Jesus wept, I have been warning and arguing for over a decade that Global Warming represents an existential crisis to our species because built within the biosphere are tipping points that once crossed will see catastrophic shifts in temperatures that will make complex societies impossible within large parts of the planet.
The speed of how quickly the global weather systems are unravelling is unprecedented and the latest research out yesterday on one of the most important tipping points, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, is so much worse than anyone thought possible that it demands an immediate reset of everything we do and highlights that Fortress Aotearoa is our last hope.
The research is just so bad…
A vital system of ocean currents could collapse within a few decades if the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, scientists are warning – an event that would be catastrophic for global weather and “affect every person on the planet.”
A new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature, found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current – of which the Gulf Stream is a part – could collapse around the middle of the century, or even as early as 2025.
Scientists uninvolved with this study told CNN the exact tipping point for the critical system is uncertain, and that measurements of the currents have so far showed little trend or change. But they agreed these results are alarming and provide new evidence that the tipping point could occur sooner than previously thought.
The AMOC is a complex tangle of currents that works like a giant global conveyor belt. It transports warm water from the tropics toward the North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southwards.
It plays a crucial role in the climate system, helping regulate global weather patterns. Its collapse would have enormous implications, including much more extreme winters and sea level rises affecting parts of Europe and the US, and a shifting of the monsoon in the tropics.
For years, scientists have been warning of its instability as the climate crisis accelerates, threatening to upset the balance of temperature and salinity on which the strength of these currents depend.
As the oceans heat up and ice melts, more freshwater flows into the ocean and reduces the water’s density, making it less able to sink. When waters become too fresh, too warm or both, the conveyor belt stops.
It has happened before. More than 12,000 years ago, rapid glacier melt caused the AMOC to shut down, leading to huge Northern Hemisphere temperature fluctuations of 10 to 15 degrees Celsius (18 to 27 Fahrenheit) within a decade.
A shutdown “would affect every person on the planet – it’s that big and important,” said Peter de Menocal, the president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the study.
A 2019 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the AMOC would weaken over this century, but that its full collapse before 2100 was unlikely.
This new study comes to a much more alarming conclusion.
As the AMOC has only been continuously monitored since 2004, the study authors looked to a much larger dataset, and one which could show how the currents behaved in a period without human-caused climate change.
“We needed to go back in time,” said Peter Ditlevsen, a professor of climate physics at the University of Copenhagen and one of the authors of the report. The scientists analyzed sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic in an area south of Greenland over a period of 150 years between 1870 and 2020.
This part of the ocean is warmed by the water transported north from the tropics by the AMOC, Ditlevsen said, “so if it cools, it’s because the AMOC is weakening.” The authors then subtracted the impacts of human-caused global warming on the water temperature to understand how the currents were changing.
They found “early warning signals” of critical changes in the AMOC, which led them to predict “with high confidence” that it could shut down or collapse as early as 2025 and no later than 2095. The likeliest point of collapse is somewhere between 2039 and 2070, Ditlevsen said.
“It’s really scary,” he told CNN. “This is not something you would lightly put into papers,” he said, adding, “we’re very confident that this is a robust result.”
De Menocal said the study results were “both surprising and alarming.”
It’s been clear for a while that the AMOC will weaken in the coming decades, he told CNN. In 2021, a study found the AMOC was showing signs of instability due to climate change.
…fuckwits in NZ who claim ‘there’s nothing we can do’ about climate change don’t understand that it’s already done!
The temperature swings predicted are beyond species ability to adapt and are beyond civilisations capacity to function.
If the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current shuts down, Fortress Aotearoa is our only move.
It is time to Think Bigger!
The great comrade Chris Trotter warns us that Autarky can not be NZs future because we don’t have enough self-sufficiency built into NZs economy.
I agree that’s a problem, but it certainly isn’t an impossible problem to overcome.
Yes we need a basic pharmaceutical industry if we want to be self sufficient.
Yes I believe we urgently need to raise our military spending to 5% of GDP.
Yes Māori we’re able to live here self sufficiently for almost a century but I’m not suggesting a subsistence existence.
The naked truth is that Fortress Aotearoa will be forced upon us whether we are willing or not.
The catastrophic heat via pollution locked into our system goes so beyond what the ice core samples tell us that we are in uncharted territory.
Normally heat like this occurs over hundreds of thousands of years thanks to the angle of the Earth on its axis but we have done that in less than 3 centuries!
