november 2024

LOCAL

1) Media articles written by CKM members since the last newsletter. 

13/09/24 - The ‘bearers of civilisation’ and the crises we created.
It is worth noting that this article written by Don Quick was chosen to be included on Stuff's Forever Project page on their website.

13/10/24 - The right to repair is a climate issue too.

09/11/24 - The faster you go, the bigger the mess.

2) Marlborough Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Group Plan 2025-2030.

The CDEM Plan went out for public consultation in September. CKM made a submission to the plan which you can read if interested.

Here is an extract from our submission - 

Objective 1: Managing risks states:
“Where we want to be: Marlborough is a risk-aware District that takes all practicable steps to identify, prioritise, and manage risks that could impact the wellbeing and prosperity of all those who live, work, or visit here.”

We fully support Objective 1. We do though, wish to offer some words of caution regarding interpretation of the definition of this objective. Being "risk-aware" is a laudable aim but begs the question - How are those risks defined and who defines them?

We are aware at central and local government levels of a tendency to downplay the potential risks arising from the consequences of global heating and biodiversity loss and degradation. There is a wide body of scientific evidence available that informs us that the actual risks we face are higher than our politicians would want us to believe. Even when assessment of the risks is realistic, invariably the actions required to meaningfully reduce those risks fall short. It is certainly clear that central government decisions over multiple governments indicate a downplaying of the risks and a prioritising of economic needs above the needs of Te Taiao. This blinkered view of the world we live in fails to fully recognise the critical importance of maintaining the viability of the biosphere if we are to succeed in retaining a liveable planet. Accepting this predicament is an important component of achieving a truly "risk-aware" plan.

The Mayor Nadine Taylor also wrote an opinion piece for the local paper titled "You could be your neighbour’s first responder" where she said - "We are, as a region and nation, exposed to more hazards than ever before, particularly with the effects of climate change now upon us. Marlborough has seen the impact of the increased intensity of weather events firsthand in 2021 and 2022, with many homes evacuated for safety."

3) National Gravel Bed River (GBR) project’s final findings out.

The final report from the Gravel Bed Rivers National Project was presented to Council at the Environment and Planning meeting on October 3rd. Check out the MDC media release for more info. If you're interested in the science detail you can download the pdf files of the Final Report and view the presentation given to a Council workshop on September 10th. They are both available on the "Reports and Presentations" page of their website under the heading "Yearly Reports 2024".

The main findings of the report were:

• Braided rivers should be considered as a “river system”, comprising their river channels, gravel beds and the water stored within those gravel beds.
• Braided rivers have their own distinct aquifer (braidplain aquifer) formed by movement of bed sediments during flooding, and which temporarily store water which is exchanged with river channels.
• Braided river systems can be hydraulically perched above the regional groundwater table or hydraulically connected as is the case for the Wairau River system.
• Recharge to the Wairau Aquifer from the Wairau River system is dynamic and depends on channel-aquifer head differences. The Wairau River provides recharge at an average rate of 6.65 m 3 /s to the Wairau Aquifer (range 4 to 26 m 3 /s).
• The most permeable gravel layer beneath the Wairau River and forming the Wairau Aquifer on the river berms is very thin (<8 metres) and sensitive to changes in levels in either water body.
• Braiding distributes water more evenly across the braidplain aquifer and promotes higher groundwater levels. Channelisation increases water level fluctuations and scoring compounds it, allowing groundwater levels to fall to very low levels during low flow periods.
• Wairau River flood protection works have reduced the degree of braiding since 1960 leading inadvertently to lower channel levels relative to the Wairau Aquifer and reduced exchange with groundwater, all other factors being equal.
• Continued lowering of the Wairau River bed would reduce security of supply for irrigators and cause further spring recession. Bed raising would increase cost of gravel, increase security of supply for irrigators and reduce spring recession.
• Widening of the Wairau River bed would potentially provide a one-off gravel source, decrease the depth of scouring, and promote braiding.

