 LOCAL 1) Media articles written by CKM members since the last newsletter. 25/05/2024 - Temporary rates rises? Don’t count on it. 22/06/2024 - A big bill coming due. 20/07/2024 - Are we ready and willing to adapt? 17/08/2024 - Living with loss and doing it well. 2) CKM presentation to the Select Committee on the Fast Track legislation. There were 27,000 submissions with 2,900 requests to speak to the committee. The committee chose to hear from 1100 organisations and individuals who made unique submissions. CKM member Don Quick wrote our submission and also spoke to the Select Committee. You can read both documents on our website. 3) CKM presentation to the MDC Long Term Plan hearings on June 12th. If you're interested the CKM submission and subsequent presentation to the LTP hearings is available on our website. We have also received a response from the Mayor to our contribution. In her letter she says - "Councillors acknowledge the level of care and partnership Climate Karanga Marlborough has when bringing matters to Council’s attention, this helps Council to stay focussed. Councillors also wanted to assure Climate Karanga that Council does take sustainability considerations seriously in its decision making." 4) CKM submission to the MfE Second Emissions Reduction Plan - ERP2. Tom wrote our submission with the introduction and conclusions contributed by Don Quick. Here is a brief summary - While the nation will easily meet the first emissions reduction target, due largely to the previous government’s emissions reductions programs, the termination of those programs and other factors mean that the government is 2 Mt CO2e over the 2nd emissions reduction target unless new additional emissions reductions are proposed. They propose a number of initiatives, but the 3 making the most difference (totally 3.8 Mt CO2e reduction) are carbon capture and storage (CCS) at two gas fields in Taranaki and two unfunded initiatives for reductions in emissions from organic waste and landfill. None of these initiatives, however, are beyond the discussion phase. The overall flavour of the consultation document was optimistic, although the overall message was quite pessimistic. Carbon prices on the NZ ETS are expected to peak at $75/t CO2e in 2028, then drop back down to $50/t by 2035. This takes away incentive for businesses and industry to future reduce emissions, since it will quite cheap to just buy the emissions credits and carry on. The low carbon price will also likely inhibit the government’s plans for private investment in CCS and waste minimisation, which it is counting on to meet the second emissions reduction target. In addition, modelling results shown in the plan predicts that we will likely exceed the 3rd emissions reduction plan target, the 2050 target to reduce biologic methane by 24-47% and the 2050 net zero long-lived gases target. A full copy is available on our website. NATIONAL 5) Robin Woodsford: Why Boomers should fight for the future. Robin was interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon recently. Lesley and I both recommend taking the time to listen to the 20 minute interview, whether you are a boomer or not. "It was the greatest generational shift the world had seen. Post-war babies who grew into young people not content to just accept the way things were - picking a fight against the 'isms': racism, sexism, militarism, consumerism. But they didn't realise how much they'd been shaped by the traumatised parents who raised them. Robin Woodsford has examined this in his book, 'Me and my generation: Why Boomers should claim the past and fight for the future'. He was an activist himself, working for the Young Christian Workers movement in the 70s, before going on to become a youth worker, counsellor and therapist. His book is part memoir, part exploration of what the Baby Boomer generation stood for - and where it ran out of mojo. He makes the argument that the job's not done, and fellow Boomers should be thinking hard about how to make their legacy count." 6) Climate change: simultaneous views from above and below. Our Climate Declaration hosted a very interesting webinar with Sir Peter Gluckman in June which you can access on their website. Below is the abstract giving some info about the topic discussed. I think his focus on the difficulties society faces due to polarisation are very pertinent. We have to find ways to slow and reverse this polarisation. The evidence is more and more compelling that it is driving us towards more and more conflict and fragmentation resulting in more and more damaging outcomes for our planetary life support systems. "In 2015 in a much more settled geopolitical era, the United Nations unanimously adopted Agenda 2030 which is largely described in the accompanying Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 10 years later, both political and scientific progress has been disappointing; this year the multilateral system will gather for the Summit of the Futures. Climate action is detailed in SDG 13 and like actions across the other sixteen goals, progress has been disappointing. The reasons are multiple; the failure of political systems to think long-term, the increasingly divided and geopolitically tense multilateral stage, and especially the interconnected nature of the SDGs which makes it difficult to progress on one without considering the others. Science itself has continued to focus largely on describing the problem with less attention to producing actionable knowledge; the latter requires new modes of doing research. Technological progress is being made but it too has spillover costs. Societies, including our own, will have complex choices to make over employing some technologies which may well be needed or would beneficially change the trajectory of warming. Actionable knowledge needs to impact on citizens locally, create narratives that bring consensual action, effect policy makers nationally, and hopefully drive nation states to collectively understand that it truly is in their self-interest for more effective global action. This is a major challenge for diplomacy and New Zealand needs to rebuild its efforts in science diplomacy. The challenge is how to address it in a way that maintains societal cohesion rather than promotes fragmentation and reactions and accusations of alarmism. Neither data nor alarmism alone will change the future. We must address the political reality that all citizens need to accept the tradeoffs and choices that need to be made. How to change the conversation while maintaining a democratic ethos is central to progress in addressing climate change." Sir Peter is also the Director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures. This group is an independent, non-partisan think tank and research centre based at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland with members throughout New Zealand and the world who focus on critical long-term national and global challenges arising from rapid and far-reaching social, economic, technological and environmental change. 