GUEST BLOG: Kevin Hester – Diametrically opposite responses from Anglo Saxons and Indigenous people of the Pacific to climate crisis

ByThe Daily Blog

 

global-warming-flood

I have just toured the North Island of NZ with U.S. climate and methane researcher Jennifer Hynes author of “ The Arctic Methane Monster”  and “ The Demise of the Arctic”, raising the alarm about the methane discharges from the melting permafrost and sub-marine clathrates which threaten to completely destabilise the energy balance of our biosphere, that up until recently has been destabilised by our rampant discharge of millions of years stored carbon in just 150 odd years of atmospheric arson .

We spoke to an audience at the amazing Hart Family Farm of Rachel and Greg Hart near Napier  and then travelled south to the capital and spoke in the Hutt Valley at a public meeting organised by Jacinta McKenzie from “ Transition Towns” in Wellington before returning to Auckland for our presentation at Laila Harre’s seafood restaurant and venue Ika Sea. Professor Guy McPherson, professor emeritus from the University of Arizona and Paul Beckwith from the University of Ottawa both spoke via Skype and we hope to have the video of that presentation very shortly which was Live Streamed to the net via the team at Slipstream and The Daily Blog

I was approached at the Hutt Valley meeting by Victoria University lecturer and activist Pala Molisa  and was asked to speak at “ The Eye of the Storm” climate conference at Victoria University where I was on a panel with Rod Oram speaking about the corporate media and what I consider the two biggest cover-up’s since the shooting of JFK by the military industrial complex which has gone on to murder millions of people. The two core subjects of my presentation were the true repercussions of the triple melt down at Fukushima Daiichi and the possibility of Near Term Human Extinction from runaway abrupt climate change. For more on NTHE I suggest you go to Professor Guy McPherson’s blog Nature Bats Last or listen to his and Mike Sliwa weekly radio show on prn.fm also called Nature Bats Last.

I am sometimes accused of being “ too emotional” when I speak publicly about our climate catastrophe but I find the imminent extinction of most if not all complex life on this planet a very emotional subject but interestingly, I experienced an amazing response from the Indigenous representatives at the conference.

I was approached numerous times by participants from Kiribati, Nauru, Vanuatu and the Soloman Islands thanking me for displaying that emotion and showing a sense of urgency about this unfolding catastrophe as they do when talking about the imminent loss of their historic homelands and the daunting prospect of becoming “ Climate Refugees”, a term that really doesn’t sit well with them.

The developed world have behaved like arsonists and set fire to the biosphere and as usual the first people to suffer are the Indigenous people and most relevant to NZ are our Pacific neighbours who I believe deserve a managed access plan to NZ to facilitate an orderly withdrawal for them from their disappearing and daily more inhospitable Islands.

I believe there is a disproportionate emphasis on sea level rise in this discussion where I believe the first thing to drive people from their Islands will be what James E Hansen referred to as “ The Storms of our Grandchildren” which are bearing down on us already NOT in 2100 as the mantra goes.

I will be interviewed soon by Eric Draitser  where we will be discussing the role of imperialism in our catastrophe and the bankruptcy of leadership we see in the world from the Imperialist nations and their lackeys like NZ Prime Minister John Key and the converse inspirational leadership being shown by Anote Tong president of Kiribati who I had the pleasure of meeting and I kid you not, dancing with at the post conference celebration in Wellington.

Professor McPherson and I believe that NZ will be one of the last habitable places on earth which puts a huge ‘cross hairs’ target on our country, I firmly believe we should be pursuing an independent foreign policy and not signing up to any military alliances as we have with the United States Empire of Chaos as correspondent Pepe Escobar calls it.

Like it or not we are facing a dystopian future, let’s talk about it now and not when the proverbial hits the fan because it already has and is flying towards us all as we speak and twerk in distracted oblivion.