When the process occurs naturally over hundreds of thousands of years, the sudden and dramatic flip from burning hot to ice age can occur within decades. Create all that power within centuries and we turbo charge those flipping points in ways far more abrupt and damaging.
The rapid melting of the doomsday glacier in Antarctica and the shut down of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will trigger irreversible environmental collapse within decades, not the end of the century.
There is no optimism on the climate front, just consequences now.
With such significant weather catastrophes occurring with ever more whithering destruction, other country’s will move to Autarky, will NZers cheers those planes landing with tourists while burning more climate gases or will they attack the Airports to shut them down?
Look at how every poll in NZ shows over 50% support for a total close of the border from a virus with the low mortality rate of Covid?
The climate crisis destroys environments and makes it more likely and probable that an Alpha virus far more lethal than Covid-19 will emerge – you think Kiwis will
While the globalists infect every political party in NZ, all it takes is one populist spark to breath Fortress NZ into life.
Post growth capitalism with true sustainability calls for Autarky on a burning planet than can’t take anymore globalism.
Muldoon thought big because he believed the oil shocks of the 70s was the future. He was wrong then but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now.
The US Military Industrial complex simply solved the problem of an Oligopoly by seeding and backing harsh authoritarian regimes with lots of oil so that they could always access cheap petrol making Muldoon’s investment meaningless but The Military Industrial Complex can’t negotiate with the planet as we make it sicker and sicker!
As the reality of the enormity of climate change starts to dawn, people 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 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 10000 per year
- Fully funded public services.
- Mass Green housing rebuild.
- 100% renewable energy for entire country.
- Massive native 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
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 climate crisis will demand we have the military engineering capacity to rebuild from extreme weather events; have the military power to project across the Pacific in response to climate crisis civil disruption or extreme weather events; protection of fishing stock.
To ignore the real need for us to invest far larger amounts into the Defence force and to build a bigger Air, Land and Sea service as a response to the crisis emergency is as unacceptable as climate denial is.
And while we are talking about the consequences of the climate crisis, Australia wants passport free travel…
Australia and New Zealand citizens could have passport-free travel if security talks successful
…we should only agree on this for very specific wins like a shared pharmaceutical industry because as the climate crisis overwhelms Australia’s ability to survive at certain temperatures, NZ will be flooded with Australian climate refugees.
There’s barely 5million of us and 26million of them. Let’s keep our distance.
The tyranny of distance has always been our malaise but on a burning planet of constant external shocks the Shire of NZ is looking very good right now.
‘Build that wall’ will soon become ‘defend that moat’.
In 1980, the time between billion dollar climate destruction events was 3 months.
It’s now 18 days.
There is a point where the next destructive weather event strikes before you can rebuild from the last one.
Fortress Aotearoa is coming whether we want it or not.
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The meme should actually read ‘introduce them to climate change’. More kids in the cobalt mines should do the job.
Well, to spin a positive out of a negative, this is one crystal clear way of shutting up the so-called climate deniers for all time. 2025 is only a few sleeps away, so come 2025, the signs of a world nearing its end will be impossible to deny, impossible to deny with Fortress Aotearoa in full swing!
Otherwise…..
It wouldn’t matter if the climate scientists were all massively wrong. The ‘Fortress’ idea means breaking the back of neoliberalism in Australasia, and returning to the most prosperous times of the region’s history — the period of 1945-1985, when people really did call the place ‘Fortress N.Z.’ and ‘Fortress Australia’, a rising industrial power dubbed the ‘Britain of the South’.
It is rather ironic that the Mont Pèlerin Society lobbyists, who were shilling for Reaganomics in the 1980s, used to claim that ‘retaining the fortress’ would mean ‘turning into Albania’.
Albania used to be known for its very rapid Post-War economic construction: where it quickly went from a very backward, agrarian-only, mostly illiterate country; to being an industrialised, well-educated, mostly self-sufficient and modern one.
N.Z. did turn into Albania — post-1992 Albania, that is. Advanced industry in both countries collapsed entirely, living standards went into free-fall, thousands fled the country, and both economies were thrown backwards in time to the impoverished frontier past. (Large multi-national companies were very pleased, however.)
The greatest impediment to prosperity are the capitalist elites, whom created, then foisted upon the entire world, neoliberal economic policy, aka, neoliberalism, with the sole purpose of this policy being to redistribute the economic pie back from the many to the exclusive few, bearing in mind that FDR, after the great depression, upended tradition and changed that economic pie from its traditional – serving the few over the many setting to the unique – serving the many almost as much as serving the few period of the 1940’s to the early 1980”s.
