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6:50 pm, March 20th, 2026 - 30 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, climate change, energy, national, same old national, science, uncategorized -
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In absence of a concrete leadership plan from this government to address the impending oil supply crisis, this post is for us to simply note down what actions we are taking ourselves.
When we act we decrease our anxiety.
Japan has asked the Australian government to massively increase LNG output for them. Japan has released 45 days of oil supply from reserves.
China has banned the export of refined fuels anywhere, and requested its state owned oil companies to pump oil like there’s no tomorrow.
China is also getting some shipments through the Strait of Hormuz from Iran.
South Korea is shifting power production fast to nuclear and coal away from oil power plants.
India is cutting LNG supplies to industry to ensure households have cooking gas.
Indonesia is increasing fuel subsidies to keep fuel prices as stable as possible.
Vietnam has used a fuel price stabilisation fund to keep pump prices level.
Vietnam is also preparing for flight reductions.
Sri Lanka has limited motorcycles to 5 litres of fuel a week, and cars to 15 litres a week.
The Philippines is implementing a 4 day working week for some workers.
Thailand and the Philippines are negotiating with Russia to get fresh oil supplies.
The Australian government is preparing to subsidise its remaining oil refineries.
Pakistan is doing a four day week, pay cuts, and massive fuel price increases.
This is some of what we did last time.
Some New Zealand companies are putting out “don’t fly” messaging.
Air New Zealand has restricted regional flights and put up prices.
Obviously, whoever is in government, it takes muscular and inspiring leadership to respond.
As we found four years ago, with the right leadership New Zealanders do unite to face and overcome a crisis.
None of our MPs or party leadership need to wait for government to come up with a plan. Mr Speaker? Any time.
We even did an election with COVID still rampant.
What are the actions we are taking ourselves already?
We can all decrease our anxiety with good solid action about our own lives.
The COC Government National/ACT/NZF with the three Trumpsters Christopher Trump, David Trump and Winston Trump will sort it out no problem, or maybe they won't ???
"Ditch the Pricks in 26".
Empty our boots?
probably the biggest mindset shift needed.
thanks Ad.
this.
I'm already not driving much atm for other reasons. But rethinking about resource use in general. How much of my diet is imported from overseas or the North Island. A big chink of NZ's fuel budget is food and goods distribution.
There's a quandary there about what happens to businesses who rely on the modern model of ship fast and at will. So that is like the pandemic too, some big adjustments all round.
Remember, we are being governed by managers not leaders.
Therefore we need to model leadership.
https://www.cpag.org.nz/
https://www.inequality.org.nz/
https://northandsouth.co.nz/2025/03/11/a-kete-half-empty/
https://www.greens.org.nz/rich_get_much_richer_driving_inequality_and_poverty
We need to "shift the paradigm here in New Zealand and start thinking outside the square".
Successive Governments stick to the tried and true same old, same old policies trying to get re-elected at the following General Election rather than taking risks and delivering truely progressive policies. the Right Wing Government follow the Neoliberal Doctrine of the Atlas Group and Mt Perelin Society.
I agree about a paradigm shift.
Unfortunately govrnments described as Left also follow neo liberal doctrine.
For example; welfare for working people. Use migration to satisfy Capital's need for blue collar wage slaves – cooks, truck drivers and welders. Adherence to the idea that a surplus is desirable.
The Left may not have a suitable and/or practical alternative to prevailing dogma, i.e., neo-liberalism, and ‘establishment’ defends itself tooth & nail through semi-legal, systemic & procedural, and policy-political means. The population and media have also been indoctrinated through conditioning (upbringing, education, work experiences).
When the Left proposes progressive ideas, they get mocked & ridiculed for being loonies, tree-huggers, or woke.
So, the Left may appear to adhere to neo-liberal doctrine, but they don’t necessarily follow it slavishly nor do they aggressively advocate & campaign for it.
For resilience a system requires a certain level of redundancy aka surplus and that’s not a neo-liberal trait per se. In Nature this is called ‘reserve’. The issue is that often neo-liberal ‘solutions’ are easy (and lazy), crude (and inequitable), and cheap (aka prudent), which doesn’t mean that the principle of resilience through surplus should be rejected outright.
How many of the diaspora of the last two years will be stranded and penniless in Australia if this fuel shortage deepens there. As I understand it most will not qualify for any Australian assistance and surely the government here willstruggle to manage the reintroduction of even half of them leading to huge unemployment numbers. The future isn’t pretty.
