You’ve heard of greenwash right? Well, look out for the “clean coal” media machine as they spend obscene amounts of money spent on advertising and PR in the run up to the US presidential election.
The self-described “clean coal” industry is keen to invest in relationships with our elected officials. I doubt they’d want the reality of “clean coal” to become a campaign topic.
Going Deeper
Since the late Pleistocene, 100,000 years ago, when a few thousand Homo sapiens poked around Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, human population has doubled 22 times. We have one more such doubling left, and that’s it. Human population will likely level off at 10 to 14 billion sometime around 2100, exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity. Mass human starvations are already underway in degraded environments.
Economists imagine that average consumption is going to increase, so we must also consider a projected annual world economic growth of approximately 1.5% in wealthy nations and 10% in China and other developing nations. Economists consider anything below 3% world economic growth to signal a global “recession.” Read more »
Stephanie Tunmore in Bonn writes:
You know those nights when you wake up in a cold sweat because you dreamt you were out in public in your pyjamas? Well for some Greenpeace volunteers and staff the nightmare became reality at the Bonn climate talks this week. Determined to give governments here a wake up call about the rate and extent of climate change to try and shake them out of their inertia, we strode out into the sunlight dressed in our nightclothes, lugging a giant replica alarm clock accompanied by a bugler playing ‘Reveille’
As climate change highlights new challenges facing businesses, one practice has been attracting attention, and that is the strange fishing trade going on between New Zealand and China.
Fishing industry heavyweights such as Talley’s Group Limited ship gutted fish to China for thawing, processing and re-chilling, only to ship it back to New Zealand for sale. In a recent meeting in Parliament, the Green Party expressed its concern to the Minister for Economic Development, Pete Hodgson that this ‘bizarre situation’ undermines both the prime minister ’s goal of carbon neutrality and kiwi workers ’ jobs.
It is a bizarre situation indeed, although the Ministry claims that virtually no seafood is imported back from China, whereas China makes up about 10 percent of New Zealand’s export market. Read more »
This is a blog by Dan Marrow originally posted on Stuff.co.nz
I am a Greenpeace Frontliner - you know, those friendly, cheerful people you see on the streets interacting, motivating and signing up new supporters for the greatest cause there is - our planet.
This is the only job I know that will give you an honest, unfiltered reflection of how the New Zealand public feel about the issues. Just try it, ask a complete stranger how they feel about climate change, deforestation, GE. Some people find it a provocation, some a chance to connect with likeminded folk, some embrace the opportunity to make a difference but most “don’t have the time”. A strange paradigm, considering we all live longer and work towards more leisure time.
Anyway a job like this doesn’t sit like any other job, it’s a lifestyle, so it only works if you put your heart and soul into it and it can be an emotional rollercoaster - no doubt. Read more »
So World Environment Day has come and gone, and we’re all being encouraged to “kick the carbon habit”. But what does this entail exactly?
The Government has been banging on about carbon neutrality, emissions trading and our Kyoto responsibilities, and while it is slowly making good on its promises much more work is urgently needed.
New Zealand is among the worst countries in the developed world for emission increases. We’re the world’s 12th worst polluter on a per-capita basis, and the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy is fourth-highest in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) by GDP.
In recent years, our emissions have grown even faster than the United States. Not something we can be particularly proud of, but something we can change with the right attitudes. Read more »
Today New Zealand is playing host to the UN-sponsored World Environment Day, a day of feel-good publicity stunts and a lot of back-patting over how well behaved New Zealand is when it comes to the environment.
The PR material says New Zealand is hosting the event because we are “among a pioneer group of countries committed to accelerating a transition to a low carbon and carbon-neutral economy”. Really? Why? Because we have a Prime Minister for whom “carbon neutrality” rolls off the tongue with such ease? Because our landscape is naturally characterised by large patches of green? Because we’ve talked the clean green talk for so long that people have forgotten to check if it’s actually true?
It could of course be argued that, far from accelerating anywhere, we’re going into a distinct backward slide when it comes to the environment. You only need to look at the recent State of The Environment Report to see that our scorecard is looking pretty grim and there are some frightening trends that need to be urgently reversed. Read more »
The Great Global Warming Swindle screened on Prime on Sunday night.
For those of you who didn’t see it, don’t bother.
For those of you who did, consider this advice given to the Bush Administration in 2001 by Frank Luntz, a communications advisor:
“The scientific debate is closing [against us but not yet closed….Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.”
This is the strategy being followed by corporate America, and the think tanks they fund who are at the forefront of the climate sceptic industry.
10 out of the 16 interviewees in The Great Global Warming Swindle are connected with no less than 30 Exxon-funded Conservative Think Tanks based in the US. See our ExxonSecrets map.
It’s hard to outline the factual errors in the Swindle, because there are so many. Read more »
According to some juicy information received by our team in Japan, the crew members of the Nisshin Maru and the rest of the whaling fleet, who would by now have already left port for the annual North Pacific whale hunt, have been ordered to stay at home. Bummer for them - but it gives the whales a reprieve, for now.
The information came to us just two weeks after we revealed a major scandal of stolen whale meat from the Southern Ocean hunt - allegations which are now being fully investigated by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor. Read more »
Welcome to the GPNZ blog! Here we'll tell tales, cast nasturciums, talk in parables and offer opinions on stuff that is, at least in some way, related to the work we do.
