More on Climate Change Symposium
No Right Turn has a great summary of the morning events at Friday’s Climate Change Symposium (afternoon rundown to come), complete with links. Well worth a look. Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies has been great for hosting these events - the next one to look forward to is The International Economics of Climate Change Seminar on 18 October with Professor Michael Grubb, a leading international researcher on the economic policy dimensions of climate change and energy policy issues from Cambridge University.
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October 9th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
You are all going to DIE, not directly from climate change but from northern hemis invading this lovely country; If not we will all become brain damaged from the level of c02. We will have to wait for another election before our government does anything about it, when the bluegreens take power as this red government is so lame about doing anything real! labour is to concerned with its own/homo concerns to work more on the real world
I just hope greens look above their own egos and see whats best for nz’rs next election, and try to push for the same NOW! Like biofuel in every petrol station NOW!
October 9th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Ekstatek - Last I checked the mortality rate remained at 100%. We are all going to die… so your point is what?
BJ
October 10th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
I think that Ekstatek’s point is that climate change will cause people to die sooner than they otherwise would, possibly indirectly from mass movement of people and conflict. And that we in NZ might/will not be immune.
These points seem reasonable to me. I seem to recall Al Gore asking people to try to imagine the impact of 100 million refugees. It boggles my mind, not to mention the number of people who might move before refugee situations emerge.
But let’s hope that climate change effects don’t get so terrible. Actually, let’s not just hope - let’s do something about it …
October 10th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Ekstatek still is learning, in particular about the actual ownership of the “blue-green” initiative. It is, like almost everything else on that side of politics, owned by the moneyed interests and it is impossible for honest conservatives to actually control any part of it. I’ve seen this enough to know that while there are good and honest people among them, the party cannot be trusted but to do exactly what their bankers tell them. His point about labour is slightly in error, they are simply not a great deal different. Neither major party is really seriously about anything but the elections.
His point about mass movements and all that go with it, is answerable only by having a defence policy (you’d think we’d be done by now but we are still working on it, indeed I have to look at it again myself now).
He has mixed at least half a dozen issues into a toxic hostility that makes little headway against the realities we face. Labour is what it is, and National is what it is, and politics and economics “as usual” are the ordure of the day.
We can’t fix that if we only get 5% of the vote.
His tone is somewhat wanting. Maybe I should’ve pulled a bit sharper… but I’d rather not discourage him.
respectfully
BJ
October 11th, 2006 at 9:48 am
bjchip says:
“Neither major party is really seriously about anything but the elections.”
and then …
“We” (meaning the Green Party I assume) “can’t fix that if we only get 5% of the vote.”
… So BJ is critical of Labour for focusing too much on the next election, and (regularly) criticial of the Greens for not focusing enough?
October 11th, 2006 at 11:15 am
Ekstatek - your point about biofuels is interesting. As I understand it, Jeanette Fitzsimons is working with EECA to promote appropriate use of biofuels. EECA have been working to introduce technical standards and work is being done on a possible sales or blend requirement, don’t recall exactly. It might seem to be slow work, requiring the usual analysis and consultation, but it’s one of those things! There is info on the EECA website. The percentage of biofuel at the pump looks likely to be small, so it’s not going to be a magical solution in the short term. (But there is no one silver bullet to energy issues in any case.)
I have heard that high biofuel levels (globally) could end up posing land use issues around tropical rainforest destruction for palm oil production. This might be more of a long term issue that needs thought. I have heard that forest fires caused by rainforest clearance in SE Asia for palm oil is currently a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Palm oil is a common ingredient in a lot of food we buy - not sure if it should be! Although it is a plant oil, I believe that it’s high in saturated fat, but apparently it’s cheap. God knows how many people it’s killing from heart disease, not to mention the rainforest destruction.
BJ - I think that tone is an interesting subject. On one hand, it’s good when people are polite. On the other hand, if people are emotional about an issue it can be a good thing for everyone if they show that. It is information in its own right that people in a political party can appreciate.
Eredwen - I think that BJ was just noting above that the Greens have got around 5% of the vote. If he has previously expressed an opinion that the Greens should focus more on elections, then that may be a good point. I have no opinion on the matter myself. I’d note that optimal strategies may differ between parties. And that strong pragmatism may be criticised as lacking ethics; two edges of the same sword perhaps.
All the best.
October 15th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Exploitation and corruption surrounding Palm Oil is compound regional environment, habitat, human and indigenous rights as well the global matter of net contributoin to loss of forest sink/biodiversity.
Deforestation flooding disproportionatly affects local sustainablity destroying fertile plains, estuary and coastal fishing habitat. That’s not counting subsequent ‘fuel’ miles or the net energy return from Palm Oil agriculture all of which is currently subsidised by geo-carbon economics.
One need only follow the money trail
October 15th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
So BJ is critical of Labour for focusing too much on the next election, and (regularly) criticial of the Greens for not focusing enough?
Yes Eredwen, that’s a fair summary, but it leaves out the methods by which Labour manages its “focus” and some of the less savoury company both major parties keep.
———–
One of the things that is interesting is that the last information I had was that we will have to import biofuels in order to blend them into our petrol and diesel. This is surely going to be expensive. One would hope that we’d be getting ourselves positioned to refine some ourselves.
respectfully
BJ
October 16th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
I would be opposed to using imported biofuels. If it isn’t economic to grow them in NZ, well that tells us something important, surely…
Enough of the rape of the tropical countries! It’s been going on for the last couple of centuries, it gets a re-labelling and new marketing techiques and it gets called “globalization” and a market economy, but if it’s a matter of destroying rainforest on Borneo to grow palm oil for our cars and trucks, then it’s not the path to sustainable transport.