By Chris Trotter*
“We got this”, would seem to be the Labour Government’s response to the Climate Change Commission’s (CCC) uncompromising report. The media statement released on Sunday, 31 January, under the names of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw, is nothing if not calming and reassuring.
“The report demonstrates we have the tools we need to achieve our target, but calls on us to accelerate our work. As a Government we are committed to picking up the pace and focusing much more on decarbonisation and reducing emissions rather than overly relying on forestry.”
Such remarkable sang-froid in the face of what some commentators are already describing as a change agenda every bit as revolutionary as Roger Douglas’ and Ruth Richardson’s. Having steadfastly refused to achieve transformation, the Prime Minister and her government are at risk of having transformation thrust upon them.
It is encouraging to learn that the Government is confident it possesses the tools to do the job. Encouraging – but not surprising. No one has ever suggested that successive New Zealand governments lacked the means to address the rapidly intensifying problems of global warming. For the best part of three decades, the question has rather been: “Do they have the will?” And for 30 years the answer has come back as: “No.”
The CCC’s report makes it clear that this lack of commitment is no longer acceptable if the target of reducing New Zealand’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 is to be met:
“[T]he Government must pick up the pace. Aotearoa will not meet its targets without strong and decisive action now to drive low emissions technologies and behaviour change across all sectors. 2050 is not far away – particularly if you consider the life span of infrastructure, vehicles, buildings – and people.”
It is about here that the problems begin. Outside the exceptional spheres of the Christchurch Mosques Massacre and Covid-19, the Ardern Government has, to date, offered no persuasive evidence that it knows how to do “decisive”.
Promise decisive action? Check.
Ask for advice on how best to take decisive action? Check.
Deliver decisive action? Ah well, you know, there are no silver bullet solutions to the problems this government inherited from its predecessors.
If the CCC’s recommendations are to be implemented, however, this government is going to need a significant quantity of silver.
Two of the principal contributors to our carbon emissions profile are the agriculture and transportation sectors. If our recent history is any guide, then driving down emissions levels in these key areas will be resisted furiously by industry lobbyists of every stripe.
To resist such pressure will require of our political leaders and senior public servants a so far unmanifested degree of staunchness. The exploiters of our soils and the users of our roads are not known for their willingness to compromise. They are, however, in/famous for getting what they want. And, at this moment, what they want most, and will move heaven and earth to get, is time.
For decades the industries in the crosshairs of carbon emissions reduction (most particularly the oil industry) devoted the greater part of their defensive effort to denying the reality of anthropogenic global warming. In this they were tragically successful, most notably in the United States, where, for the last four years, big emitters have enjoyed the protection of a climate-change-denying President. With the arrival of the Biden Administration, however, that protection has been removed. What the industries at the heart of the climate emergency in both the United States and New Zealand are rolling-out as fast as they can is a strategy of distraction, diversion and delay.
New Zealand’s dairy industry has begun already. Pre-empting the release of the CCC’s “Advise to Government” report by several days, Dairy NZ released a report indicating that the New Zealand dairy industry is already delivering the world’s lowest carbon footprint.
Measures intended to further reduce this country’s already small footprint, the Ag-Research produced report argues, will compromise seriously its international competitiveness and bring about an economically damaging reduction in New Zealand’s dairy production. The report further argues that any serious reduction in New Zealand’s dairy exports will only lead to foreign dairy producers, with much larger carbon footprints, making up the shortfall. New Zealand dairy farmers will suffer; the New Zealand economy will suffer; the New Zealand people will suffer; and the quantity of greenhouse gasses emitted globally will not be reduced. In short: a lose, lose, lose, lose situation.
As Richard Harman, writing for his Politik website, sees it:
“[A]s far as Dairy NZ is concerned the real point of the [report] and its publication [on Wednesday, 27 January 2021] is to try and get in ahead of what starting on Monday will be a national debate on who should cut what to enable New Zealand to reach its Paris Agreement targets.”
The road transport industry and private vehicle owners will be no less interested than dairy farmers in making sure that they are not the “who” lumbered with the burden of fulfilling New Zealand’s obligations.
So it has ever been when push comes to shove on Climate Change: everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
The CCC’s boss, Rod Carr, is only too aware of this problem. He knows that the measure of our success will be determined by how profoundly New Zealanders are willing to change their way of life:
“Now we must decide where our ambition lies. For my part, I want to be able to say I did as much as I could as soon as I knew about the impact I am having on this world. Increasingly I am sharing this sentiment with my fellow New Zealanders. To achieve a cleaner, greener, healthier and more sustainable future, no emission reduction is too small – or too soon. All of us have a part to play and a contribution to make.”
As ever, Greenpeace NZ Director, Russel Norman – the bane of the dairy and road transport industries alike – cuts to the heart of the matter in his tweet on the CCC’s report:
“The Climate Commission message in its draft advice today that fossil gas is no bridge to zero energy emissions and that pine forestry can only be a marginal part of the NZ strategy is really welcome.”
If Norman’s right, then this is a truly revolutionary admission on the part of the CCC. Contained within it is the crucial recognition that ours is a civilisation based on the ready availability of coal, oil and natural gas. That this extraordinary twenty-first century world we inhabit could not exist without the cheap and abundant energy extracted from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, those same fossil fuels lie at the heart of the threat posed to humanity’s future by runaway climate change. So if, as Norman alleges, the CCC’s draft advice to the government envisages a fundamental shift away from fossil fuels, then the level of economic and social transformation New Zealanders will be expected to shoulder between now and 2050 is enormous. It is not only the source of our energy that the CCC is calling upon us to revisit, but the entire shape of our society.
