Arctic
to hit 50 degrees hotter than average this week – no one told the
North Pole about the ‘successful’ Paris Talks
Beyond the
self congratulatory crap spouted by some NGOs and Green movements
over the supposed ‘success’ of the Paris talks, something deeply
disturbing will happen to the Arctic this week…
Martyn
Bradbury
30
December, 2015
The
sun has not risen above the North Pole since mid-September. The sea
ice—flat, landlike, windswept, and stretching as far as the eye can
see—has been bathed in darkness for months.
But
later this week, something extraordinary will happen: Air
temperatures at the Earth’s most northernly region, in the middle
of winter, will rise above freezing for only the second time on
record.
On
Wednesday, the same storm system that last week spun up deadly
tornadoes in the American southeast will burst into the far north,
centering over Iceland. It will bring strong winds and pressure as
low as is typically seen during hurricanes.
That
low pressure will suck air out of the planet’s middle latitudes and
send it rushing to the Arctic. And so on Wednesday, the North Pole
will likely see temperatures of about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2
degrees Celsius. That’s 50 degrees hotter than average: It’s
usually 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero there at this time of year.
…50
degrees hotter than average. Just think about that for a moment –
the Arctic will be hit this week by a storm that will bring heat 50
degrees hotter than usual. The simple truth is that the Planet is on
the verge of feedback loops that simply can’t stop the warming.
We
need to be on a war footing to prevent this and look for radical
change so we can adapt to the changing climate fast enough. A report
in 5 years to record the weasel word promises is like a band aid on a
decapitation.
Ultimately
I believe the Greens and their pro-market framework with their
Coke-Cola consultant leader is simply not the best vehicle for change
– there needs to be a radical green socialism to provide the
solutions because if the Paris talks are really the best we can get –
then we are doomed.
JAMES SHAW AND THE GREEN PARTY PRAISE PARIS FARCE
Rather than praising the Paris climate agreement as an 'incredible achievement', James Shaw and the Green Party should be denouncing it as a failure and a fraud.
14
December, 2015
GIVEN
THE MISGUIDED IDEOLOGICAL BELIEF of the Green Party that somehow
capitalism can be the saviour of our planet rather than its
destroyer, it came as no surprise that co-leader James Shaw should
wax lyrical over the Paris climate agreement.
If
you look to the horizon now, you can see little James tugging
desperately on the chain of the capitalist beast as it drags him -
and the rest of us - to the abyss of environmental disaster.
'Stay
calm and don't panic!' cries out little James. 'There is a green
capitalism! I know what I'm doing!"
“There’s
no doubt this is an historic moment,' Shaw says in his prepared media
statement.'“It’s not a perfect deal by any means and there are
lots of details to work out but it’s frankly an incredible
achievement.”
Putting
aside the obvious fact that the purpose of this conference was to
work out the details of an agreement, why is it an 'incredible
achievement?' According to Shaw and the Green Party its because it
'commits' the countries of the world – including New Zealand –
"to bring their domestic policies in line with a goal of
limiting global warming to 1.5C."
But
it does nothing of the sort. Shaw should not be knocking back
champagne in Paris and congratulating the conference for a job well
done, but condemning this agreement for consigning the world to an
increase in global warning of 3-4 celsius. That's estimate of Naomi
Klein, who - unlike Shaw - knows what she's talking about.
Despite
what Shaw claims, this agreement commits the countries of the world,
including New Zealand, to nothing.
Pablo
Solon: Paris agreement is 'a farce, a sham'.
All
the participants have done is promise to lower their carbon
emissions, there is nothing that binds any government to changing
their domestic polices in order to lower global warming. They might
claim this is the goal, but there's no program for achieving it.
Everything's 'aspirational'.
The
former Bolivian ambassador and climate change negotiator Pablo Solón
has displayed the kind of hard nosed realism and honesty not
displayed by James Shaw. He has described the agreement as 'a farce,
a sham'.
Says
Solon: "The COP is a summit of schizophrenic governments because
they say they want to reduce emissions but they don’t mention the
source of emissions–which is fossil fuel extraction and
deforestation. A coherent way to address this would be to establish a
limit of extraction of fossil fuels and an immediate end to
deforestation. If these two measures are not adopted, how are we
going to reduce emissions? Magic? Impossible.”