You wish to return to the prosperous times of decades past, then you need to help break the hold that the neolib architects, aka, the capitalist elites, have over the political class. Only the power of a united people can break the hold that money has over global politics. No circling of the wagons or building a fortress will change this or usher in prosperity of the aforementioned unique era. Step one into uniting the people is to turn your back on the capitalist elite’s mainstream media machine.
As for climate science. What matters about climate science is that it is driving significant societal change. As such, only a true blue climate denier wouldn’t care about the validity and accessibility of the science, of the data, driving change. It matters that this science is both valid and available for all to see.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/the-wall-by-john-lanchester-review
Perhaps another item to be added to your list is to give farmers subsidies or tax credits for state owned wind turbines that are placed on their land.
I agree with that.
A damn sensible idea and wind turbine on every farm funded by the state.
The Canterbury Plains could house 100s of them.
i was thinking Hauraki Plains and Waikato, but yeah, Canterbury would be ideal.
Martyn – Looking at the recent riots within France – Fortress Aotearoa sounds better every day
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/15/the-wall-by-john-lanchester-review
She’ll be right! 😉
Thanks, Sinic, now I feel less anxious.
Nothing better than a sound argument to ease our fears.
Many philosophers have written thick books on these fears over the ages and you have condensed their collective thinking with remarkable accuracy.
(I was running late for work and no time to comment properly. Bit fed up with winter and reading constant shitty news everywhere, to be honest. Head in sand buzz coz I’m just over it for now).
and sinic your kids will be kebabs
And the solution is ….. buy an EV and eat less meat. I have, I am. I recycle, even knowing it is a waste of time. I am anxious and consume everything I can get my hands on to gain knowledge about Climate Change. I worked professionally in the industry as a scientist, policy analyst and practitioner.
Fact: more than 95% of published scientific theories are debunked.
Question: How did the IPCC miss this?
I am actually quite anxious. But then again, all the end the world predictions have something in common.
I think its telling, incredibly telling that we – ordinary people – feel the need to change in order to combat climate change, when an article that is often sited by Martyn points out that 100 businesses are responsible for at least 70% of carbon emissions. And apart from dairying, whose likely replacement – fake or GM type foods, also has environmental issues that needs to be examined further, the push to drive business change is nothing like the push to change we, the ordinary folk. The push for meaningful change should be more one-sided towards the main contributor towards climate change, but it isn’t – makes you wonder. As for the IPCC, the quasi governmental body that is both privately funded and run, again, should make us wonder….but this at least, may answer your query.
Pussy.
A rag doll pussy to be more accurate, as my penchant to wonder, often drags me from pillar to post, as my neighborhood continually changes, prompting my fluffy behind to seek out the reasons for this change, with money-driven, special-interest change being a particular bug bear of mine while collective pussy-power-led change, that we all get a paw on, being more tolerable and understandable to my hairy behind. Meow….
Woman and men are supposed to complement each other by playing our roles. Want more woman and trans and poor people in sport then let’s start building it. We can’t go oh be quiet till after the election we have to bring them along as well.
This is not my argument. My argument’s typically centre around awakening/uniting people against the suffocating influence that big money interests has on politics and the world. If I am building anything, then it is a people-led power base to challenge the overwhelming hold that big money has on the world.
It’s all good brother. I think with a strong enough push we can bring the wealth gap back to acceptable levels or at least make life better we all celebrate our high net worth individuals achievements.
I am a bit confused by your comment JKT. How did the IPCC miss this? The shut down of the Atlantic current due to the spilling over of the Beaufort Gyre has been known for a few decades and we have been monitoring it ever since.
I dont think anybody missed anything. We have known for decades but have spent decades in political wrangling between various monied factions and governments who are self interested. Many of us for a decade or more have said, let’s just quit all the BS and get on with adaptation. We will not stop this.
It is coming. 2025 is possible but I think 2030 – 35 is more likely. We should be protecting our energy and food supplies and looking at how we maintain people’s safety and health. Because there is so much more coming at us than just ‘man made’ climate change. Fortress Aotearoa will be a necessity and rather than let in more immigrants we must limit their inflows and keep them on temporary status.
Also be aware that China will have a massive dearth of food before too long (10 or 20 years) and then ask yourself if you really believe they will ask us nicely to trade with them when their people are starving. And do you believe their Pacific meanderings are only about increasing their sphere of influence for security reasons?
And also ask yourself, are any of these toadie politicians capable of leading us through this?
I believe in Fortress Aotearoa and have for many years. It is the antitheses of neoliberal globalization.