In the report’s own words:
“We have heard consistently through our engagement that localised transition planning will be needed where communities work together to tailor a transition plan to their particular needs and aspirations. We also heard that this localised transition planning will need to be proactive, inclusive and transparent, and co-developed through a bottom up approach that involves iwi/Māori, local government, local communities, businesses, civil society groups and other stakeholders.”
What’s being demanded here is not a silver bullet, Jacinda, but a red/green one. You got that?
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
185 Comments
I assume you are already carbon neutral? Global issue, moral response etc..... Using zero fossil fuels, no plastics, no wood that was processed using fossil fuels, walking everywhere leading the way to bright glorious future in a bush hut? Or are you another useless hypocrite with no clue?
Watch out Fritz, the SA model is currently being upped in Aotearoa.. either you with us or against us.. felt so sorry to those third largest ethnicity. No wonder they're all turned into becoming landlord, last bastion of meaningful business recognition in the era of new NZ segregation.
No need to believe when there are facts, data and science.
And CC is the least of our worries:
https://www.postcarbon.org/nate-hagens-reality-101-a-survey-of-the-huma…
It is, but it is also a moral and a 'doing my part' issue for a lot of people. Just because some people dump households worth of rubbish in public places does not mean I decide throwing a few bits of litter out the window of my car now is fine, since the other guy was far worse. There are rules around both of those already, and now we are likely getting new rules around CO2 emissions.
No pricing for the externalities mean it is a tragedy of the commons - but it is really an every little bit for the good of all thing by more and more people (but like the litter some people (and countries) will never be convinced no matter what society says). My hope is that over the next while general perception will change which these new rules are all part of, as part of the general shift of attitudes.
I agree, New Zealand's emission levels are a joke compared to the major polluters in this world. All that will happen is we get smashed with a carbon tax while they do nothing. Sorry but change here will have zero impact on the planet. Places like Nigeria have hundreds of gas flares on the oil fields. They are currently watching more energy going up in smoke 24/7 than the countries electricity energy usage. We have a few farting cows to worry about.
Tks but my comment was a tad more generalised, meaning NZ apropos the whole global scene especially the great nations that massively pollute industrially, and will continue to do so, with little overt sincerity to altering their game. Incidentally the expression is WW2 amongst quite a few more, from my father’s time serving with the American military. It was first coined apparently by the Sherman tank crews (which they called Ronsons) when they had to face up to the opposing Tigers and Panthers.
Nzd. Another one then if you will. Courtesy of the Marines. Playing in the 1960s golf with my father he missed a 3ft putt that would have given a sub par round. The exclamation “ may as well have taken a running f**k at a rolling doughnut.” Yep colourful times indeed.
Rod Car should be fired. This from Twitter:
'Rod Carr just compared Food producers in NZ with Whale hunters on @NewstalkZB. When asked if he accepted that our farmers were the most carbon efficient in the world he said Being the best whale hunters doesn’t make it good (paraphrase) ...'
Disgusting. We have the most efficient farm sector in the world, and out in front on reaching a smaller carbon footprint: but we have so called 'respected' leaders like Rod Carr vilifying and demonising our food producers on the altar of virtue signalling. Who do these nutjobs - because none of this report has analysis - think is going to produce the world's food? What is that food: a capsule each day allocated by government with just enough sustenance to keep us alive? I love food. One of life's pleasures. These awful sanctimonious dangerous fools.
Addendum, as to no analysis (just as Ardern's reckless oil and gas exploration ban was on no analysis and has resulted only in us burning dirty coal at Huntly, this also from Twitter: 'The NZ Climate Change Commission’s report is pure fantasy, talking about “trucks should be decarbonised” (no such technology exists at present - not even Tesla can build viable electric trucks at this time) and “low emissions dairy cattle” (seriously?).'
it is you, MH, who comes across as a nut-job. And despite me putting much in front of you to read, you don't. Have you ever thought (maybe I could stop that sentence there...) why it is that you need to believe a narrow self-justifying set of ideas?
Farming, as practiced in this country, is the process of transforming fossilised sunlight (energy) into food (energy). The store was finite, the process therefore unsustainable. Period. Arguing that it is efficient or low-impact misses the point. It's unsustainable. It will therefore cease.
Worse, it relied on offshoring draw-down (PKE is a draw-down of offshore rainforest, Phosphate is a draw-down from 'somewhere else' too.
Sorry, but food needs a new model, and you are either future-appropriate or you ain't.
My only reply to you.
My point is the chair of the climate change commission needs to 'take our food producers' with him because a) they're good people, b) they are a mainstay of our economy who have contributed hugely to getting our economy through Covid, c) we have a lot of value invested in farmland that has an important wealth effect; that land is worth nothing if not productive (you'll say put it in pinus radiata, but that's just a destructive weed); c) they produce a product that immeasurably improves the quality of our lives - some of the best food in the world and I love food in all it's facets from sustenance to social (a meal with friends at a restaurant, one of life's great pleasures).
