The post “Fuelling Dissension” appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

You might have seen a new hashtag emerging on the CANA Facebook page: #goodnewsstories.

You might, equally, wonder what these stories about bananas and tramping tracks have to do with our coal focus.

Well, I’ll tell you!

As you may have noticed, anytime there’s any glimmer of governmental support for winding down the fossil fuel industry, the media loves to bang on about lost jobs and damages to The Economy. This ongoing fear-mongering is damaging to our climate targets, completely misses the bigger picture of what’s at stake if we don’t transition away from fossil fuels, and ignores the potential for significantly more jobs emerging in the renewable energy sector.

The point of all these Good News Stories is to provide another perspective. A positive perspective. Opportunities abound; the world is our oyster. We don’t need to rely on a fossil fuel economy. Kiwi ingenuity is shining – people have started businesses using the changing climate to their advantage; growing bananas or coffee. A new Great Walk is giving new life to a tired mining town, with huge potential for creative tourism opportunities.

All too often the news feed of an environmentalist is gloomy and bleak. It’s exhausting. The standard scare tactics of people just trying to get people to care have been largely ineffective. We are human – we crave inspiration, positivity, humanity, hope. In the face of climate change, there is still an abundance of all of these things. They just get lost among all the other, more catastrophic, click-bait. So CANA’s Good News Stories have come about as an effort to bring some hope and positivity back to environmentalists, and also to reach those who don’t put themselves in that category – just people looking for inspiration.

If you have any stories you would like us to share, personal or otherwise, please email or message us. In the words of my personal favourite Climate Inspirer Paul Hawken, we have an opportunity “to see global warming not as an inevitability but as an invitation to build, innovate, and effect change, a pathway that awakens creativity, compassion, and genius.”

Here’s some examples of people doing just that:

The “Carrot Crusader” Alex Davies started a pop-up restaurant after the Christchurch earthquake, with an emphasis on showcasing local vegetables:
: https://thespinoff.co.nz/food/23-07-2018/the-carrot-crusader-meet-the-christchurch-chef-changing-the-game/?utm_source=The+Bulletin&utm_campaign=022c0e7916-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_01_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_552336e15a-022c0e7916-533766577

Northland’s “thriving banana growing business” is extending to Gisborne with funding going into growing an East Coast banana economy: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/104988290/east-coast-banana-growing-venture-taps-into-taxpayer-funding

A couple who have become NZ’s first commercial coffee growers: https://thisnzlife.co.nz/inside-new-zealands-first-commercial-coffee-harvest/

A new Great Walk bringing life to ex-mining town Blackball:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018649769/paparoa-track-a-great-walk-for-cyclists-too  and https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/104795894/New-West-Coast-Great-Walk-the-Paparoa-Track-a-thank-you-and-an-opportunity

And dairy legend Glen’s mission to make milk a sustainable industry:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/21-04-2018/i-founded-happy-cow-to-make-a-difference-in-dairying-i-failed/

Keep an eye out on our Facebook page for more upcoming Good News…or even go out and make some!

The post #goodnewsstories appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Coal Action Network (CANA) has awarded Fonterra half a tick for at least acknowledging the importance of reducing its huge coal use but describes its programme as “hardly ambitious”.

Spokesperson Jeanette Fitzsimons said today “CANA has been calling on Fonterra for several years to quit coal, including in several high level meetings. It’s about time they listened and took action.”

Fonterra is the second largest user of coal in New Zealand, and its coal use to dehydrate milk has been growing fast.

“Today’s announcement of no new coal boilers after 2030 is disappointingly  unambitious” said Ms Fitzsimons. “The other way of saying this is that they intend to go on building new coal boilers for another 13 years, despite the urgency of action on climate change.”

She also called for Fonterra to come clean about its plans for “co-firing”. “Some hard numbers here would help”.

“Does one truck of wood chip to 20 truck loads of coal really represent progress?” she asked.

