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- Date published:
10:26 am, July 14th, 2025 - 57 comments
Categories: climate change, disaster -
Tags: floods, just transition, Nelson, transition
Shout out to all the people in the Nelson Tasman district dealing with devastating and life changing floods. These are immediate and long term struggles that people and communities will need support with. Donations can be made to the Mayoral Relief Fund.
Watching the Texas floods, and then the two back to back Tasman District floods, I’ve been wondering if we’re getting closer to the point where New Zealand will start to prioritise climate action as well as our other day to day and political concerns around cost of living, the health system, international wars and rising fascism.
The argument goes that people won’t act until it affects them personally. Which is a massive problem for climate action because we need to act well ahead of time to prevent the kind of runaway climate collapse that will make the cost of living crisis, health system woes, international wars, rising fascism and our current flood emergencies look like kindergarten. Seriously.
So here comes the pointy end in New Zealand. Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister in a climate crisis denying government, in response to the Tasman floods, is now saying that the government won’t be doing financial bail outs in the future.
This is not news, obviously there has to be an end point to bail outs in an escalating and long term pattern of emergencies, and insurance companies were some of the first to say this can’t last forever. But Luxon’s unintentionally doing us a favour here. People who’ve put their eggs in the property ownership basket, strongly backed by the personal responsibility brigade, as opposed to say social democracy where we all help each other out, will be starting to worry and that worry may wake people up to the need to support collective climate action.
Particularly worrying will be this kind of framing,
The report recommended individuals should be responsible for knowing the risks and making their own decisions about whether to move away from high-risk areas.
I haven’t read the report, but how do the many people living in New Zealand’s rather large unstable and high risk landscape sell up and move somewhere safer? Who would they sell to?
The other thing Luxon has inadvertently done is end the debate about did climate change cause this flood? Good luck arguing that your flooded house wasn’t a result of climate change and should therefore be bailed out financially. It’s all climate change now.
The good news here is this:
I really hope Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Māori come out with strong words this week on the need to mitigate and adapt and look after each other.
What’s also important here is to present options for futures were things work out. We are inundated with stories of how bad things are, of climate and societal collapse, as well as rising fascism and global conflict, but that inundation is largely a function of mainstream and social media controlling the narratives (and who owns them). In New Zealand we have great potential to be world leaders on transition, on Just Transition (looks hard at Labour), and models of adaptation alongside mitigation, as well as regeneration.
The biggest challenges now are cognitive dissonance, political fuckery, and resignation. The myth that what New Zealand does doesn’t matter because of our size is still around and apparently needs explaining again. But these are all choices and things we can solve, they’re not impossibilities. The real issue here is political will and imagination, and not relying on parliamentary parties alone.
Front page image from Nelson App, from 2022 (!)
Re the notion of taking individual responsibility: could the end product be something like what's being discussed here?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/texas-disaster-weather-preparations-us
The author refers to ” … the singular devotion of its [i.e. Texas] political leaders to rugged individualism and their equally passionate disdain for government action … “, citing a number of cases in point.
Apparently, NZ is not doing too badly (tell that to Kiwis in Nelson Tasman), and we could look to Singapore, Norway and Finland for ideas about improving 'readiness'.
The (pressing) need to take responsibility or at least be prepared, as an individual and/or a (local) community, is something David Suzuki mentioned recently.
please stop sharing that Suzuki piece uncritically, and especially out of context of the post.
Many of us have been doing community resilience building for a long time. I'm sorry he feels it's too late and wants to give up on mitigation, but as he well knows there is no surviving runaway climate change. I wonder if that is a function of his age, I feel the temptation myself at times, but it's a death sentence for Gaia and is unconscionable.
In the post I said,
I would go further and say there is no adaptation without mitigation, all there is a lifeboat building that will eventually sink as well.
Sorry weka, I was responding to Obtrectator’s comment about "individual responsibility" / "rugged individualism", and, thinking about 'preparedness', it seemed to me that Suzuki's example of Finland might be relevant / helpful.