MDC groundwater scientist Peter Davidson says -

“The latest research from 3 case studies around NZ is being applied in a discrete reach of the Wairau River to enhance aquifer recharge to provide future certainty for irrigators, the environment and municipal supplies. MDC won’t compromise the flood protection of the Wairau but is using world class research in a practical way to optimise the net change in gravel and may trial some fine tuning of river control approaches."

Peter also presented the latest groundwater quantity State of the Environment (SoE) report at the November 14th committee meeting and says -
 
"This is the precursor to the Marlborough Environment Plan (MEP) limits review which is a much larger exercise and won’t be ready until next year as there is aquifer modelling involved which is taking longer than expected.”

Points to note from the report are –

1) That the Riverlands aquifer allocation is not likely to be sustainable. I would say this is a definite as sea levels rise.

2) That the declining trend in the Wairau aquifer is largely caused by long term external factors, not abstraction, though abstraction was a clear contributing factor last summer with the drought conditions causing the aquifer to fall to its lowest ever recorded levels. It goes without saying that increased incidence of droughts will exacerbate the aquifer decline. The completion of the hydrological review next year, which will make recommendations for managing water allocations from the Wairau aquifer, will be interesting to see. There will have to be changes to the current management regime.

You can read a summary of the Groundwater Quantity SoE report in the November 14th meeting agenda. It is item number 12 or you can download a copy of the full report if interested.

4) Marlborough Biodiversity Forum maps.

Over the past few months organisers of the Marlborough Biodiversity Forum have been collating information on where conservation restoration work is being undertaken across Marlborough. Thanks to MDC we now have resulting maps for the Sounds and South Marlborough.
 
5) VEGAN Convergence Of the Peoples (V-COP) presentation by James Wilson.

Long time member of CKM James Wilson, who many of you will know, recently gave a presentation to the world V-COP conference in Arizona. James says -

"I know that my views can be seen as too strong, but I am now convinced that 10,000+ years of human de-wilding has built up a huge reservoir of CO2, to which we are now adding fossil derived carbon. Sailesh Rao, shows clearly that eliminating livestock is more immediately necessary than curtailing fossil fuel burning.  We are presently blinded by the focus on fossil fuels that we, nation-wide, regard meat production and eating as sacrosanct.  Things have to change."

If you're interested please check out the full paper.

NATIONAL

6) Free labour: how bird poo is helping replant our native forests.

Now, here's a positive idea for improving biodiversity and native forest cover by working with nature. There are many areas around NZ where natural regeneration of native forest occurs and this simple idea can speed up that process by proactively planting native fruiting trees to attract birds to spread plant seeds.

"What if the solution to restore our native forests more effectively, efficiently, and cheaply has been flying around us all along? That’s the question being explored at Waikereru, a 120-hectare haven for native plants and animals. Located along a winding inland gravel road just nine kilometres from Gisborne, Waikereru is one of the country’s biggest ecological experiments. The latest hypothesis being put to the test is ‘seed islands’.

• Step one: Plant an area of native fruiting trees to attract local bird populations.
• Step two: Let nature do its thing.

The idea is simple enough and seems to work – even if it was initially unintentional. Long-lived trees in temperate rainforests across the country and at Waikereru are among the best in the world for storing carbon dioxide. Their intertwined root networks also hold the land together, providing much better erosion control than pine plantations. “You have indigenous forest instead of pine plantations, lots of biodiversity, clean streams, beautiful landscapes, microclimates, and not all that sediment and forestry waste going downstream and ending up in the ocean.” Waikereru is now home to a multitude of creatures, including insects, butterflies, moths, lizards, and long-tailed bats."

Check out the full article on the Predator Free NZ website.

7) Electrification could save NZ $95 billion by 2040: report.

This is a follow up to item number 18 in the August newsletter about the "Rewiring Aotearoa" organisation and its chief scientist Saul Griffith. You can listen to the full interview with Kathryn Ryan on the RNZ Nine to Noon programme for more info.