Fonterra’s contribution to climate change needs more than a substitute fuel. It needs a systems change. Reducing emissions requires fewer cows, fed better, each producing more milk. It means value added processing, not just low value commodities like milk powder. It means milk evaporation on or near the farm, with the water returned to the land, rather than sucking our rivers and aquifers dry and carrying that water for hundreds of km. Finally, it means much less volume to process, using wood waste as the fuel.

Half a tick for recognising they have a problem. Now will the words be followed by action?

The post Fonterra pledges 13 more years of new coal boilers appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

‘Neoliberalism’ is one of those terms rarely used in a complimentary sense. In fact being described as a ‘neoliberalist’ tends to imply that your moral standing is only marginally above that of someone who steals from widows and orphans. Neoliberalism took a chokehold on New Zealand economic policy back in the 1980s and 90s, but does the emperor really have any clothes?

A central tenet of neoliberal dogma is that business should be allowed to do its own thing while the government stays out of the way. If markets don’t exist in such areas as land, water, or environmental pollution, then they should be created. Controls on working conditions and foreign investments should be relaxed. State assets should be sold off – privatisation and private property rights rule.

The 1991 Resource Management Act (RMA) attempted to set out how we should manage our environment in a sustainable way when making decisions about the use of resources. Decision-making processes, however, may give undue weight to claims that economic gains will compensate for any environmental damage caused.

In order for the best possible decisions to be made, it’s vital that councils and courts should have access to the best possible information. This doesn’t always happen. When Mokau South Resources (MSR) applied for consents to mine the Panirau Plateau, the supporting information was best described as scanty. For example, MSR’s consultant ecologist carried out a one-day field study but didn’t actually visit the proposed mine site. To its credit, the Waikato Regional Council didn’t let MSR get away with its shoddy application, which Tim Jones of CANA had compared unfavourably to that which might be produced by monkeys under zero-hours contracts with bananas banned from the workplace.

Stevenson Mining’s application to develop an opencast coal mine at Te Kuha on the West Coast has, on the other hand, been accompanied by pages and pages of information. Reports prepared by consultants for Stevenson, for the councils, for the Department of Conservation and for environmental NGOs all came to the same conclusion: Te Kuha has extremely high conservation and landscape values which will be irreversibly damaged if mining goes ahead.

The crux of the applicant’s case must be that the benefits resulting from mining Te Kuha would outweigh the environmental destruction. So what is the economic rationale of the proposal? Whereas the scientific aspects of the applicant’s case are backed up with actual evidence, we are asked to accept the economic claims on trust. The Council Planning Officers’ report simply states, “We acknowledge that the proposal will have clear positive economic benefits with respect to providing for employment and wider economic benefits to the district and region.” Well, that’s nice.

DOC and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) struck up a cosy arrangement in which they presented a joint submission on Te Kuha. MBIE consultants assessed the Net Present Value (NPV) of the project as $34–36m, but there is no reference to the identity of these consultants or to the evidence on which their opinions are based.

For those of us who don’t have a background in economics it’s easy to feel threatened by the unfamiliar language. (NPV? Go google.) But in order to challenge the promises of untold jobs and wealth, you often don’t need any specialist knowledge at all.

Let’s take a look at just a few of Stevenson’s claims:

“It can be assumed that the costs and benefits have been responsibly and properly analysed and that from the viewpoint of those with money at risk, the expected financial benefits exceed the expected costs.”
Who carried out this analysis? What were their findings based on? Has anyone told them about Mt Davy, Spring Creek, Escarpment, Roa – just some of the West Coast mines which have spectacularly failed to achieve the financial benefits claimed by their owners?

“Preliminary tests indicate that there could be three products from Te Kuha, including a premium one that will attract higher prices.”
What proportion of the coal will be of this grade? What will the price differential be?

“Te Kuha coal will be used in specialist applications such as for making carbon fibre, activated carbon and pharmaceuticals.”
Which of these processes are currently carried out in New Zealand? What discussions have been held with overseas manufacturers who might buy Te Kuha coal? Who are the competitors in this market?

