by frog
Green Party candidate Gareth Hughes has published a call on Scoop for a Green New Deal here in NZ, citing similar plans overseas:
In the 1930s President Roosevelt termed his economic plan to lift the U.S. out of the Great Depression the ‘New Deal’ and now in the twenty-first century environmental commentators are calling for a similarly ambitious project with sustainability as its focus. The Green New Deal concept is a response to the climate, credit, food and fuel crises. It aims for large investments in renewable energy, technology and jobs and a new alliance between environmentalists, government and business. What would a Green New Deal look like, how would we modify one for New Zealand and do we have any hope in hell of seeing one soon?
George Monbiot appropriately asks: are we going to be the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?
The United Nations’ Environment Program has been leading the call and it envisions a Deal that will mobilise the global economy towards investments in clean technologies and natural infrastructure such as forests and soils, promoting real economic growth, combating climate change and triggering an employment boom. It says the five sectors likely to generate the biggest transition in terms of economic returns, environmental sustainability and job creation are:
* Clean energy and clean technologies, including recycling;
* Rural energy, including renewables and sustainable biomass;
* Sustainable agriculture, including organic agriculture;
* Ecosystem infrastructure;
* Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation;
* Sustainable cities, including planning, transportation and green building.In the U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed creating five million new jobs by investing $150 billion over the next ten years in clean energy projects.
For many environmentalists, myself included, the future need not be seen as doom and gloom, but rather a nice, bright green. There is still an opportunity for everyone already here, as well as generations to come to enjoy fulfilling and prosperous lives.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Fri, December 12th, 2008
Tags: aotearoa, climate change, gareth huges, new deal, scoop
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
What would a Green New Deal look like, how would we modify one for New Zealand and do we have any hope in hell of seeing one soon?
My money’s on Key and Hide spending the next term feigning environmental concern and mouthing platitudes, while bulldozing through antigreen old-deal policies.
We’ve elected the outgoing Bush administration!
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Well, that is exactly what Clark and Labour did last time. Me thinks the Green party is out of step here.
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‘Well, that is exactly what Clark and Labour did last time. ‘
Probably True..
‘It aims for large investments in renewable energy, technology and jobs and a new alliance between environmentalists, government and business.’
Maybe it’s time for the Greens to try even harder to work with the blue round table.. If Rodders can go on public TV and pledge support for entrenching Maori seats then anything’s possible.
The two biggest sectors of NZ’s economy are agriculture and tourism.. both heavily reliant on the green image and reality. Surely the ‘new alliance’ is achievable.?
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sweetdisorder Says:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
>Well, that is exactly what Clark and Labour did last time.
which of the following did Labour do?
* Clean energy and clean technologies, including recycling;
* Rural energy, including renewables and sustainable biomass;
* Sustainable agriculture, including organic agriculture;
* Ecosystem infrastructure;
* Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation;
* Sustainable cities, including planning, transportation and green building.
I can’t think of a single one that they made progress on.
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kahikatea
sorry, I wasn’t very clear. My comment was in response to XYY. Yes Labour talked lots about the environment but did nothing. Will be very similar with the Nats. Difference now is that we are in a global depression, where some things need to take come first, others later on. Labour had the best opportunity for a generation and blew it. If it is a choice between the economy and the environment, nats will pick the economy nine times out of ten.
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sweetdisorder – wrong. from the point of view of the environment, nothing has changed. We march on, as before, ignoring the threat of environmental degradation. Remaining true to the mission (albiet in the background) the Greens.
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I think under the current government, any funding for environmental study will be dependent on showing how it would either impact on the economy and or grow the economy. Last government, just change economy for global warming. Best alter all those grant applications eh!?.
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>>from the point of view of the environment, nothing has changed.
You’ll wake up eventually…..
Where is the money for your Kyoto schemes? It is not there. And it will not be there for a long time.
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Be fair on Labour. After considerable pushing, they introduced a morritorium (sp?) on new gas and coal fired base load thermal electricity generation, with provision for energy security, i.e. a pretty weak restriction but still sending a signal. They also introduced the Biofuels Sales Obligation with very low initial percentages.
So National wins the election and sets about canning these within weeks, under urgency (if I have understood the news right). I can’t see anything urgent about these changes.
Trevor.
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I/b/b/p – they are not ‘our’ schemes. National signed NZ on to Kyoto and Labour ratified.
I woke up long ago.
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IceBaby,
I don’t care how important the economy is, the environment is more important. You can’t have an economy without an environment.
Basically, governments have to figure out a way to make the economy fit within the limits imposed by the environment. If they don’t there won’t be a world worth living in left.
Recognising the importance of the environment is the easy part. Coming up with solutions to the environmental problems facing humanity is not too difficult either. The difficult thing is coming up with solutions which the majority of people and governments agree to implement.
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It’s always about what the US chooses to do.
The new Guy says it’s gonna be a priority.
That is one hundred and ten thousand times better than NZ could ever dream of saving.
Now what you kin do about China???
