9 ms·
New Zealand's plan to prepare for inevitable climate change impacts
- alexose 4y agoAs I'm sitting here reading about what's happening with the Yangtze, the Danube, and the Rhine, the flooding in Pakistan, the greater-than-expected warming in the arctic, and the sudden uptick in methane emissions, I wonder: At what point do we deploy solar geoengineering?
- sintaxi 4y agoNever.
- nomel 4y agoWhat problems do you see?
- King-Aaron 4y agoPeople caring
- nomel 4y agoThis makes the very large assumption that people will care soon enough.
- js8 4y agoAside from the enormous risks.. We see that people are not even willing to limit their own emissions in the long term for their own benefit (and I am not talking about the poor, I am talking about the rich - 90% emissions is caused by top 10% wealthy of all people). How do you imagine then, people actually investing energy to cool the planet on other people's behalf? The truth is, we always had technological solutions, problem is where you draw the line on a finite planet to avoid overshoot. It's really like that joke, in a flood, a religious man rejects a neighbor's boat, because he believes the god will save him. Then he rejects a rescue helicopter, again, the god will sure save him. Eventually, he dies, comes to heaven and asks god, why didn't he save him? Well, the god says, I sent the boat and the helicopter.. That's what we do with technology. We have technological solutions (to reduce emissions), we just reject them, because they are below us. Geoengineering is just another prayer.
- Test0129 4y agoIt took a while to scroll to find this. I'm glad someone has read the actual reports. All of these campaigns aimed at the everyman will do almost nothing to avert climate change. To actually impact it, companies and the ultra wealthy need to be the targets. If every US citizen making under $500,000/year drove an EV, kept their power off most of the day, and ate only vegetables there would not be a perceivable impact on the climate. Yet, we are sold this nonsense by the media who is ostensibly controlled by the very people doing the most damage. I find it completely insane the idea that the farmer with his diesel truck, or 100,000 farmers with their diesel trucks, are the cause of the problem. The numbers say otherwise. It is not "our" problem, it is their problem. The ultra wealthy and their companies.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThe wealthy, globally and locally, are responsible for most of the emissions but they're doing that by spending money on things that then cause poor people to drive trucks or tractors spewing toxins. So everyone needs to stop doing the stuff we dont want to happen. Most of it we know is a long term money saver for the poor average joe. They just don't have the funds to invest in that up front. This is what all the "just transition" stuff is about.
- kcindric 4y agoEarth and its systems are too complex and left with too much unknown variables to be confident in messing with them without the danger of creating a feedback loop that makes the matter worse. Take for example invasive species of plants and animals -- some of them were deliberately spread to non-native habitats in hope to regulate X but are now wrecking havoc in local ecosystems and pushing out native species.
- nomel 4y agoI don't understand this. If people cared (or perhaps comprehend) complex feedback loops, we wouldn't be in this mess. If the majority of the human population starts suffering, including you and I, we will certainly do whatever we can to stop prevent that suffering, short term. I don't think there's any evidence, from any point in history, that suggests we'll, as a collective species, shun our instincts of self preservation, and die for the unknown of possible future problems. Let's say India (they seem especially vulnerable) starts having mass heat and starvation, where they're losing significant parts of their population, and decided to slow it, immediately, by launching some solar shields. Do we shoot it down? I think "never" is ludicrous. Once people start dying, people will demand and plea for something to be done, or heads will roll.
- crooked-v 4y agoWell, there's that part where all the major Western governments basically have their head in the sand and think that aiming for gradual changes by 2050 is perfectly fine. China might go for it, though. They've got that balance of enough top-down authority to actually make big projects happen and the need to continue showing large-scale improvement to the common people to maintain legitimacy.
- c1sc0 4y agoI actually think it’s more likely that geo-engineering will be started by wealthy individuals. Think about it: it’s the ultimate form of philantrophy! The ultimate ego boost for those who have it all.
- pabs3 4y agoSnowpiercer explored one potential failure mode of geoengineering.
- nomel 4y agoBut that's not realistic engineering. Every proposal for a solar shade that I've seen includes a way to remove it. Some are ephemeral, by design.
- pabs3 4y agoI got the impression the Snowpiercer situation was chemical, but a solar shade does seem like a better option indeed. Edit: they used atmospheric aerosol injection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot
- dalmo3 4y agoIt's more like what problems you don't see. The unknown unknowns. It takes monumental levels of hubris to think we can control the planet's climate, THE chaotic system. Especially when the proposed solution to the effects of a perturbation to the system (increase in greenhouse gases) is an even bigger perturbation (blocking sunlight). It's like trying to avoid a tsunami by generating another tsunami in the opposite direction and hoping the waves will cancel out.
- taneq 4y agoAt the point where all of the above starts seriously inconveniencing the ultra-rich.
- mannanj 4y agoHow about geo-engineering? Already being employed in secret government programs.