“Te Kuha will generate 58 new mining jobs.”
Based on what evidence? How many jobs will be for current West Coast residents as opposed to transients?

“The value of coal produced will average $57m a year.”
What evidence does the company have that the recent wild swings in the price of coking coal will stabilise at a profitable level? What is this likely to be?

And one other question: If more than a century and a half of coal mining has failed to bring sustained prosperity to the West Coast, what is the factual basis for claiming that opening yet another coal mine will solve the area’s problems?

Some hard choices have to be made about our use of natural resources. But decision-makers can be hoodwinked into believing that they should accept without question any proposal that includes the words ‘jobs’, ‘profit’ or ‘tax revenue’. It’s time to insist that the same scrutiny is given to economic arguments as to environmental ones. It’s time to rip away the cloak of ‘commercial sensitivity’ that can be allowed to shield the emperor’s nakedness. And it’s time to listen when voices cry out, “But he has nothing on at all!”

The post The emperor’s new economics: how neoliberalism lets coal miners get away with making wild, unsupported claims about economic benefits appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

We think Dr Robert Howell’s new book “Investing in People and the Planet” is worth your attention – and so we’re pleased to help promote his New Zealand speaking tour. You can find out more about the book on Robert Howell’s website, where he says:

In a world threatened by ecological disaster, global inequality and human tragedy, how can we make a difference? The bank that we select, the pension fund and insurance that we choose, the investments that we support, and the voice that we raise to shape Government investments and financial behaviour, can begin to make the changes that are needed when joined with the efforts of others. This book shows how and why. It can be purchased at quaker.books@quaker.org.nz

New Zealand Speaking Tour – Dates and Venues

Invercargill: Thursday March 23.    Southern Institute Technology Room B1-12 7.30 pm Contact: jennycam@xtra.co.nz

Dunedin: March 25.  Otago Polytechnic.  4.00pm.   Lecture Room G106, Ground Floor, G Block, Otago Polytechnic, Union Street East (near corner with Harbour Terrace). Contact:simsam45@gmail.com

Christchurch: March 27.  5.30 pm (tea and coffee provided) for a 6.00 pm start.  Quaker Centre,   217 Ferry Rd, Christchurch.   On the corner of Nursery Road.   Some parking onsite.

Nelson: March 29.  NMIT, T Block, 7.00pm. Contact: C.M.Richards@clear.net.nz

Wellington: March 31. GBLT3, Lecture Theatre 3, Old Govt Building, Pipitea Campus 12.30 – 1.30 pm.

Palmerston North: April 3,  5.30pm.  First floor, non-fiction section of PN Public Library.  Contact:celia.short@lifeinleadership.com  (NB the lecture will start at 6.00 but as the main doors close at 6.00 we need to be there beforehand.)

Napier: April 4, 7.00pm.Lecture Theatre 1 , EIT, 501 Gloucester Street, Taradale.

Hamilton: April 6, 7.00pm. Waikato Cathedral Church Hall of St Peter 51 Victoria Street, Hamilton

The post Robert Howell: Investing In People And The Planet – New Book And Speaking Tour appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Will Bathurst try to restart their destruction of the Denniston Plateau?

Industry is exulting over a stellar rise in the coal price this year. But we won’t be investing our savings.

The 5 year steady drop in the price of coking coal since 2011 has slowed work at Stockton, prevented the development of Bathurst’s Denniston mine until last year, then after a brief flurry of activity to ensure the consent remained valid, put that mine on hold indefinitely. Now in a few months coking coal that was selling at $72/tonne in January is selling at US$213. Australian thermal coal has risen by 85% – though is still short of 2011 levels.

Whitehaven Coal’s share price has risen by 600% but investors would be wise to be cautious. Zhao Chenxin of China’s National Development and Reform Commission has said “the current soaring price has no market foundation and is not sustainable”.

