Climate Crisis happening far faster than feared – The case for Fortress Aotearoa
Comrades, the Climate Crisis is happening far faster than feared…
World’s oceans, greenhouse gasses at highest levels in 800,000 years, climate report warns
Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’
…the speed and extreme nature of the heatwaves and floods that are destroying the planet in real time are damaging the ability for the economy to function…
Cars. Batteries. Solar panels. Food. Global shortages and soaring prices are almost certain as China’s seemingly never-ending heatwave sears on.
It’s the most extreme heat event ever recorded in world history. For more than 70 days, the intense heat has blasted China’s population, factories and fields. Lakes and rivers have dried up. Crops have been killed. Factories have been closed.
More than 900 million people across 17 Chinese provinces are subjected to record-breaking conditions. From Sichuan in the southwest to Shanghai in the east, temperatures have been topping 40C.
…and remember, this only gets worse and worse and worse.
We aren’t doing anything meaningful on climate change, each country passes the buck to the next country, and the future is actually far more dangerous than we are currently anticipating…
‘We’re going to pay in a big way’: a shocking new book on the climate crisis
In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen write that society needs to be better prepared for an inevitable collapse
…the scale of the geopolitical shockwaves coming our way will be enormous…
Increasingly dysfunctional society and climate catastrophe leading humanity to ‘cliff edge’
Spiralling wealth inequality is leading to dysfunctional societies unable to cope with existential threats such as the climate crisis, experts have warned.
A two-year research project examining different future scenarios indicates that at present, societies around the world are at growing risk of “extreme political destabilisation”, with declines in public trust, while the climate crisis intensifies.
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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 this baseline extreme normal now.
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.
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.
Free Market Globalisation is dead, hyper regionalism is here. Supply chains in China are no longer safe and must be brought back to friendly supply chains which imports more inflation.
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 Think Big as Economic Sovereignty.
The geopolitical shock waves are only getting more intense.
If you think being carbon neutral by 2050 is the solution, you are the problem.
Post growth capitalism with true sustainability calls for Autarky on a burning planet that can’t take anymore globalism.
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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Boeing have orders for 5000 737max planes so obviously a lot of well paid CEO s think we will still be flying round the World .A 7 page booklet in the Chch Press on travel to all the countries around the globe endorses this idea. There are no strong leads from any of the countries around the World that say to me we are heading for disaster but we can spend billions on war and going to space .
Many of the points you make may speak to the Green voters but while many are valid they will cut no ice with most people.Far from cutting back I think climate change is inevitable so the best we can do is mitigation which will cost money so we need to look at how we can afford to do what is necessary to continue our existence .
Trevor orders can be canceled and the max, when it’s not drilling holes in the ground, is way more fuel efficient. That said it’s not long haul and more domestic/regional. That doesn’t indicate business as usual.
If you want to talk brands and well paid Porsche will only be making electric vehicles within eight years. When a symbol of manhood compensation does that you would be wrong think things won’t change rapidly
Whilst it sounds grand, Fortress New Zealand. There are quite a few obstacles such as raw material supplies. You simply need to export so as to import copper. You simply need to export to import HSS or carbide tooling (even the blanks). You simply need to export to import the powder to 3d print in metal (and plastics). You simply need to export to import billet aluminium (need rolling mills for that). We simply need to export to import rubber feedstock (even artificial rubber made from the evil feedstock). We simply need to export to import even the most rudimentary electronic chip.
Fortress New Zealand sounds good until you realise the vast quantity of raw materials need to be self sufficient that is not available locally.
And we haven’t even gathered all the IP rights to be able to manufacture medicines here without a license. Sure you could plagiarise known formulations but each will need medsafe approval before use. Not to mention that you simply need to export to be able to import the latest medicines (or even to purchase their IP rights).
Everything is doable but the Chinese will be here long before you get the tooling infrastructure in place to make the gun barrels that are part of the military might to defend the coast. (oh and you need brass to make shell cases. So we simply need to export to import brass).
You simply cannot create a long lasting fortress without inter actionable trade with the real world.
Set up the party Martyn, and I’ll join it and do ‘stuff’ in Far Northland/Kerikeri for you.
We ALL need a sensible option to vote for at the next election.
