On the 27th of October, 2016, I attended two “Meet and Greet” public events with Green Party of Aotearoa co-leader and minister, Metiria Turei.
The turnout for these two events was abysmal and must have been disheartening for the organisers and the minister, with only a handful of people turning up to meet the co-leader.The turnout was simply appalling, but it got worse.
At the first event I counted 8 people excluding the Minister and ‘handlers'( one of whom lauded the “Progressive Barack Obama”, I pointed out that President Obama is currently bombing 7 countries, that the Pentagon is the single largest user of fossil fuels on the planet and that Obama is a functionary of the military industrial complex, he called that comment a conspiracy theory!! I additionally pointed out that the term “Conspiracy Theory” was coined by the C.I.A.).
At the second event there were only 5 people who bothered to turn up.This for the co-leader of a major political party! Alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear.
The purpose of me taking a 35 minute ferry ride across the Waitemata Harbour and a longer car drive across the congested city was to hand out flyers to the party faithful for my forthcoming presentation with Professor Guy McPherson at the Unitec campus in Auckland. My carbon footprint for the effort, for what little was achieved was enormous due to the poor turnout.
At the first meeting, I asked the minister to discuss with the party policy division the necessity and merits of declaring a planetary climate emergency, considering we are patently in the midst of one. I mentioned that NZ was the first country in the world where women ripped the right to vote, from the vice like grip of the patriarchy and that our nation had been a world leader in becoming the first nation to be declared nuclear free and that this presented a fantastic opportunity to lead from the front and set a global standard. The minister replied that we can’t tell everyone “That the world is going to hell in a hand basket, if we do, people will lose the will to act”. I find this position spurious, patronising and symptomatic of the failed system of not trusting members of the public with the truth. Anyone with an internet connection can see we are in an undeclared emergency, the lack of acceptance of that emergency will only make it worse and loses valuable time to warn and prepare our youth of the impending chaos. Understating the severity of the predicament does everyone a disservice.
I often use the analogy of the sinking of the Titanic to describe our unfolding climate catastrophe. After the Titanic had been holed by an iceberg, in it’s headlong rush to set a record in the trans-Atlantic passage on it’s maiden voyage. Within minutes, the Captain, designer and senior crew knew that the ship would founder and that there were insufficient life-rafts for the number of people on board, a result of arrogance and hubris, made in the design stage of the vessel when everyone was told that the ship would be un-sinkable. Famous last words!
The writer of this blog has completed 16 ocean passages on small cruising yachts. Had I been the skipper of the Titanic, I would have immediately released all the people from the below decks ‘Steerage compartments”, brought them to the grand saloon and told them of the severity of the predicament. I would have called for all the skilled tradespeople to gather together, form teams, choose skilled advisers and develop strategies to use the available furniture, ropes and buoyancy devices to make improvised life-rafts.
What they could have done in the calm, cold waters would be to launch the improvised life-rafts, tie them between two or more of the ships life-rafts and create floating platforms that the passengers could board keeping them out of the frigid Atlantic waters. This would have saved the bulk of the passengers had it been done and reduced some of the chaos that ensued. The opportunity to act was lost because only a small number of people were trusted with the knowledge that the ship was sinking.
Our biosphere is in collapse now, not far off in the future, we should be building “life-rafts ” now and the truth should be told, not withheld. We can’t save this sinking ship but we can prepare for the worst, buy time and relish the good times while they last.
I believe one of the reasons so little is being done is the false assumption that the worst effects of abrupt climate change won’t happen until long off in the future ( tell the people of Kiribati that!), when there is ample evidence that we are already in abrupt climate change.
The planet may have warmed 5C in 13 years once before, Professor Guy McPherson and I believe it could be happening again.
” Following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees centigrade – all in the space of about 13 years. Scientists previously thought this process happened over 10,000 years.
“We’ve shown unequivocally what happens when CO2 increases dramatically — as it is now, and as it did 55 million years ago,” Wright said. “The oceans become acidic and the world warms up dramatically.”
Think Progress article on this here;
Whilst it is not certain that this happened in such a short period of time, the mere fact that it is a possibility dictates that we should follow the precautionary principle and prepare for the worst.
Key principle #12 in the party policy document reads “Transparency, credibility and education are essential if all stakeholders are to accept the policy framework and change their behaviour as a result.” I believe the Greens are in breach of this principle by not facing up to the severity of the predicament we are confronting, are not being “transparent” and totally lack credibility on this issue.
My reasons for resigning from The Green Party earlier this year was covered here by The Daily Blog.
Dr James E Hansen, sometimes refered to as the “Grand Father of Climate Change” once believed that Planet Earth would “Go Venus”, the surface temperature of Venus is 462 degrees C, that melts lead. Whilst Hansen no longer believes that we will “Go Venus” it is now patently obvious that the planet will soon become uninhabitable.
Oliver Tickell in a well researched 2008 article in The Guardian stated that after we breach the 4C mark all we can expect is extinction.The article is embedded below;
On a planet 4 degrees C hotter all we can plan for is extinction.
4C could eventuate in as little as a decade!
Professor Guy McPherson and I will be conducting a nationwide speaking tour of N.Z. next month with our keynote presentations being live streamed to the net allowing those interested to follow the tour world wide. Tour details including venues are imbedded in the Facebook event below. Please feel free to invite any of your friends interested in the unfolding 6th Great Extinction
Professor Guy McPherson’s 2016 NZ Abrupt Climate Change Tour.