"New Zealand households could save as much as $95 billion dollars by 2040 if the country fully electrifies the economy, according to an international renewable energy advocate. Dr Saul Griffith founded Rewiring America, and Rewiring Australia - and is in New Zealand presenting a report pushing the case that electrification is ultimately cheaper than using fossil fuels. Dr Griffith and his co-authors, including the Reserve Bank chief economist Paul Conway, say there should be a systemic approach to adopting solutions like widespread rooftop solar uptake. Tax incentives and Government finance would be tools to be used, but also addressing workforce change, and consenting. Dr Griffiths' 'Investing in Tomorrow' report says New Zealanders are spending about $20 billion a year on imported fossil fuels but could save over four times that by swapping out fossil fuel burning cars and appliances - for electric equivalents."

If interested you can also listen to an interview with Saul by Jack Tame on TVNZ Q&A programme.

8) More rooftop solar in cities would help solve NZ’s energy crisis – and build disaster resilience.

More on electrification. I'm particularly interested in the opportunity to build disaster resilience to help lessen the inevitable impacts globally of climate breakdown and environmental degradation. 

"New Zealand’s current electricity supply crisis requires immediate solutions. But we argue the government’s emphasis on importing natural gas and construction of centralised solar farms is a missed opportunity. The case against gas has been highly publicised because of its greenhouse gas emissions and substantial costs. But the government’s focus on large solar infrastructure in rural areas, away from our main centres, misses a chance to address two urgent issues at once – the need to cut emissions and to adapt to climate impacts. Instead, we should plan local renewable energy generation, integrated into communities, to improve New Zealand’s energy security and disaster preparedness."

You can read the full article in The Conversation.

9) What’s the point of the Fast-Track Bill?

I thought this article published in NZ Geographic asking about the point of the Fast-Track Bill is well worth a read. They point out that the Bill is set to green-light projects that clash with local council planning, the government’s future goals, and our international agreements.

Richard Capie, general manager of advocacy at Forest & Bird is quoted saying -

"You’ve got the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment raising major red flags, and the Attorney-General warning against bad lawmaking. You’ve got the Auditor-General saying he has deep concerns about this. So, how many heavyweights do we need to wade in and say, ‘Look, this needs to get fixed?”.

Another article was published on the Scoop website and titled "Fast-Tracking Wealth Accumulation And The War On Nature". In it the author Ian Powell says -

"The official description of the bill is that it aims to provide a more efficient and certain pathway for projects to seek approvals. This is to be done by consolidating multiple approval processes that are typically required for large or complex projects, in a one-stop-shop arrangement.
The reality is that it is that is about prioritising economic development by removing any so-called ‘red tape’ that gets in the way. This includes environmental protections and safeguards, including for clean water and preventing extinction."

10) Hope or Alarmism? Messaging and Planetary Boundaries.

I've put this blog from Graham Townsend in the newsletter because, as readers will know I'm seriously concerned about the impacts of exceeding Planetary Boundaries. His article is thought provoking and some of you may appreciate his forthright views, some of you may find them challenging? He starts the blog with this quote from a recent academic paper outlining our current situation.

"We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled.... Despite these warnings, we are still moving in the wrong direction; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an all-time high...current policies have us on track for approximately 2.7 degrees Celsius peak warming by 2100... Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts, and we can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage."

Graham makes the following observation -

"It seems to me that if we want results, the only lever we can pull is to ask people to care about their kids’ future. What we can still do is to prevent the global mean temperate rise from going much above +3oC. And if we want to fight for our kids’ future, we have the tools to do that: sharply cut personal GHG emissions, and get political.

We can and must offer that much hope. The best recipe, I suspect, might be:

• DON’T hide the truth.
• DON’T sell delusional optimism.
• DO point out the options we still have - IF we all work together, now."

I do understand that there is a very fine line to walk when it comes to the issue of optimism versus pessimism in the context of the climate and environmental challenges we all face. It's something I think about quite a lot because we need to have hope that together we can find ways to adapt and change our excessive consumer driven lifestyles. Recognising that we are exceeding six of the nine planetary boundaries as defined by the Stockholm Resilience Centre is an essential first step in the process in that process. "Delusional optimism" is certainly not going to help. Honesty is required.  

