Monthly Archives: Dec 2018

What will a carbon neutral economy look like?

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As 2019 nears the starting line, one of the issues that I have spent time wrestling with, and I am sure others have to is how will New Zealand make the transition from oil and gas to a carbon neutral state by 2050. Can we even do it?

This article examines the commentary of an opinion column by Neil Holdom on Stuff on how, or indeed whether, New Zealand can make the transition.

My responses to individual parts of the article are below:

“Unless we make decisions today that will essentially take effect in 30 or more years’ time, we run the risk of acting too late and causing abrupt shocks to communities and our country,” she said.

Okay, so your government might have made the decision to ban oil and gas by 2050. But there was not a plan in place – if you had said at the start of your Government, that a major decision on oil and gas might be a few years away, but that it would be backed by a substantial plan, I would have applauded you; National would have been left scrambling and your planning credentials as well as your green ones would have had a major boost.

But since then little has been written about what a net carbon zero 2050 Aotearoa will actually look like.

Correct.

What is really surprising is the lack of attention being paid to some very obvious first steps, such as introducing a nation wide recycling scheme for all aluminium. This is a pretty simple, relatively easy thing to do and it would potentially have a near immediate impact if successful.

Another one would be acknowledging and assisting the growth of hybrid vehicles. Yes they might be users of petroleum, but this is a 30+ year project and filling the gap between the old gas guzzling fleet and a bunch of electric cars that among other things still have perception issues around plugging in.

New Zealand produces around 80 million tonnes of carbon annually and our forestry sector absorbs around 20 million tonnes, leaving a balance of 60 millions tonnes to be dealt with.

The article acknowledges the forestry sector and the announcement by Minister for Regional Development, Shane Jones (N.Z. First)that 1 billion trees will be planted and that steps are underway to make this happen.

Whales are also good carbon traps. A sperm whale can account for a similar level of carbon as 690 acres of forest. Protecting and encouraging whales to visit our shores could have a positive contribution to reducing carbon emissions as well as prop up the whale watch industry.

But as yet no one has talked about how to tackle the dairy sector which produces much of New Zealand’s carbon emissions. Through the biological processes of their two stomachs, cows belching put out about. In 2009 a litre of milk manufactured by Fonterra created about 940 grams of carbon dioxide, which would have made the then carbon cost of the then 15 billion litres per annum of milk, about 15 million tonnes.

Ten years later having had an explosion of dairying and becoming a $13.4 billion industry by 2017, with 21.0 billion litres of milk manufacturing 1.8 billion kilogrammes of milk solids, the growth in carbon emissions would be significant.

I find it interesting that little evidence of a co-ordinated approach exists to climate change. I do not see an effort to get the various economic sectors, Ministries of the Crown engaged. There are substantial opportunities to get a healthy green technology sector established here, but I do not see anyone having a clue of how to get started.

So, as the first full year of this Labour-Green-New Zealand First coalition comes to an end, it would appear that New Zealand First is the only party that has seriously given any thought to an increasingly urgent problem.

Why New Zealand and Pacific Islands need to stand against whaling

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This is not about scientific research, irrespective of what you hear from the Japanese Government and the fishing crews. It is about what it has always been about: killing whales for commercial consumption as food.

Japan has an appalling record of whaling, alongside Iceland and Norway, which carry out similar activities in the northern Atlantic Ocean in equally hostile environments.

I want to see Japanese whalers barred from entering all ports in Pacific basin countries other than their own. New Zealand has always been one of the more admirable nations when criticizing Japan on the subject of whaling. But it is time to step up a notch and flatly deny them use of our ports.

The case for not slaughtering whales is compelling. Aside from being a highly unethical industry to be a part of, whales make substantial environmental contributions. A whale has significant natural ability to absorb carbon. A sperm whale for example could absorb a similar level of carbon to 694 acres of forest.

There is a second strong strand of reasoning for supporting the end of whaling. Whale watch tours contribute substantially to the local economy of many countries. In New Zealand the marine environment off the coast of the seaside town of Kaikoura is a natural home to whales. Here a deep canyon starts just a couple kilometres off the coast from South Bay on the south side of the Kaikoura Peninsula. It quickly plunges from the beach to 6,000+ feet below sea level in just a few kilometres. Because this is where the plankton and other food that they feed on is most concentrated it brings whales in close to the shore and it is not at all uncommon to see whales, orca, dolphins and seals.