“At the edge of extinction, only love remains”
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Great stuff Kev.
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A couple of points
1. It is unfortunately too late, nothing we can do will stop this.
2. Any party that tells the truth will be face electoral oblivion. The other Parties will deride them as alarmist whack jobs! 😦
That’s human nature 😦
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I expect nothing from so-called “leaders”. They are too enamored with saving their own political asses as the seasonal leaders that they are. The climate this season is to go on ignoring the facts as it has been every season.
I also expect nothing from the public, they are too ignorant of the danger and could generally care less in any case. They’re too self-absorbed and enamored with their own lives to care about anyone else, certainly not the biosphere or any of the life within it.
What we’ve advocated is also too much for the majority of people to grasp, they’ve not had the exposure to the unfolding facts or science and cannot make the essential connections. There is no clear and present danger being perceived so they simply will not take any interest.
The very fabric of life on this planet is unfolding very, very fast. Telling them they are all going to be part of the coming extinction is simply too much for them to hear. This will always be true.
There is no way that the necessary lifeboats will be designed in time, the political and mental awareness situation simply will not allow it. So build your own if you so desire.
Soon enough there will be massive levels of immigration on every continent and every country as people within and without clamor to escape the coming terror affecting their lives. Even this (already happening) won’t be construed in facts and truth (the biosphere is collapsing) and will be spun for political gain by the hacks that claim to “lead” us (to extinction).
These people are morons, ignorant, self-absorbed and disinterested in anything but power and profits. Expect no help or guidance from such people, they’re incapable of giving it. But it does show you just how badly constructed society really is, grossly and totally unprepared and utterly incapable of “doing the right thing”.
Society is not designed to sustain or preserve, only to expand and to exploit. Asking political hacks to change this paradigm is doomed to fail because they haven’t changed, we haven’t changed and nobody even wants to.
So we won’t. We will go extinct, as we should, failing Nature’s ultimate test of adaption and evolution, having brought these events all upon ourselves.
This is why I rarely publish now. Every effort to mitigate and stop our destructive tendencies and practices is being met with armed violence by murderous morons hell-bent on destroying what’s left. They will get their way. Add in the general overall support from the brain-dead public for these police actions and you will quickly realize that “saving” these asshats is a waste of your own life and efforts. They do not deserve it and they should not get it.
Because there are far, far more of them then us, we will all go down with them. There is no stopping this. It is like the light bulb campaign, which was supposed to “save energy” by switching out incandescents. It failed, profiting the companies behind this enormously while increasing overall energy usage globally (Jevon’s Paradox, which is what always happens).
The basic paradigm of endless growth and consumption, the monetization of every possible resource and element, even the very air we breathe is the root cause of civilizations gross failures. Even deeper is human nature which hasn’t changed one iota for the better. And it won’t, it continues to demand, exploit, expand and destroy. The species is doomed. So let it die, as it should. As it will, having destroyed the only home and habitat we will ever have.
Some will call this defeat, I call it acceptance. Knowing what we are and our basic nature removes a lot of the confusion and misguided struggles. The smoke and mirrors go away and so does a lot of the noise.
I have not joined them – I despise them (all) as every thinking critical mind should. They are my enemy and my neighbors and I’m stuck with them, but there will be no “saving” them or converting their minds or actions as supposed. Their very nature and chosen lifestyles will always prevent this. Mankind has always exploited his environment, and it was always destined to wind up like this.
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For me the evidence is clear that James Shaw is a tory in drag and has subsequently dragged the already limp wristed Greens to the right.
Eugenie Sage colluding with foreign corporations by giving away our water and Shaw saying he’d work with the torys. If you can’t see that they have lost they way your not paying enough attention to the severity of the multitude of crises we face.
Someone ask Shaw what directorships he has lined up after he leaves the Greens and Parliament with a hefty pension.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-incredible-lightness-of-being-green.html?fbclid=IwAR0bRC34gCFHZA0hU4KbM82_s3VMp_7T_NKK8zRDutFFRVLM3VtTR5hFfrg
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It’s the arsehole James Shaw that has the nasty ‘undercurrent’, not the Global BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions for Palestine)
In another interview he lauded the merits of Roger Douglas neo-liberal economics.
Turns out he’s a Zionist as well;
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Since the corporate whore, James Shaw took control of the party he has achieved his mission to disarm and wreck the party on behalf of his corporate interests and ambitions.
Very soon he’ll leave parliament with a massive pension and he will take a directorship in some green washing corporation like Shell Petroleum or Coca Cola who he consulted for previously whilst working for KPMG.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/459250/green-party-discontent-members-walk-ex-mps-criticise-leadership?fbclid=IwAR3ysB_Fm7S-EM_YkCyfP5_Egsw95unqn7RbGeXYEN8HToZarIZtK6CKb_0
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The whore has been sacked, finally
Since this corporate stooge captured the liberals in the Greens and became co-leader I’ve been saying that he was feathering his nest with the corporations with a view to directorships post parliament.
He previously consulted to Shell petroleum and Coca Cola and he’s pro- GMO’s.
Soon he’ll announce a lucrative directors role as planned.
I’m picking either a company linked to GMO’s or one selling electric cars because this drongo subsidised them.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/471510/james-shaw-may-not-have-been-green-enough-delahunty?fbclid=IwAR023tpk3ciJ41xcWcRn0wz0mlPkkiUFpconHV59ET65zN1pANGeqngV3Xk
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