Big oil quietly walks back on climate pledges as global heat records tumble
It was probably the Earth’s hottest week in history earlier this month, following the warmest June on record, and top scientists agree that the planet will get even hotter unless we phase out fossil fuels.
Yet leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in the opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and insisting that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say.
“The fossil fuel industry has massively profited from selling a dangerous product and now innocent people and governments across the globe are paying the price for their recklessness,” Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University who studies the oil industry, said.
What is happening across the planet is a death shroud of heat, a burning furnace that is but a glimmer of things to come.
You understand, it just gets worse from here on in.
60 000 died in Europe last year from heat, expect those numbers to start jumping dramatically from here on in.
Climate change was a theoretical issue that might impact us at the end of the century, the last 12months has shown how wrong we were.
Extreme catastrophic climate events will hit faster than our ability to rebuild, this will interrupt the agricultural cycle and cause enormous climate refugee issues.
National and ACT have promised to roll back any environmental policies that constrict Business making money and will keep their Farmer mates out from having to do anything.
Both Parties will trash public transport, both parties intend to remove healthy home requirements.
If they win, it will mean the Agricultural industry have managed to avoid any restrictions for quarter of a century.
Labour and the Greens have done bugger all but the pittance they have done will all be stamped out and a National and ACT Government.
We are living in denial, National and ACT are the Parties of climate denial, they are the Parties who have done all they can to pretend global warming caused by man made pollution isn’t happening and if they win in October, just as the planet plunges into a climate change doom spiral, Â they will be adding fuel to that fire rather than trying to stop it.
We deserve everything that is coming.
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Yes National and ACT will most likely increase not decrease our emissions.
However, outside of the utopian dream of developed nations fighting climate change to save the planet is the brutal reality that highly populated developing nations like India, China, Bangladesh ect dont give a shit about climate change or recycling.
They rightly want prosperity and an increase in their standard of living just as we in the west do.
Anything New Zealand does to fight climate change is as meaningless as shutting the door to keep the cold out while all the windows are open and your roof is gone.
Jack you are not just cynical defeatist, everything you wrote is wrong and even racist.
“….developing nations like India, China, Bangladesh ect dont give a shit about climate change or recycling.” JACK
When it comes to recycling our waste, something the developed world could easily afford, instead we have chosen to treat the developing nations as a toilet and our cheap dumping ground for our toxic waste.
Press release Resist
New Zealand exporting plastic waste to developing nations at an alarming rate
Following the release of new data on the quantity of New Zealand’s plastic waste exports to many developing nations, Greenpeace Aotearoa is renewing its call for a ban on plastic waste exports.
It has been revealed today that New Zealand has exported over 98,000 tonnes of plastic waste offshore between 1 Jan 2018 and 31 March 2021. More than 46,000 tonnes of this has been shipped to Malaysia and Thailand where a 2018 Greenpeace investigation revealed much was being illegally dumped and burned, with disastrous impacts on the environment and the health of local communities…..
https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/press-release/new-zealand-exporting-plastic-waste-to-developing-nations-at-an-alarming-rate/
New Zealand has acted as a junior partner in the colonialist and imperialist domination and exploitation around the globe. New Zealand is in the ranks of the worst of the developed nations to take advantage and exploit this global inequality that we help perpetuate.
Did not take long for the “racist: blame game to rear its head. Jeez is anything not “racist”?
Ugly truth is that China and India consume, by burning, more tonnage of coal (4 Billion tons per annum by China alone) then the rest of the world combined. So why is it “racist” to call them out on coal consumption?
Oh well you have the “colonisation” argument to fall back on. What part of “colonisation” forces China and India to burn that massive amount of coal to generate electricity?
If New Zealand government was smart they would have every university, refrain from constant wokeness, and concentrate on how to convert plastic back to its primary constituent (fossil fuel oil) so that we get true recycling.
But no; lets not do that, let the universities be wokeness generators, not environmental science generators.
https://www.act.org.nz/environment
Acts climate change policy. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on their waste disposal suggestion.
You sum up the situation in real terms .The World needs to adapt because to genie is out of the bootle and change is not possible on any large scale . Covid gave us a look at what happens when the human engine stops running for just a short time. and despite all the claims of building back better nothing has changed as tourist flock back and many pages of our local paper are full of advert for trips to exotic places ..
So Jack, in other words you accept that our children’s future and very possibly your own future is going to be fucked…so business as usual is the way to go. Best to just keep passing the buck
Well done mate
I do agree that were fucked yes.
But the emissions being generated in populous developing and developed countries are and will affect us far more than the emissions we generate. We have no control as yet of this.
New Zealand global contribution of emissions 0.17% China 27% US 14% India 7%
New Zealand could sink into the ocean tomorrow and it would make no difference to global emissions. glueing yourself to the motorway or recycling your baked bean cans may very well make you feel good but that aint gunna save your arse.
We don’t deserve everything that is coming the game is rigged.
Our number one cause of increased emissions is immigration. Not only does it increase NZs overall emissions but incoming people are moving from Indian and Chinese per capita levels to much higher NZ levels.
Unfortunately it has been proven that NZ workers will not pick fruit and veg go on our fishing boats ,look after our elderly and sick or lack the desire to educate themselves to run our IT .
… for the wages & conditions on offer. That bit always gets left off that statement.
Years of systematic erosion of wages and conditions has seen kiwi workers driven from these industries only to be replaced by low skill cheap compliant migrants.
A win win for employers.
They get desperate indentured labour and the same employers get rid of pesky uppity kiwis.
Thank you for your warm and sincere welcome.
So was what I said factually incorrect?
As if our current virtue signalling is better. Batteries for every Tesla3 or similar EV come with about 8t CO2 emmission during manufacturing. But that happened overseas, almost all in China. We subsidise buyers of those EVs but refuse to allow micro EVs on our roads.
Another example is glossing over cruiseship tourism. We choose not to notice extreme and multimodal environmental damage it causes.
We are not able to electrify our main (only?) rail line while others (in developing countries,too) build ultrafast trains.
Here is the horrible but irrefutable truth: climate change won’t shoot you with an illegal gun while wearing an ankle bracelet.
Be careful who you vote for.
What happens when your beloved cops run out of brown people to shoot. Because people like you seem to want then to just gun down people willy nilly.
I think we are screwed either way. Climate Change v austerity.
For once I agree with you Millsy although I wouldn’t necessarily conclude we are screwed. Neither option is good.
I don’t believe the world/policians/the people are up for austerity. And that would bring with it mass unemployment poverty and hungar
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