Pacific Island nations can be helped to develop such tourism projects as well. Many of them have a wide range of whales and other sea life in transit passing through their waters. It would be a potentially significant source of income and help prop up economies that are going to suffer heavily as a result of climate change impacts on their physical environment.

Whilst Japan can be made to move out of the Antarctic fisheries, it is important to note that the closer one gets to Japanese whalers the more resistance they will put up. Indeed the whaling programme in Taji is the site of what environmentalists consider to be mass murder, as the sea turns a bloody shade of red from the mammals being slaughtered. Documenting this is a dangerous exercise as the whalers are extremely hostile to anyone who tries, with scuffles, blocking of all media and threats of prosecution to anyone watching. Not only that, but the Japanese police in Taji are considered to be sympathetic to the whalers.

It is important to raise this issue as a bloc of New Zealand + Pacific Island nations. We cannot rely on Australia to support this as long as the ruling Liberal-National coalition remains in office, but in order to stand up to super power interference, the island nations are too weak to stand on their own.

 

Major stories from around the world in 2018

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Sometimes it feels like New Zealand is too far away from the rest of the world. Australia is 3 hours flying time. The United States is half a day. People bemoan our geographical isolation and some say – justifiably or otherwise – that it is too far to go. And yet, as we have seen across the course of this year, sometimes that distance has not been such a bad thing after all.

2018 started with the world quite rattled by the increasing tension between North Korea and the United States. Fearful that the world might be on the brink of a nuclear incident with global consequences, the year 2018 has in some respects been thankfully free of what basically amounted to “My dick is bigger than your dick” competitions, immature, irrational and irresponsible as they were.

In terms of sport, the XXI Commonwealth Games were held on the Gold Coast in Australia. This is a quadrennial period in which the nations of the British Commonwealth enjoy 10 days of the top sporting entertainment on offer across a range of disciplines. Possibly the only bigger televised event in 2018 was teh F.I.F.A. World Cup in Russia, which France won against Croatia.

Economically the world economy had the wobbles. Rattled by the declaration of a trade war between the United States and China, the world watched as both sides mounted increasing tariffs. Increasing unease over Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and the associated human rights abuses as well as the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, along with growing concern about climate change has put the petrodollar on the skids.

Politically, 2018 has been dominated by the unpredictability of the United States President Donald Trump and his continued assault on what people understood to be the established international norms – even if not everyone agreed with them. A second big story that has grown over the last few months is the looming chaos of Britain exiting the European Union, about which exactly one month from when the U.K. Parliament has to have a final plan for exiting, no one seems to know what is going on.

One of the major themes of 2018 has been the on-going #MeToo movement aimed at bringing about an end to violence towards women. Exploding through the fabric of the internet during late 2017, fuelled by allegations that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein had abused women working on his films, #MeToo had become the rallying symbol of females determined that no more women should suffer abuse. It was then – and is still now – a signal to women that it is not only quite okay to come forward and complain about abuse that happened to them, but to also encourage such reports.

It would be remiss to ignore the 100th Anniversary period of World War 1 ending this year. Whilst 100 years old, it has continued to remind people of past wrongs and make us examine why humans go to war, but also to make sure we do not forget the lessons learnt at the expense of 10 million people in 1914-1918.

As 2018 ends it does so on a grim note from Indonesia. In a third world country with a poorly organized, funded and resourced Civil Defence, Indonesia which is a country straddling a large tectonic plate boundary and is riddled with volcanoes has suffered a rare volcanic tsunami. Anak Krakatoa, the cone being constructed in the place of the old Krakatoa volcano which blew itself to bits in 1883, collapsed during intense activity triggering a tsunami that has killed over 400 people. Krakatoa has a long history of such destructive behaviour, yet this seems to have taken the authorities by surprise.

New Zealand needs to be involved in the world and make sure other nations know and remember that we still exist. However it should be pointed out that some days it is a REALLY great thing to be a citizen of an island nation 12 hours flying time from the west coast of the United States, and a whole day’s flying time from the tumultuous E.U.

Being Kiwi has its benefits.

 

New Zealand needs to draw a line on New Zealander’s privacy

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New Zealander’s spend much of their internet time using the services of a few very large tech giants. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! are some of them.

I am no exception. I have this blog, which requires an e-mail account, which I have with G-Mail. I have a Facebook page for this blog as well as my own private profile. I have a Twitter profile. Across the course of my presence on the internet, I have downloaded applications from Google Play, both free and otherwise.

In order to supply those services and products it is understandable that they will need to store some basic data about their users. They will need to know that their users are verified and not some sort of computer bot. They will need data specific to the types of services and products they supply.

