Jacinda Ardern led the country through some of the most taxing international crises imaginable. How would she deal with the potential oil shock caused by the Iranian war and how does this compare to Christopher Luxon’s response?
We are now in the opening days of what may be the decisive war to determine either the survival of the Iranian state or the expulsion of the US from the Arab lands.
It was always going to happen but it still rankles that an attempt to get farming to at least confront the damage it causes to the climate is being put on hold.
Many European governments now face a perfect storm of threatened energy security, rising inflation, war-propelled refugee crisis, and climate objectives. New Zealand be warned.
There is only so much New Zealand and its government can do to soften the blows of the instability that are besetting the world. And the problem is without dramatic change New Zealand will remain one of the most car-addicted, petrol reliant societies on earth for several decades to come.
Only rarely does a book truly change the world. In the nineteenth century, such a book was Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. For the twentieth century, it was The Limits to Growth.
BP yesterday sent a really big message that effectively now, Covid-19 is the break that tips the world away from oil dependence.
The Museum of Oil History and SS4C dancing the Macarena ended an awesome week of protest action against oil drilling in NZ.
It is time for all of the institutions, countries, investors and individuals who are still in the Paris Agreement to stop funding fossils – once and for all.
– Stephen Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International
This isn’t what we meant by keep it in the ground.
Drilling for oil we shouldn’t use, in a place that should remain untouched. Is this really what NZ wants?
Climate change, Peak Oil, resource depletion. Some of our options are better than others.
In the last days of the Obama presidency the current President is taking steps to protect the Arctic from oil drilling.
“Seismic blasting, every 10 seconds, 24hrs a day from now until next May” Time to step up again and protect our environment.
A decade ago peak oil, or the capping of supply was thought to be an imminent problem. Now it is looking more likely that demand will peak, and soon.
What we know is coming largely from outside the mainstream. Which is how it should be.
For seven months the next movement of social and environmental justice and resistance has been growing. We should be paying attention.
Big Tobacco was hit this week in New Zealand after Parliament passed laws requiring smokes to be sold in plain packaging. The science about the health threats posed by smoking is settled, as is the science over climate change. When can we expect laws being passed against the oil companies?
Jeremy Corbyn’s full response to the Chilcot response. Corbyn says that the Iraq war “was an act of military aggression launched on a false pretext” and that he apologises for it on behalf of Labour, who was in Government at the time.
Imagine a country where the political divide is over whether to ban fracking outright or to be opposed to fracking but have a moratorium first in order to gather more evidence.
There are various suggestions that the metro industry’s domination of the world may be in decline.
What does it really mean to reduce NZ’s total fossil fuel use by 50% by 2030: a warm up discussion for an upcoming thought experiment.
A fully laden logging truck tears up the road like thousands of cars. And when they keep rolling over around the corner, locals get very nervous and upset for themselves and their kids.
So, Key has now come out and revealed to us how afraid the global oligarch class (and their well paid professional enablers) are. They appear to have no plans to reverse their activites to make things better for us.
A new edition of “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” has been released. It makes it clear that we are in the grip of a global “Death Economy” and a collective embrace of ‘Thanatos’, the death instinct.
Turkey has started shelling the US backed Kurdish forces that are fighting against ISIS. What could go wrong?
A respectful open letter to Andrew Little with suggestions for how to win the next election!
Fracking has created a short term oil glut. That’s bad news for climate change. Could we at least find a silver lining in this carbon cloud, or will it be business as usual?
In the spirit of new badly needed Left Unity. The Left opposition needs to start setting the agenda. First “feed the kids” needs to be picked up. Second the corporate welfare for Solid Energy needs a lot of scrutiny. So does the the state funding of oil exploration.
This post isn’t a ‘contrast and compare’ piece on the policy announcements of National, the Greens and Labour. Enough to say that National are pursuing privatisation while both Labour and Green are at least trying to do good things.
Shame about the reality of the bigger picture then.
The Southland Times devoted the whole of the front page to celebrate Shell’s decision to do some exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin. The best scenario will be that they discover a sizable gas field similar to the one in Taranaki. Then royalties we will get are only 5% of the value of what is sold, almost 40% less than the OECD average AND we will have to pay full commercial rates to have any of it ourselves. The worst case scenario…. Well that is really bad and has no effective cover
John Key’s government is going full tilt at dismantling everything of value in NZ, and selling as much as possible to the overseas investors. It’s the government of Drill It, Mine it, Sell it. Find out about the asset sales referendum & how to vote.
The leaderless uprising in Brazil exposes unbearable inequalities in a dysfunctional post-growth world. Extravagant sports events and expensive stadium contrast with anti-public service austerity measures. Home building lags in Christchurch, while Key looks to asset sales to fund a stadium.
The oil and gas industry employs fewer people than have lost their jobs in manufacturing every 4 months under National. Yet, Joyce devotes […]
With the GFC, changing climate and resource depletion, the struggles of the powerless get over-looked. Asia-Pacific has been described as the focal point of a new cold war. Storms in Samoa and the Philippines, a rocket launch from North Korea. How should we respond?
“It can only get worse from here.” – that’s the Automobile Association’s numbers man on petrol prices. It’s quite a revelation because, until now, the AA has been firmly part of the dinosaur establishment that has been insisting petrol prices will ‘soon’ fall to ‘normal’. Mark Stockdale also gets the logical response to peak oil – stop building sprawl, reduce consumption.