The
figures are also suspect, to say the least, although James Shaw and
the Green Party have swallowed them, hook, line and sinker. Says
Shaw: '“What Paris has shown is that the world is moving only in
one direction, and that is towards a low-carbon future. Countries
like the US and China are at the forefront of that shift. New Zealand
needs to catch up.”
Shaw
is badly wrong again. China says it will cut its emissions only in
terms of carbon intensity. But as Jamie Neale points out:
"Carbon
intensity is the amount of carbon in fossil fuels that is needed to
produce the same amount of work. Carbon intensity has been going down
in the United States for a hundred years. It is going down all over
the world. This is because we learn to use coal, oil and gas more
efficiently, just like we learn to use everything else in industry
more productively. So a promise to cut carbon intensity is a promise
to increase emissions."
If
you want to learn more about how the figures have been juggled and
massaged, Jonathan Neale is worth reading here.
To
defend this empty agreement as a 'first step' to real change, as the
Green's Julie Anne Genter did on Paul Henry this morning, is simply
unacceptable. The future of the planet is at stake and to defend an
agreement like this makes Genter and the Green Party complicit in a
massive fraud being foisted on us all.
The
Green Party should be listening to people like Pablo Solon: "The
Paris Agreement repeats old mistakes and will fail. The answer lies
in a self-organized, self-conscious and empowered humanity that
believes in itself and nature more than in technology and market
forces."
James
Shaw says that “If there’s ever a time to stop making excuses,
it’s now.” I agree. James Shaw and the Green Party should stop
defending and making excuses for this agreement. They should stop
doing it now.
I
find it very telling that leading climate scientist James E Hansen
can refer to COP 21 as a ’ Fraud’ and James Shaw describe it as a
historic achievement, wtf, cognitive dissonance or denial?
Here
is the email from James Shaw and Kevin Hester's reply and the coverage of this
issue on Extinction Radio
Dear
Kevin,
We
are sorry you decided to leave the party and that you so strongly
disagree with my comments that the signing of an agreement at COP21
was a positive achievement.
By
signing up to the Paris Agreement goal limiting global warming to
1.5oC, which wasn’t even an option before COP21 started, countries
are now obliged to start taking action consistent with that goal.
We’ve
also been very critical of the National Government in the last few
days. Their comments that the Agreement means that nothing more is
required of New Zealand is clearly wrong, as our own domestic policy
settings are the equivalent of a 3.5-3.8oC temperature rise.
My
view is that it is an enormous achievement to get 196 countries to
agree on anything (the first time it’s been done since the founding
of the UN, with the possible exception of the Montreal Protocol) and
that it is better to have an agreement to act on climate change than
to continue not to have one. The result would have been far, far
worse, had we not come to the Paris Agreement (estimates suggest
that, absent the Paris Agreement, we would be on track for a 4.5-5.5o
C temperature increase).
It
is a very weak agreement – as any agreement would be that had to
include the states that currently rely on fossil fuels for their
income – but we have to make it work. It is our only hope.
The
Agreement itself will be reviewed every five years, with an initial
assessment of the science and the policy settings needed to maintain
1.5o C in 2018 by the IPCC. This is the all-important ‘ratchet
mechanism’ for tightening the screws over time. Will it be enough,
or fast enough, to save Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and others? I
hope so. That’s why I used the quotation of Churchill’s that,
“this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but
it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
After
21 years of negotiations to get a global agreement, we have one but
we are well aware that the harder work starts now.
Once
again we’re sorry to see you leave, but we wish you all the best.
And you’d be welcome back anytime.
Warm
regards,
James
Authorised
by James Shaw, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
Here is Kevin's reponse:
Hi
James, thanks for taking the time to address my leaving the
party.
I’d like to make it clear that this was not a ‘knee-jerk’
reaction taken in the heat of the moment of the Cop (out) 21
agreement being signed.
I have been considering this decision for
a very long time and the ‘tipping point’ for me was the fact that
you didn’t adequately qualify how bad and terminal for most complex
life-forms on this planet the ‘agreement’ is. I was shocked how
ill prepared your press statement sounded and that it completely
understated the severity of our predicament and how little the
agreement will contribute to slowing down this disaster, in fact it
will have little or no positive effect and more critical time will be
lost.