7) Recloaking Papatūānuku I included an item about the Recloaking Papatūānuku initiative from the Pure Advantage group in the May newsletter. In this article from Dame Anne Salmond published on the Newsroom website she says "Continuing to plant pine forests in response to climate change treats rural Kiwis as collateral and ignores past mistakes. Restoring native forests, however, offers hope to those who have suffered the most". It is well worth a read if you're interested in this topic. Pure Advantage have also published 10 asks of Government as a part of delivering Recloaking Papatūānuku: Whilst the Government is keen to see the private sector design and Nature-based solutions, ultimately we need the Government to act as a key enabling and implementing partner to deliver a programme, like Recloaking Papatūānuku, at the scale and with the urgency needed. Some key enablers that Government should urgently address that would unlock progress include:
8) 'You can't plant your way out of this problem': Worry at government's pine-heavy carbon plan. The government's focus on planting pine trees to solve climate change will only push costs onto remote communities and avoid solving the real problem: fossil fuels, campaigners say. The government's draft Emissions Reduction Plan contains little in the way of spending on reducing emissions, preferring to go for what the government says is the more affordable option of offsetting carbon emissions with low-cost trees. Polluters can buy unlimited quantities of pine-based carbon credits under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and the government intends to lean almost exclusively on the ETS to meet climate targets - with no limit on how much pollution can be offset, versus cut at the source. The draft plan also promises to explore technological solutions like storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs, as well as nature-based options such as absorbing carbon by re-wetting peatlands. "You can't plant your way out of this problem," said WWF's Kayla Kingdon-Bebb. "It's really disappointing that this plan has pivoted so hard away from gross emissions reduction. It's really just kicking the can down the road in a very unhelpful way. We only have so much land in New Zealand that's suitable for planting, and there's a reason that widespread pine plantation has been controversial. If we're going to be pursuing a programme of aggressive afforestation, it needs to be native afforestation." Check out the full article on the RNZ website. 9) A new ruling says countries – including NZ – must take action on climate change under the law of the sea. This is another significant milestone achieved through legal action rather than political action. We can't rely on politicians to take the necessary action, as they have little incentive when such actions impact their primary interests of GDP and "growth", so other ways such as this, are important avenues for forcing change. The Tribunals strong support for the request described below is encouraging. "In a significant development for small island nations threatened by rising seas, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has found greenhouse gases constitute marine pollution. The tribunal handed down a unanimous advisory opinion this week in its first climate-related judgement. It declared countries must take measures to combat climate change in order to preserve the marine environment under the law of the sea. The ruling responds to a request from the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS). The commission sought to clarify whether obligations to prevent pollution and protect the marine environment under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) apply to climate change and ocean acidification. The tribunal’s answer was an emphatic yes. This means countries, including New Zealand, must now address climate change under both the law of the sea and international climate agreements." You can check out the full article on The Conversation website. 10) The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and Its Implications. The Opinion is the first in a trio of advisory opinions by international courts that will likely be issued within twelve months of each other. It is envisaged that next, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“IACHR”) will deliver its opinion regarding States’ obligations derived from human rights norms in relation to the climate emergency. The International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) will then opine on the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system from anthropogenic GHGs for present and future generations, as well as the legal consequences for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system. These opinions are expected in early- and mid- 2025, respectively. Notably, the Opinion was issued just six weeks after the European Court of Human Rights’ (“ECtHR’s”) judgment in KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, in which the ECtHR, for the first time in its history, prescribed the content of States’ positive obligations under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) in the context of climate change. According to the ECtHR, States have a primary duty to adopt, and to effectively apply in practice, general measures for achieving carbon neutrality—and with a view to achieving neutrality within the next three decades. You can read more about this opinion on the website of Gibson Dunn, a large corporate legal firm and also in this article published on RNZ. 11) Unprecedented ocean change may impact key NZ fisheries. More marine heatwaves likely for NZ this summer; study reveals risk to critical ocean species "NIWA scientists have seen substantial changes in the ocean to the east of New Zealand, with possible impacts for important fisheries. Since 2006, strong, full-depth ocean warming has occurred south of the Chatham Islands at around 5x the global rate because of the ocean currents moving 120km west." You can learn more about this research on the NIWA website. I have a particular interest in this second article from the NZ Herald about the impacts of these marine heat waves. We lived near Punakaiki in the 1970's and '80's and regularly collected bull kelp for our garden and orchard. To see in this article that nearly all bull kelp in the West Coast’s Punakaiki Marine Reserve have been wiped out is very sad. This is confirmation of what we have heard from old friends still