- jltsiren 4y agoI used to joke that local politicians in Shanghai will eventually resort to geoengineering. And that they won't ask permission from anyone. In the grand scheme of things, solar geoengineering is cheap. There are many entities in the world that could afford it on their own without coordinating with anyone else. For some of them, it would be cheaper than preparing for the consequences of climate change. And some of those may be willing to take the risk.
- bmitc 4y agoThings are getting real, real fast. I have no hope that we collectively turn things around and feel we are instead basically heading for an Elysium like situation. That's because we're acting too late and too slow to help everyone (not like we help everyone now anyway). It's pretty scary to be honest. People just do not care about climate change and won't until their water or gas shuts off. Even now, my neighbors are tearing down trees, and residents, businesses, and the government have huge lawns that are wastelands. They're never used by humans and are mowed and pruned such that no wildlife uses them either.
- raydiatian 4y agoIt’s not scary to be honest. It’s been staring us in the face for 60 years. Maybe 100. Accept your fate like the rest of us, and make sure you stock up on dissociatives and pain meds for when the time is nigh. Nobody cares!
- King-Aaron 4y agoIf covid has taught us anything, it's that even if a global problem becomes direct and starts killing millions of people, a large percentage of the population won't care and will actively continue to deny it.
- top_post 4y agoThis, unfortunately, is right on the money.
- Gigachad 4y agoAnd in the end things were still fine for them.
- King-Aaron 4y agoNot for the people who ended up with long term chronic illness, or you know, dead
- yarg 4y agoNew Zealand swings back and forth between Labour (generally do nothing) and National (generally Christian rightish wing). We're currently under a Labour majority (though James Shaw - the environment minister is Green). There's a bit of a swing back toward National, hobbled in a very large part by their own incompetence, but this will go nowhere if they get back into power. As an example of their attitudes, last time they were in it was found that basically every body of water in the country had pollution levels in excess of defined quality standards. Their solution was to change the standards (I'm not sure if the subsequent backlash changed their minds) so that the water was no longer polluted (by definition). Am I suggesting that we do nothing? No, but unless there's buy in from across the political spectrum (there won't be) I struggle to see how this can acheive anything.
- xupybd 4y agoAs a Christian right winger I'd say that National doesn't represent my political views. They're much like Labour, they do very little. I have very little hope that our government will improve no matter who is voted in. They seem determined to slowly make things worse, not matter what direction they pick.
- plugger 4y agoAs a non-religious part of the majority I'm happy that your religious views are no longer represented in political views, as they're a niche perspective and should not be foisted on society at large.
- refurb 4y agoBeyond sea level rise, how can you prepare for something unpredictable? From what I've read things will get more extreme. So potentially more rain, but potentially droughts. Potentially higher temperatures, but potentially lower ones as well. So how do you avoid spending money to prepare for something that may not happen - in fact, the opposite might happen? Spend billions on new flood control, then faced with a decade long drought you didn't prepare for. There isn't enough money to prepare for every possible scenario. And how do you distinguish being prepared for natural disasters (which happen regardless of climate change) from preparing specifically for climate change? I mean California making sure they have enough water is just table stakes. Even without climate change they should be doing that (knowing it's naturally a near-desert environment in the Central Valley).
- xupybd 4y ago> Beyond sea level rise, how can you prepare for something unpredictable? They're not really. They're just using this as a selling point on many social changes they're making in favor of equity.
- defrost 4y ago> So how do you avoid spending money to prepare for something that may not happen It is certain that more energy, originally from the sun, will be captured and held out the earth | sea lower atmosphere layers due to the increased insulation effects of increasing greenhouse gases. This will have significant impact on the global climate cells about the planet, precisely where what will happen is difficult to predict, the general pattern of the kinds of things not so much. What we can do is reduce the insulating increase by putting less up there, capturing more, etc. What we can also do is prepare for change, eg here we have been increasing the divrsity of seed varieties for wheat | canola | barley | etc across the board, building a database of tested seeds against temp and humidity variation.
- Daishiman 4y agoIt's not unpredictable. The IPCC reports, as well as the climatology departments of most universities around the world, have a fairly detailed understanding of how different areas will be affected. Sea level rise covers all coastal cities; increased severity of hurricanes, increased severity of droughts and rains, permafrost melting, etc.
- bruce511 4y agoWater it seems, is not our friend. Climate change seems mostly to be about water, and how we currently live with it. The melting of the ice-caps over the next 100 years or whatever will result is rising sea levels. Potentially a rise of hundreds of metres. The additional energy in the atmosphere leads to heavier rains, and hence more runoff. When that runoff goes through a building we call that flooding. In other places a lack of rain is leading to water shortage and drought. Sea level rise is long term, flooding and droughts are here now. In the short term we need to allow water more space to flow. Retreating from the waters edge can be done, and it can be paid for "collectively". It's a relatively small-scale action, and it can happen progressively year on year. Simple rules to condem areas after say a second flooding would be a start. Retreating from a 100m sea level rise is too large a scale to contemplate. Sure it'll happen "slowly" but the number of people involved is a sizeable fraction of all humanity. Inland small towns everywhere should be considering planning and zoning that would happen if they grew by a million people. New cities, on the new waters edge, will be created from nothing. At this point we can stretch out the time line, but I think the course is set. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle now. But I'm confident we will adapt. This isn't an extinction event. Humans adapt better than anything else.