Please feel free to move my comment to Open Mike if it doesn't belong here.
that doesn't really help. The problem is that you didn't explain your position or thinking, or why you think it's relevant/helpful. So even without the issues with Suzuki the comment comes across as link/quote spamming my post. And your second response didn't explain either.
If you want to argue that giving up on mitigation is a valid political choice then make the argument. Don't just drop quotes stating it.
I'm sorry that you found my reply @1.1.1.1 wanting – fwiw, your replies (and post) reinforced my opinion on the importance of mitigating GHG emissions.
Valid or not, it is the political choice of ACT, but that argument isn't for me.
Imho, shrinking civilisation's environmental footprint, for example by mitigating GHG emissions (as advocated by David Suzuki, a scientist and activist who has done much more than most to champion environmental causes), is the most effective action we have been taking and should continue to take (urgently and at much greater scale) to ensure a long-term future for humans and many other passengers on spaceship Earth.
I hope it's not too late – only time will tell.
https://thestandard.org.nz/the-government-needs-to-understand-that-climate-mitigation-and-adaptation-are-twins/#comment-1938291
https://thestandard.org.nz/a-sustainable-environment-should-be-a-human-right/#comment-1995826
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-10-05-2024/#comment-1999379
Leftist parties are up against reality though. For a start, the enemy within (who just wanna suck on the establishment tit forever), individualism as primary cultural ethos during the past half-century, and global context (corporations ruling govts).
That last feature of reality is explored here: https://www.cfr.org/article/trade-tools-climate-action-investor-state-dispute-settlement-reform
So the international rule of law privileges corporations and disempowers governments. The onsite lawyer here ought to present an essay outlining why Labour must obey the powers that be, huh? It's a morally untenable position, but one ought never underestimate the abilities of lawyers when spin necessitates propaganda…
honestly, I think the biggest problem the left had is the relentless negative focus. Your comment is an example. Want to disempower people? Talk about how useless the left is, highlight the structural power imbalance, and offer no solutions.
I get it, it's very easy to see what is wrong and showcase that. The problem we have with climate action is the dearth of messaging about what works, and what futures can work out well. We don't have a dearth of people doing those things, we just have failures of imagination and communications about how to build something better, a something that will engage people and make them want to change.
I just wrote a post with a handful of open doors to those better futures, is there any way you can engage with that?
Global system change is the necessity, but I first bought a book about that around 1988 so inertial thinking remains prevalent. People engage at levels relative to their motivation, and most activists go for local or global defaults. I think collective resilience requires medial expertise: those who are adept at shifting levels.
For instance, each storm disaster hits a region, whereas effects are locally felt and economic consequences also have a national impact. Only activists who shift their paradigms to operate at all 3 levels achieve optimal influence. That triad applies in any country where the state permits it. A cohort of folk performing that medial coordination would have a powerful catalytic effect on political culture.
Greens have never used a recruiting strategy but I reckon plenty of folk would like to see such role models operating in their region, and would be more inclined to get involved & learn the ropes of community resilience-building. It's a kind of work-around strategy that views democracy as a block preventing progress.
I googled climate change resilience and found a current US view here: https://www.c2es.org/press-release/nat-keohane-op-ed-washington-post-clean-energy/
This suggests doomsters are wrong to write off consensus. When you see rightists defying the dragon in its lair, you can feel a measure of optimism…
Actually it's the Tasman district and Tasman floods, we are considered the Nelson Tasman region especially when it comes to an emergency response.
I've edited the post, it's a big tricky, because there are people in NZ that will know where Nelson is but not really Tasman.
Federated Farmers will know exactly where Tasman is because their National President – Wayne Langford lives and farms in the district and is directly affected by these awful one in 100 year floods! Very ironic indeed.