living in the area. 12) Environment and economics: A marriage of (in)convenience? This speech by the Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton to the EDS conference on June 12th in Christchurch is well worth a read if you haven't seen it. I find his contributions to the public discourse to be thought provoking and insightful and this speech is no different. Here is a taste of his speech - "Environmentalists are very good at pointing out inconvenient truths. They supply a sort of portable plug-in conscience for a society that is only too happy to overlook accumulating environmental pressures in favour of making hay in the short term. They upend John Maynard Keynes’ famous observation that “the long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.” Environmentalists insist that current affairs provide an excellent guide to where we will end up if we don’t change course. But I didn’t come here today to talk about what a wonderful job environmentalists do. There is a danger that we all get into a bubble of clear-sighted, righteous agreement that if only other people had sufficient political will and shared our views, we’d be well on our way to the promised land. I’d prefer, instead, to turn the spotlight back on ourselves and address some of the economic elephants in the room that make environmentalism so much harder than a few slogans can make it seem." AND - "Given that we are a biological economy, the lack of data we have on the claims agriculture makes on soil and water is truly disturbing." I recommend checking out the full speech. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment office also submitted to the Government's Emissions Reduction Plan. You can read about it and download their full submission from their website. Below is an extract. "The Commissioner has made a submission on New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan (ERP2) outlining how the plan’s ‘least cost approach’ risks passing on undue costs to future generations. He describes ERP2 as a mixed bag of policies designed to deliver the minimum reductions required, and possibly not even achieving that. There is a very real risk that New Zealand won’t even meet the first or second budget with the policy mix that is proposed. The projected reduction only just adds up and margins are thin, with no allowance being made for uncertainties surrounding policy measures. If the budgets are not met, then future generations will carry the burden of meeting those targets. Of greatest concern is the plan’s reliance on the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS), which in its current form suppresses carbon prices, discourages gross emissions reductions and incentivises the planting of large areas of land in pine forests." An article titled "Draft climate plan risks kicking costs down road," was also published in the Farmers Weekly and gives a good summary of his perspective. This quote from Simon is as usual succinct and to the point. “There is no guarantee that the cavalry of cheap technology will come charging over the hill as is implicitly assumed by this plan.” 13) There’s no buying our way out of the environment crisis. The idea individuals can fix the environment by buying ‘eco-friendly’ products is dangerous. Dr Gabriela Baron explains in this Newsroom article why green consumerism is an oxymoron. "To genuinely tackle the climate crisis, we need to focus more on cultural, behavioural, and policy changes rather than relying on technological solutions. The sooner we accept the fact that we can’t buy our way out of the situation through ‘green consumerism’, the more effective our policy strategies will be. In the past half a century, we have been part of a significant shift from a production-focused society to one driven by consumption. Consumer culture and marketing have emerged as dominant forces, driven by consumer confidence and credit availability, rather than production efficiency. This shift has dramatically altered personal identity and cultural development. Modern advertising has evolved from promoting a product’s practical features to creating symbolic connections between products and consumers’ psychological states, harnessing human psychology, and targeting emotions such as guilt, inadequacy, aspirations, and identity. Often, the strategy involves creating a new crisis in order to sell a product that promises to solve it." 14) An obscure climate accounting decision with billion-dollar consequences. In June, Minister of Climate Change Simon Watts requested a report from the Climate Commission on the levels of domestic emissions reduction that Aotearoa New Zealand could feasibly achieve as part of its second nationally determined contribution (NDC2). More information is available on the Climate Commission's website. The information below is from a statement published on the Pure Advantage website in April this year and written by Rob Morrison & Dr. Christina Hood. They say the consultation on the government's plans for domestic policy and NDC implementation is welcome but the issue they are highlighting in this statement could have big implications for NZ in the years ahead. Here is an extract - "In a London meeting room recently, the International Accounting Standards Board decided that corporate climate targets are not just about sustainability: they can create direct financial consequences for companies’ balance sheets And as interpretation decisions from this Board also inform public sector accounting, it also provides guidance for how public entities, councils and countries financially account for the cost of meeting climate targets. It has potential billion-dollar consequences for the New Zealand government’s financial statements. That will be of particular interest to Climate Change Minister Hon Simon Watts, who was recently welcomed into Cabinet and also happens to be an accountant, and to Associate Climate Change and Finance Minister Hon Nicola Willis. The decision makes two key clarifications. First, that a climate target does not have to be legally enforceable to matter: even an entirely voluntary target can create a financial obligation if the company is sufficiently committed to its delivery (that is, there can be a “constructive obligation” in accounting-speak). Second, when use of carbon credits is part of meeting a target (offsetting a company’s excess annual emissions), the cost of those credits should be financially provisioned for, as a liability, when the emissions occur each year. These clarifications come at a helpful moment for New Zealand. There has been increasing interest in the legal and financial accounting status of New Zealand’s international emissions reductions target – or nationally determined contribution (NDC) – under the Paris Agreement that covers the 2021 to 2030 period, for example; Risks Hiding in Plain Sight by the McGuinness Institute and the related analysis by Compass Climate. Based on the International Accounting Standards Board’s interpretation, there should be a provision (liability) in the government’s financial statements now for the portion of this cost that covers excess emissions that have already occurred. Failure to acknowledge this cost is hard to reconcile with the foundational accounting principle of presenting a “true and fair view” of the financial situation." A recording of a discussion between Environmental Defense Society CEO Gary Taylor and CC Minister Simon Watts, that addresses some of the matters highlighted in this item, was recently made available on the EDS website. This discussion will give you a good idea of the current government's spin on these issues and contrasts somewhat with the views expressed above. 