Here's another blog from Graham on the same topic - PLANETARY OVERSHOOT and THE THREAT OF FASCISM

"A rudderless society crying out for strong leadership is a happy hunting-ground for populists in the Trump mould. Their seductively shallow ‘solutions’ appeal to the desire for a return to certainty, to the good old days of economic security, and to a father figure, a fuhrer, who will do our thinking for us. No matter that such populists tend to be narcissists and morally dubious; or that they are frequently beholden to corporate backers whose main aim is to boost their own wealth and influence. No matter that history shows how swiftly populists can become autocrats once in power. No matter that they typically increase inequality and poverty by boosting deregulation and the dismantling of social security and environmental controls. No matter that they damage democracy by cracking down on diversity and dissent. No matter that — by pandering to polluting industries — they accelerate ecological overshoot and further damage the economy. When people feel insecure and anxious, it’s all too easy for critical thinking and compassion to be drowned out by the cult of leadership and the promise of salvation.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

The answer — if there is one — lies in ending complacency. That means:

• Encouraging wider participation in open democracy. Citizens’ assemblies appear to be a constructive model for this.
• Educating the public to understand and accept the reality of planetary boundaries, and
• Encouraging people to see that their kids’ future depends on voluntary economic constraint, especially by the wealthiest 10% of humanity."
  

11) So what is ‘realistic’, minister? Simon Watts says buying more offshore climate credit is ‘unrealistic’. Pat Baskett looks at what that could mean – and what we should be doing to address our emissions.

I found this opinion piece written by Pat Baskett and published on the Newsroom website very interesting. I had heard of the Motu report referred to in the article but had not looked into the detail. This article highlights an issue that I have felt strongly about for sometime now. I believe that the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC's) that individual countries committed to at the Paris climate talks and updated further since have very little chance of being met by the great majority of countries. I expect that the closer we get to 2030 the more noise we will hear about why countries will have to postpone or cancel their commitments. The economy invariably takes precedence over the livability and future of our home - Planet Earth. One of the commenters to the article made a succinct analysis, which I agree with, when she said - "I think the Government is banking on no other country meeting its targets either and all reneging on off shore credits or on shore reductions. Austerity and hoping for the best being their playbook."

Here is an extract from the article -

Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is in an interesting position. He knows we’re 100 million tonnes of CO2e short of meeting the emissions reductions target we signed up to at the Paris COP in 2015. Known as our Nationally Determined Contribution, this target was designed to keep global temperature rises to 1.5C. It’s due in 2030.

We signed up knowing the only way we could meet the target was by paying another country to do what we couldn’t – reduce emissions – and adding their saved tonnes to our account.

The figure of 1.5C is now tragically out of date. The fact we’re looking at 3C by century’s end ought to have us panic-stricken and trebling our efforts to quit fossil fuels. But Watts has ruled out buying offshore climate credits. At the Sustainable Business Council’s conference in September on climate change and business he described the suggestion as “unrealistic”.

“We need to do everything possible in order to reduce our domestic emissions at a profile that doesn’t decimate our economy.”

And how much would that be? Scandalously little is the answer. Granted, total annual emissions fell a miniscule 1.8 percent over the year to June 2023 when compared to the previous year. ‘Downward drivers,’ according to Stats NZ, are in electricity, gas, water and waste services. Emissions from transport, postal and warehousing continue to rise – at 38 percent.

We’re not the only ones to fail. The latest World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin showed that all three main greenhouse gases (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide) reached record levels last year. In the past 10 years CO2 has risen 11.4 percent and is now at 420 parts per million.

Motu, the economic and public policy research institute based in Wellington, recently held a webinar titled Think globally, act Cooperatively: Progressing Offshore Mitigation for Aotearoa New Zealand. Their work has considerable international standing and their research analyses this issue from multiple aspects. The paper that preceded the webinar opens with a bias that confounds the minister’s stance. Its lead paragraph says the paper’s aim is to show how we could work with other countries “to accelerate global climate progress, by funding offshore mitigation to help meet (our) 2030 target … The world is off track to prevent dangerous climate change”.