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- “Barack Obama has proposed creating five million new jobs by investing $150 billion over the next ten years in clean energy projects.”
Note that whenever politicians (and green bloggers) claim that so many millions of “green jobs” would be created by their pie-in-the-sky schemes, such “jobs” are actually a cost, not a benefit.
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samiuela,
The economy and the environment are totally linked and cannot be seperated.
Without an economy to pump money in to “clean green” electricity generation, we would be burning coal.
You see if you have no money (no economy) you cannot build “clean green” power stations as a society, nor as an individual buy the electricity to heat your home (house or cave).
So you generate heat to keep warm by building a fire, burning anything that comes to hand (coal would be good).
That is just one example.
I’m sure you could think of many more. Start with sewerage disposal. Try that without an economy. Spread it over our little plot of land as fertiliser?
The ecomony (or money transfer to be more accurate) enables people to make changes to better their enviroment. Without it we would be back in the stone age burning coal.
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>>I don’t care how important the economy is, the environment is more important.
They can’t be separated.
We won’t be paying the fines, or indulging in the costs to prevent those fines, because the money simply isn’t there. Same goes for other countries.
The Green network of people is a very insular bubble. From what I can see, most people have shifted from worrying about what will happen with the termperature in 100 years time, and started worrying about how they are going to pay their mortgage in the new year. If you watch Google search volumes as closely as I do, you can see these trends being played out.
As I predicted two years ago, the environmental movement relies on a solid, booming economy. People can afford to be scared about the abstract (i.e. what will happen in 100 years) when they are well fed.
People have moved on to being scared about the present.
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are you seriously feeling optimistic..?
hah..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/global-boiling/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Funny thing – The USA and Europe are in the middle of the worst economic mess we have ever seen and yet…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081212/wl_nm/us_eu_climate
… and they come to the same contretemps we have here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/05/proposed-cow-gas-tax-ange_n_148682.html
The money isn’t all important Icebaby. It has an effect, but the people who focus on next week and next century seem to be set up that way genetically if anything. The focus doesn’t really change.
BJ
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Icebaby proposes that ‘because we can’t pay our fines’ – our negotiated Kyoto obligations, not only should we not pay but we should also keep on with the behaviour that attracted the fines! What a fine up-standing fellow you are, baby! And what an ethical party you support! It’s the perfect ‘out’ for the environmentally ignorant Tories.
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Yes, Phil. For starters, you left out the conclusion to that article:
“In the meantime, panic over methane hydrates is probably premature. “There is a tendency in some quarters to latch on to a catastrophism scenario,” she says. “That may sell newspapers, but it may not be the most responsible way to portray the science.”
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>>ut we should also keep on with the behaviour that attracted the fines!
So tell me where the money is going to come from?
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I think you are mistaking something.
Without an ecology, you cannot have any economy.
Without an economy and indeed without humans the ecology can still exist.
There is a dependency here. We should NOT be interpreting the ability to pay for more ecologically benign technology as being the same as having an ecology. Those are two different things.
The economy enables us to do things more efficiently.
The ecology enables us to have an economy at all.
BJ
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greenfly,
You again miss the point. If we dont have the money we cant buy carbon credits. Money comes from the economy.
What IceBaby is saying is that without an economy you dont have environmental control. So if the economy is going south, so is environmental control.
Could you play the ball, not the player?
BJ,
The money is important as we have to invest in infastructure to protect the environment. Without the money, new “cleangreen” power stations wont be build, not the public transport systems. Nor will the people have the money to utilise these environmental saving developments.
Have said all along that Kyoto is nothing but a money transfer from the poor to the poor via the rich.
Would rather see that billion dollars per annum spent on New Zealand infastructure than have it filtered (via Al Gore) to Russia.
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The ecology doesn’t require humans at all.
But we *have* humans. Can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
Humans demand to eat, be clothed, and be housed.
Being scared is optional.
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Icebaby
Scientists work through theory and experiment. They don’t offer certainty and the Methane in all forms is still problematical. The question of how much methane can be released, from where, and why is basically open, which is what the scientists are saying.
What is true is that the newspapers will sell “a catastrophe”, not the “small but real possibility of a catastrophe”.
AFAIK the odds are small but rising. The thermal spike we are driving ourselves is unusual and the feedback responses to it are almost entirely unknowable. We have to make decisions in the face of imperfect knowledge about the future and that IS what we have to do. Given the scale of the potential damage and the probability of it, what is it we should do?
STOP MAKING IT WORSE!!!
Thanks for your support
BJ
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>>STOP MAKING IT WORSE!!!
I’m not making it worse. I’m merely pointing out that Phil was being very selective about what he quoted from the article.
>>Given the scale of the potential damage and the probability of it, what is it we should do?
Perform a rain dance?
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From another thread:
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” – Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” – Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” – Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” – Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” – Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
You Greens REALLY so sure of your ground? Because it seems that a lot of people, who know a lot more about it than you do, – aint.
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Gerrit – I suggest that no matter what are ability to pay or not pay is, we should be actively and enthusiastically addressing the environmental issues, especially the warming resulting from the release of greenhouse gases. To call and end to that programme because of poverty is gutless.
