Communities across the top of the South Island are dealing with a mega clean-up task ahead, following last week’s deluge.
Homes in Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough have been let uninhabitable, roads are damaged and properties have been inundated with flood waters.
Rural Support Trust Top of the South chairperson Richard Kempthorne said the destruction was significant.
“The damage is looking huge, so there are a lot of people, particularly on the Motueka, but also the Wai-iti River where the river has gone wide and very high and caused a lot of damage.”
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Wouldn’t want to live in a catchment area or flood plain in the coming years. Councils need to take some responsibility – no more building consents in flood prone areas or on slippery backs.
You mean those councils that are already over committed and get no help from the Clownalition?
Mmm…over commitment is no excuse for poor judgement. But you’re right @RB about central govt funding for infrastructure upgrades. The burden can”t continue to fall on ratepayers … and by default renters who soak up much of the burden for landlords. Having said that a good many in the provinces would likely say, no, the challenges faced by big cities, like Auckland, are not their concern. Roading, health, education – public expenditure is already well stretched and is barely covered by a tax regime that doesnt cast its net wide enough and subsequently falls short of what’s really needed.
Pretty simple…an increased focus on the weather. Helps sow fear, helps sell the news, this is all it is.
… this is all it is.
In part, yes. Its almost that everyone has forgotten that extreme weather happens from time to time, probably more frequently than we think. Winter in NZ always brings rain and a few storms for good measure. Cyclones are not stranger to these shores. Bola was on Christmas day, the one that helped sink The Wahine in March, can’t remember the name of the one that wrecked my summer holiday plans for Great Barrier. Then there’s Gabrielle a few years back. We all remember that one, some in the hazard zone. But honestly build in a flood zone and what do you expect. And the slash, we all.know why the rivers clogged up and wiped out infrastructure. In urban areas infrastructure is stretched to its limits, Auckland has doubled in population and we get people living in catchment areas and flood zones where Councils have approved consent – and in some places where councils have said no silly fuckers with deep pockets have gone to the environmental court. Your mansion is sliding down the hillside after a deluge, well what do expect.
So yes it’s all much of a beat up. Weather is now public enemy #1.
But doesn’t the science tell us that things are changing. Temperatures ARE getting warmer. More intense storms. More frequent. In some places little or no rain and it’s all burning. Not that this extreme is unprecedented. Live in or near a forest that sometimes catches fire and what do you expect.
Expect more. In the past the science tells us – often the very distant past – even small fluctuations in temperatures had big consequences. Meteors, volcanoes, solar flares, the rotation of the Earth and this time humans are the agent, increased greenhouse gases and global warming caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels used to fuel an economic system predicated on energy consumption, the mantra of economic growth and an insatiable desire for consumer goods.
A bit long winded … but the issue inv is a bit more involved
Yeah-yeah ok so cows are farters but then so are we. I fart like a fart master after eating cherries for some exclusive reason.
There’s also international shipping delivering our instant-gratification pap and junk to we the masses which we crave like Brawndo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy.
The other problem is with human Marketing To The Masses. Cow’s by contrast are oblivious to the pervasive and manipulative nature of marketing but not us lot. When we see muscles, hair, tits, teeth and arse we go off and buy what ever’s photographed with the aforementioned.
And do you know who the lead manipulator / polluters are? You seem to think you do but let me correct you in your lazy assumptions that it’s farmers and their cows.
It’s the Banks. The banks are the engine room of global pollution with its consequential climate heating.
The Banks insist we must all live beyond our means, no matter what. We must consume, consume, consume. We must, as a consequence of being alpha-consumers waste, waste, waste in order to consume, consume, consume.
Cows do cow stuff but it is us lot. We humans, who must waste in order to consume. Only humans can be that fucking stupid.
Here’s the kicker, as they say. We can’t stop consuming. We now ARE the Idiocrat. We’re going to consume then excrete until we’re ash encircling the sun.