I would vote for a party that implemented all of those policies in a heartbeat.
The problem is of course is that global anthropomorphic climate change is hurtling towards us regardless of what we do, who we vote for or what policies any future NZ government implements or not.
If NZ was the only country on earth there would be no climate change.
Our contribution to global emissions is less than 1 percent. The shit we are having dumped on us is caused by populous developing countries who are more interested in raising their people out of poverty than climate change. It’s their turn.
It’s the ultimate irony that globalization, which erodes sovereignty and self reliance, means our ability to survive is now not up to us.
Therefore……..?
1. Focus on adaptation
2. Implement the Neo-Marxist solution…
3. Business as usual – hedge our bets, get on with life and virtue signal, when opportunity presents itself.
‘She’ wont ‘be right’ mate!
Overwhelming MB….. my only critique that stands up is that Maori were self sufficient here for a lot longer than a century…. otherwise….sickeningly accurate.
I also agree with Martin
“The science is just so bad”!
What happened to Frank, indeed. -_-
Fortress AO ey? You mean the place where we are totally and utterly self sufficient? We explore our own natural resources and minerals, instead of importing everything? We make all our own necessities like clothing and household goods in big factories? We no longer import food but make all our own? That Fortess AO? Or is it another Fortress AO?
An actual fortress. We’d still have to trade. Trade is a condition of seige warfare.
They don’t seem to concerned on Martha’s Vineyard! Lol
Didnt the Book “The Chyrstalids.” by John Wyndham predict NZ as the lifeboat.
Just reading the door stopper book The Earth Transformed .Very interesting
.There have always been weather events that have changed history .In earlier days volcanoes erupting have caused dramatic cooling. The Earth moving on its axis and sunspots have caused problems . Add into the mix introduced disease as people moved into new areas coming upon people with no immunity. Millions have died but the Earth has bounced back and carried on with a new norm which will happen this time .We will live in new areas eat differently and carry on regardless . Adaptability will come to the fore and science will find solutions .
The irony is that if you want to become a self reliant fortress economy you will have to reopen the oil and gas fields and reinstate the refinery.
what do we do when the white climate refugees turn up from america…give them a passport if they can afford it….well that will change nz culture and damage it irrepairably
That is actually a good solution to the underpopulation problem. They speak English, are mostly British or other Europeans, are from current/old Christian families, have the same European culture — highly compatible. Anywhere in Europe itself is also a good fit.
Importing large numbers of people from anywhere else is just asking for social unrest. An exception might be somewhere like Argentina, where we also have shared European culture and many people now speak English.
and are largely in the case of yanks anti-democratic (theil) or in the case of brits thick as pigshit brexshiteer gammons…no wonder you approve kristoff
But Gagarin — The supporters of Bernie Sanders, R.F.K. Jr., Cornel West and Jeremy Corbyn would quite likely get on a ship to the Fortress, as they’re not allowed to vote in such leaders fairly back home! Or are you saying you don’t want more committed socialists to help lead the nation?
Our friends in China and surrounds will continue to visit in smaller numbers I’m sure, but they’re getting richer back home now — probably less tempting for them to come. Perhaps fellow British Commonwealth citizens from places like Kenya and the West Indies will be more interested, or at least the small number who can afford the journey.
Racist. Frightful racist. Someone cancel this deplorable racist.
The developments in our trade sector in recent years would negate the concept of Fortress Aotearoa. In fact, with New Zealand, an isolated country, the more open we are to our allies, the better. As for foes, every country has them.
I thought the military were the biggest polluters on earth?
Yes to:
• Immediately ban all water exports (or sell at the same rate per liter that Gulf nations sell oil to us; fluid equality!)
• 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.
• Fully funded public services.
• Mass Green housing rebuild.
• 100% renewable energy for entire country. (Well, to be realistic, let’s say 98-99%. 100% is a bit like the Road to Zero pie in the sky)
• Massive native tree planting across previous farming land (within reason; we still do need to eat, and the common weal is very dependent upon export dollars)
• Wholesale re-write of state services act to end commercial values.
• Investment into basic pharmaceutical production.
• Financial transaction tax
• Wealth tax
• Multinational tax
Absolutely NO to 10,000 refugees. Martyn, are you not aware of the $1m per day spent on “temporary” housing for Kiwis! Where would you put 10,000 more? All refugee quotas should be held off indefinitely, until housing is satisfactory (unless housing offered by non-governmental agencies/other family).
And yes, Fortress NZ may indeed come to be the reality. In which case, our obligation is to ourselves, not to the rest of the world.