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Greenfly
But if we can’t pay, we can’t pay. Like a poor man at a solar shop, he’s not going to be walking away with a new heating system. He doesn’t have the cash.
We have ten years of deficits projected. The Greens had their chance during the last nine years, and that chance has now gone. It is telling the Greens chose a social agenda over an environmental one during much of that time.
Meanwhile, there are major cracks appearing in your version of the science (see my post above)
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IceBaby
You must know that the Greens are not anymore an environmental party, but a socialist one. ‘green’ policies are just more electable that socialist ones.
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I do know that, sweetdisorder, but many of the followers appear to be under a spell of some kind
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Blue Ice – the ‘poor man’ in the solar shop would be wise to go home and see if there are any opportunities to turn off any of his appliances that might be wasteful. He would no doubt be grateful for the Warm Homes project that has fitted out his house with insulation that has reduced his heating bills significantly , as well as improved his health and reduced his doctor’s bills at the same time. He’ll be thankful that he installed power-saving lightbulbs too, in earlier times, because he is saving there as well. Having no money doesn’t preclude action to reduce wastage and costs, does it. as a country, we can do the same. Throwing up our hands and bleating ‘too expensive to jump’ is gutless and those who promote it, likewise.
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Greenfly,
Here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about: tinyurl.com/58qrpk
“State-owned electricity supplier Genesis has alarmed the new Government by serving notice of 9 per cent price rises a day after an emergency restraint plea from Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard”
Now, what happens next in a tight economy facing ten years of deficits?
Where do you think the money is going to go? It ‘aint going to Russia, and it ‘aint going to expensive, green low-output power generation schemes.
And that’s just one fundamental economic pressure. Think food, housing, health, lower earnings from trade. Something is going to give, and that something will be abstract arguments on the worlds temperature in 100 years time.
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Icebaby
One of those guys is a Meteorologist/Statistician… not a scientist.
The answer is yes, we are really certain. We have seen “cracks appearing” in the science since AGW was first made a public issue back in the 1980′s
AGW is still standing and most of the original sceptics are not. Some of their broken arguments keep appearing though
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee
Well we know it has to be longer than a solar cycle Dr Gee.. which makes it longer than the flattened bit we see now has been, and given the rather strong solar deficit we see currently can you explain why it hasn’t actually gotten all that much colder?
A new generation has appeared, and more blogospheric smoke and mirrors are being used to keep us from doing anything, never mind anything useful.
You are doing your part Icebaby, and you must be ecstatically happy in spreading all that happiness about. After all “ignorance is bliss”
As for Kyoto… Gerrit…. I’d take a negative on the payment but take the equivalent amount in carbon tax directly invested back into the infrastructure to reduce the carbon loading. It’s what we should have done 15 years ago, but I’d declare it even and find a way to make it work and it would, for dead certain, hurt. I’d probably extend the terms so that the hurt remained manageable but I find people like Icebaby , with their amoral greed and obstructionism to be totally and without a doubt one of the least pleasant things on this blog. Should have acted SOONER so we’d have had to do it with less pain.
respectfully
BJ
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>>see if there are any opportunities to turn off any of his appliances that might be wasteful.
There aren’t. If he turns off that one bar heater in winter, he is dead.
>>Throwing up our hands and bleating ‘too expensive to jump’ is gutless and those who promote it, likewise.
It was an example of unaffordability. You come up with the numbers for the economy, and I might listen to you. From what Treasury has published, we’ll be struggling to keep the fundamentals going, let alone the expensive options you seek.
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>>You are doing your part Icebaby, and you must be ecstatically happy in spreading all that happiness about.
BJ, I used to take AGW as a given, because I hadn’t thought much about it. It wasn’t until I saw Al Gores film that I thought “hang on a minute, this sounds like alarmist nonsense”. The logic was so bad, I thought I’d better dig a bit deeper.
So, I’ve read a lot of science and opinion I do not understand. There are very highly qualified people on both sides of the debate, arguing some very esoteric stuff. The shape of that debate – the *level* of disagreement – leads me to sit on the fence and wait for them to fight it out, until things become clearer.
That is an honest position.
In the meantime, I do my bit to keep the environment clean and pleasant. As I always have done…
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BJ,
Totally agree as long as the carbon taxation is transparent, has targetted outcomers AND is guaranteed to come off as soon as the targetted outcomes are achieved.
Have a feeling it will be like the petrol tax. Was designed to improve roading, etc. but once on, portions were diverted to any social spend through the consolidated fund. We could end up with carbon taxation that does not have the desired effect of improving the environment.
greenfly
If you are taxing people 100% of earnings to pay for Kyoto, you weont have anyone working PLUS still be unable to meet the payments.
I guess with noone working the greenhouses gasses will be automatically reduced. I guess that is a good outcome?
You sprinkle words like “gutless” with abandoned easy. I suggest that to limply follow the Kyoto agreement and suck money out of New Zealand is in fact “gutless”.