INTERNATIONAL

12) COP29 — This Year’s Global Climate Summit. What happened — or rather, didn’t — at the annual climate talks.

The COP climate talks continue with the usual pattern of lots of talking and little action of any substance. In this article from the Global Citizen website they state - "When you consider that Fossil fuel lobbyists were granted more COP29 passes than delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries, strongly suggesting that their presence may have had an impact on the failed negotiations."

Why am I not surprised that no meaningful decisions were made. Here is an extract from the article -

"Over the last two weeks, more than 65,000 delegates came together to work on the next global climate agreement at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the UN’s annual climate conference event. Held from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22 and unofficially dubbed as the “Finance COP,” many hoped that negotiations would result in an ambitious climate funding package for the world. Unfortunately, the goal of getting richer countries to agree to commit sufficient funds to alleviate climate impacts faced by vulnerable nations was nowhere near met.

COP29 is ending on a somber note. Stumbling so drastically at the finish line has left many disheartened with how discussions went — and even questioning if it’s worth coming to the negotiating table at all. “No deal is better than a bad deal,” commented Fadhel Kaboub, Senior Advisor at Power Shift Africa. As lower-income countries express outrage at the $250 billion proposition, COP29 wraps up with no clear consensus. With financial negotiations dragging on until the very last hours, countries on the frontlines of climate change made it clear they will not accept “breadcrumbs.” Baku wraps up with little success at bridging the enormous climate finance gap that many hoped it would."

This further article from the Guardian gives more detail about the final outcome at Baku. The decision was made to pledge US$300 billion, an increase of US$50 billion and still a totally inadequate amount to help meet the challenges of those countries most impacted by climate disruption.

Early on Sunday morning, ministers and high-ranking officials from nearly 200 countries gathered in Baku’s Olympic stadium to witness the drama of fossil fuel wealth battling with science, which says that continuing to burn oil, gas and coal will bring havoc and destruction to the planet if temperatures are not limited to a rise of 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Most observers would say that science lost.
At stake in Baku was the money needed to help poor countries shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt their infrastructure to the impacts of extreme weather. About $1.3tn (£1tn) a year will be needed by 2035 for countries to achieve this, and for the world to stay within the 1.5C limit.

A deal on how to get some way to reaching that target was struck in that hall, but it was one so hedged, loose and half-hearted that many cried betrayal. Representatives of the least developed countries (LDCs) negotiating bloc said: “[We are] outraged and deeply hurt by the outcome of Cop29. Once again, the countries most responsible for the climate crisis have failed us. This is not just a failure. It’s a betrayal.”
Only $300bn of the promised total will come directly from the budgets of developed countries and public finance institutions, such as the World Bank. The great majority of that money should be in the form of grants and low-interest loans, but loose wording means even that commitment is hedged – the cash could come from “a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral and alternative sources”.

13) A Global System Growing Itself to Death—and What We Can Do About It.

This article is written by H. Thomas Johnson who is professor of business at Portland State University and Distinguished Consulting Professor of Sustainable Business at Bainbridge Graduate Institute. This is another look at the impacts of unlimited growth on planetary life support systems.

"Undoubtedly no one seriously believes that the defining feature of the human economy should be the destruction of life. And yet today our economic activity is destroying Earth’s capacity to support life. To alter this condition, we must thoughtfully scrutinize our reasons for advocating continuous growth in production and consumption. If we should continue to pursue unlimited economic growth, the unanticipated consequences may exceed our most fearful imaginings."