Given this, I can't think of anything stupider than demonising that whole sector on radio (and thus the international community where we sell our food), as whalers. And doing so with sanctimonious vitriol. That's what a woke millennial would do, not what I thought Carr would do: I thought he had some sense.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
And I'm annoyed at the Fed Farmers chair on AM this morning being all mealy mouthed talking of balance etc: he should have gone for the fantasy land that report is written for, and asked for Carr's resignation. Make it hard as hell for this government to attack farmers, because they're going to (and are).
You seem to think Carr was trying to paint farmers as somehow evil. I don't think this was his intent. Why do you assume that Whalers were not also "good people" providing a "mainstay" of their economy at the time? Undoubtedly they were. The negative connotation associated with whalers is that we can now see, in hindsight, what they were doing was extracting resources in an unsustainable way that, in the long term, could would ultimately lead to a collapse of that resource.
That is no different to what what is happening today with numerous industries right now. Lots of good people, providing essential services. But that doesn't mean these business practices can be sustained indefinitely.
'The negative connotation associated with whalers is that we can now see, in hindsight, what they were doing was extracting resources in an unsustainable way that, in the long term, could would ultimately lead to a collapse of that resource.'
Which as Carr was speaking 'now' is exactly the negative connotation that he meant, obviously. That was his intent: it can't be read any other way, given he wasn't speaking from the 19th century.
Goodness me.
You really are off the wall. Last time I looked cattle and sheep in this country don't eat coal or drink oil - they transform energy via photosynthesis into protein. Yes FF is used to produce nitrogen and to get the product to processors and then to market but that's about all. As for Phosphate, we have our own resource sitting on the Chatham Rise but it's being blocked by the "Green Brigade" to protect some undersea worms.
PKE is a waste product from the Palm Oil industry and is definitely not responsible for Indonesian rain forest depletion..i.e. the forest isn't being cut down to produce PKE
NZ farming is far from unsustainable and not many people are avid fans of mung beans and tofu or soy milk, which incidentally all have higher carbon footprints per kg of protein and far less calorific value hence are a poor substitute
Bollocks, bollocks and bollocks.
Try looking again. Which, I suggest, will be the first time. Last time I looked, it took 10 calories (short-counting) to 27 calories (reasonable counting) to 70 calories (all-in counting, including build-energy in machinery and maintenance energy) - per produced calorie of food. If you're in the industry and you don't know that, I'd call it ignorance. Chosen or inherent, ignorance.
Phosphate stocks are finite - Chatham Rise and all (and it is a classic example of diminishing energy-returns). So we need to full-circle nutrient, or crash population. Probably we won't, and we will. PKE is NOT a 'waste product' - that's FF spin the same way Brownlee once wittered on about clean coal, developers talk about 'land supply' and oil companies claim they 'produce'. You all spin to justify. Too simple, too transparent, too small, too short-termist. The money NZ farmers pay for it, figures directly in the decision to de-forest. Wear it.
Sea-bed trawling trashes the Benthic Communities, without which no aquatic food-chain. Try replacing THAT crashed stock/resource. Self-justification - can you do better?
Interesting you mentioned calorific value, while avoiding................ calorific value.
Piece of work. Who pays? Fed Farmers?
NZ farming is 100% unsustainable (a few organic growers and home-gardeners excepted).
haha.. I must have hit a nerve. Best you do your bit for the planet and stick to your mung beans. BTW you're completely wrong about PKE, there's no spin involved - it's fact. Before NZ started buying it, it was used as boiler fuel or just left to rot
As for the Benthic Communities being the base of the food chain - wrong!! There's not much 400mtrs down that could be considered part of the food chain, Besides the Chatham Rise project was over a very small part (relatively speaking) of the entire Rise area
The food angle I was talking about was CO2e/Kg protein. Lets see some calcs from you about that not calorific value - coal has a pretty high calorific value but I wouldn't eat it personally. Your calcs don't compare the significant FF inputs in the planting/harvesting/processing of your mung beans.
This is a great question; a significant portion of our carbon footprint comes from the food and drinks we consume. It's probably one the easiest things to change about our lifestyle as well. While it is not suitable for everyone, the vast majority of people would reduce their footprint by moving towards a (unprocessed) plant-based diet. Their health would no doubt also benefit from the antioxidant, mineral and antiinflammatory properties of most plants. Personally been vegan 5 years now and feel great, all blood markers are very normal (I do eat the odd egg from our chooks, and rarely mussels, if dining out).
The green revolution in the 60s and 70s doubled food production, allowing countries like India to become net wheat exporters and lifting (some) farmers from poverty. It was amazing. No "man-made" nitrogen = less food per hectare = clearing more rainforest to have land to produce enough food. Incidentally that's another reason why organics are not the answer - the same problem occurs. Innovation is important, and sometimes only happens when people are forced to change something.