Real guts cames when we face up to the reality that Kyoto is a dead duck and we tax carbon emmisions to a level that is SUSTAINABLE (good Green word) for the New Zealand economy and changes NEW ZEALANDS emmisions for the better.
That is where the future lies.
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The New Deal did not work, The U.S. economy was not lifted out of the great depression by the New Deal for the whole of the 1930′s.
You also think that government spending is somehow ‘investment’, the government must either plunder savings of real investments by borrowing or tax in order to pay for such initiatives. The government is not a producer of resources it can only ever reallocate resources. For every dollar spent by government it must take at least as much from society disregarding deadweight losses, for every job that the government makes it takes away from society at least the resources necessary to create another job. It is just a merry go round with the best possible case a net welfare loss on society of zero but never a welfare gain. The government can not possibly create economic growth, since money does not grow on trees nor is wealth created by the reserve bank printing notes. If you can understand that then you can understand that the New Deal actually deepened the great depression by the massive reallocation of resources away from real production.
If there is anything the government needs to do in these tough times it is to do nothing and get out of the way of real people, real productive capacity and real prosperity.
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BabyPete,
“You come up with the numbers for the economy, and I might listen to you. ”
QED
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Gerrit -’we tax carbon emmisions to a level that is SUSTAINABLE (good Green word) for the New Zealand economy and changes NEW ZEALANDS emmisions for the better.’ – agreed. Damn the torpedoes – if the rest of the world is going to succumb to that dratted global warming, blowed if I’m going to give more than I want to! I’m not going to make a sacrifice for the greater good, hurrumph, hurrumph!
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Sorry NoWatermelon
The causes of the Great Depression are more appropriately considered in terms of an Austrian analysis, but I doubt that there any evidence that the New Deal ( in terms of government spending ) made the problem deeper of Debt-based Fractional-reserve banking worse.
The part that made it worse was this bit –
…a series of Acts of Congress and executive orders Roosevelt and Congress suspended the gold standard for United States currency. Under the gold standard, the Federal Reserve was prevented from lowering interest rates and was instead forced to raise rates to protect the dollar….
Which made our currency into a Debt-Based, Fractional-Reserve Fiat currency. Which is even worse than the thing that had caused the economy to seize up in the first place.
The spending programs of the government, being profoundly inflationary, didn’t do any significant damage to an economy that was deep in deflation.
The problem with the economic system that gives the banks their massive advantage over the rest of us is that once seized up in deflation, there is NO willingness on the part of any person to actually START a new business. Nor any willingness or ability on the part of customers to purchase anything either.
The Keynesian strategy of dealing with this is in fact inflationary and your objection that money doesn’t grow on trees is well understood in these quarters, BUT, short of a revolutionary revision of the basis of both the currency and the banking system (which I regard as the correct solution), I submit that it is the best of the possible solutions. I doubt that it is going to be particularly effective but absent the currency distortion alluded to above, I doubt that it is going to be as bad as doing nothing would be.
Your error in relying on “do nothing and get out of the way of real people, real productive capacity and real prosperity” is that IT will not work until the existing system of banks and money is utterly destroyed. IMHO this would lead to anarchy and a still more fundamental breakdown of society.
The cost quickly gets out of hand.
However, I don’t disagree greatly with the rest of the proposition. The “New Deal” will never be as good an answer as taking money creation out of the hands of the bankers and forcing it to be backed by something realistic that forces businesses, bankers and governments to think in terms of the laws of thermodynamics rather than the imaginary realms of economists.
I tend to favor backing the currency with KwH of work. Choosing something else is also possible. Feel free to discuss.
respectfully
BJ
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greenfly,
So we should pay for all Kyoto commitment even if it means 100% of New Zealand tax take is going to pay for it?
Sometimes I think you are deliberately obtuse. What I’m saying is we can only do what we can afford. If that is not enough what are your expectations?
Should we collapse New Zealand society so that the “greater good” (whatever that entails) is met?
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Gerrit – If you can show me where I’ve said or indicated that 100% of our tax take should go to the Kyoto obligations, or that we should collapse New Zealand society, I’ll …eat my hat! Nah! but I have no idea why you attribute those ideas to me, or why you find my straightfoward statements obtuse. I think there is a need to do more than you indicate you are willing to do, toward a global effort to save us all from a thrashing from a rambunctious climate.
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Of course, instead of paying for our Kyoto obligations, we could buy wind turbines, geothermal plant or Pelamis wave-powered generators and cut down on our emmissions from coal, gas and oil powered generation – and improve our balance of payments as well.
Trevor.
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greenfly,
Let me try and explain.
You ascertain we should meet New Zealands Kyoto agreement at all cost. Yes?
I said (not you, me) if that takes 100% of our taxes, what is the point.
You said “To call and end to that programme because of poverty is gutless.”
So you would have New Zealand in poverty to maintain our Kyoto payments, Yes?
I say we should do all we can to SUSTAINABLY to New Zealands bit for global climate change. To cut the proverbial nose off to spite a sorry face is not good for anyone.