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17 Comments

  1. It is about the ” 3 Ps “, Planet , People and then profit in that order of prioritisation. New Zealanders should not only be cleaning up their own backyard and their swimming pools, but be thinking outward to the ” planetary rort ” of pollution and extinction. There is no leadership on this global issue with our current Government. I feel , or rather more sense, that Statemanship on global responsibility shall prevail after ” The New Coalition ” secures it’s Mandate after the next General Election.

  2. It is about the ” 3 Ps “, Planet , People and then profit in that order of prioritisation. New Zealanders should not only be cleaning up their own backyard and their swimming pools, but be thinking outward to the ” planetary rort ” of pollution and extinction. There is no leadership on this global issue with our current Government. I feel , or rather more sense, that Statemanship on global responsibility shall prevail after ” The New Coalition ” secures it’s Mandate after the next General Election.

  3. @ hi vis – agreed. We are going nowhere near in the right direction, with the government currently in power. The question is will New Zealanders care enough for the planet and future generations, and vote accordingly at the next (fiasco) election?
    Mother Nature, in the end will force us to change wheather we like it or not. She will ‘bat last’.

    2. Kim, I was challenged by a thinking person, who suggested ” that rather than profit we should use the word prosperity “. He then opined that after the planet has been destroyed the people shall die.”
      Prosperity may be that of a family swimming in the Waikato on a Sunday. The extinction of the people may occur, but it might well be the homeostatic nature of the planet to recover.

  4. I noticed a while back that absolutely every person I come across who is a man made climate change denier (and there have been a lot of them) is white, male and over 30. That says something about something.

  5. Yes climate change is our most media ignored subject along with NZ Government loss our will to save our rail to lower our effects on CO2 emission’s, so instead Government encourage the use of trucking all our freight around the country now instead killing us and the environment.

    One truck can pollute 100 times greater then one car a NIWA report shows.

    Why don’t the Government save rail when it uses 5 to 8 times less fuel then trucks, and the emissions are 100’s of times less than trucks carrying one tonne one km, states a Government report we have?

    You was in Napier, did you see all the trucks on the controversial HB Expressway single lane road to the port of Napier?

    We are counting up to 2238 trucks a day on that road that winds through suburbs & pollutes 12,000 residents environment and the globe all at the same time while rail is left largely unused!!!

  6. I have been highlighting the probability of Abrupt Climate Change for more than 15 years, and have heard every idiotic argument, from ‘CO2 is an essential nutrient, so the more the better’ through to ‘we are entering a new ice age’, and have heard all the mocking and scoffing and phony fossil-fuel-backed lobby group arguments imaginable.

    Well, guess what, we are now entering the Abrupt Planetary Overheating phase or Severe Planetary Meltdown phase:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/18/scientists-are-floored-by-whats-happening-in-the-arctic-right-now/

    With the Arctic sea ice cover the lowest on record by far and only a matter of 20 days before the normal melt season commences, we could well be facing an ice-free Arctic this September.

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

    Once the ice has gone, the latent heat of phase change factor will no longer ameliorate the heating, and most of the incident heat and light will translate into even faster overheating.

    This is almost certainly the most important issue of the times we live in, and will be more-or-less universally ignored until it is far too late.

      1. I agree. The time to establish a sustainable society was in the 1970s to 1980s, when it was clear where we were heading.

        But the bankers and corporations didn’t want a sustainable society: they wanted profits. So they made sure corrupt politicians were put into power to promote consumption and short-term thinking.

        2016 to 2030 is going to be ‘very interesting’.

  7. I give talks on climate change and the science is pretty dire so there is no need to exaggerate the problems. A lot of the audience are mature business people (typical right wind voters) and I get a very positive, understanding response. The questions are of a type that shows they understand the problem so I believe that the majority of the population understand the problem. http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/

  9. Another day of less ice (record low)

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

    and more carbon dioxide (record high)

    https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2.

    Over the coming months the ice area will rapidly decline until it reaches its seasonal minimum (or disappears altogether).

    And the carbon dioxide level will rapidly increase until it reaches it season maximum (and won’t disappear but will build to an even higher level next year).

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