- olivermarks 4y agoWhen do you think Barack Obama will have to move to higher ground? He only bought his massively expensive sea front property recently... https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169311/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-house/ https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169...
- oefrha 4y agoEven if that property were completely flooded tomorrow, he could easily afford a twice as expensive one on higher ground. Their book deal alone can pay for six of those. So not sure what your point is. That rich people don’t need to care? That much is obvious.
- jjcon 4y ago> The melting of the ice-caps over the next 100 years or whatever will result is rising sea levels. Potentially a rise of hundreds of metres. If literally all the ice on the planet melted and ran into the ocean the ocean would only rise 70 meters [0] (so 100s of meters is genuinely physically impossible). The current WORST case scenarios as modeled by the IPCC would put us on track for <4 meters of rise by 2300, 280 years from now [1] [0] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-glaciers-melted https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-would-sea-level-change-if-all-... [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating-future-sea-levels https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148494/anticipating...
- creakingstairs 4y agoMy partner and I are looking to move back to NZ and settle down in around 3 years and I found it quite depressing that we need to now consider climate change impact on the city (near and far future) when we decide where to settle down.
- beachy 4y agoBe happy that NZ will have plenty of water even under extreme scenarios. What's more, the areas that will fare best for precipitation and temperature rise are also the areas that tend to be sparsely populated and have cheap(er) housing. Though those sandflies in the South Island can be vicious. https://niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-resources/clivar/scenarios https://niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-resou....
- martin1975 4y agoFlorida hasn't sunk yet....
- EdwardDiego 4y agoYet...
- stevenwoo 4y agoThough getting insurance for one's home in Florida is getting difficult now according to this recent news item so don't have to wait for ocean levels to rise too much. https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/08/26/an-existential-dilemma-florida-homeowners-scramble-as-another-major-insurer-exits/ https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/08/26/an-existential...
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThis is apparently mostly due to fraud, and state government inaction to address it. Not directly climate change related, but still not a good sign that they'll deal with climate impacts well.
- TekMol 4y agoWhat are the main challenges when it comes to climate change? I can come up with some challenges, but they all do not seem too hard to solve: Produce food under the new conditions More roofs and air condition to keep people protected from sun and heat Move people away from the oceans as those rise What else?
- smt88 4y agoYou don't think that moving billions of people, moving millions of acres of food production (often across borders), and replacing millions of workers' livelihoods would be "hard to solve"?
- TekMol 4y agoSo many questions. Let's start with the first one: Do we really need to move billions of people? We humans couldn't live under current conditions without the tech we built. Why can't we build the tech to cope with new conditions? Put roofs made from solar panels over peoples heads and air conditin below the roofs?
- reustle 4y agoI think it's not so much about us adapting to the new climate, obviously we can figure that part out. It seems to be more about our systems adapting fast enough to keep up with the changing climate. How many crops this year were plagued by drought? Were we able to produce enough food? What about livestock, how did they fare? What if those droughts continue to get more frequent and longer?
- mellavora 4y agoYou forgot to mention how you build the rest of the boat, the part that goes under the solar panel roof. > a quarter of Bangladesh’s landmass, bound on the south by the northern Indian Ocean, hovers less than seven feet above sea level. And as floods grow increasingly frequent and severe, the 163 million who make their home in Bangladesh, the world’s most populous delta, know little escape from water. https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/bangladesh-country-underwater-culture-move https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/bangladesh-country-underwater-c...
- sanroot99 4y agoNew Zealand is rumoured to be billionaire refugees during climate crisis ,i wonder why new zealand?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- opnac 4y agoMost of this seems sensible. Governments should be spending to prepare for a changed climate, in case global warming is irreversible (which I think is the likely trajectory). Investing totally in net zero by 2050 is not responsible governing. In the U.K., that means building flood defences for the winter, water storage for the dry summers (avoiding the inevitable cries of NIMBYs like Layla Moran) and possibly investing in AC for hotter summers.
- mathverse 4y agoClimate change requires systematic change not enforcing "personal sacrifice". Globalization was touted as a tool to ensure the world will not descend into another world war but in the process it destroyed countless of sustainable, good for climate businesses. We transport so much goods that could be produced locally thousands of kilometers across the planet literally just because of corporate profits.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoGlobal transport isn't really the problem. It's relatively efficient and technically easy to decarbonize. Shipping things from countries that have natural resource advantages is fine. Shipping things from other countries because they do things that are illegal in your own country (whether that’s labor rights, environmental regulations, lack of democracy, slavery or whatever) is bad.
- seanw444 4y agoWorld war is a necessary evil. A one world government sounds like an incredible way to have an inescapable totalitarian regime. If it isn't in the beginning, it will be in the end. All nations trend towards totalitarianism, almost like clockwork.
- Proven 4y ago
- LatteLazy 4y agoIt amazes me that climate change mitigation isn't a bi-partisan issue...