PS. Had a boat called Rambunctious once. Had to explain to a lot of people what the word meant. That word is not used very often anymore. Just love the way it rolls of the tongue.
Not sure if it applies to climate though, as it means unpredictable, boisterous and disorderly. Cant see paying Kyoto payments to Russia will temper the climate any.
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Gerrit – you draw too long a bow. Our obligations to ‘Kyoto’ result from our emissions. Emit less, pay less. Who would call to knobble the country in order to honour a debt? No one. Who would call to reneg on a signed agreement? No one (should). I agree with your call for a sustainable solution to the dilemma. What mechanisms do you propose?
I’m reminded of the experience of wallpapering. It’s a seemingly impossible task – matching patterns, fitting to edges, keeping plumb, but it can always be done, a little sliding, turning, tucking and cursing, and the wall is covered!
Too-hard jobs completed by a series of tweaks and creative adjustments. That’s our way foward with climate change. Not capitulation. This present Government seems determined to empty the tool kit, one tool at a time.
You don’t feel that the world’s climate will become rambunctious? I’m surprised!
As a small boy, I kept a rooster called ‘Chapoltapeck’ I’m pretty confident, despite your impressive knowledge of words, you’ll not be able to track that one anywhere (the spelling probably isn’t correct. I’m pretty sure it was of Central American origin)
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greenfly – too easy for history buffs. Particularly those like myself who have toured the US Southwest and Mexico. I remember it as a battle and a castle in Mexico. Wikipee tells me it means “at the grasshopper hill”, which in fact is where the castle I remember happens to be.
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>>Emit less, pay less.
It’s not that simple. Emitting less could be incredibly expensive, especially when it comes to cows. i.e. do we need to reduce teh size of the herd? If so, what does that do to our trade figures? If there is less money coming in, how are you going to pay for health? People die.
Meanwhile, New Zealand, as a country, makes no discernible difference to the worlds temperature.
You might be prepared to pay a lot of (other people’s) money to achieve nothing, but the rest of us aren’t.
Thankfully, the Greens are irrelevant and National & Rodney get to make the call.
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Greenfly
As a former US Naval officer Chapultepec is a familiar bit of military history as well. Appropriate for a rooster.
Gerrit… I am not particularly fond of the idea of hurting New Zealand in pursuit of our obligations, but there are some New Zealanders I would not object to having put at the front of the line when the bill comes due.
This bill is NOT a necessary bill, the obligation did not HAVE to be difficult to meet. Blithering blathering idiots who refused any effort to do anything anywhere for the past decade, have made this molehill into a mountain that is larger, steeper, slipperier and more dangerous than it should have been.
Not just National and ACT … a fair few of them wear labour’s colours. There are even a couple of “Green’s” I should like to tear a stripe off…
respectfully
BJ
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Icebaby
“COULD” be incredibly expensive means that we do it in ways that are not.
If cows are difficult we save more elsewhere. Like by insulating buildings (Oh yeah, that was really a smart thing to get rid of, wasn’t it ? )
The point is that we have NOT started, we are NOT planning to start, we’ve got NOBODY working on the problem and the only thing you can say about the cost is that you DON’T know how much it might be.
The real point here is that negative nationals… National and Rodney ( and you ) aim to do nothing, and that is an all too easy target for any government.
Particularly a New Zealand government of ANY flavour.
BJ
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>>even a couple of “Green’s” I should like to tear a stripe off…
There certainly is a credibility gap.
If reducing the earths temperature is as “mission critical” and urgent as is being made out, then you’d think a Green Party would be 100% focused on that mission, as opposed to the agenda they have been pursuing for the past nine years – social policy. This approach has also alienated a lot of potential support, and reduced the options for coalition.
If the Greens don’t come across as being totally focused on this issue, then why should the rest of us be?
It’s not just the “single issue party” question, it’s about the message that comes across when *priorities* appear mixed, and alliances i.e. Labour fixed.
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frog and bj – “too easy for history buffs” – I guess so, but as small boy, I had little interest in history (especially Mexican!) so the name (thanks for the correct spelling btw) came through a different portal. Perhaps a little too obscure
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“For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill”
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Frog is the history buff… me, I had to know something about it to deal with the Jarheads.
BJ
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IBBP -’It’s not that simple. Emitting less could be incredibly expensive’
Hilarious!
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Greenfly,
Your complete lack of comprehension on this issue isn’t surprising….
How much do you intend to spend achieving absolutely nothing, just so you can say you’re doing “something”?
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blue – so, it’s NO to Kyoto? Not concerned about vilification from the international community for failure to honour your commitments or the splendid leverage you will give our trading competition through becoming a ‘brown’ economy? Very cavalier of you.
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BJ
Re
>
Blithering blathering idiots who refused any effort to do anything anywhere for the past decade, have made this molehill into a mountain that is larger, steeper, slipperier and more dangerous than it should have been.
Not just National and ACT
>
Given it was the last decade you have to put it all at the feet of the Labour, NZ1st, United Future, Jim’s the man and Green Parties, surely!