Yeah saw that - pure fantasy. We're already pushing the limit on per head production so unless we feed the animals twice as much (there's only so much they'll eat) or tweaking genetics it'll be virtually impossible to achieve. I'd love to know how Carr expects farmers to increase current production by 40%
If it was as easy as Carr suggests wouldn't we be doing it already? NZ reached "peak stock" in the period 1980-1984 when we had 126.5 million stock units ( one su equals one breeding ewe). By 2015 this had fallen to 104.8 million. When adjusted for change of species ,ie. fewer sheep and more cattle, methane emissions fell from 150 million sheep equivalents to 130 million. This represents a decline of some 13%, but no one recognises this fact because it falls outside an arbitrary timeline. One reason that production has increased in spite of breeding numbers falling is that the feed that would have maintained the ewe flock at numerically high levels can now be directed to better feeding their lambs. Back in the 70's and 80's a prime lamb weighed 27 pounds - 12.3 kgs; now lambs of 23kgs are commonplace. What is happening is that fewer lambs are being born but those that are are being grown out to much higher weights. A new equilibrium has been established , but there are limits as to how far this can be pushed.
Yes they have. But to achieve the supposed increases the 'tweaking' will be much, much too slow. It took something like 200 years to get some of the meat breeds to their current sizes. A 40% increase over 15 years is all but impossible, but if it was would lead to all sorts of issues, including joint and bone stress, birthing difficulties etc.
Changing light bulbs to typical energy saving bulbs was mostly posturing. The market was shifting in this direction anyway. Taking credit for a market driven move was a joke (never mind that you cannot recycle them). Now LED bulbs are the same price per average hour of life as the low pressure bulbs. So at my house as each bulb dies I am replacing them with LED. Cost neutral to buy and half the power use.
Compare that with the proposed changes that will increase our cost of living. People will end up worse off to meet the carbon goals. Once we get past that you need to look at why ideas like the circular economy are not being embraced. If you don't add new carbon to the atmosphere then what's the issue with vehicles run on biofuels?
Are workplaces going to be able change significantly to reach the goals? Less people traveling to work? More people cycling? These are not always possible without fundamentally changing a business or having people live closer to work. A lot of planning and changes would be needed to make this a reality.
I still find that whole thing ridiculous. Why were so many people opposed to being forced into energy efficient light bulbs? We all got there eventually, what was wrong with the government speeding up the process? Im sure there are still people using incandescent light bulbs just to prove some kind of stupid point that they will wreck the environment as much as they want. And our shower heads are still pumping out way too much water than is needed.
I'm not sure it was lightbulbs or water efficient showerheads that put the nail in Clarks govt. Perhaps it was the constant litany of interference from Clark and her acolytes in our daily lives, "must" do this and "must" do that. The bulbs and the showerheads were actually quite a good idea but when Clark started to intrude into peoples homes it was the final straw.
Things like the shower heads and changing bulbs is pissing in the wind. They don't make enough difference to be meaningful. Ultimately they are items that can be done over time.
If you look at household power consumption hot water and heating are big energy consumers, then cooking and everything after that is minor. Especially lighting. If people are spending major amounts on lighting it's probably time to start switching lights off when you aren't in a room.
With respect to government interfering in people's lives these suggested changes will interfere a lot more than a shower head or a light bulb.
CFLs can be recycled but not for free. I ordered a couple of recycle boxes from these guys when I put in LEDs:
https://www.interwaste.co.nz/shop/fluorescent-lights
The sobering fact is that nobody can do either. Study the graphs on P49:
https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/journal/152-1-Turner.pdf
They come from the original World3; the longest-running true-to-tracking projection ever. Look at the time-lines (take some time over this, it's important) and overlay them with the Commission's timeline. Economic collapse pre-dates EV uptake. This is where Carr has to go, this is where the govt. has to go, this is where the media (Ryan on Nat Radio is incapable of understanding the exponential function, as an aside) need to go.
Biden is making parallel comments, so this will be a First-World heave. All attempting to build accommodation on the aft deck of the Titanic while ignoring the sinking. We live in interesting times.
Yes, good graphs, so the die is cast as we have known all along. Now what. It does not matter whether you are a beggar on the streets of Calcutta or a struggling solo Mum in South Auckland, how you feed your family for the next meal, or pay your already overdue power bill, or treat your child's fever is always going to be more important to you than anything we say.
And yes, I was being a bit 'tongue in cheek' on that last sentence. They aren't going to do either, but it does give us all a common enemy that the Govt. can focus our frustrations and blame on, anything but look at the Govt. for the real cause and blame.
I don't for one minute think they truly believe what they are doing is going to solve anything, it's all political noise.
They can't even build one net-zero carbon energy-efficient affordable house. If you want to be in a position to save others, you have to save yourself first.
bone soup tea is afforded to the current costs of things, any less and it is just hot water and salt and we would not be able to afford to pay power so it will be cold water and salt (salt recommended in high amounts by specialists and cardiologists, for my condition not those with hbp). Yep we will pay but hey at least hopefully salt will still be cheap... oh wait no, logistics. damn.
I totally agree - nobody can do either. I so wish we were putting a global focus on biodiversity maintenance, as opposed to CC.
As for CC, I prefer the non-IPCC carbon-market/carbon accounting approach referred to as climate pragmatism:
- Accelerate energy innovation
- Build resilience to extreme weather
- No regrets pollution reduction
For example, on point three, if we regulate freshwater policy nitrogen caps (and enforce such regulations properly), the dairy cow numbers will likely reduce accordingly and, perhaps more importantly, give our aquifers a chance to replenish in the future.
And the whole conversion of our transport fleet to EV is science-fiction - and I suspect, a waste of already used energy to boot if the 'conversion' forces retirement of the existing fleet early. We'd be better to have a goal/target to convert transport users to PT - far more realistic in a resource constrained world.
