Hard News: The climate changed
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I wonder if the graphic might be useful.
PDF link below
our-atmosphere-and-climate-2017-at-a-glance-poster.pdfSome good news tucked away about ozone levels dropping :)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Some good news tucked away about ozone levels dropping :)
Hell yes. The climate challenge is far greater, but it shows that things can be done.
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Carol Stewart, in reply to
Some good news tucked away about ozone levels dropping :)
That was due to swift and concerted global action in the form of the Montreal protocol. It was also a much simpler problem (than AGW) to solve in that it was largely a matter of product substitution.
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Pacific peoples who culturally define themselves through their land, are already beginning to lose that land.
A few weeks ago I was in Fiji with a colleague, running a workshop at Creating Futures, a conference on Pasifika mental health issues. Our workshop was on post-disaster cultural heritage archiving and communication, off the back of our experiences of developing the earthquake archive CEISMIC. There were about 50 mental health professionals there, from nine Pacific nations. We began by defining what would represent disaster for their people, and with the exception of tsunamis, the concerns for the Pacific nations delegates were all climate-change related. What struck me forcefully, was the clear-eyed way they faced the inexorable reality of what was coming towards them. For everyone it was a case of when: when seawater inundates their arable land and destroys sources of fresh water; when desertification prevents farming; and when the next category 5 cyclone causes even more damage. The stories from the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati were particularly harrowing. Among the solutions being developed was buying up parcels of land on other islands in order to have a bolt hole. Whatever we achieve by 2050 will be too late for these lowest emitting, most affected victims of the damage we have wrought on the planet. Moral responsibility for our Pasifika neighbours involving more than just supplying bolt holes—language, society and culture needs to be saved also.
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How are the government going to make this happen, though?
Are they going to persuade/mandate Wellington Region Council to retain the trolleybus network?
How are they going to get the power industry to reverse their decision to keep Huntly open until 2022?
How are they going to stop Auckland (and Wellington's) car-based sprawl against the widespread delusion that the only way to make housing affordable is to build on fields dozens of kilometres from the city centre?
Are they going to make air ticket prices reflect the impact of air travel so people don't fly across the country like they're going to the shops?
And are they going to tell Paul Eagle and his mates that we don't need a motorway to Wellington Airport, just because it's in his electorate and some traffic planner years ago drew SH1 as ending there?
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linger, in reply to
ozone levels dropping
levels of ozone-depleting chemicals dropping; not quite the same thing! But yes, a welcome long-term development.
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How is the air up there?
https://www.space.com/17683-earth-atmosphere.html -
Russell Brown, in reply to
levels of ozone-depleting chemicals dropping; not quite the same thing! But yes, a welcome long-term development.
Indeed.
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I just went to a seminar at Victoria University in which the speakers Jonathan Boston and Judy Lawrence considered how to legislate and pay for the amelioration of climate change. It is expensive to rehouse people and build new infrastructure. Do we want an EQC or ACC model or something else? Here is their paper.
http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/publications/WP/WP17-05-Climate-change-adaptation.pdf -
Katharine Moody, in reply to
Thanks, will read.
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Kiwiiano, in reply to
To be fair, trolley buses are an unsightly mess. We’d be far better off to have electric buses that top up their batteries every time they stop at a bus stop from the coils buried below, picking up enough charge to make it a few stops beyond. The fact they are available yet is an opening for a bright young lad.
My other grump is the claim we have too many old cars. We have too many cars that are way bigger than the 50cc/adult passenger minimum requirement.
Or not enough EVs. -
John Farrell, in reply to
An induction coil large enough to charge a bus effectively would fry anyone who walked over it with anything metallic. Also - what cars do you class as old? 1990s?
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Lara,
evenironmengt
:D
But yes, very pleased at the policy.
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Kiwiiano, in reply to
Well, in terms of their carbon footprint, it was noted that the original VW Beetles hd a lower gas consumption per km than the new ones, because they were a lot lighter and had a lot less 'extras'. True, without all the side intrusion bars and reinforced passenger compartments they aren't as safe but....
If you go back to the 50cc/adult passenger, the vast majority of vehicles are hopelessly over-powered on the off-chance they may have to take a trailer-load to the transfer station once every couple of months or 'need' seating for 7 adults.