Underpinning assumption in the report is that due diligence is possible. This has always been a nonsense. First of all, even MfE acknowledges they lack the necessary data to accurately update hazard models (the PCE has repeatedly called the govt out on this, and many key programs in the EM space were halted by this govt). Second, there will never be transparency in the private sector who now hold and control more data than states. Witness the opaque software changes to the Boeing 737 Max corporate manslaughter.
that's a whole post in itself.
There's low hanging fruit though right? The developments that have been allowed in flood prone or fire risk areas in the past 20 years would be an example. Councils who gave consent hold responsibility for helping those people.
That depends. In most cases the council can inform that a area is flood prone or may have slip issues or whatever. Those are entered into the title. Building permissions are not definitive because the council has requirement to adhere to building standards, and risks to other properties (like slips, runoff etc) or to council resources (ie stormwater, sewerage contamination, roading, pollution, etc).
What they don’t do is to insure property owners against risks. That is up to the property developer, property owner, and mortgage holders to do their own risk assessment, That is often farmed out to professional risk assessments – mostly engineers, insurers, EQC, fire risk assessors, etc.
So no. Under our laws and those of 20 years ago, councils who giving consent do not hold responsibility for helping those people. They hold responsibility for maintaining the structures that were present when those assessments were being made by property owners, and to inform property owners and give access to input of changes in the level of protection.
But mostly the risks are carried by the property owners and others. If the councils were offering an insurance scheme that property owners paid into, like the EQC does, then it’d be different. But they don’t. Councils may levy rates for things like maintaining storm water systems to a defined standard in some places (50 year floods or whatever). But that isn’t a insurance scheme. It is a payment for a specific service.
I was thinking of moral obligation rather than legal/insurance.
For instance, DCC is approving consent for this set of townhouses, despite flood and liquefaction risk. If those houses become uninhabitable, who should pay? Maybe that street is high enough above the rest of South Dunedin to not be a problem, but I'm betting the surrounding roading and social infrastructure will eventually deteriorate. Do we really think we are going to keep repairing things in such areas as the floods and inundation events increase?
I don't think anyone should be bailed out, because consent was 2024, and at some point we have to draw a line. But people that bought in such places in the past?
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/consent-build-granted-despite-lacking-compliance
You do realise that the DCC and for that matter all councils have legal limitations of what they can do. The councils are ruled by legislation and central directives that severely limit how much they can do.
In particular, permitted activities don't require resource consents. So if an area is already zoned for housing, for instance by virtue of having previously having housing, then the developers only requires a resource consent if they wish to do something that isn't allowed by the regional plans.
In this case the consent was for minor variations on the existing limits in the regional plan.
Council room to refuse based on future environmental changes would have been constrained by the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021 and that constrained councils to conform to the Medium Density Residential Standards (DCC is a tier 2 territorial authority) to increase the use of medium density housing in conformance with ministerial national policy statements.
The moral obligation, would lie with central government – usually a past one.
For instance, my apartment block was put up in 1996 to 1998.
That meant that it was done under the legislation that permitted changes to standard building practices. Notably monolithic cladding on untreated pine wooden framed buildings, limited roof overhangs, a lack of cavity wall system, and non-council private building inspections. The latter change was a result of the Building Act 1991 brought in by National. This accelerated the building of leaky buildings that was in part caused by building code changes.
The Auckland City Council was constrained to allow building of apartments, in my area to be no more than 3 stories, limited the required consents to filing a plan that conformed to BIA standards, specified the storm water and silting requirements, and set the required limits of providing parking. The council also wasn't required to do the building inspections. Fortunately in our case they were used, rather than one of the fly-by-night inspection companies with very limited insurance,
Note that the council had very little to do with 'consents', and were largely limited to a filing role. It was central government who screwed up.
Fortunately the council inspectors on our building missed some of the construction flaws – we got a leaky fix because the council was still standing – and their insurance eventually paid for most of our recladding.
It isn't much different today. The DCC is as constrained by central legislation and the ministerial housing plans as they were back then.
Unlikely. It isn't the flooding that will be the issue. Sodden soils and underlying strata don't last too long as stable entities – any solid higher areas with weight on them will start spreading.