15) Climate Change Commission Delivers First National Adaptation Plan Progress Assessment. On August 15th the Minister of Climate Change released the Commissions report, which is the first in a series of two-yearly progress assessments against the government’s national adaptation plan. The information below is from a recent media release by the Climate Commission about the report.
Adaptation is not happening on the scale or at the pace that is needed. Aotearoa New Zealand’s first independent assessment of adaptation progress shows urgent action is needed to address the impacts of climate change on New Zealanders’ lives and livelihoods, says Commission Chair Dr Rod Carr. The full media release is available on the Climate Commission website. 16) Commonwealth Bank stops lending to fossil fuel companies without genuine emissions plan. This looks like a positive move by the biggest bank in Australia. You can read more about it on the ABC News website. "The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the country's largest mortgage lender, is the first major Australian bank to start walking away from funding fossil fuel companies without genuine emissions plans. In its latest climate report, released on the same day it posted close to $10 billion in full-year net profit, the bank stated that it had already been ditching clients not aligned with the Paris Agreement. The real-world effects of the bank's new policy could be put to the test as soon as next week, with a major gas loan reportedly being signed off without CBA at the table. Last year, the bank announced from 2025 it would not provide loans to any coal, oil, or gas companies that did not have a transition plan in line with the Paris goals to avoid dangerous warming. This week's report shows that it is applying that policy early. CBA's loans to fossil fuels decreased by 92 per cent from 2018 to 2022, from $4 billion to $267 million, according to analysis from Market Forces, a group that campaigns against investments in environmentally destructive projects. The bank also halved its exposure to oil and gas companies in the past two years from $3.3 billion in 2022 down to $1.7 billion." 17) Clean ups are not enough: Government policy incoherent on climate change. The Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa released a briefing in July where they question the direction and coherence of the current government's climate strategy. Here is the summary from the briefing - "Events like the recent storm on the East Coast demonstrate our communities’ vulnerability in the face of climate change. But given what is known about our changing climate, it is important not to simply try to maintain or return to what was. Instead, we need the Government of Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) to use evidence to support communities to rebuild for increased resilience in the face of climate change. Additionally, we need central Government to recognise that policies that increase greenhouse gas emissions put communities in this country and internationally at increased risk from climate change impacts. However, the current Government appears not to be making these connections, bringing in a range of policies likely to increase the country’s emissions as well as the Fast-track Approvals Bill which will reduce the rigour applied to new developments. Yet there are potentially huge public health, social, and economic benefits in an evidence-informed, coherent mitigation and adaptation policy response to climate change." They have also made available a recent paper published in the Lancet titled "Health and climate change: adaptation policy in Aotearoa New Zealand" that describes direct and indirect health risks to NZ communities from climate change. In the paper they recommend that the Climate Change Commission engage formally and directly with health bodies to strengthen the Commission's advice on the implications of climate change, and of national climate change policies, on health and equity. They say - "Climate resilient development does not occur without better public health. For this reason, the health sector has a critical role in the development and implementation of adaptation policy." If you're interested you can also access a copy of their submission on the Government’s Climate adaptation inquiry. 18) Rewiring Aotearoa. I came across the Rewiring Aotearoa website recently which I thought would be worth sharing. The site is a good source of information about the environmental and economic benefits of going electric in our homes. Rewiring Aotearoa represents everyday New Zealanders in the energy transition and is working to build an electrified future where every Kiwi saves money on energy bills, reduces their carbon emissions and has the resilience to keep their lights on and homes warm. Let’s make New Zealand more electric! Chief scientist for Rewiring Aotearoa, Saul Griffith has written an article published in Newsroom about a high-powered report they have released which shows transforming our households, cars and home energy infrastructure to fight climate change would save New Zealanders $100 billion. The $100 billion figure is one of two headline figures – the other is that this savings translates to the average electrified household spending between $1500 and $4700 less on energy each year. These are big numbers, but they don’t fully tell the story that Griffith has come to New Zealand to share. New Zealand has a unique opportunity, he says, because its highly renewable power system means the climate savings of electrification are just as significant as the cash savings. Plus, our need to import most of the fossil fuels we use means decarbonisation saves even more money (and helps our trade balance). For decades, policymakers and activists have looked at climate change as a supply problem. The largest emitters – power generators who burn fossil fuels and industry – buy energy at cheaper wholesale prices, meaning solving climate change through investing in new infrastructure was going to be costly. “If you look at the demand side of the energy economy, which is where we use energy in our cars, in our homes, in small businesses, that whole sector of the economy pays higher retail energy prices. And if you use electrification, because it is much more efficient for all those things on the demand side – and particularly if you use rooftop solar – it is now cost effective,” he says. INTERNATIONAL 19) Animal Telemetry. I've recently read a very interesting book by Australian author James Bradley titled "Deep Water". In the book he provides information about the IMOS tagging project where they fix tracking devices to Elephant Seals, and use them to collect large amounts of very useful data in the Southern Ocean. "IMOS is Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System. It is operated by a consortium of institutions as an unincorporated joint venture, with the University of Tasmania as Lead Agent. They also collect data in other areas using penguins and turtles. As the animals move through the ocean, sensors in these devices collect information about location, depth, salinity and temperature. Researcher Mark Hindell says "it's almost as if we have 287 mini-submarines exploring the Southern Ocean." Information was collected from over a million dives in more than 568,000 locations. Another researcher Prof Rob Harcourt says - "This data has improved the accuracy of the IPCC ocean state models by about 15%, which is a huge change in our understanding of how much energy is being pumped into the ocean, and has transformed the IPCC's predictions." The ICARUS project based in Germany also uses animal telemetry on a wide range of mammals and birds. Their current device weighs only five grams but they are developing a device that will weigh only one gram and be able to be fitted to insects. Despite their miniscule size the current transmitters are equipped with a range of sensors capable of gauging speed, magnetic intensity, temperature, humidity and air pressure." I find this sort of project fascinating. Here we are facing a predicament where human activity is having major impacts on the habitats and environment that wild animals and insects live in and the very animals being impacted are being utilised in this way to provide large amounts of data that would be incredibly difficult to collect any other way. Hopefully the information can be used to help bring about the changes necessary to ensure their survival. "Animal Tagging deploys Satellite Relay Data Loggers (SRDL) on several species of Southern Ocean seals including both weddell and southern elephant seals. These data loggers are often equipped with a CTD and fluorometer, collecting high resolution ocean observations in the deep Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters. Data is transmitted in near real-time using the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (Argos) system. Geolocation archival (GLS) tags have also been used in seabirds, such as the short-tailed shearwater, snow petrels and emperor penguins, however the use of these tags was ceased in 2014. Fitting seals with these miniaturised loggers provide the ability to collect valuable oceanographic measurements in regions often inaccessible to ship-based researchers, whilst also providing information on seal behaviour. The merging of oceanography and marine mammal ecology advances our understanding of the world’s oceans and its top predators and allow us to predict how these species will be affected by future climate changes. Furthermore, recent technological advancements permit the collection of important data on ocean properties throughout the Antarctic winter – data previously unavailable but crucially important to oceanographic and climate studies." You can learn more about animal tagging on the IMOS website and also on the ICARUS website. Icarus are connected to the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and are doing similar research working with animals. This connected project from Icarus is doing research with animals to assess the possibility of using them to provide an early warning system of natural disasters. 20) Debt payments by countries most vulnerable to climate crisis soar. Debt payments by the 50 countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis have doubled since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and now stand at their highest level in more than three decades, campaigners have warned. The Debt Justice charity said countries at the highest risk of being affected by global heating were paying 15.5% of government revenues to external creditors – up from less than 8% before Covid-19 and 4% at their lowest recent point in 2010. Using data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the charity said its new report showed the urgent need for comprehensive debt relief so that poor countries could invest in measures to tackle the climate crisis. “Record levels of debt are crushing the ability of the most vulnerable countries to tackle the climate emergency,” said Heidi Chow, the executive director of Debt Justice. “We need a rapid and effective debt relief scheme to cancel debts down to a sustainable level. The UK can play its part by legislating to ensure private lenders take part in international debt relief agreements.” Check out the full article in the Guardian. 21) The role of ‘blue carbon’ in addressing climate change. This guest post by Dr Claire Evans, a principal biogeochemist at the National Oceanography Centre lays out the climate opportunities presented by “blue carbon” and the challenges these ecosystems face. Blue carbon is a term that refers to carbon captured by the world’s ocean and coastal ecosystems that has potential to be conserved or enhanced. Blue carbon is stored in vegetated coastal and marine ecosystems such as seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes. "Within the ocean’s vast expanse lie immense reservoirs of carbon – surpassing those found in either the atmosphere or the land. The ocean actively captures and incorporates carbon through various natural mechanisms, locking in a significant portion that would otherwise circulate within the Earth’s systems, thereby functioning as a continuous carbon sink. This crucial role mitigates climate change by reducing the amount of carbon which ends up in the atmosphere. If the ocean remains as a net carbon sink, it can aid in offsetting ongoing emissions and slowing global warming. Unfortunately, a longstanding misconception persists that the ocean has an infinite resilience to human exploitation and negligence – likely stemming from the fact that the consequences of our actions are obscured beneath the surface. Unsustainable use of the ocean’s resources – such as through overfishing – coupled with warming and acidification progressively erode the ocean’s capacity to regulate carbon and heat and its ability to sustain essential resources and services. Consequently, rates of carbon sequestration are weakening and the vast carbon reserves held within marine ecosystems are increasingly susceptible to release." 