japan and Russia can all assist in rebuilding a modern industrialised economy. They have large amounts of money and modern machinery which can be immediately deployed — and, crucially, they are all countries with substantial state owned industries.
As such, unlike the Americans, they will be willing to work with another country trying to rebuild its self sufficiency and state industries.
Kristoff still thinks New Zealand can become an industrialised country again, citing the “glory” days when we manufactured products mostly on a CKD and protectionist basis. The question that needs answering is why would countries with hundreds of millions of people invest their money and plant in a country of only 5 million when they could just keep churning out product back home from their factories there and export them to us – just as they do now (why re-invent the wheel). Kristoff – without any base – just assumes the countries he has named will come to our aid just because they can – but still the question is, will they and why? Some assurances on the will they, please….
“As such, unlike the Americans, they will be willing to work with another country trying to rebuild its self sufficiency and state industries.”
You know this how?
Simply compare what the U.S. does to its “allies” (vassals?), vs. what you get if you join B.R.I.C.S.
Right on Brother, the future has arrived! NZ has to lead in the ethics of climate stability, we also have to be prepared for what may come- be independent and self reliant. New Zealand is at the end of the global supply chain, our provinces doubly so. Give communities the power to take action, Civil Defence for example, fund the folks on the ground directly and back them up with a nation wide government department. Same with roading- local contractors for small jobs, ministry of works depart for the big jobs. Regional resources for anything bigger than that. It needs a total shift in thinking for the future.
Many of the people who like to lecture everyone else on climate change (btw all “capitalists” who, you argue, are the ones resisting the idea of AGW) also own extremely expensive beach front property. If only they’d have looked into “The Science” before they wasted their money on what will inevitably plummet in value in the next few years.
Whatever way we look at this, it gives us two good reasons to ignore their alarmism:
1) Either they believe what they are saying and yet are so dumb they still invested in beach front property (thus we shouldn’t listen to them); or
2) They are not being honest about what they are saying, as evidenced by their choice of investment (thus we shouldn’t listen to them).
” If only they’d have looked into “The Science” before they wasted their money on what will inevitably plummet in value in the next few years. ”
Yes I think the ramifications of where we build houses and want to live right next to the beach /coast in insurance terms will become a thing of the past as the Insurance companies will want to protect their huge profits and limit any unnecessary losses.
That will mean the rapacious , hideous developers will need to be reined in by a future government not pandering to their interest’s with donations so they can build where they like. After all none of them will be living in the ghettos they build that’s for sure and must be compelled the right thing by the expendable classes.
The rich developers will have to weigh up the risk in building theirs’s and their effluent clients coastal mansions right on the beach.
Oh its just so dreadful for them.
“De–growth” is a rather good way to put it. Localisation, winding down industrial dairy, etc. will likely lead to a more pleasant and viable life for working class NZers. Farmers–wake up! Grow some Cannabis and Hemp and vegetable crops.
But…the biggie in the room is…mainstream “people’s politics” needs to leave Parliament behind and become anti capitalist, including anti finance capital bollocks like stocks, shares, hedge funds and crypto.
Newsroom’s Marc Daalder has talked about this period of consequences – or, as he put it, Alt title: Fuck around and find out. But I’d like to look at the “fucking around” part. Because there is a lot here to be angry about, and people we need to hold to account.
” They all fucked around, and we’re now finding out. And the people who fucked around got knighthoods and big pensions and posh post-political careers with banks and SOEs and crown entities. They got rich, while kiwis got flooded and left in the dark. And its time we held them accountable for it.”
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/
This from Idiot Saviant 9/2/23
” Writing on Newsroom about yesterday’s appalling biofuels decision, Marc Daalder summarises Labour’s dismal record on climate change ”
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/
The dye has been caste and the genie cannot be put back .No matter how many buy EV the world is not going to improve the weather . Messages are mixed like FIJI asking for more money to fight climate change then advertise in UK to fly there for a holiday and ever get married there .
We need to build with resilient to combat the worst weather just like Chch has with the rebuild .Building were built to stand while people evacuated now they are built to still be there .We have the technology we just need the will
Trevor if politicians had not ignored climate change for the 20+ years ( remember the tractor up the steps of parliament and the derision of Helen Clarke’s so called “ fart tax ), maybe just maybe more resilience would have been built into our system. Maybe chorus would have built a more resilient fibre system, maybe our power plants would not have been built on a flood plane. Maybe the Coromandel would have had better roads ( the coromandel has suffered for many years with weather events). As they say “maybe baby”
I see the rightards are moving from climate change isn’t a thing to nz can’t influence it…I love the maoist way the right changes the party line and wholeheartedly belives the new line…
I thought mantra and party lines were the preserve of the Left?
The Left cannot function without rules.
Individual thought is not permitted follow the party line.
” If only they’d have looked into “The Science” before they wasted their money on what will inevitably plummet in value in the next few years. ”
Yes I think the ramifications of where we build houses and want to live right next to the beach /coast in insurance terms will become a thing of the past as the Insurance companies will want to protect their huge profits and limit any unnecessary losses.
That will mean the rapacious , hideous developers will need to be reined in by a future government not pandering to their interest’s with donations so they can build where they like. After all none of them will be living in the ghettos they build that’s for sure and must be compelled to the right thing by the expendable classes.
The rich developers will have to weigh up the risk in building theirs’s and their effluent clients coastal mansions right on the beach.
Oh its just so dreadful for them.
If the developers stopped building who will build the homes needed by so many in sure as hell is not the State
Well certainly not while the Labour Government is in power.
Their promises versus their accomplishments is proof perfect.
Yes we need to be honest. This storm started thousands of kilometres away from us. Anything we do here would have a minuscule effect on climate change. Meanwhile we punish our economy can’t afford to pay for welfare, education, and Health.
” isn’t it time we were honest about climate change? ” The simple fact is we’re FUBARED ( ‘Fucked/Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.”) . There is nothing we can do accept adapt. Back in 1990 if the World had as a whole completely reconfigured civilisation then maybe, we didn’t! We doubled down and tripled down. End is CC will possibly cause our extinction. Not a time to produce more sprogs.