The predictions are that within a few years the convergent technologies of autonomous electric vehicles may see all our ICEs reduced to museum pieces. Quote "Your current car may well be the last one you will ever own!" That roll-over, which could take only a decade or so, should knock a dent in our national carbon footprint.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
...the vast majority of vehicles are hopelessly over-powered on the off-chance...
My little Mazda 323's speedo dial goes up to 240kph!!
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
My little Mazda 323's speedo dial goes up to 240kph!!
Goodness me, perhaps best not to skite about that. According to the late A.K. Grant, the Mazda 323's great advantage is that it doesn't "excite the envy of the proletariat".
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Alfie, in reply to
My little Mazda 323’s speedo dial goes up to 240kph!!
That’s most impressive Ian.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
because they cost so bloody much for anyone without a gold card to ride.
And isn't that the opposite of what should be the case - given non-Gold Card holders are (in the main) using the transport to facilitate productive activity (work) - whereas Gold Card holders are likely using it for consumptive activity.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Gold Card holders are likely using it for consumptive activity.
aaah - the Pulmonary Pullman!
:- )
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nzlemming, in reply to
just because it's in his electorate and some traffic planner years ago drew SH1 as ending there?
Is Eagle pushing that? I would have thought Annette taught him better. It's a RONS, of course. Once upon a time, SH1 ended at the ferry terminal and the ferry was considered part of it for the duration of the trip.
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linger, in reply to
Given that SH1 continues south from Picton, that’s still the most logical interpretation of it. Though the Interislander (but not other ferry services) is also technically a continuation of the main trunk railway line.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Have read that paper, Hilary. Thanks for the link – very thought provoking and I don’t disagree with them that some sort of NZSF/EQC-like funding instrument is going to likely be needed to address the effects of CC.
The point I’d make however is that they place the emphasis on the use of this proposed fund for managed retreat/relocation of coastal assets – and I think this needs further consideration.
In many cases, I’d say that where private assets subject to SLR are concerned, that those will (and should to my mind), be left to the market (i.e., ongoing lower market pricing for those assets) and private insurers (retreat by them from that market and/or re-pricing of risk should they choose to participate in insuring coastal properties).
Additionally, I believe regulation should provide for owners of seafront private property to build their own coastal defences at their own cost on their own property boundaries – should they wish to take on that cost and that risk. The NZCPS (and hence planning/plans written under it) discourages the protection of private assets in the coastal environment. It should not – otherwise, you get this type of argument that compensation for the need to relocate (as a result of a plan for managed retreat that disadvantages the private property owner) should be publicly funded (which is effectively what these authors are arguing).
As they point out, SLR is a slow-moving hazard. I’d be concerned if wider society started planning for compensation associated with relocation of private assets from coastal hazards. I forsee so many costs associated with the relocation of public infrastructure that will likely overwhelm the need for public funding in future. And more to the point, many of these public assets under threat from climate change aren’t SLR threats, but rather they relate to the CC effects on rainfall patterns – and they are happening now.
The Manawatu Gorge being a prime example. Also, when you think of the Wellington storm event that closed both the rail line and SH2 at the Hutt Valley – the highway flooding arose from a freshwater stream arrester blowing out at Korokoro as a result of the record volume of rainfall in such a short space of time. Damage from storm surge to the rail line was minor in terms of a cost comparison. In simple terms, I suspect changes in rainfall patterns will ‘get us’ before encroachment from the sea does.
Sea defences have been relatively effective all around NZ for many, many years – and SLR is slow-moving and predictable, whereas these rainfall/flooding events are sudden and often unpredictable. Retreat from coastal hazard is in many ways far more costly, in both human/social as well as monetary terms, than defence. The authors don’t seem to acknowledge that.
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Key biographer John Roughan confuses climate with weather in a misguided Herald rant.
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There was one other sector that frustrated out commentators: agriculture. The farming lobby – and its intransigent press, which remains stubbornly outside the mainstream – continues to resist reform or, in many cases, even acknowledge a roblem.
Another sector causing frustration: coastal real estate owners who'll protect their valuations at any cost, even when it means the censorship of critical public data.
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