And yes, I agree with others - where is the circular economy in all this? Again, massive effort in re-use initiatives would be a far better use of our time, money and energy.
What is biodiversity maintenance?
What is the target?
Is the assumption that higher biodiversity is good and lower biodiversity is bad?
Would a high biodiversity high species with anthropomorphic traits be more desirable that a high biodiversity with species that make general life for humans be less desirable?
By and large, we cannot survive alone.
The animate biomass is now 97% us and our attendant animals, 3% wild. Wild is effectively extinct.
The only redress will be a reduction in human population; increasing biodiversity while we are all still here, is impossible. The reverse will in fact continue as people look for the next meal and the next.
EDS have written two good NZ-specific pieces;
https://www.eds.org.nz/assets/Publications/Banking%20on%20Biodiversity_…
https://www.eds.org.nz/our-work/publications/out-of-stock-books/treasur…
Yes to the first question, and no to the second.
Solving the housing crisis, ie warm, dry, healthy affordable housing, which included net zero-carbon goals, would go a long long way to solving climate issues, not just in the physical benefits, but once this Maslow Hierarchy of Needs is taken care of, then people are more willing to listen and then do, what else is required.
Until these 'first principle' needs are meet, then most people can't afford to care.
I watched an interview with Jane Goodall on the weekend where she made the same point. People who need to put food on the table cannot be expected to not exploit nature and the environment. Solve poverty/get redistribution right and people will have the ability to think about and have empathy with all things in nature.
To me, getting the redistribution right has nothing to do with lowering living standards in one country to raise them in another. It is about the .001% - the Uber-corporates and banking fraternity - closing the gap between executive and worker remuneration; paying tax; and sharing wealth/prosperity everywhere they operate.
Only rich enough to:
“Basically there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.” - Norm Kirk.
In my childhood, that thing to 'hope for' was a good education, good ethics and compassion. The only luxury/indulgence that was pursued was overseas travel as my mother saw that as part and parcel of the former.
Id add... Entrepreneurship deserves rewards above and beyond what norm kirk advocates.
I have no issue with the creators of ,for example, rocket labs becoming rich.
Wealth distribution is a delicate thing.... Finding the balance between the energies/ motivations that grow the economic pie and the social wisdom that enables the sharing of the economic pie ....
Simply taking from artha and giving to martha might not be the wise way.
Of course it does and I doubt Norm Kirk would argue against that.
But the kind of inequality we see today goes well beyond a healthy distribution. The US for example;
https://equitablegrowth.org/the-distribution-of-wealth-in-the-united-st…
you dont appear to get it Kate
All that WEALTH is a paper call only ... to spread it would DECIMATE resources
Its population thats the problem. Fullstop.
Theres only so much milk Bill Gates can drink ... the more he has in his bank account (and not in everyone elses) the better for the envt
Yes, it is the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, air, water, food, shelter etc. But the redistribution issue is an interesting one, because how does this fit in with energy use to move it from A to B.
The reality is much of your diet is contributing to these issues, eg being able to get strawberries out of season or buy tropical fruit in temperate climates etc. Even buying rice in NZ.
It is not coincidental that prior to refrigeration, that closer to the tropics you had more vegetarians and further towards temperate zones fewer veggies and more meat, and therefore more omnivores.
Climate change solutions probably should also see more locally sourced foods and the need for less exported. Which could mean many countries decrease their population to what they can grow locally, and for NZ to increase its population.
I suspect we are already seeing the effects of 'food miles' (i.e., true energy-costs) impacting that kind of gross/ridiculous distribution (e.g., flying whole tuna to asian markets overnight is gross/ridiculous). What I mean by redistribution is more to do with how global governments are financed. Presently it is through debt servitude, as income is denied by tax avoiding, multinational conglomerates.
If you have the time, this is a great read: https://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years/dp/1612191290
Kate flying a whole tuna to Japan is about the significant returns available and doesn't happen that often (at least from NZ) - it's not gross/ridiculous, it's extremely lucrative. As for the effects of food miles - they aren't even being factored into the costs, 60% of NZs pork consumption is imported and the products are the same or cheaper price than NZ produced pork.
As for tax avoiding, multinational conglomerates, unless their head office is in a tax haven they still pay tax somewhere. BTW - tax avoidance is a perfectly legitimate and legal business practice
To know the consultation is a mere tick box effort but inaccessible to many of the most vulnerable and those who the policies would most affect... This is the let them eat cake stand they take. I cannot cook for myself and DHBs stripped young disabled food prep and bathing assistance, I am one of tens of thousands in this position and have been homeless for years and THIS FING CLIMATE REPORT AND WORK IS WHAT THE GOVT FUNDS?! CUTTING MORE DISABLED ACCESS TO THEIR COMMUNITIES IS WHAT THEY WANT TO PUSH THROWING BILLIONS TO FURTHER CUT US DOWN?! How about letting the disabled have access to work, access to homes (most not accessible to even enter), access to their communities and then they could buy cooked food before wasting billions on measures that only seek to strip disabled access and transport.
Dale.... Yes ..and the irony of this new policy , is the unintended consequences this might have on those very things.... Homelessness, poverty.. etc.
Id think most costs will rise... ( Price of electricity might go up substantially.)
I' also anticipate higher petrol taxes etc..
Another inflationary wind ..