You know that I agree. South Dunedin will drown or become uninhabitable reasonably quickly – within the next 3-4 decades. It should be abandoned now because the incidence of flooding is rising.. Insurance rates for the area (when you can get them) are already rising.
However Chris Bishop, the current minister for Housing, Infrastructure, RMA reform, Transport and a couple of other portfolios does not. You will note that his portfolios cover everything council related except the Local Government ministry.
Between this and the RMA changes, Bishop has effectively put off any ability to start change course on areas at risk by at least 4-5 years. That is my estimate of the fastest time it will take the legislation to be created, passed, and councils draw up plans to conform to it. The RMA is complex legislation with far-reaching effects. It sounds like Council plans will have to be completely redrawn again, and it too 3-4 years last time.
In the meantime, councils will have to conform to existing legislation and central plans and directives.
My advice – don't buy residential property in Dunedin South. If you own property there, then try to sell to commercial or industrial concerns which have shorter payback periods and less vulnerabilities to wet-feet.
In the early nineties acquaintances were given consent to build in proximity to a coastal cliff. Some years later a seismic survey and coastal hazard assessment identified land instabilities and recommended migration away from hazard areas.
My acquaintance's property was identified as being at very high risk so they went to the courts seeking assistance on the basis that having issued a consent, council were obliged to assist.
Not so. Council had no prior knowledge of the risk and that was the end of that.
yep. I was referring to places where the council did know. From memory there were areas of Christchurch that were prone to liquefaction that shouldn't have been built on, or at least not in the way they were. Likewise any developments in areas that are a fire risk. The council might argue that at the time of consent the quake or fire risk was considered low, not sure about the quake one, but the only reason we've been building in fire risk areas in the las few decades is because we've not been taking climate seriously. We've known about AGW for a very long time.
Implementing this will reduce the amount of land available for development and increase compliance costs. At its core is the drive to reassure financial markets and provide the mythical stability and equilibrium for ongoing investment. Ain't enough chairs for everybody when the music stops…
indeed. In order to have a sane response we'd have to take into account the limits of growth, and transition to an economic that isn't predicated on perpetual growth.
I understand that there were areas in Christchurch which hadn't been built on in the past due to flooding, and/or liquafaction risk. Where developers took the council to court to obtain consents.
Developers built on unsafe land – mayor – NZ Herald
thanks for that, I couldn't remember the details. Would be interesting to know which of those ended up red zoned.
Yes, and no. The liquifaction risk war known, it was why ChCh has had blasting and heavy machinery restrictions in some areas. The local fault lines quake risks were not.
The silts and sand strata would normally only liquefy under a limited number of conditions. The main one of which was very close moderate earthquake with strong S (shear) waves and P waves arriving nearly simultaneously.
The shearing of silts and sands with a high water table cause the water between particles to be released. Other known causes are large landslides (unlikely in ChCh) or repeated movement of very heavy machinery or blasting. Ummm.. https://www.britannica.com/science/soil-liquefaction
Problem was that no geologist was aware of the faulting structures in that region that provided the energy before 2010
It depends.
Plenty of councils have tried to act responsibly, especially post-Canterbury and with new climate data tickling in, but they often get boxed in by legal and political pressure.
There are cases where councils have declined consents or asked for serious mitigations and then faced judicial reviews or appeals to the Environment Court: some of which have overturned their decisions.
The RMA has historically treated development rights generously, and in the absence of strong national direction or data (as Simbit4 pointed out), local authorities are often stuck between liability if they say yes and liability if they say no.
Blaming councils oversimplifies the problem. The incentives are badly structured, and developers have deep pockets for legal fights.
It is perhaps timely to point out to those overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness/what can I do..?..about this very real cliff we will definitely go over…if we do nothing ..
…that there is something they can do now/today…that will mitigate against one of the main causes of our extinction-crisis ..