Driving doesn't affect me personally, but currently airfares do. With a dying relative in another city I'm being forced to fly a lot, more than I ever have in my life but what to do with no other transport options? The increases on top of the dynamic pricing are scary. What can I do? Nothing for now.
I can't afford to be a hoarder, but I'm acutely aware from covid days supply chains that there's a good chance that some products will start vanishing from the shelves/skyrocketing in price so I am trying to stock up on some necessary non-perishables when my budget allows. Obviously mass hoarding is never a good idea, unfortunately it does provide a degree of being able to control something small in an uncontrolled world.
this is good from Nathan Surendran from Wise Response (Stuff has been publishing his pieces urging stronger action from government along with practical suggestions).
There's an intro, a PDF of the guide and link to a document to make suggestions and improvements.
https://wiseresponse.substack.com/p/what-can-i-do-in-response-to-the
As your finances allow, do this:
1. Get 20-30 solar panels.
2. Get a battery to store the surplus production.
3. Get an EV or at least a plug-in hybrid vehicle.
4. Use any available unused space to grow food.
We have done this. It works. Don't wait.
Solar probably isn't the most urgent for people given our grid is largely wind and hydro. Hard agree on the gardening for those that can do that. Plant extra for those that can't (that will income as well).
Personal solar and wind feels urgent to me. At some point I will stop working and wind up on lower fixed income. We should be in a paid off house with a roof and garden space (the only real question is where?).
Then I can start doing capital investments and reducing cost risks.
Power will be one of my highest risk costs – it is effectively a arbitrary variable in my costs. Even in the 'fixed' grid cost.
Having power generation that is under my control means that outages will be limited, or at least my fault. The pricing isn't going to change because a company wants to get a better quarterly dividend or to get a better return of a arbitrary revalued asset.
The rsk then flows into transport (ebike/ev car), more consistent work flows for what work I do, an ability to heat properly , heat and cool food – important for health. etc
The other fixed costs like phone and data are relatively consistent – you can adjust them to what you actually need. Food costs can be adjusted – garden, deep freeze. Entertainment is completely user choice.
But I view power costs and health costs as the biggest risks. The latter I can influence to some degree, the former is a pain in the arse if I'm tired to a poorly maintained grid and 'free market' that doesn't work properly.
I agree solar is a good use of free money in terms of mid and long term resiliency. It's possible we will have power cuts this year (more than usual), I think it's more likely we will have food and other goods supply issues. For people who have to choose, I would encourage people to invest now in the gear that will get them through.
Otoh Surendran in the resiliency guide below is talking about the problem not being the renewables powered grid, but the potential shortage of fuel for fixing power infrastructure (and I would guess parts supply).
Because EVs and the batteries they use and the minerals they need and the frequent dispossession of simple-living peoples to get them and the waste that results from worn out whatevers; and the use and over-use of machines, presenting EVs or bicycles of some sort should not be a fallback light-bulb option. EVs are not sustainable in the long run or good for the planet.
I suggest form trusts with practical, considerate, like-minded people and act as patrons for whatever good thing you believe is being neglected or will be needed and soon. Best if compatible farmers and townies combine possibly mainly for friendship and mutual help on the farm and with crops and spoiled fruit and veges that can't go to market, and farm breaks for the kids in the country, or country come to town and the pics and cool time in town. The future is just about knocking on our front doors, so get in quick.
Or outlay, buy some horses to be incorporated into life in a part of your village, giving rides on fete days, having little bright carts for tourists etc. And there may still be some Kaimanawa horses still available from the latest cull.
And horses produce dung that is good fertiliser. And they are like us, they reproduce themselves. So let us combine with these beautiful and useful animals and make ourselves similar.
Details from Wikipedia on 'Horse-drawn vehicle.'
Also set up groups in your town or area, if there aren't suitable ones already, to advance some resource or skill that will be needed for the future and can be used now. Retired people can get involved and spend money locally instead of time out to distant places or cruise ships. Also advance the group Volunteer Service Abroad and get overseas that way along with young people for some OE, valuable not just to sporting interests.
please supply the wikipedia link.
Horses are wonderful. Quite a lot of work to look after, but most of NZ still has horse people even in cities.
As a means of transport in urban settings there are quite a few problems with horses. Apart from the space for stabling, adding the freight for moving feed into the urban area, and there are a few issues in removing the inevitable by products.