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BJ Addendum to make the point
>
The point is that we have NOT started, we are NOT planning to start, we’ve got NOBODY working on the problem and the only thing you can say about the cost is that you DON’T know how much it might be.
>
2 uses of the word “we” and the single use of the word “we’ve” I interpret to mean the Labour, NZ1st, United Future, Jim’s the man and Green Parties as they were the ones “in Government” for the last 9 years. With regard to “the only thing you can say about the cost is that you DON’T know how much it might be” I accept your statement as there was no instruction given by the Labour, NZ1st, United Future, Jim’s the man and Green Parties when they were “in Government” to the appropriate public servants to determine what those costs were going to be.
Or did I mis-experience the last nine years?
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>>concerned about vilification from the international community
Who have skewered it in their favor. If we are to continue to participate, it’s time we did likewise.
Countries are not going to take it seriously. They have no choice. They don’t have the money to do anything.
Obama can talk as much as he likes about a green economy, but he’s got no money.
Suggest you listen to Peter Schiff:
youtube.com/watch?v=gUgkMa_lQwc&feature=related
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Greenfly
Re
>
Not concerned about vilification from the international community for failure to honour your commitments
>
Nope. Sticks and stones and all that! Circumstances change and so should policy.
re
>
Not concerned about . . . . .the splendid leverage you will give our trading competition through becoming a ‘brown’ economy?
>
Nope. The demand for our main international trade goods is huge and will not die in the foreseeable future. Rhetoric, on the other hand, we have plenty to export but no market for!
We should never have been a party to Kyoto in the first place, it was established to address the challenges raise by the Big Boys who created vast pollution (Europe, USA, China and Brazil). I doubt you could find 25 people ‘on the street’ in those countries who would know what Kyoto was basically about, never mind whether or not NZ was part of it.
Too many New Zealanders have an over-inflated perspective on ‘our’ place in the world. We are a little blip at the bottom of the world with the population of a reasonable sized city (Manchester, Chicago, Brasilia, Sydney, Frankfurt, etc.,) and a reputation in the United Kingdom for affordable lamb ready for the table; not as good as Welsh but much cheaper. As far as anything else goes, some (very few) know we have a decent national rugby team, and some (though fewer still) know we have a half decent tradition of competitive sailing. Fin.
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Well, I’m skewered
Is that a ‘No’ then? ‘No’ to global warming as well? Ain’t life simple for you naysayers!
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DaveS
I did I think, make it inclusive enough, no? The fact that National was not in government at the time doesn’t give them a free ride as theirs were the loudest (if not most effective) voices saying not to do anything. The Business Round Table, which has nothing much to do with us, is one more objectionable objector.
No Dave, I am QUITE sure I made it clear that I included just about everyone in my indictment, including some in my own party.
So your highlighting of ONE side of that indictment simply confirms the one-sidedness of your own view. Not that we really needed it, but thanks for making the lack of balance in your viewpoint crystalline for those who drop by to visit us.
BJ
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IceBaby
Obama has as much money as he is willing to print, and he has a Keynesian bent. Roubini is not going to let up, but there is a lot more to the American “attitude” than you seem to understand. It isn’t just that we’ll try anything no matter how stupid… it is that we have a certain … stubborn streak about getting things DONE, which appears to be the reverse to what exists here.
You misjudge the USA greatly if you think that little things like a broken economic system and thieving bankers are likely to stop them from pushing and working to fix their part of the climate change problem. Will they succeed? I doubt it… they have had the worst government in their history for the past 8 years digging them into a deeper hole than we’ve seen since the 1930′s or possibly deeper THAN the 1930′s judging from the decline in the S&P , but that sort of trouble didn’t stop Roosevelt from spending money and putting people to work on public infrastructure. They are damned likely to TRY. Not like your crybaby wailing about how there’s no money now.
As for New Zealand… fixing the houses we’ve got would be a GOOD place to start. It’s too bad that our current “esteemed leaders” got this bug up their bum about actually trying to do anything at all.
BJ
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>>Obama has as much money as he is willing to print,
Therein lies the problem. Hyperinflation.
>>stubborn streak about getting things DONE, which appears to be the reverse to what exists here.
I don’t misjudge the US attitude. I admire it. But is fueling the same fire a sensible course of action? I agree with Schiff – the problem is with fundamentals, and until those issues are addressed, then the US will continue on a downward spiral.
>>fixing the houses we’ve got would be a GOOD place to start
It wasn’t in Labours budget, so it was all just hot air anyway.
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IceBaby
There will be inflation and it is likely to be hyper, before this is finished, but the change to the rules that would FIX it is beyond any current administration. What is required and may happen given the mood of the man on the street at this point, is an “Andrew Jackson Moment”
“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.”
…. and then what is basically a revolutions in which the bankers are stuffed in a bottle, the currency is tied to something sensible and the economy gets rebooted with a new economic operating system. Sort of like pushing a Ubuntu disk into a Windows machine.
The economic question is whether it can happen.