Namely…they can stop eating animals…and (most importantly) the bye-products from their slaughter/processing…
Just stopping eating flesh..and still fanging into the cheese etc ..does little to stop the environmental damage done by the animal-fattening industries …
And what surprises me is how this individual action…that is so effective…for that individual…..is so rarely mentioned when fretting over this subject ..
I guess that just underlines the power of flesh-addiction…eh..?
I should point out that the benefits from kicking a flesh habit are a three-legged stool..
1)…you remove your part of being part of the problem we face…to becoming part of the solution..
2)…you get the health/wellbeing benefits…excess weight drops off you..and of course you are no longer strengthening your odds of getting colon/bowel cancer..(did you see the conversation here last wee(?) about the new research finding that bacon/processed meats ..no matter how little you have…ups your odds for the above cancers..
And if you are urging young children to develop an addiction to that salty taste ..you may as well be giving a packet of unfiltered lucky strike ciggies ..
They are as bad as each other..)
3) animal welfare: you are no longer any part of the horrors that are done to animals ..once again…you have become part of the solution…
I'm weak-willed – have cut down lots on meat but not ready yet to go cold turkey
Collectively, the human populations of weathly countries eat a lot of meat – far more than is necessary, or healthy, imho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption#Meat_consumption_by_country/region
Why do some humans (continue to) eat more meat than they need? I don't know. Why do many prefer to drive a car rather than walk, cycle or use public transport, where available? Why are users of tobacco/vapes so resistant to change, given the health risks? There are probably as many reasons for (bad) habits as there are people.
If there's money to be made from a behaviour / habit (bad or good), then there will be lobbyists working (covertly in some cases) to grow those profits – love of money is an addiction quite a few humans can't shake, and it's taking us all down.
What did the authors expect from the US meat industry – or any industry?
Thanks for those links…
The flesh- peddlers don't care that they are fucking the planet ..
But..they can only peddle…because addicts want their products..
And re yr cutting back:..I stopped red meat…then white meat etc etc…it was a journey..
When I was reduced to only fish..pescatarian I went to a birthday party in a restaurant ..we were all smoking thai weed and hashish…
Fish was my only option on the menu..
And when it arrived it was a whole fish…glassy eye staring up at me ..
I started laughing..and the person next to me said what's funny..?
I said: I think I just stopped eating fish…
And re the feeling good promise..
Vegetarians know that they feel better than when they ate animals ..I can promise them the further jump in feeling good is bigger than the flesh/vego one..
Phillip, what's your opinion on eating wild rabbit and deer?
No…they have eyes..
I found this overview which enables folk to see our local/regional/national framing in a global context: https://environment.co/what-is-climate-resilience/
Their pentad would be a suitable set of talking points at any local community meeting set up to develop resilience networking. The facilitator would need to supply a single-page summary of essentials for participants to take away and reflect on. The labels of the 5 elements need to be expanded into a paragraph each to help people get the guts.
This post really highlights a tension we need to face head-on:
Who carries the risk of climate impacts — individuals, or the state?
Right now, councils are expected to assess and manage natural hazards. But when they act; either by mapping risks, limiting development, or raising the idea of managed retreat, they’re met with resistance from ratepayers and property developers braying about their sacrosanct property rights.
The current situation allows property owners to claim the full rights and benefits of their land, while socialising the costs of the risks they choose to ignore.
That’s not resilience: it’s an implicit public subsidy of private risk.
If the government is signalling the end of bailouts, then I'd support it. But we need a consistent national framework to support transition. One that’s legally sound, socially fair, and climate-resilient.
That might mean a one-time, state-backed effort to shift land use and compensate affected property owners. Because there’s no cheap or easy way to reboot a market that was never designed for accelerating climate risk.
This forces us to face a choice:
That means setting some hard boundaries:
But this isn’t about blame — it’s about preparing together.
And crucially, let’s give councils the support, tools, and legal protection to plan effectively, without being turned into political footballs whenever a sufficiently influential property developer gets their sob story printed in the herald.