The simple fact is that as far as we can do anything to prevent climate change, it would only be as a good example.
Yes, our country does emit greenhouse gases, but far less than the US military does. Morally and practically, we should sink some US ships to reduce global emissions, but our government lacks the courage to do that.
The most sensible avenues for investment would be those that assume that climate change will continue to worsen, and which protect the people of New Zealand from it. Changes that enable increased self reliance. The reversal of the destruction of the refinery built by Think Big money would be a good start. We don’t need total autarky, but the closer we are to that, the safer we’ll be.
This is a nonsense. Ships are blocked in the North Sea because ice has returned to levels from two decades ago.
Martyn is talking about climate change not global warming. While warm air holds more moisture which enables heavier rain or snow falls it also alters other weather patterns which would explain the North Sea ice.
I’d advocate Fortress Aotearoa regardless of climate change .
Unfortunately I think we’re a minority and most kiwis are either mentally enthralled by globalist / capitalist thinking or are apathetically indifferent to global events, leading to a willful ignorance of the consequences
for NZ .
Who created and funds the IPCC? Heck, are we even allowed to ask this question!
Some people are finally getting it after multiple floods, highway damage and closure, communities subject to Earthquake, flood, and sea level rise becoming non viable, Insurance about to be withdrawn or super high priced in some areas–not in 20 years but now.
Yes to all Martyn’s points. The political problems slowing a move to a more sustainable AO NZ are obvious. For example if we tried to set up a Pharmaceutical industry it would likely mean co-operating with India and Cuba–5 Eyes would not be too bloody keen on that would they? So a move to Fortress NZ would involve a political struggle too, particularly on Labour to retire Rogernomics. The Naztos will just advocate putting the foot down for growth–hahaha.
Survivalism would have to be on a shared local community basis–not grumps sitting in shacks and bunkers with loaded guns. The Ammo would run out soon enough, the petrol ditto. So working together is required, “socialism or barbarism” as the saying goes.
“communities subject to Earthquake, flood, and sea level rise becoming non viable”
Yes this is a concern I have about what Climate Chaos will do soon to NZ. Nelson still had not recovered from last year’s weather events, same with East Cape/Gisborne. Maybe they are already functionally nonviable areas for complex human society. Damage to infrastructure is too frequent to repair effectively, costs are having to be borne by central government and national taxes.
What other areas of NZ turn non viable in the next 10 years?
I’m not much interested in sea level rise. Only to note that the SLR is happening WAY faster than IPCC claims. But human civilisation will have collapsed decades before NY and London are underwater anyway.
I’d say we got 5 to 10 years until agricultural collapse causes mass die off.
Probably hell on earth in the next 5 years as tribal conflict, economic crisis spin further out of control.
Meh. Increasingly scientists and other professionals are starting to doubt the climate models that have never once accurately predicted temperature changes over a decade period. Well over 1,000 scientists/professionals have signed it, including 26 from NZ (over a 100 from Australia).
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/WCD-version-06272215121.pdf
That said, they are 100% wrong that there is “no climate emergency”. There is (that’s pretty obvious), but it isn’t from CO2 – it’s from Earth’s deteriorating magnetic field strength. BTW, not a single (and I mean literally zero) articles that model climate change due to CO2 include the Earth’s magnetic field in there calculations. If they did, they’d quickly realise CO2 has bugger all to do with it.
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/chris-hedges-the-dawn-of-the-apocalypse/
Fun reading…
find the commentary on the Climate Chaos Crisis a bit fatuous and lacking a sense of urgency. More extreme droughts and floods were well predicted by climate scientists so the extreme flooding in Pakistan is a good confirmation of the science. The Pakistan is a tipping and overload point from which the previous state affairs is not possible to return to. The Nelson flooding and landslides while dramatic is not yet on the scale of the Pakistani calamity.
We have had more than 50 years of warning so now is the time to ignore the deniers and confusers. Action is urgent.
When Britain was facing WW II Winston Churchill made a speech that was clear in the danger facing Britain. That is the leadership we need; no obfuscation but a clear message of the danger we face with no soft soap PR (PR= propaganda repetition). We need to go beyond a war footing and have a grand coalition government with enough powers to tackle the global Climate Chaos Catastrophe.