This quote in his article is from Eco-philosopher Thomas Berry who in 1988 powerfully described this devastating transition in human history:

"In our times . . . human cunning has mastered the deep mysteries of the earth at a level far beyond the capacities of earlier peoples. We can break the mountains apart; we can drain the rivers and flood the valleys. We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throwaway paper products. We can tear apart the great grass cover of the western plains and pour toxic chemicals into the soil and pesticides onto the fields until the soil is dead and blows away in the wind. We can pollute the air with acids, the rivers with sewage, the seas with oil — all this in a kind of intoxication with our power for devastation at an order of magnitude beyond all reckoning. We can invent computers capable of processing ten million calculations per second. And why? To increase the volume and the speed with which we move natural resources through the consumer economy to the junk pile or the waste heap. Our managerial skills are measured by the competence manifested in accelerating this process. If in these activities the topography of the planet is damaged, if the environment is made inhospitable for a multitude of living species, then so be it. We are, supposedly, creating a technological wonderworld (Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, Sierra Club Books, 1988)."

Here are two more quotes from the article -

"When we view economic activity through the lens of financial numbers such as profit, cost, income, and GDP, it becomes a quantitative abstraction, completely separated from the concrete activities that produce such numbers. Indeed, corporations are seldom held accountable for the true social and environmental costs of their actions, including polluted air and rivers, toxic food, scarred landscapes, scarce or tainted water, discarded human lives and communities. Seen in this light, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the modern industrial economy has been growing itself to death."

AND - "Endless growth in the human economy makes it impossible for Earth’s remarkable life system to flourish over the long run. However, almost all present-day programs to promote “sustainability” or “sustainable development” fail to question the assumption that growth is a necessary condition of human economic activity. Thus, they do no more than treat symptoms of the underlying disease; they do nothing to prevent the disease itself. And by simply alleviating, temporarily, some of the adverse consequences of growth, they avoid tackling the fundamental problem, which is to produce a condition of long-term sustainability in a context of no growth."

Check out the full article on The Systems Thinker website where the writer "suggests ways we might solve our economic problems and repair the current destructive global economy that is based on “the way man thinks.” These steps propose a positive future economy based on “the way nature works.”

14) US leads wealthy countries spending billions of public money on unproven ‘climate solutions’.

Here is more info about the big potential for wasting precious resources chasing so-called "climate solutions" rather than getting on with the task at hand - reducing emissions! Humans are so good at wanting to have their cake and eat it too!

The subsidies are a “colossal waste of money”, according to Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it.” “The history of CCS is depressing … and no significant innovations have improved CCS’s prospects,” said Charles Harvey, professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-founded the first private CCS startup 15 years ago.

“Nonetheless, we are again wasting money on CCS that could be used instead to effectively cut emissions, distracting ourselves from the necessity of moving away from fossil fuels, and perpetuating a polluting industry whose local harms often fall on minority and economically disadvantaged communities.”

15) Pacific islands submit court proposal for recognition of ecocide as a crime.

This article in the Guardian provides an update on the progress of the initiative of some Pacific Island nations to have ecocide classed as a crime. Here is an extract -

"Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa have proposed a formal recognition by the court of the crime of ecocide, defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. The proposal was tabled before the ICC in New York on Monday afternoon, and will have to be discussed in full at a later date. Holding full discussions on the proposal is a process likely to take some years, and will face fierce opposition, though much of it will be behind the scenes as most countries will not wish to openly speak out against it.

Philippe Sands KC, a prominent international lawyer and professor of law at University College London, acted as a co-chair of the independent expert panel for the legal definition of ecocide, convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. He told the Guardian he was “100% certain” that ecocide would eventually be recognised by the court. “The only question is when,” he said. “I was sceptical at first, but now I am a true believer. There has already been real change, as some countries have put it in domestic law. I think this is the right idea at the right time.”

The Conversation also published an article on the same matter headed "Pacific nations want ecocide to become a crime – here’s why NZ should support the proposal".

16) Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years.

Unfortunately this aspect of the polycrisis is probably more critical than many others. Without adequate fresh water to meet the daily needs of all life on the planet we will see the hastening of a collapse of the planetary life support systems. Why are we so blind to the consequences of our actions? Half the world’s population already faces water scarcity, and that number is set to rise as the climate crisis worsens, according to a report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water published recently.

Five main takeaways from the report -

The world has a water crisis.