22) The critical role of ‘grounding zones’ in the retreat of Earth’s ice sheets. This is an extract from a guest post published on the Climate Brief website from Dr Alex Bradley, an ice-ocean modeller at the British Antarctic Survey and Bryony Freer, a PhD student with the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Leeds. "The vast ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica have the potential to trigger catastrophic sea level rise as the climate warms. But the ice-sheet models that scientists use to project future changes underestimate how fast sea levels are rising now and how much they have risen in the past. This suggests the models are missing important processes driving ice-sheet retreat. New research suggests that melting at grounding zones – where the ice transitions from sitting on land to floating on water – could be the missing piece of the puzzle. And it is potentially a big piece. For example, when one study on the Thwaites glacier in west Antarctica included these processes, its projections of ice-sheet loss more than doubled. While scientists have yet to run model simulations with grounding-zone melting included for the whole of Antarctica, studies focusing on specific regions of the continent’s ice sheets project up to twice as much sea level rise. Current global projections of sea level rise also do not include grounding-zone melting. This means that these projections – including those that inform the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – may be substantial underestimates.Ice-sheet models have “known unknowns” – things we know that we do not know perfectly, but can account for imperfect knowledge of. However, they also have “unknown unknowns” – things that we do not even know are happening and therefore cannot quantify the full effects of. Although grounding-zone melting might result in higher sea level than we expected, at least we now know that it is happening and can begin to incorporate it into our models. The devil we know is better than the devil we don’t." 23) The Battery Mineral Loop - The path from extraction to circularity. I've included items in earlier newsletters questioning whether our aim to replace fossil fuel energy with renewable energy will be limited by the availability of enough resources, in particular critical minerals. A report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in the US takes an optimistic perspective on the issue regarding storage batteries and argues that a circular system can be established that will meet our needs. In my opinion there is still a big question of whether we can continue to produce enough energy and minerals to meet the exponentially growing demands of our technological world while at the same time turning around the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. If the wish is to keep charging headlong into this brave new world, rather than slowing down and exercising some restraint and discrimination, I think it would be wise to remember Papatuanuku will have the last word. Here is an extract from the RMI website - In The Battery Mineral Loop, RMI lays out a comprehensive strategy to address the rising demand for battery minerals. Battery minerals are not the new oil. Even as battery demand surges, the combined forces of efficiency, innovation, and circularity will drive peak demand for mined minerals within a decade — and may even avoid mineral extraction altogether by 2050. These advancements enable us to transition from linear extraction to a circular loop, with compounding benefits for our climate, security, equity, health, and wealth. Change is already underway. Without the past decade of improvements in chemistry mix, energy density, and recycling, lithium, nickel, and cobalt demand would be 60–140 percent higher than they are today. Continuing the current trend means we will see peak virgin battery mineral demand in the mid-2030s. Accelerating the trend along six key solutions — deploying new battery chemistries, making batteries more energy-dense, recycling their mineral content, extending their lifetime, improving vehicle efficiency, and improving mobility efficiency — means we can reach net-zero mineral demand in the 2040s. At that point, end-of-life batteries will become the new mineral ore, limiting the need for any mining altogether. We have enough to get there; our known reserves of lithium, cobalt, and nickel are twice the level of total virgin demand we may require, and announced mining projects are already sufficient to meet almost all virgin demand. Check out the full article and get access to the full report on the RMI website. This article on the EV Markets Reports website supports the RMI report conclusions. 24) Governing for the planet - Nation-states are no longer fit for purpose to create a habitable future for humans and nature. Which political system is? Below is an extract from an essay published on the Aeon website. I'm always interested in viewpoints that step back from the specifics of the polycrisis and look deeper into the big picture aspect of what is happening on our planet. This item and the next four, the first on multipolar traps, then two short essays from Martin LeFevre and finally an item about the book "A Darwinian Survival Guide" all give plenty of food for thought and discussion about human beings and their part in the biosphere. In politics, there is no ‘world’; only states. Compounding the problem is the fact that for pathogens, there are no ‘states’; there is only the world. This basic mismatch between the scale of the problem and the scale of possible solutions is a source of many of today’s failures of global governance. Nation-states and the global governance institutions they have formed simply aren’t fit for the task of managing things such as viruses, greenhouse gases and biodiversity, which aren’t bound by political borders, but only by the Earth system. As a result, the diplomats may still come to agree on a pandemic treaty – they’ve committed to keep working – but, so long as the structure of the international system continues to treat sovereignty as sacrosanct, they will never be able to effectively govern this or other planetary-scale phenomena. An emerging scientific consensus, however, makes clear that not only have we