We have to face that we all must leave behind the consumerist affluenza that has trapped us into a wasteful style of living. The consuming rich (not the frugal and thrifty private rich) and their lavish and extravagant levels of consumption because they pollute, they must not continue their gross ways. Private helicopters, jets, yachts, and mansions are not the sustainable way to live. Many such things will have to go. The fantasy over motoring and motoring sports must die and a non-consuming way of being entertained adopted. The economist Harold Hotteling showed that the optimum way (HER = Hotteling Efficiency Rule) to price a depleting resource is to steadily increase the price at the same rate as the profit rate, therefore we should tax petroleum fuels at this rate so with this knowledge people can make their adaptions as suits them. The price of motoring fuels should not be kept artificially low as this is a trap. We have to find a way of obsoleting war and the preparation for war as a major social and pollution failure that is terribly wasteful. Elsewhere space activities have to be extinguished. Rockets, space stations, trips into space, and space colonies must die. Space is no place for humans anyway. The ITER scheme, because it is far from a solution should cease and accept it as a sunk capital example. Many commercial activities will have to accept they have stranded sunk assets which have no viable future use. Commerce that cannot pay a living wage to all employees must go also. It will be hard for people committed to these activities including aviation, tourism, arms manufacture, and motoring businesses. Repair, replace, recycle, relocate, and reallocation of resources will need to redeploy the redundant.
Most scientific development activity seeking innovation will have to be diverted into greater understanding and communicating of the Climate Chaos Crisis. Innovation is an obsolete dogma and is not needed but an acceptance and application of current knowledge. Seeking to find life in space and delving deeper into cosmic understanding is a luxury which must be put aside to focussing on solving our local problems. We have to understand that ours is the only survivable planet which we must take care of for humanity to survive.
The ETS is a failure as the necessary decline in greenhouse gasses is not occurring. The oligarches and consuming rich can continue with wasteful ways. The moral and ethical way given a wartime type of emergency is to ration polluting gasses as imputed in the goods and services purchased. The worst of pollution imputation can be quickly applied while calculating the less bad. No one should be allowed to cause the calamity anymore than any other person thus receive an equal ration. Such a plan does not need the slow action of multinational agreements but can be locally applied as a ‘climate war’ necessity by the adaption of a second currency which all commercial activity will have two prices (old dollars plus the new rationed currency) whereby the pollution costs are included. A bit similar to a GST and UBI combination. The proposal is called a UCC ration. (UCC=universal carbon credit)
ITER, or more exactly nuclear fusion, is the future of humanity. And you want to scrap it? Dear Lord…
If we manage to master nuclear fusion in an industrial way, and if we, as voters, make sure that this breakthrough innovation is not captured by private interests for the happy fews, then Earth will go into a new era. Free unlimited energy means that even the most complex, energy-hungry solutions for climate change, for agricultural practices, for transportation, become viable.
For example, if we have unlimited energy, then we can desalinate sea water as much as we want, as often as we want, transport this water everywhere around the globe and we fix the problem of water access everywhere around the world. With unlimited free energy, we can create a very dense network of public transportation and do not worry if it is energy-efficient or not. Etc.
We can’t have a “Fortress Aotearoa” aka self-determination when we are part of a much bigger fortress led by the USA. Given that economic inequality has been a significant outcome of neoliberalism, I’d like to think that our politicians would have, at the very least, challenged the need for neoliberalism had we had the ability to do as please!
As for the key issues here. Exceptional weather events seem to be common place now. Exceptional world events, namely the Ukraine war is also dominating the headlines. But what we are not getting is expert analysis, preferably independent – free of moneyed/political ties – expert analysis, of these events. How do we know if these weather events are exceptional or not, possibly leading to humanity threatening climate change or not? Where’s the context, the history, the meat in the sammie behind a lot of the claims being made? Because as we can clearly see, the claims being made are going to, at the very, very, very least, totally upend our lives!
As for world events, namely the Ukraine War, similar questions can be asked bearing in mind that the reverberations of this war is already upending our lives.
Bottom line being, the bigger the claim, the bigger the event, then the level of information accompanying these events should be equally significant as to should our ability to be able to question these events, bearing in mind that it is, we, the people, who will both be the first to feel the brunt of these events and whom will suffer the most from these events.