More than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion people – 44% of the population – lack access to safe sanitation. Every day, 1,000 children die from lack of access to safe water. Demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip its supply by 40% by the end of this decade. This crisis is worsening – without action, by 2050 water problems will shave about 8% off global GDP, with poor countries facing a 15% loss. Over half of the world’s food production comes from areas experiencing unstable trends in water availability.

There is no coordinated global effort to address this crisis.

Despite the interconnectedness of global water systems there are no global governance structures for water. The UN has held only one water conference in the past 50 years, and only last month appointed a special envoy for water.

Climate breakdown is intensifying water scarcity.

The impacts of the climate crisis are felt first on the world’s hydrological systems, and in some regions those systems are facing severe disruption or even collapse. Drought in the Amazon, floods across Europe and Asia, and glacier melt in mountains, which causes both flooding and droughts downstream, are all examples of the impacts of extreme weather that are likely to get worse in the near future. People’s overuse of water is also worsening the climate crisis – for instance, by draining carbon-rich peatlands and wetlands that then release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Water is artificially cheap for some and too expensive for others.

Subsidies to agriculture around the world often have unintended consequences for water, providing perverse incentives for farmers to over-irrigate their crops or use water wastefully. Industries also have their water use subsidised, or their pollution ignored, in many countries. Meanwhile, poor people in developing countries frequently pay a high price for water, or can only access dirty sources. Realistic pricing for water that removes harmful subsidies but protects the poor must be a priority for governments.

Water is a common good.

All of human life depends on water, but it is not recognised for the indispensable resource it is. The authors of the report urge a rethink of how water is regarded – not as an endlessly renewable resource, but as a global common good, with a global water pact by governments to ensure they protect water sources and create a “circular economy” for water in which it is reused and pollution cleaned up. Developing nations must be given access to finance to help them end the destruction of natural ecosystems that are a key part of the hydrological cycle.

Check out this article in the Guardian and this one from CNN for more info about the report.

17) Our leaders are collaborators with fossil fuel colonialists. This is the source of our communal dread - Tim Winton.

Australian author Tim Winton has recently published a book called "Juice". This Guardian interview with Tim highlights the personal cost of writing such a confronting, no holds barred book. The extract below refers to Tim's contribution at the Perth Arts Festival two years ago.

"Two years ago, Tim Winton walked on stage at the Perth festival and delivered a blistering closing address that was, as he puts it now, “a bit like dropping a turd in the pool”. Perhaps some in the room had expected the Australian literary giant, Western Australia’s homegrown hero, to say something pretty and benign about the arts. Instead, Winton tore into fossil fuel giants Woodside and Chevron – both at that time long-term sponsors of Perth festival – with his plain-speaking, moral directness that comes through so clearly on the page.

That fossil fuel companies would – and could – sponsor cultural festivals even as they staged works about the climate crisis, was “really embarrassing”. He told the room: “For, who else in the corporate world, sailing so close to reputational oblivion, could feel that safe and so confident? You reckon a brewery would put itself forward for a show about foetal alcohol syndrome? How about tobacco sponsoring ventilators for lung patients?” As he pointed out, even banks and superfunds were divesting from fossil fuels: “So how is it that the arts community should show less creativity and moral imagination than bankers?”

What no one in that room knew, even some people very close to him, was that Winton was writing a novel about how future generations could react if they knew climate change was the result of choices we made now."

The Guardian published another article when the book was released titled "Our leaders are collaborators with fossil fuel colonialists. This is the source of our communal dread". It's clear to me after reading both articles that the seven years he took to write the book have taken a toll on him and I appreciate the honesty he has shown in confronting the predicament facing all of us. I think we owe a big thankyou to people like Tim who are willing to stand up publicly and talk about the elephant in the room like he has. It can't be an easy road to take.

Here's an extract from the second article -

"Those in power cannot acknowledge what’s right before their eyes because to do so would not only undermine their status but threaten their very conception of reality. Securing a just and sustainable future will require many things to be smashed and cleared away. Not reformed incrementally but removed entirely. The opportunity for ameliorative tinkering has already been squandered.