Bathurst seems to have similar concerns. They have not reopened Denniston and their share price remains below 6 cents. Perhaps they want to downplay the rise until they have purchased Solid Energy’s Stockton mine?

Why did the coal price drop over 5 years, why has it risen sharply again this year, and why do we think this will not last?

Why the price slump?

The steady decline in coal prices was about China’s reducing demand for coal and steel, and their declining rate of economic growth. It also reflected that solar is now cheaper than coal for new power stations in sunny countries. That all led to over supply in the market. We reported on this trend with more detail in Jobs After Coal in 2014.

Why the 2016 price rally?

China, facing reduced demand and an overcapacity of 1500 MT/y , legislated for the closure of dozens of steel mills by the end of this year. (You can do that in China.) Their target is to cut 45 MT of steel making capacity by the end of this year. The number of days coal miners were allowed to work in a year was cut, enforcing decent holidays.

US coal production has dropped by a third in two years and 30 mines were closed.

Then against this background, a series of local supply interruptions occurred. Floods closed roads and a railway in China. Mines in Australia were flooded in freak storms. (The irony of climate-linked weather affecting climate-cooking coal will not be lost on our readers.) The Australian Government enforced some mine closures. Stock piles of coal declined in several countries.

Added to that, China’s demand for thermal coal increased as rainfall into their hydro lakes dropped. Imports in August this year were 31% higher than in August 2015, with resulting price increases.

Severe monsoons cut Coal India’s production by over 10% and their stockpiles are dropping.

Why is this price rally likely to be short-lived?

According to Tim Buckley of IEEEFA global coal use peaked in 2004 and is declining now in China, the US and the EU. Demand in India is still increasing but that demand is being met from ramped up local production which does not affect international prices. Government policy in India is to cease coal imports, and in China is to retreat from coal-fired electricity. China is producing a smaller quantity of steel and substituting scrap for new iron, which reduces coal requirements.

The evidence suggests a short term supply constraint from a number of human and weather-related causes, set against a long term trend of movement away from coal as a preferred fuel in favour of cost-competitive renewables and concerns for air quality and, eventually, climate.

Analysts Wood MacKenzie expect prices for coking coal to decline over 2017 to $130 by the second quarter, and further by the end of the year.

BHP Billiton, which produces around half of all seaborne coal so presumably understands coal markets, just sold a coking coal project in Indonesia at a loss.

Against this long term trend, the reopening of Denniston would be a poor investment, and the proposed Te Kuha mine looks plain crazy. There is a long lead time to reopening a mine that has been mothballed, let alone opening a new one. Machinery, maintenance, removal of overburden, sourcing staff all take time. Thermal coal is at least 70% reliant on the domestic dairy industry, so continues – but that is a blog for another time.

References

http://ieefa.org/coal-price-increase-fed-unsustainable-blips-china-india/

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-coal-output-ndrc-idUSKCN11T16P

Wood MacKenzie October 2016 Coal Market report

The post Coal Prices – do they prove us wrong? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Several new Fonterra plants have been officially opened in the last week or two, though they have all been running for a few months. Together they suggest the company may finally be giving some weight to the “value” component of its mantra, “Volume, Value, Velocity”.

We have criticised Fonterra in the past for its push for more, more and more milk, leading to farm intensification, more water pollution and more greenhouse gases. So it’s only fair we issue a cautious bouquet when they balance that with added value.

Bill English has just opened the new Reverse Osmosis plant at Edendale, the largest dairy factory in the southern hemisphere. Reverse osmosis is a widely used technology which purifies water or concentrates liquids by passing them through a membrane under pressure.

Whole milk can be concentrated down to 40-50% of its original volume, which should mean a saving of more than half the coal needed to dry it to powder or to MPC (milk protein concentrate). Certainly the changes at Edendale, which include an MPC plant and another making anhydrous milk fat (industrial butter) have added considerable value to each litre of milk with no additional coal boiler, even though an additional 1.4 million litres a day of milk are being processed.