Regardless on ones view on the topic, this article has one thing absolutely correct:
.... the Ardern Government has, to date, offered no persuasive evidence that it knows how to do “decisive”..... Deliver decisive action? Ah well, you know, there are no silver bullet solutions to the problems...
And yes, I made the mistake of changing my opinions, and voting Labour last time around.
Time to look at the demand immigration causes then? Slicing a vanishing cake into microscopically smaller pieces seems like a really stupid policy. So we can't produce protein from pastures any more. Mass tourisms days are ultimately numbered. So what can we do to pay our way in the world from here? What does NZ uniquely have that the rest of the world needs? 1000s of Lord of the Rings sequels?
The same argument you make to discourage immigration could be used to encourage emigration. The two main policies needed to encourage Kiwis to move overseas: stupidy high house prices and take home wages lower than other countries. If only we could persuade more educated Kiwis to leave then there would be room for more chefs and tourist guides from overseas.
Photosynthesis, the process by which green plants and certain other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy. During photosynthesis in green plants, light energy is captured and used to convert water, carbon dioxide and minerals into oxygen and energy-rich organic compounds. Should our wonderful farmers be eligible to obtain carbon credits by growing all that beautiful green grass? It has been grown in abundance down south this season due to plentiful rain and a very cool summer, so far. Never had the fire on so much in January, ever. Have als read somewhere that the earth is getting greener due to the extra carbon dioxide being absorbed by green plants.
By that argument we should all burn coal for heating and electricity and drive 1950s gas guzzler cars and spray our flies with CFCs.
I know a guy who died of cancer after working in the local gas works; seems crazy we used to have those in our cities, just like it will seem crazy one day that we used to put an explosive fuel in our cars, breathed some of the cancer causing emissions, and let the remainder ruin the planet.
A different way of looking at it is ALL economic activity is a call on resources
So we either lessen our call (ie break the Debt system which needs MORE economic activity)
OR we continue on
Despite what the Greens propaganda says, we cant recycle our way to prosperity...
All over this policy they have literally ostracised the disabled and propose plans that would literally cut them out of society denying them the ability to be part of NZ and denying them the right to life outside or even access to hospitals and medical care. HOW ABOUT NOT BEING THE FAR RIGHT FOR ONCE AND ACCEPT THE DISABLED ARE PEOPLE TOO AND NEED ACCESS. No we cannot walk and, cycle, No we literally physically cannot travel via electric vehicles and buses. When they cut the literally ONLY form of transport for disabled and the most vulnerable they are in the WRONG and even the most abhorrent countries that abuse the disabled still allow them transport to leave. THE CLIMATE COMMISSION AND THIS GOVT ARE LITERALLY CUTTING THEM OUT OF NZ and denying them the right to submit to their obscene policy consultation. THANKS FOR BEING A LARGE PART IN KILLING US IN FUTURE. Really needed that reminder to update the will and stock more pills because it is impossible to afford disability transport itself. Many have as their only transport option large vans with hydralic lifts & large cars to allow for joint failure mobility & putting rigid body wheelchairs in to actually enter vehicles are needed and literally NO COUNTRY AS IT STANDS HAS ELECTRIC VEHICLES FOR DISABLED AND NOWHERE IN NZ IS THERE DISABLED ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I have been researching this for decades and in the EU their is less than 3% EV vehicle uptake at all only for the able bodied.
If the world was serious about climate change we would be talking population control. All that doing things "Greener" does is extend and pretend and allow the increase in the total number of people on this planet. Its just common sense really, if we had half the current world population we wouldn't even be discussing climate change because the problem would not exist.
Great discussion of that idea in the novel Green Mars, the sequel to Red Mars. TLDR: the rich get the stay alive forever treatment while the poor have to submit to population control policies. It's the same thing all over again - the colonists get wealthy and fat and then pull up the ladder behind them because the world can't handle everyone consuming as much as the West.
No - it was inevitable some would consume more, first. We and our immediate ancestors, were the lucky cohort (although they fought several wars including two at global level, for the privilege).
It was also inevitable that inequality and overshoot would produce the disparity you mention.
https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_…
Read "Hostile Shores" by Bruce McFadgen. It is a treatise on how catastrophic events of the fifteenth century impacted on pre- European Maori. The author concludes with the statement that "....Archaic Maori......, who were very efficient predators but not equally proficient at conserving resources." In this they would be no different from any society; when plenty is available you avail yourself of plenty.
If we were a truly intelligent species we wouldn't even need to tell people to stop having kids, or at least to have just one less. Unfortunately we are going to take a pass on the intelligent and humane path and keep on going until overpopulation and the planet does it for us in the worst possible way. My pick is that I will not be here to see it but its almost a guarantee anyone born from this point onwards will.
It would be far simpler and cheaper to actually adapt to climate change 9or are we back to calling it global warming again?), rather than try and prevent something that is inevitable. When I read the headline 'coping with global warming' I thought there might be a bit of common sense, but again, what's common is hardly ever sense, and good sense is uncommon.
I don't think my cows are releasing more carbon than has been sequestered by the plants they eat, it's unlikely chemistry and quite different to extracting fossil fuels that have been buried for millions of years, and releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere.
Humans thrive all over the planet in many different climate extremes and I don't see much of a threat in a temperature increase. We have the resources and the technology to adapt to anything.