But here’s the thing: the fossil powers and principalities are afraid. They know the tide has turned against them. Within the younger generations their social licence is in terminal decline. In both hemispheres, young people are educating themselves for struggle. They’re not just finding new cadres of solidarity and resistance – they’re developing sophisticated communications campaigns to expose the occupation and to unpick its layers of deceit. And they’re mounting electoral drives to unseat the quislings of oil and gas who stand in the way of serious climate action in parliaments and congresses everywhere."

18) Exported gas produces far worse emissions than coal, major study finds.

I thought this article would be of interest to NZ, with our politicians thinking of importing LNG.  Turns out, it has a greater carbon footprint than coal according to a new research paper!

Exported gas emits far more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, despite fossil-fuel industry claims it is a cleaner alternative, according to a major new research paper that challenges the controversial yet rapid expansion of gas exports from the US to Europe and Asia. Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels when combusted for energy, with oil and gas producers for years promoting cleaner-burning gas as a “bridge” fuel and even a “climate solution” amid a glut of new liquefied natural gas (or LNG) terminals, primarily in the US. But the research, which itself has become enmeshed in a political argument in the US, has concluded that LNG is 33% worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal.

“The idea that coal is worse for the climate is mistaken – LNG has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fuel,” said Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist at Cornell University and author of the new paper.
“To think we should be shipping around this gas as a climate solution is just plain wrong. It’s greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions from this type of energy.”
Drilling, moving, cooling and shipping gas from one country to another uses so much energy that the actual final burning of gas in people’s homes and businesses only accounts for about a third of the total emissions from this process, the research finds.
“This whole process is much more energy intensive than coal,” said Howarth. “The science is pretty clear here: it’s wishful thinking that the gas miraculously moves overseas without any emissions.”

Check out the full article in the Guardian.

19) Tales from the Carbon Pulse | Reality Roundtable 11.

Nate Hagens has a series of Reality Roundtable discussions on his website, "The Great Simplification". His recent discussion from August was with Tom Murphy, a professor of physics and DJ White who is a co-founder of Greenpeace International and founder of EarthTrust. Below is an outline of what they discussed. It is  one and a half hours long so only for those who want to go deeper into this area. It is challenging stuff but I appreciate the focus on why it is "so difficult for society to recognize the scale of ecological destruction, and what needs to change to raise awareness?" and "How could recognizing our kinship with all living beings reshape our relationship with the planet?" For me these are some of the big questions we have to find answers to.

The damaging effects of humanity’s disconnected relationship to Earth’s ecosystems are broad and deep. Yet, despite targeted efforts to address these issues and mitigate risks, our insatiable appetite for fossil hydrocarbons continues to grow at an alarming rate. What will it take to reframe our relationship with nature to move forward in a symbiotic, life-supporting path? In this episode, Nate is joined by longtime colleagues Tom Murphy and D.J. White for an in-depth exploration of the mounting ecological crises driven by human behavior and unsustainable energy consumption. Together, they offer both scientific insights and personal reflections on trends such as the rapid decline in wild animal populations, the rise of microplastic pollution, the overwhelming scale of human-built mass, and many other facets of this unparalleled time in human history. Why is it so difficult for society to recognize the scale of ecological destruction, and what needs to change to raise awareness? In what ways is academia struggling to provide the systems understanding we need to address the pressing environmental challenges of our time? How could recognizing our kinship with all living beings reshape our relationship with the planet?

You can check out the full discussion on YouTube if you're interested.

20) MG to launch solid-state batteries in 2025, leading EV race.

For anyone interested in battery development this information about the launch of solid state car batteries by MG is worth a look at. MG say that "this breakthrough technology will offer a substantial upgrade over existing lithium-ion batteries, boasting double the energy density. As a result, MG's upcoming EVs are expected to have longer ranges, lighter weight, and reduced production costs."

If you're interested in learning more about these new batteries this website has some basic info that's easy to understand.