There are a lot of horse people in town. They either have some pasturing in the city (there are some plots even near central Auckland), or they drive a distance to get to it and their equine transport.
I looked at a cash machine window last night and saw a Reserve Bank notice. The RB is thinking about cash money and telling us about it. We must all do something about keeping it, and talk to others about its necessity and to take part in Reserve Bank questionnaire – those of us who don't have magic money carpets on which to float around!
Can other thinkers here put forward something that it would be useful for us and society to do. Perhaps we could start a movement, an action, a wave. Maybe we could become important influencers?!
So first task I suggest is a money one. Reserve Bank has open plan for response till April I think. Look it up do something and support cash. Get some on hand each time you go to a big money handler who will give change on your card. Handy for the beggars if nothing else. Help them – it will make their eyes light up a bit. People convey a lot with their looks and eyes.
Understanding ourselves as clever, mischievous humanity and near gods, but not able to handle our brilliance in wise ways should be our mission now.
That's mindset, could be helped by reading fiction that has happy endings written by people who have a desire to enjoy telling stories – Terry Pratchett, or Nevil Shute, both okay for men as well as women. And C.P.Snow, physicist et al, and purveyor of stories about middle class academics etc; R.F.Delderfield social conditions author and good for attitudes of community I recommend his trilogy A Horseman Riding By. Fiction can be future fact, and a lot of our time is spent on creating what could be an absorbing story, at the end of the day!
We always go too far and stare into the abyss without seeing the bottom. Mercurio lately seems to be onto analogies. I hope Mercurio isn't an AIbeing, as we need to realise things for ourselves.
So much time goes into moaning, and worrying about people in power getting drunk and driving fast, or having sex somewhere. These false flags take our attention; let's set up ideas for how we can hold a good, satisfying society together and get a phalanx of such people.
cash on hand is on my list for next week.
I suspect there will be a rethink of the value of cash this year, the way things are looking.
The one benefit I can think of from the cut in oil supplies is a reduced amount of emissions, and therefore a cleaner environment.
Unless we crank up the coal-burners!
"What we can do"
To which we might add Keynes' maxim: "whatever we can actually do, we can afford". (i.e. the limitation on action is the availability of real physical resources and human skill, not money)
Another very useful thing we can do as farmers is decrease our use of superphospate imports and superphosphate user overall.
The timing is actually not as bad as it could have been for us. This disruption is occurring in the late-summer and autumn period when nitrogen application is more flexible. Farmers could defer the use of fertilisers without major productivity losses, providing a short-term buffer.
Also since at least 2023 our farmers have been decreasing superhospate use and are not a lot more targeted.
But replacing the 22% of our fertilisers that come through the Strait of Hormuz is probably too hard. Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms could of course lead the way with faster and harder farm transition requirements. Otherwise this is just another one of those chickens-come-home-to-roost consequences for the farmers who sought to humiliate the Labour government in 2017-9.
There is some cool tech coming online to reduce/replace farmers' need for nitrates, look up "green lightning"
The dairy farmers are still overall following the rule set by the Ardern government of 190 kg of Nitrogen added per hectare.
This and other measures – again taking the industry kicking and screaming – has led to a slightly low reliance on fertiliser coming through the Persian Gulf.
FINAL-FANZ-Annual-Review-2025.pdf
Those farmers who consistently choose not to report will I am sure be shortly screaming that their deliberate dependence on foreign imports has massively increased their costs …
Thousands of dairy farms aren’t reporting fertiliser use
… whereas those farmers who have set a more regenerative path will have de-risked themselves a lot more.
Just a few signals from the dairy and meat companies would of course be great, but that would require actual leadership.
Regenag sector needs to start talking about transition off artificial fert, what is involved, and how long it takes. If we have a serious fert shortage this year, NZ is about to learn just how unsustainable our food production is. Regenag relies on soil health, and heavy reliance on artificial fert damages soil. I doubt that transition is quick, but it would be good to know.
"If we have a serious fert shortage this year, NZ is about to learn just how unsustainable our food production is."
We will learn how fragile our trade arrangements were. Most of what we grow is traded away. Much of what we eat here is imported. "Fert" has a significant component imported from a part of the world that is being mined by aggressive outsiders who took the resource by force. We are willing buyers, despite knowing this. There is much that is wrong with "Fert". Perhaps we can weather that storm, but we won't survive the cessation of diesel.