Imagine the impact on Fonterra’s coal use if all their large plants used reverse osmosis prior to drying. It would also make it easier to source and handle the waste wood which must eventually replace that coal.

In the same week Steven Joyce opened a $72m expansion at Clandeboye which doubles their production of mozzarella cheese, making enough to top 300 million pizzas a year. Leaving aside the question of just what they have done to speed up the process from 3 months to 6 hours, this is a much higher value use for milk than bags of powder.

An $11m upgrade at Hautapu has doubled the production of lactoferrin, a milk-derived protein known in the industry as “pink gold” which fetches up to $1,000/ kg. Te Rapa factory is reported to have doubled its production of cream cheese.

All this points the way to a much smarter strategy than constant growth in bags of milk powder, with high environmental impact for low prices. Why, then, persevere with the huge expansion of coal fired milk drying at Studholme when there are demonstrably smarter ways to invest capital?

Perhaps Robert Spurway, Global Affairs manager, is having another think – he was reported last week saying that there is “no specific timeframe” for the Studholme plant, and Fonterra is not committed to it. Certainly it is hard to see where the extra milk will come from, with prices showing no sign of recovering and many farmers reducing production to save costs. This year’s milk production is expected to drop by at least 3 and maybe 5%.

With the benefits of adding value at existing plant now well demonstrated; with less milk flow and unhappy farmers, now would be the right time to call it quits and announce that Studholme will not go ahead, but that instead the capital will be invested in making more value for farmers from the milk they already produce.

The post Is Fonterra Seeing the Light? appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

When Solid Energy went belly up with huge debts and failed businesses like its briquetting plant in Southland, the Government was forced to drop it off the list for privatisation because it was no longer fit for sale. Right?

Wrong. Solid Energy has been 46% privatised under our noses without most people realising what was going on.

There was considerable public anger that taxpayers’ money was used to bail out the failed company so it could try to trade its way out of its difficulties. However, part of that deal was persuading the banks who owned much of its debt to write off $75m of that debt in exchange for equity – shares in Solid.

Coal Action Network activist at the now mothballed Mataura briquetting plant – supposed to provide local jobs, but didn’t.

The banks were very reluctant. It wasn’t their idea of a good investment. There is no sign they had any moral qualms about fossil fuels and the future of the planet, nor that they were concerned about the carbon bubble making coal a risky investment. But they should have been.

Both of these factors have caused investment funds overseas, including churches and university pension funds, to divest. Rather, the banks were concerned that the company was a basket case and converting their loans into shares meant they might never see any of it again. They may well be proved right.

Tokyo Bank challenged the debt restructure in the High Court, backed by the other banks, and lost: http://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/68407/bank-tokyo-mitsubishi-take-unsuccessful-solid-energy-debt-restructure-challenge-chin-won

TSB subsequently wrote off the value of its new shareholding, $13.8m, reducing its profit this year by 5.9%: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tsb-bank-profit-slips-59-solid-energy-writedown-bd-156961

This much has been reported. However, the net effect on Solid’s ownership is less well known. The effect was to reduce the Crown’s ownership of this former SOE from 100% to 53% – almost exactly what was intended in the initial privatisation plans. The rest, 46%, is owned by the banks, all of them apart from TSB overseas owned. The current shareholding is:

Why would this matter? Aren’t we better off without a poorly performing coal company that pays no dividends and will eventually have stranded assets? Well, maybe it’s not that simple.

We are in a transition, whether Solid and the Government recognise it or not, from fossil fuels to renewable energy. That transition could be smoother or more bumpy, depending on how Solid Energy is managed.

As long as ministers have the power, as they do for an SOE, to give directions to the board, they can influence that transition in the public interest. (The fact that no government has so far showed any interest in doing so doesn’t take away from the hope that one day they might actually recognise climate change as a problem that requires serious action).