Nothing I can do about the wealthy politicians, and government employees, secure in their jobs with increasing benefits accruing after every year of fine service, they are not at risk from every new rule they create. They don't care who pays, because it is never them, even if the rest of the country is going broke, they still seem to prosper.
"We have the resources and the technology to adapt to anything".
No we don't. Technology is not energy, nor can it create same. All it can do, is use the stuff more efficiently - until you run into the Second Law and old man Carnot. Resources we are extracting, consuming and excreting (entropically) at exponentially-increasing rates. Only one way that ends.
And broke? Why are we still fixated on the acquisition of tokens - digitally held in some computer - rather than real wealth (the possession of resource-stocks and the energy to do something to them?
Good comment - it does worry me that we are being driven toward policy that addresses the wrong issue - i.e., how to live with energy scarcity. The UN sustainable development goals point out that climate policy should not compromise food production. We should concentrate our agricultural policy on learning/converting to produce food with less inputs - and the biggie where NZ is concerned, I believe, is synthetic nitrogen use.
If you are eating beans, then it will be you that needs a fart tax rather than the cows. The Govt. will get revenue from wherever it can.
But seriously, you have a garden, then the time to tend to it? This is actually great, reminiscent of a time when that was part of the NZ Dream. Not only to space for a garden at an affordable price but you didn't have to work so hard to service your new smaller section so had time to tend to it.
Good point.
I've commented previously that humans are an anomaly in the natural order of things through the use of 'money'. Consume today on the promise of paying back tomorrow with some as yet unrealised work. I can't think of any other species that has managed this. Therefore capping debt/money creation would be a good starting point.
(edit) and if we accept that inflation is a reflection of demand/resources, then stop trying to manage it and just let it run its course. But we all know that the wider implications of reducing Carbon emissions are going to be an impact on population and living standards.
Hah this report had no science. The science on whether there is anthropomorphic climate change is settled but this report was a bunch of mush ideas and assumptions with no research and no data to back any claims for fairy tale policies that need magic and fairies to work without directly killing people. The report is the least scientific and can only best be described as a sad sad joke. Non scientific input from surveys from only "77 individuals and organisations" That has got to be a new low as even polling their linkedin friends and local shops would generate more than 77 responses. Even worse they are so contradictory in assumptions in this report they massively disprove their own proposals would ever work and disprove any basis for their proposals. Suggesting that a massive increase in power demand and the need for far far more in electricity infrastructure, massive added storage costs and reduced reliability in electricity infrastructure would bring down the cost of household electricity is beyond the pale as even the maintenance on existing generation and transmission methods has spiked the cost increases so much above inflation in Otago. Many companies actually have had to buy petrol and diesel generators just to keep the power going and run pumps, holding back sewage flooding.
Yet another report. Perhaps the Govt needs to pay for another report to ensure that this report hasn't missed anything. I realise that there are some really big issues ahead, but for the time being the Govt doesn't even seem to be able to address the small ones. Plastic straws and cutlery are still available (even though alternatives are already 'out there'), supermarkets are still offering plastic fresh produce bags, produce is still being sold covered in plastic, labels aren't environmental friendly (apart from Pic's & a few others who produce easily removal labels). The gun laws were introduced immediately, so why isn't the Govt taking action on these small environmentally friendly changes now - perhaps we have to wait until May for this also?
As discussed above the Clark govt were voted out for daring to ban incandescent light bulbs, so they need to tread carefully and slowly. most people in NZ don’t think they should make the slightest compromise and expect to be able to trash the place as much as they like.
Before getting carried away by the "Pied Piper of Wellington" and joining the lemmings
I want to know how much energy is consumed in building a house
From developing the land
Providing roadworks, footpaths, 3 waters, power
Constructing the house
Producing local materials, and transport delivery
Timber, bricks, tiles, cement, flooring, cladding
Imported materials, draw-down amount of foreign reserves
Energy consumption (food) by builders, constructors
For every migrant family that buys a house, that house has to be "replaced" for the displaced
If you add it all up it's a lot of "energy" draw down
A lot of that energy-resource consumption will never be renewable
We need to know
Sure does look like it - for coal;
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natural-resourc…
As well as mining ~660,000 tonnes ourselves, it shows we imported a further ~249,000 tonnes in the Sept 2020 quarter; and used ~267,000 tonnes for 'Transformation - Electricity Generation'.
I'm having trouble imagining how big a pile 267,000 tonnes is.
Why bother exporting food to the likes of the 3rd world for famine relief or anywhere else for that matter (sarc)? It only increases our emissions putting higher pressure on the local population.
Best to decide who can do such things for the global community and let them get on with it. The problem is some economies wont br able to do anything productive.
Looking forward to have our noisy sirens of Emergency fast vehicles of Police, Fire engine & Ambulances all turned into Electric, hope the Nuclear batt. for it, won't be far off.
The police will look cool in Tesla, more room to put crook in/next to batt. compartment, likewise Ambulance more room for patient, more room for water tank for Fire engine.
It will be safer for wider public when with the rev./speed limitation when the hon or crooks runaway with Toyota Prius or Nissan Leaf - and the authority nab them with Tesla, ouh the helicopter/drone above also running with battery.
I am for measures to deal with climate change. But carbon trading is a dumb method. Especially we must ban the idea of New Zealand dollars going offshore to corrupt countries because of it.