The state is the insurer of last resort. If they are not willing to do that, where is their authority to rule?
And do we seriously think they will stop subsidising the agricultural sector through all this? Drought inpacts on farming have been noted for 2 decades now. Canterbury farmers about to receive subsidised water, again.
This policy will be paid by those least able to frame it. Rinse/repeat.
Least you think I'm piling on the negativity, I've been research disaster impacts for 13 years. You can observe the logic of capital and the protection of the capital owning class at every turn. The most resilient system is capitalism and I almost admire their blind faith in trying to incentivize a way out of this that makes them even more money.
shrug fair point.
And you're right: the state is the insurer of last resort. And we absolutely subsidise the shit out of the negative externalities of a politically powerful and whiny agricultural sector that loves to peddle its myth of rugged independence, all while unironically demanding constant handouts.
Maybe the real mistake of the 1980s wasn’t ending agricultural subsidies, but disguising them behind layers of regulatory cruft.
Climate policy inevitably gets filtered through political power structures. And yes, those with capital shape outcomes in their favour. Whether it's water allocations, bailout eligibility, or access to policy-making.
That’s exactly why we need a clear national framework. Not to punish individuals, but to stop the logic of capital from endlessly externalising climate risk while the most vulnerable are left holding the bag.
Because without strong public leadership, the status quo just keeps rolling: fragmented, unfair, and ultimately unsustainable.
And here is the crux of the whole thing.
Individuals and the state/ councils bearing the risk and the actual disasters.
And the fossil fuel industry just takes the money and walks away.
90% of people, those who don't vote Green, this is what you voted for. You voted for a Capitalist, neoliberal, oligarchic, extractive, consumerist economy.
I don’t think most voters see it that way, and it feels uncharitable to blame them simply for exercising their democratic choice differently than we might.
It’s much more incumbent on those of us who do see the structural failures to build and communicate a positive, practical, and compelling alternative: one that speaks to people’s values and real-world concerns.
If we don't have a constructive theory of change, we might as well give up now. Because you can’t talk to someone about the end of the world if they’re worried about the end of the week.
true, but apparently we also can't talk to people about the end of the world when they're clutching their property valuation and thinking about their retirement fund either. Capitalism is a hell of a drug. It's those people that make me think most people don't actually believe climate change is that bad.
I do agree that the problem here is lack of a compelling alternative that people will vote for. There are people doing that work, often in excellent ways, atm they don't have the mainstream loud speaker.
Unfortunately I don't have a silver bullet and am loathe to give attention to the greatest barrier namely our addiction to convenience.
My hunch is the youth is where the ideas, passion and commitment are to be found.
For a few reasons, it's their future and they are less indoctrinated into capitalism or political ideology,
The Just Transition movement clearly offer pointers and I think indigenous/ first nations people are invaluable. Both for their relatively light traditional footprint and their community focus which is important when disaster strikes. Thinking marae when food and shelter is needed in emergencies.
It's not addiction to convenience…
It's addiction to eating flesh ..
Where do you source your groceries?
Usual retail outlets…we are well catered for nowadays…
It never used to be thus…
(And I left out one major benefit from kicking it ..
..you feel so much better…that I can promise you..
(Disclaimer:…I have been vegan for about 26 yrs…and vegetarian for 15 yrs before that…
Happy to answer any questions anyone might have ..)
And when I talk about addiction..I know of what I speak….I have shed 7 of them…
..and eating flesh has all the hallmarks of addiction…
I will maintain it is less about the type of food we eat, it's the diesel miles embedded in it.
A locally sourced or home kill steak, slice of bacon or mutton roast is better environmentally speaking than a foreign sourced soy based meat/milk substitute.
Similarly, your supermarket supplied veges loose their righteous glow if they are trucked to a packhouse, auctionplace, warehouse then redsistributed around the motu, by truck again. As opposed to being bought from a (preferably organic/biodynamic) local grower.
None of this is to deny your point about how profoundly satisfying bacon/steak/lamb chop is to eat and howq hard to kick that habit is.