For example, Solid could have been instructed to open no further mines, to manage its existing mines well and pay down its debt, and to put its considerable inventiveness into developing transport fuels based on waste wood rather than lignite – possibly in partnership with Crown-owned Scion. That opportunity has now gone – a 53% majority could not impose that on the rest of the shareholders.

As it happened Solid Energy’s small ventures that would have been in the public interest had they been well managed, and would have helped smooth the transition to a low carbon future – Biodiesel NZ (biogold biodiesel) and Nature’s Flame (wood pellets) – were often conveniently blamed for the SOE’s demise. Two former SE managers now own Biodiesel NZ and are confident of making a profit.

“We are very confident that Green Fuels can provide very competitive pricing in comparison to mineral diesel. Using Biogold™ enables companies and organisations to do the right thing for our environment. A responsible attitude towards sustainability is becoming an increasingly hot topic especially in the current conversations around building a ‘new’ Christchurch and maintaining a ‘pure’ New Zealand.” (http://dieseltalk.co.nz/news/green-fuels-nz-purchases-biodiesel-facilities)

If Solid succeeds in pulling itself out of its hole, a hole that appears to be getting deeper in the face of continued low coal prices that show no sign of rallying, the banks are likely to sell their holdings as soon as they can. This will not be to NZ Mums and Dads, but more likely to overseas investors.

As we’ve pointed out on this blog before, the Indian steel industry has shown considerable interest in our coal assets:

http://coalactionnetworkaotearoa.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/bridges-india-coal/

Handing over a large chunk of these coal assets would create a further vested interest to join other big industries pushing against New Zealand achieving a decent climate policy.

Under modern free trade agreements, and especially under the TPPA if it is signed, foreign investors will have the right to sue our government for any change in policy that impacts on their profits. Goodbye carbon tax, or even a renewed ETS. The TPPA is itself a powerful reason to resist privatisation.

“Privatisation by stealth” is the hackneyed term that comes to mind, but the point here is that we were never told this was the effect of the bailout, but were left to figure it out. More contempt for democracy.

It is hard to see any sensible way forward from here. Coal is a sunset industry and the necessary transition seems likely to be a very bumpy one.

The post The Privatisation of Solid Energy appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503423&objectid=11180816

My mum is 89 and needs 24-hour care. Despite multiple strokes, she can still smile and, when the clouds in her head part, the old sense of fun is not faraway. She holds a blue stone day and night.

My Christmas was spent feeding mum, helping her stand so she felt safe to take those few excruciating steps to the bed, the wheelchair, the commode. I changed her, washed her and read to her. I held her hand when she was upset in the night.

Except for a few phone calls and visits from family, that was our Christmas.

I turned off the radio and the TV. We didn’t have to participate in the nation’s most obscene display of conspicuous consumption ever recorded – a record-breaking 148 electronic transactions per second at 12:24pm on Christmas Eve.

Nor did we join the Boxing Day scramble when sales rocketed 12 per cent past last year’s record.

And when more than 20,000 new items got listed on Trade Me.

Mum’s carers came as usual to shower her at Christmas. They used their own cars, paying the first 10 kilometres themselves and then earning 30 cents per kilometre on top of a minimum hourly rate of $13.75.

Along with their 40,000 care worker colleagues, they sit at the bottom of the Kiwi income ladder, where half of New Zealanders earn less than $24,000 per year. At the top, a chief executive’s average salary is $1.5 million.

So who was ringing up $235 million through the nation’s tills on Christmas Eve while mum’s carers worked and we sat home? Who owns what in Godzone?

New Zealand’s 2.9 million adults own almost $470 billion in cash and assets, but it’s not shared evenly. In fact, the wealthiest 1 per cent own three times as much as the poorest 50 per cent combined. Around 1.45 million of us own just 5 per cent of the nation’s wealth.