My point was that the downward spiral is not entirely relevant to what will be done with respect to CO2 and climate change. You can’t just throw up your hands and say “Its all too hard” . That’s what was done years ago and done by Labour as well…. and it was wrong then too.
WE have to act. Not talk more. We have to do what New Zealanders hate to do more than anything I can imagine. We have to actually make decisions and they have to be as close to right as we can make them, and we have to act.
Not discuss it more. Not muck about with amateurs re-examining evidence scrutinized by all the scientists on the planet already. Not going on about Transmission Gully for 25 years without driving a stake.
I am not playing favorites… I am p!ssed off at everyone. Particularly those back in the USA who squandered good times and fed the bankers every cent possible, rather than what they deserved (a diet they would have found unpalatable in the extreme).
BJ
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>>We have to actually make decisions
I agree, and I agree with your point about NZ being a talk fest. It didn’t used to be this way.
I think Key has got his head screwed on. He’ll do what is necessary to keep New Zealand in food and shelter, and will meet our international obligations, but he is NOT going to spend billions on pointless feel-good exercises.
That is a decision.
The rubber has hit the road. I’m hoping they focus on energy independence, and ignore arbitrary Kyoto money-go-round nonsense. There is NO roi in that for NZ, and no benefit for the planet either.
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IceBaby
Whether you care to believe it or not, the Green party, were it to have power, would not spend billions on “feel-good” decisions. Your belief that this is so is one of the reasons you are so godd@m annoying. Unknown to most people on the right, there is a fairly solid sensible side to the party.
It is unfortunate that it is a side seldom made public by the media.
BJ
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Ice is sure Key will do what is necessary to ‘meet our international obligations’. Great! Some sense at last. bj – your call for reason from IB will be wasted, I’m confident in saying. He’s shown no signs of balance in his diatribes to date. He is, sadly. typical of his ilk.
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>>He’s shown no signs of balance
Does “showing balance” mean “agreeing with your position”?
You’ve yet to demonstrate a connection between the New Zealand taxpayer spending billions, and the global temperature decreasing by x.
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IB -’You’ve yet to demonstrate a connection’
The moment one New Zealander does one thing to reduce his or her greenhouse emissions (biking to work, rather than driving for example) there will be a measurable reduction in the global temperature (clue, a thermometer beside the engine block and one strapped to the frame of the bicycle will tell you what you need to know).
Does that show you that efforts by New Zealanders can affect the global temperature? Given that most balanced people would prefer to take actions like the one I describe, over handing over hard cash, there is enormous potential for us to reduce the bill considerably and make a measurable difference.
btw – I admire your fawning adulation of Key and your faith in his intentions. I haven’t been able to feel that way about anyone since I read my first Superman comic when I was 6!
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>>Does that show you that efforts by New Zealanders can affect the global temperature?
No. Pedantry will not win you this argument. We’re talking about significant difference, enough to stave off catastrophe. Anything less is not worth spending a cent on.
>>I admire your fawning adulation of Key
I’ll give him my trust until he does something I deem untrustworthy.
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I think it’s great that the left take part in the environmental movement. I just don’t see why they should dominate.
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Ice – your thinking is wooly, or at least the way in which you pose your questions is. Now you ask that New Zealand must make such a difference that we can (and I quote)
“stave off catastrophe”
Are you serious or is this an example of your wooly thinking?
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jh – the left don’t dominate, the Greens do and that is because they hold the environment in far higher regard than any other political group (unless you can point out a sector that does so more highly – I for one would be interested to hear about them).
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How come you have KL,SB, RN, CD KH. The fact is that the party is over loaded by the (greedy for power) left so normal types don’t want to join.
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Lets see what the Greens have to say about the latest diabolical ruling from the Environment court.
300 people in Morrinsville are about to lost their jobs because it “smells a bit sometimes”.
This is the sort of issue that people like Sue B should be up in arms about however I have the feeling it is not those in work she cares about helping, she is more interested in the low life who have never worked and have no intention of ever working.
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I’m still interested to hear about them (the greener-than-Green environmentalists you hinted at, jh.
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For a start Greenfly true Greens would give sustainability top priority and realise that this is all new territory requiring fresh thinking and would cast a wide net rather than letting one group dominate to the exclusion of others. The MP’s above (minus perhaps RN) are hardly heros of the masses and don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of ever being as they are unlikely to have had an original thought in the last thirty years.
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big bro Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Lets see what the Greens have to say about the latest diabolical ruling from the Environment court.
300 people in Morrinsville are about to lost their jobs because it “smells a bit sometimes”.
……………….
Ahhh! Limits to Growth BB!
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It is time to cast out your old left Greens: you have nothing to loose but your [(need to walk with)... like a blind person...rhythms] canes!
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Dear Police,
Keep an eye on them please.
Extremists are burrowing into the environmental movement and using it as a ruse to attack the system….. (no one listens to that sort so they have to be underhand).
Keep up the good work
Yours etc
Concerned member of the public.