After Copenhagen and Kyoto’s abject failure it was
recognised that having some kind of agreement was imperative in
Paris. That has been achieved but effectively it is an agreement for
mostly business as usual with non- binding emission reductions and
little or no consideration for the fact that we are now in a time of
abrupt climate change and we will witness an exponential, non-linear
unravelling of our biosphere.
I accept having 1.5 C as an
aspiration included was a huge victory but it is in fact little more
than a feel good factor when our trajectory is towards and beyond the
IPCC worst case scenario of 6C when you factor in the exponential
nature of where we are now, the ten to forty year lag in cause and
effect and the unleashing of numerous tipping points. I note you said
in your email to me “countries are now obliged to start taking
action consistent with that goal.”, they aren’t obliged to
anything, encouraged yes, obliged no.
There are thousands of fires
currently burning in Indonesia that are emitting more carbon than the
USA, it is the equivalent of having a new # 2 emitter appear on the
planet out of the blue, this is what we can expect going forward with
the next major ‘cab off the rank’ being the exponential increase
in discharge of methane from the permafrost and the ocean clathrates.
I note that the eco-terrorist John Key has approved deep sea drilling
in regions that have proven methane deposits that are already
discharging, the cognitive dissonance shown is stupefying ! In the
PETM extinction event this heated the planet up 5C in a mere 13
years, scientists previously thought this had taken thousands of
years. We could conceivably be in a parallel window to that now . The
consequences of that will be the extinction of most if not all
complex life-forms and the meltdowns of 438 nuclear power stations
and 1000 spent fuel pool fires which incidentally will be far worse
than the melt downs! If your reaction to that scenario is that it
sounds alarmist please remember the reactionary Winston Churchill was
considered an alarmist in 1937 and 8 brutal years later over 50
million people were dead.
I recently interviewed Dr Jim Salinger
who conceded in a public meeting I attended in Hamilton that we are
in abrupt climate change. Jim is a wonderful guy but his conclusions
are very conservative in line with his profession and he admitted to
being hopeful when there is zero visible reason and under the
precautionary principle we should all be preparing for the worst as
is my training as a yachtmaster with 16 ocean passages completed,
mostly in our dying Pacific.
My interview with Jim is
here;
I
understand that my position is a ‘hard sell’ for a political
party trying to gain electoral success but this catastrophe presents
an opportunity for the Greens to position themselves for a sea change
that is definitely coming in the public’s mind. We will see more
and more extreme weather events in the weeks and months ahead which
will freak out the populace world- wide, I believe the Greens are
missing a golden opportunity to be a leader not only in NZ but
globally. I believe the party’s narrative needs to be radically
altered to reflect the seriousness of the situation.
Very soon we
will have a few billion very, very angry young people on this planet
when they realise the ecological legacy we have left them. Speaking
truth to the youth is more important now than it has ever been and
presents you as the leader of the party, an absolutely golden
opportunity to make a huge impact not just here but on the global
stage. There is a paradigm shift unfolding on this planet, I
challenge you to grasp this opportunity and lead.
All of the dire
assumptions I allude to above are in embedded links in this post from
the Daily Blog, I only post the link to make it easy for you to
source it should you want
clarification.
The
purpose of me going public was not to bag the party but to stimulate
a debate that wasn’t happening. My feedback from both members and
non- members of the party has been much more positive than I ever
expected and indicates that I have addressed an issue that has been
praying on many people’s minds, mission partially accomplished. You
have generously left the door open for me to return to the party
which I might consider if my concerns were addressed and there was a
sea change in the party’s narrative. I spend my life trying to
raise awareness of the severity of this predicament and any vehicle
open to me will be grasped willingly as long as I can address the
predicament honestly and transparently, I am in the fortunate
position of being beholding to no one.
I had lunch with Pearl
Going and Susi Newborn yesterday, Pearl spoke very highly of you and
suggested you and I should meet personally sometime, I’m available
if you wish to do so.
Best regards, Kia Kaha.
Kevin
Hester
Starts at 04'.48"