At the bottom end of the asset ladder, it’s not wealth but debt, debt, debt. Hence, for many, Christmas becomes the most stressful time of year. On go the carols, up goes the tinsel and out comes the hard sell. Off we trot, clocking up debt that half of us can’t afford to repay.

My friend, physics professor Bob Lloyd from the University of Otago, talks about another, bigger kind of debt – and not just at Christmas. He talks of energy inputs and outputs.

One output is atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the discovery of coal, cheap oil and gas, we’ve been on an energy spending spree like there’s no tomorrow. The burning of these fuels has dumped massive amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the planet.

This is a proven fact, but vested interests – mostly with connections to the fossil fuel industry – try to confuse us. You can see why – they have a lot to lose. Eighty per cent of their already discovered coal, oil and gas will soon be worthless because they will have to remain unburned for the planet’s atmosphere to keep to two degrees of global warming.

Go above two degrees, the world’s governments have agreed, and we are on a trajectory toward mass extinction within a few short generations.

It may already be too late. Weather patterns are changing faster than predicted, ice is melting and excess dissolved CO2 is acidifying the oceans.

Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years, so even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, multiple changes are already in the pipeline. Put bluntly, the world’s output of CO2 has become the main limiting factor to future human existence. We’re in debt, big time.

But Bob sees global warming as a symptom rather than a cause. Our CO2 debt, like our household debt, is a symptom of the same addiction. The cause, up in lights this Christmas, is conspicuous consumption, rampant consumerism, the myth that we can keep on growing in a finite world already choked to the brim.

Bob’s cure is a strict treatment regime with three main remedies.

One: We need to reduce inequality. Why do we allow a chief executive to earn more than 62 times what we’re prepared to pay someone to toilet him when he’s old?

Two: We need to change the economic system to reverse the emphasis on conspicuous consumption.

Three: We must halt the vested interests that, until now, have kept the “business as usual” machine ticking along – vested interests like those described by English journalist George Monbiot in a February 2013 Guardian article about two secretive organisations working for US billionaires that have spent $118 million to ensure that no action is taken to prevent man-made climate change.

Who doesn’t want the best for their kids? Our Christmas gifts to them include an atmosphere choked with CO2, slowly dying oceans, record storms and droughts far into the future. Right now we are stealing from their future to give them something they may just put on Trade Me the next day.

It’s not going to be easy. We need to get honest and stop pretending there’s no tomorrow. Tomorrow belongs to our kids.

And here’s a gift for next year. Find an old person, turn off the TV and radio, and be with them for Christmas.

Rosemary Penwarden is a Wanganui grandmother, freelance writer and member of Coal Action Network Aotearoa, a group that wants to see the sensible phasing out of coal mining.

The post Selling Future By Buying Debt appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

UPDATE: Following decisions to divest from fossil fuels by the Auckland and Waiapu Dioceses, the following dioceses have  divestment motions coming up for consideration:

Main Story

In a major boost for the growing fossil fuels divestment campaign, the Auckland Diocese of the Anglican Church has become the first New Zealand institution to decide to divest from fossil fuels.

As reported by the Anglican Communion News Service: http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2013/09/auckland-diocese-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels.aspx:

the Diocesan Synod voted overwhelmingly to support a motion calling on the diocese to withdraw its investments from companies whose main business is the extraction and/or production of fossil fuels.


The divestment motion was co-sponsored by Revd Mathew Newton of St Paul Symond’s Street and the Diocesan Climate Change Action Group. It asks the diocese to sell off any remaining fossil fuel holdings within 2 years.

Similar motions calling for fossil fuel divestment are being put to other Anglican dioceses during the next few weeks, and the Waiapu Diocese has subsequently passed a divestment motion. Matheson Russell, who initiated this process within the Church, has written about it for the Anglican Church publication Taonga: http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/Common-Life/Auckland-challenged-on-fossil-fuels

Here are three excellent videos on the issues to watch and share:

The post Auckland Diocese of Anglican Church Becomes First New Zealand Institution To Divest From Fossil Fuels appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.