Convenience will be the biggest challenge we face as a population.
I would question your claim that locally fattened flesh is greener than an imported vegan product…
And no ..it has been a very long time since I thought flesh was delicious… everything about it grosses me out..
I view it as inter species cannibalism…
And the most ‘profoundly satisfying’ habit I kicked wasn’t flesh…it was heroin ..
I mean..what nz is doing now .. isn't working..
We are a sick country…high cancer rates . Most of us are obese/near obesity (obesity doc on rnz today said only 20% of nz'ers have the optimum b.m.i…(!)
It ain't working..eh..?
And those thinking they need ozempic..?
Nah..!..just stop eating anything that can look at you…
And I can't over emphasize the long-term health benefits …
By any measure ..I am fucken old..and I am on no medications of any sort..nothing ..
And I am of an age when most have a weekly pill box..
And most importantly…I feel really fucken good…
And the only difference between me and those others my age…is that I haven't eaten any animals for a long time ..
most vegans in NZ will be eating a large amount of imported foods, unless they are making a specific effort to eat local and that takes a lot more work. We don't grow many chickpeas or lentils or soy here. Probably not that many nuts either. It's one of the reasons I started eating meat again, if there's going to be a crash, I want to already be adapted.
A good chance for greens and/or labour to offer to work across benches towards reducing/eliminating climate change impact.
That would leave Luxon either knowing climate change is an issue but refusing to help, or helping and blowing out his scorched earth budget.
Either option is going to go down like a bowl of cold sick with a sector of society.
I'm all for the cross party agreement you suggest.
However, political parties aren't going to be the answer. We must change our habits and priorities and then the pollies and businesses will follow.
No one will get elected on a platform that must be enacted.
Every Gabrielle-scale or Tasman event says otherwise.
No District or Regional government is strong enough, no insurer willing, no community strong enough.
Only the state can attempt this, even when they express total limits.
No one will get elected on a platform that must be enacted.
The way to get the state to act meaningfully is for voters to change. Parliament will follow.
When the state most recently acted in response to nationwide crisis – COVID – the next government was resoundingly rejected. The previous government was littered with long-term nationwide efforts that failed.
This is no place for bumper-sticker slogans.
Ok, I will bite.
What state actions do you suggest political parties electioneer on? With a view of getting elected.
If our devlopable land had removed:
– sea level rise
– seismic fault risk
– liquefaction risk
– river valley and plain flood risk
– massive hillside fire
– national parks and Bush and wetlands
– high productivity soils
… you're removing much of south Dunedin, Wellington, eastern and Central Christchurch, Nelson, Westport, Napier and Hastings, Taupo, Rotorua, Invercargill, Tauranga, Thames, coastal and west Auckland …
That should tell us we will always be rebuilding and improving, like massive region-wide adjustments are always part of who we are and always will be.
Not really many suburbs left out of that.
Insurers always lead this logic, but overall those city real estate markets are registering this more honest valuation already.
climate change changes that significantly. A once in 500 year AF8 quake is something we can recover from and plan around alongside our historic flood and occasional cyclone patterns. An increasing and chaotic number of more and more extreme weather events will overrun us. How many Gabrielles and Tasman events can we rebuild from? Is the East Coast even recovered yet? What happens when there are more roads needing repaired than we have road workers for?
I mean, I admire your optimism, but that's not adaptation.
Sooner or later we have to have the conversation about the limits of growth.
That's pretty cynical trying to rank the effects of the Christchurch earthquakes against Gabrielle. Christchurch has taken more than a decade to recover and the scars are still there having walked around a good portion of it on the weekend.
People affected by disasters are all human beings with families and household goods trying to make their way through a very hard world.
It's not the limits of growth that bother me right now. We haven't had any since COVID.
What bothers me is the entire limits of collective action whether local or state to even mount a response. Prior to this government we had a major event once every two years for more than a decade.
Even the state itself has limits.