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>>Ice – your thinking is wooly, or at least the way in which you pose your questions is. Now you ask that New Zealand must make such a difference that we can (and I quote)“stave off catastrophe”
Yes. If your reason for imposing taxes is to reduce global warming, then those taxes had better make a measureable difference to global temperature. If not, then what are we paying for?
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I’m still interested to hear jh, despite your weasly weaving. Can’t come up with the goods? Then think before you speak.
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I had a bit of a look at the list of groups that the Police have supposedly infiltrated and on the surface of it I cannot see why they would bother.
Hell some are even groups that I would be interested in joining although I suspect that to be a member you have to be a full on lefty.
Why should ones politics be a barrier when you are passionate about the end of battery farming and lab testing on animals?
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>>Sue B should be up in arms about
More unemployment = good. It keeps people dependent, it adds fuel to the fires of revolution. That is the endgame.
>>the Greens do and that is because they hold the environment in far higher regard
Aw, bless.
You’re young, aren’t you Greenfly…..
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The reason to impose taxes would be to change behaviour, I’d have thought. A well thought out tax system would allow each and every one of us (industry included – let’s not forget, corporations are people too) an opportunity to reduce (to zero, ideally) the amount we have to pay, through changing the things we do/use/consume/produce. Do you not see any sense in this approach at all BlueP ?
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Greenfly,
Any money spent has an opportunity cost. Unless you can demonstrate that the money spent on AGW will stave off catastrophe, then what is the point in paying it?
We’re not going to pay it just to make you feel good about yourself.
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Aw, bless.
Your message is garbled, aint it BlueP … …
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You’re avoiding my question.
If the tax doesn’t prevent AGW catastrophe, then why would we pay it?
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Taxing an activity doesn’t change behaviour, BP?
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To clarify Blue – the tax paid by New Zealanders should prevent AGW? All by our selves? With no help from anyone? That’s a big ask.
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Young and altogether intimidated…but that’s not a Bad thing.
The man(woman) is genuine, just lacks focus.
Multi-thousand dollar fines for truancy? A Behaviourial approach to Taxation – there is a most serious ww depression on – or did you miss it all somehow?
Hint: It won’t stay invisible…BP describes the tip of an iceberg I fear.
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BB says..
“Hell some are even groups that I would be interested in joining although I suspect that to be a member you have to be a full on lefty.”
I am a member of a group opposing factory farming. We hold a variety of political views (we even have someone who is a member of the sensible sentencing trust), and I can tell you BB that if you want to join, you would be VERY welcome.
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Why would we change our behavior if it doesn’t make a difference?
>>All by our selves? With no help from anyone?
If everyone was involved, we still would make no difference. The fact China isn’t involved makes any move we make utterly irrelevant. Then we look at the opportunity cost.
And that is high.
Looks like your scheme is dead in the water, Greenfly.
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kiore
I may well take you up on that
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Mark – I take it the ‘tip of an iceberg’ you describe BP as seeing is one that has floated here as a result of a warming ocean?
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Blue P. So it’s “full steam ahead, chaps, and damn the torpedoes!” Jolly good. That saves us a lot of unnecessary bother! Top Hole! Do pass your erudite thoughts on to Mr Key, BP. We can’t have the country making a dork of itself, joining an international movement to combat Climate Change, can we!
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Funny you should mention it; but after a lot of work I did get reasonably up to date maps of Antarctica – and it’s not all down to global warming (Greenland and the Arctic too). But yeah, if you’re sleeping on the Yacht one night – you might just get an unexpected knock from Jack Frost himself.
The Arctic is even more tragic…but that’s a story for a-nuther day…Peace etc mark
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# greenfly Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I’m still interested to hear jh, despite your weasly weaving. Can’t come up with the goods? Then think before you speak.
…………………..
Your asking for names of useful people who would qualify as green but wouldn’t fit into the intellectual black hole?
Two people that come to mind are Bruce Shepard and Matt Nolan (my impression). Being green is a rational position unless you are bought by (for instance) greed. What isn’t rational is linking green to the ideology of the old left.
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>>What isn’t rational is linking green to the ideology of the old left.
Shhhhh….the young things have been convinced the two are inseparable.
>>it’s “full steam ahead, chaps, and damn the torpedoes!”
We can only spend money on things that make a difference. To do anything else is immoral. Prove we make enough of a difference to justify the cost. If you cannot, your argument is dead in the water.
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So BluePeter, you would have us continue to pay increasingly high (over the long term) oil prices and getting nothing permanent for our money rather than buying more wind turbines, geothermal plant and Pelamis wave-powered generators so we don’t need to find 1 million litres of diesel oil a day to run Whirinaki?
Trevor.
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Trevor
Separate argument.
I’m all for developing alternative, local energy resources – unlike the Greens, who often block new hydro generation. It’s imperative we develop local power generation, because the power plant will be electric.
We could do so without participating in whatever tax rout the AGW crowd dreams up next. In fact, they may prevent us from doing it if we send the money offshore, or spend it on the wrong things. Rma objections, for starters.
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http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/16/sorry-deniers-hadley-center-and-wmo-say-2000s-are-easily-the-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history/
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