What is not so easily acceptable – and which should be the subject of honest, robust debate – is whether these companies should be able to build up a vast profile of ones internet footprint. Below is an example from Britain of how Google was able to do so.

A contributor to The Guardian wrote an article a few months ago about how much Google and Facebook for example were able to store about him. The results he found were rather startling. Google was able to store every single search, purchase, e-mail sent/received, app downloaded that he had done for nearly the last 10 years, in his case dating back to 2009. At the time of him publishing the article Google had 5.5 gigabytes of information about his activities.

A few weeks ago I deleted my Google + accounts. Aside from having barely used them since they were formed, wanted to reduce the footprint across which Google could collect data about me. Yesterday I became aware of how to check Google’s knowledge of the ads it displays that one might have clicked on – deliberately or accidentally. Over the next few days I am going to see how far I can reduce my Google Ads footprint.

Google is not the only tech company I am trying to reduce my online profile with. Facebook, long accused – justifiably so – of being in breach of the privacy laws of various national jurisdictions, has been issued ultimatim’s to fix the breaches and demonstrate having done so, for face sanctions.

In my case I have removed photos from prior to 2016. I have family and friends who used to be quite active on Facebook, who have stopped posting and have simply walked away from their accounts. Others have deleted their accounts outright when they have concluded that Facebook has access to too much of their private lives.

I am but a gnat against the likes of Google and Facebook, but I honestly believe that if first world nations made these companies respect their privacy laws, there might be a fighting chance of an overall sea change in how these companies view the world. If New Zealand took a stand and told these companies they would face sanctions for non-compliance, their contemptuous outlook might change. It would have a precedent to follow – other nations have already attempted to lay down the law to Facebook. How long before they try it on Google and the others?

Hopefully not long.

 

New Zealand in 2018

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2018 has been a year of surprises and thrills, drama’s and spills. It has been a year with no shortage of opportunities for great stories. As it draws to an end, let us have a look at some of the key moments in New Zealand.

For the Government, this has turned into a surprisingly good year. It is not to say that the Labour-led Government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did not make mistakes. It has made several. But in the first year of a first term Government, unless the mistakes are fundamental, the public of New Zealand are generally willing to overlook them. The oil and gas announcement in April was just one mistake. Another has been the lack of willingness to announce set policy for dealing with the influence of P and other narcotics in New Zealand.

For the Opposition, having a well oiled machine is one thing, but having enough M.P.’s to stop the Government making meaningful changes is another altogether. No M.P. seeks to be the leader of a party starting its first term after a stint in office, on the Opposition benches. As there is only one occasion in recent history where a Government has lasted only one term in office, it is improbable that National can somehow defeat a Prime Minister who by all accounts is quickly gaining name recognition in New Zealand and abroad.

National will not be helped by the spy scandal that has erupted. The Thompson and Clark spy scandal has already cost the head of Southern Response. It might well cost more as the extent of the surveillance becomes known, particularly if it was in breach of New Zealand law. Legal changes under urgency that were passed in 2013 point to an assault on peoples basic human rights such as the right to peaceful assembly by stealth. And now opponents to such laws have been found to be illegally watched by T.C.I.L.

Economically 2018 has been a mixed year. The fuel prices reached an all time high and then abruptly tapered away, whilst the stubbornly high cost of living, international instability caused by Sino-American trade wars, a weakening New Zealand dollar have all contributed to lingering uncertainty over the near future.

Environmental issues such as climate change, waste, fresh water and biodiversity show ever increasing signs of becoming fundamental problems. We all need clean water to drink and a healthy ecosystem to form the basis of the food chain. These were given a lower priority under the National-led Government and are enjoying a surge in support under Labour.

The murder of Grace Millane justifiably shocked New Zealand, but the outrage appeared to ignore due process, with people on social media demanding that a person who has not yet entered a plea and may – for all we know – be innocent, be sentenced to life in prison. Others were calling for the death penalty. What they all forget though is that real justice involves both sides having a fair trial. This cannot happen if New Zealanders try to be the judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one. Perhaps, if any good comes out of this tragic case, it is that an example is made of the tendency for prejudice in the justice system.

So we move forward towards 2019 wondering how much of 2018 it will pick up and how much will be consigned to the history bin, New Zealanders can take pride in the Government putting emphasis on being caring and compassionate. Not all Governments even know the meaning of these two words, let alone put them into practice, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has amply demonstrated the usefulness of both.