not tamed nature, we can’t tame nature, for the simple reason that we are part of nature. Human beings are inextricably part of the biosphere, part of Earth. These insights emerge from rigorous scientific study, not mystical reflection, and reveal our place within the biogeochemical churn of this planet. A vast and expanding infrastructure of sensors across, above and below Earth, and the networks of software and hardware that process and interpret the mountains of data the sensors produce, have demonstrated, with an accuracy and precision unmatched by previous generations, that humans are embedded in this planet’s system of systems. What this new and growing planetary sapience is revealing is systematic wreckage. Scientists have determined that human actions (really, some humans’ actions) have pushed Earth past the ‘safe operating space for humanity’ for six of nine ‘planetary boundaries’, including climate change, biosphere integrity and freshwater change. We now understand not only the damage that we are doing to planetary systems but the damage that we are doing to ourselves as elements of those systems. The Earth sustains us, not the other way around. There is no possibility of human thriving unless the ecosystems that we are part of thrive. The realisation of our planetary condition may insult our narcissistic self-regard, but it also yields a positive possibility: that human flourishing is possible only in the context of multispecies flourishing on a habitable planet. The aim of habitability is meant to diverge from the now-dominant concept of sustainability. While the concept of sustainability treats nature both as distinct from humans and as existing for humans’ responsibly managed instrumental use, the concept of habitability understands humans as embedded in and reliant on the more-than-human natural world. Stripped of sustainability’s anthropocentrism, habitability focuses on fostering the conditions that allow complex life in general – including, but not only, humans – to live well. This vision of multispecies flourishing is at once generous and selfish. Expanding the circle of concern to include the multispecies menagerie is certainly more beneficent than current politics typically allows, but it is also absolutely about ensuring the survival of our species. What’s bad for them is, ultimately, bad for us. These goals – thriving ecosystems in a stable biosphere supporting human lives and nonhuman life – must be our new lodestar. The central question of our time is: how can we achieve this? We can’t predict what the galvanising catastrophe might be that brings about new systems of governance. We must focus our efforts instead on defining a clear perspective on what planetary governance could and should be. Holding such a vision in our minds may make it more possible to take advantage of the crisis that will all but inevitably arrive given the inadequacy of the current system. As we enter a period of not just geopolitical but geophysical uncertainty, calibrating our North Star – our vision of where we want to head – will be more important than ever. Check out the full essay on the Aeon website. 25) Multipolar or Moloch traps. This is a term I've become aware of recently. Learning about multipolar traps was helpful for me in my efforts to try and understand what it is that drives humanity to keep messing it's own bed. "The multipolar trap is a term used to describe a situation where self-interest compels multiple parties to act against their collective interest, leading to detrimental outcomes or even destruction." AND - "Escaping from the immensely challenging nature of multipolar traps poses a significant obstacle. It necessitates collective efforts and consideration of the long-term consequences of our actions. To achieve this, industries, governments, individuals, and society as a whole must engage in intensive collaboration to overcome competitive barriers and prioritize long-term sustainability over short-term gains." You can learn more about this concept from this extract from an online book by David Gurteen called Conversational Leadership. For anyone interested in this topic there is also a deep dive discussion about this and related topics between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger on YouTube. The topic of the discussion is "A Vision for Betterment - From Naive to Authentic Progress." "Current mainstream narratives sell the story that progress is synonymous with betterment, and that the world becomes better for everyone as GDP and economies continue to grow. Yet, this is an incomplete portrayal that leaves out the dark sides of advancement. What are the implications when only the victors of history write the narratives of progress and define societal values? What are the value systems embedded in our institutions and policies, and how do they reinforce the need for ongoing growth at the expense of the natural world and human well-being? Finally, how do we change these dynamics to form a new, holistic definition of progress that accounts for the connectedness of our planet to the health of our minds, bodies, and communities?" 26) A Day Of Contrasts Between Darkness And Light. Below is an extract from an Opinion item written by Martin LeFevre and published on the Scoop website. I recommend checking out the full text. "Thousands of years of civilization, and tens of thousands of years of prehistory have culminated in planetary polycrisis. Is there a root cause, and can it be addressed, much less redressed by the living generations? It can if we look below the surface level of current events and national politics, and stop confusing human social and political systems with the natural order. Conflating man-made systems with natural systems only exacerbates man’s decimation of the earth, and does nothing to remedy humankind’s increasing social and psychological pathology. The latter – the human mind and consciousness – is what is destroying the former -- the natural order. Combining them by saying things like, “How rising emissions distort our political ecosystems is not nearly as well understood as the scientific certainty that they are heating our world,” just increases confusion. It’s true that we need to examine “the feedbacks of the climate crisis on governance.” But if we have no insight into the underlying cause of the fragmentation razing both the earth and human institutions, we cannot deal with either. Placing the climate and ecological crisis in the context of national and international politics, or even politics at all, is to be shortsighted to the point of obtuse. We have to look a lot deeper than “the battle between those who want to fix what is broken and those who want to keep breaking." 