Where not blocking refugees at the border
Great piece Martyn Bradbury.
Yes well, I just did a little bit of poo and I was already aware of the key points you raise, as indeed as I’ve written here extensively about. I’ve warned about the factory-fication of agriculture, I’ve warned you about the dire consequences of allowing bankers, money lenders, crooked politicians, some of whom are ALSO farmers I should point out, and sundry sell-out’s to big foreign businesses opportunists.
Wasn’t 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires with personal fortunes in excess of $50 mil each and even then, there are also four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second for a agrarian primary industry country not to mention also supporting 5.2 million locals while affording us first world societies. What. About that. DOESN’T ring alarm bells @ Martyn Bradbury?
“As the reality of the enormity of climate change starts to dawn, people will be looking for ‘lifeboats’, NZ is one of these ‘lifeboats’…”
Correct, in my opinion. And only the rich will make it here and they’ll try and make us and ours their own, which is what psychopathic narcissists do, which is what makes those psychiatrically ill richer until they burn down the planet for more, more, more. What’s ironic, is that no matter how much money they have, their penises are still tiny white bait nestled between two little fluffy sparrow eggs.
“There’s barely 5million of us and 26million of them. Let’s keep our distance.”
Fuck yes!! What many people fail to comprehend is that Australia, like now South American and South Africa is our agricultural primary industry COMPETITOR so how are they going to best behave towards us once they get their foot in the door to here? Not with full disclosure I’ll fucking bet.
As for our own navy etc. Forget about it unless we’re in possession of ultra high tech ordinance and machines that we’re somehow unaware of.
We need the Royal Navy and five aircraft carriers with nuclear armed f-16’s please. Ta. We are still a British Colony ( Apologies and no disrespect intended @ Maori.) We’re a member of the British Commonwealth and the last time I looked we kicked some German arse, some Italian arse and some Japanese arse so we’re quite good at kicking arse. We’re also innovators. Think the Hamilton jet guy? Think John Britten? Think Burt Munro? Think Richard Pearce etc.
Finally ( As if) re global heating… Nuclear power stations everywhere immediately please? Why not? We’re fucked anyway. Geologically, the most stable parts of AO/NZ are the Kaitaia-ish Far North and the Far South around Tiwai and Sterling points. So convert Tiwai smelter into a nuclear power station. It’s already polluting the land the *oceans and the atmosphere everyday anyway so it’s well ahead of the game, one could say, and yes, I have photographs. And video.
* Yes. Oceans plural. The Pacific and the Tasman are just around the corner from each other while the sub Antarctics are just below.
I re-read Chris Trotter’s take on Autarky that Martyn linked to and tried to think it through a bit more.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/01/14/the-ships-from-the-north-why-autarky-cannot-be-new-zealands-answer-to-climate-change/
There are merits in both of their arguments, because to put it in simplistic terms as Chris says, if the ships stop coming from the North life gets difficult very quickly if anyone thinks their current situations however good or bad can be maintained.
But…when the climate turns to total shit, dystopian breakdown could happen way quicker than anyone thinks as Martyn postulates. Did 400 people in the Auckland Burbs envisage they would be washed away–or several hundred odd at Muriwai and other West Coast beaches, red stickered or basically stranded?
So there are surprises in store that no one is really prepared for maybe. Life could get local area based, and back to Rongoā Māori medicine and co-operating with neighbours way before you might want it to!
Dude I was brought up on McDonald’s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rachel Hunter there’s no going to hinerangi tempo for me.
The poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. An oldie but the words still carry a sting that is refreshing – like after-shave. And it seems that we are going to have a close shave with disaster. I’ve put the words to If in the Open Mike. Worth a read.
The two women and a teenager who went to live off the grid in America didn’t do too well. Scale it up to NZ living “sustainably” in a hermit nation. What could go wrong?
With all that tax proposed it will be hard to find any business investors left . An increase in armed forces will be needed to keep the natives under control as they lose their jobs their homes and see no future ..
Why a 50 /50 split with Maori when they represent 20 percent of the population.
We are never more than nine meals away from anarchy
~ John J. Fitzgerald 1932
‘Only citizens can vote.’
Not enough. Must be citizens that can pass a scratch test showing that they understand the priority of urgency and cost required for action. That would do away with the wokest people and the present Green party which will change its name to the khaki party. I’m tired of excited. condemnatory people expecting that quoting their preferences loudly is the way to make good things happen.
JEEBERS!
I had better get that backyard landscaping and pergola project finished.
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