I prefer government to regulatecarbon use but keep out of our wallets with it's tax and/or subsidise schemes.
Small government please.
My friend who's teaching biology in the university once told me that the lower the life-form is, the higher its propensity to reproduce and populate. I thought that's bad sterotyping coming from a professor then. Over the years; however, everytime I tried putting on a Darwinistic lens to view the world, it appears it occurs in homosapiens too. Today he's working on a thesis to end this debate.
Where are the real, practical and easy solutions?
Why do we have factories making Pink Batts while farmers are having to burn or dump wool because they have to pay wool “buyers” to take it now?
What happened to eco wool insulation which would lock up more carbon into housing instead of releasing it into the atmosphere? Not to mention improving returns to rural communities.
It's a population crisis.
Not a housing crisis.
And knock-on, it's a spatial/resources/ entropy crisis. As are failing pipework, disintegrating bridges, the inability of LA's and Universities to self-fund. You can't solve one facet without solving all else simultaneously.
The solution won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
because the logistics and manufacturing is far less economic with less wasteful ideas in resources being priced out because of higher transport costs and more fuel needed for transport. Consider it a incredibly disperse distributed rural sources with no coordination, no steady rate of supply, no dedicated amount of supply, large fuel costs that are considered worse for the environment than dumping en masse in many thousands of tonnes and setting up new manufacturing factories is discouraged by governments due to the enviromental cost. Then there is the fact that water consents are very popular and rarely do new ones get approved so those around have been snapped up by overseas businesses.
after reading what they propose is the death of hoping to live and have access to life in NZ that I had been saving for. I never thought I would have a disability this bad when this young. No insurance company allowed employment insurance in NZ due to preexisting unrelated conditions but now all those plans to finally afford transport one day for our family are dashed with no imports allowed when we will finally reach enough money and the certain knowledge of all the others in worse positions than us who face worse.
Emotions are overwhelmingly hopeless. Well time sleeping in a car or flooded garages and basements and massive injuries due to lack of wheelchair access is not much worse but is hard when you get a bunch of disabled folk in a room and we all trade homelessness stories, what to do when your ramshackle life is then flooded out and rejection for employment tales (yet even disabled on more than 100k a year jobs like we used to be could be homeless for years until injury from floods throws work out as an option), or days with no food prep help and no way to cook or get food. Only only transport access being petrol vehicles you could run on a rag, sleep and get the wheelchair in. It is like time travelling into our 90s in body but not mind. To be fair being denied the right to medical care, denied access to food and housing, denied access to businesses and parks, so many times being abused or denied access because we could not walk and needed a chair or collapsed on the floor and could not get up... after the first 20 or so times... the lack of life and living in NZ can get to anyone and the dream of having a home, having a cooked meal each day, having transport to a place of work or to a park fades. I cannot remember what it feels like to have human contact and I think people stare often at me when I try to become human again.
Paragraphs blur as much as the vision does. But hey just keep the investments going I guess since we will not be able to buy a mobility vehicle anymore it can be a prewake blowout and we could have cooked dinners from restaurants delivered at high cost (since most all takeaways have allergens) and then blow out of here. Why save when there is nothing left to save for right. Why care for a future that is denied to you.
I knew this report was coming but I prayed they would consider the pain they would inflict and have a plan to mitigate it. But in the report it is clear they had no plan to mitigate for the most vulnerable and poor or even those in middleclass. They did not even have plans for the changes for power infrastructure just blankly glossed over massive costs paid by residential consumers, massive taxpayer funding and more profits for power companies to get subsidies on maintenance work they put off and massive transmission network changes/charges. The report is so baseless in science, engineering and maths it is a joke and the charts are such a muppets work I doubt anyone who took high school maths was in charge of them. They have literally no analysis of the suggested policies, no costings, no research and consultation with stakeholders. Ah but they spent lots of money on branding which is only an insult to Maori whanau.
To know the consultation is a mere tick box effort but inaccessible to many of the most vulnerable and those who the policies would most affect... This is the let them eat cake stand they take. I cannot cook for myself and DHBs stripped young disabled food prep and bathing assistance, I am one of tens of thousands in this position and have been homeless for years and THIS FING CLIMATE REPORT AND WORK IS WHAT THE GOVT FUNDS?! CUTTING MORE DISABLED ACCESS TO THEIR COMMUNITIES IS WHAT THEY WANT TO PUSH THROWING BILLIONS TO FURTHER CUT US DOWN?! How about letting the disabled have access to work, access to homes (most not accessible to even enter), access to their communities and then they could buy cooked food before wasting billions on measures that only seek to strip disabled access and transport. We could pay for it ourselves if only we had work and often we have more tech and engineering knowledge to know that an exponential increase in EV sales is taking the piss esp when the govt knows most kiwi families have less than 10k saved ready to throw away on new cars many cannot even enter the vehicles at all anyway like us. The report writers are actively harming NZ society and a danger to us all.
They must be stopped in these policies because they cannot learn, will not mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable and are a danger to all NZders (if not a deadly danger to the most vulnerable). Please please help make them stop. I don't want to lose what little is left, all we have my close family, whanau, friends and the many hundreds of others in the community like me. Most of them cannot submit and cannot speak, many cannot even read the site itself. Please can you speak for us in the submission. It is beyond us to even access most consultation sites, when access has been denied to us.
He solution is at hand.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
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