27) The Pervasiveness Of Inward Deadness Is Not The Result Of “The Deadening Effect Of The Super-Rich”. Here is another essay from Martin challenging our perceptions of our predicament. It’s easy to blame the rich and “the soul-sucking mode of exploitation we call capitalism” for the rapaciousness of the human species. However, “restraining the power of the very rich” is an absurdly inadequate response to the global polycrisis. Of course the super-rich have added greatly to the hellishness of this world. But it’s facile to maintain they are the cause of the planetary ecological, economic and political crisis, and that constraining them is the remedy to it. We, those who still care about the viability of the earth and the future of humanity, have to look deeper than boilerplate thinking on the left. That means continuously questioning and observing within, not automatically looking for external remedies. When we awaken insight and intelligence inwardly, we not only feel wonder and transcendence as human beings, but will find creative outward solutions to the polycrisis that aren’t based on accumulating power. 28) A Darwinian Survival Guide - Hope for the 21st Century. The final item is about a book I've recently read titled "A Darwinian Survival Guide - Hope for the 21st Century" by Daniel Brooks and Salvatore Agosta. Some of you may remember the discussion I included in the May newsletter between Daniel, an evolutionary biologist and a science fiction writer called Peter Watts. I've included below a short extract from and a description of the book. I was able to borrow the book from the Blenheim library so if you're interested you could check it out. For those who don't want to read the book, I recommend reading the excellent short research paper titled "Surviving the Anthropocene: A Darwinian Guide" which is a precis of the book. Daniel and Salvatore have made it available on the ResearchGate website and reading it might be a good opportunity to have some of our views of the world we live in, challenged! Here is an extract from the precis of the book - "The fundamental theory of the survival of life on this planet is Darwinism. Darwinian evolution is about coping with change by changing, using what you have on hand to survive. The fuel for this process is evolutionary potential, which resides in preexisting variation. This preexisting variation allows living systems to move forward into an uncertain future. The biosphere is a complex evolutionary system that generates, stores, and uses its own potential to survive. This makes ecosystems robust, not fragile. That suggests we can use the biosphere without destroying it, but we need some guidelines. Those guidelines are embodied in the Four Laws of Biotics, which tell us how we can interact with the biosphere without endangering ourselves further. We can further improve humanity’s chances of survival as a technological species by:
Darwinian principles provide humanity with a middle ground, a third way, between unattainable utopia and unacceptable apocalypse. We can alter our behavior now according to Darwinian principles, at great expense and difficulty, and extend or even improve upon the current state of the Anthropocene, or we can fail to act on our own behalf, experience a general collapse of technological society, and rebuild using those Darwinian principles to provide a more survivable future." Here is an extract from the book - "What makes the biosphere robust is not evolution's propensity to maximise fitness but rather its propensity to generate less than maximally fit yet survivable variants (survival of the fit) and a realm of possibilities (sloppy fitness space) to explore. These insights have been around for more than 160 years since Darwin published the "Origin of Species." And yet our modern world has been saturated with a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, which despite what many may think, is the antithesis of how nature works. Our economic systems as well as the ways we interact with each other and the rest of the biosphere are driven by such mantras as "bigger is better" and "growth is good." Darwin understood that growth is a fundamental aspect of biology, but growth alone only produces conflict. Growing as much as possible amounts to maximising short-term profits at the expense of saving for the future. And this is a poor strategy when survival depends on coping with change." Here is a description of the book from the MIT website - "How humanity brought about the climate crisis by departing from its evolutionary trajectory 15,000 years ago—and how we can use evolutionary principles to save ourselves from the worst outcomes. Despite efforts to sustain civilization, humanity faces existential threats from overpopulation, globalized trade and travel, urbanization, and global climate change. In A Darwinian Survival Guide, Daniel Brooks and Salvatore Agosta offer a novel—and hopeful—perspective on how to meet these tremendous challenges by changing the discourse from sustainability to survival. Darwinian evolution, the world's only theory of survival, is the means by which the biosphere has persisted and renewed itself following past environmental perturbations, and it has never failed, they explain. Even in the aftermath of mass extinctions, enough survivors remain with the potential to produce a new diversified biosphere. Drawing on their expertise as field biologists, Brooks and Agosta trace the evolutionary path from the early days of humans through the Late Pleistocene and the beginning of the Anthropocene all the way to the Great Acceleration of technological humanity around 1950, demonstrating how our creative capacities have allowed humanity to survive. However, constant conflict without resolution has made the Anthropocene not only unsustainable, but unsurvivable. Guided by the four laws of biotics, the authors explain how humanity should interact with the rest of the biosphere and with each other in accordance with Darwinian principles. They reveal a middle ground between apocalypse and utopia, with two options: alter our behavior now at great expense and extend civilization or fail to act and rebuild in accordance with those same principles. If we take the latter, then our immediate goal ought to focus on preserving as many of humanity's positive achievements—from high technology to high art—as possible to shorten the time needed to rebuild."
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AuthorThese newsletters are put together by Budyong Hill in an attempt to help keep Marlborough people informed of issues both global and local. The aim is help raise awareness of the myriad challenges facing the essential life support systems that our amazing planet provides for us every day. Archives
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