Imagine My Relief

Abbie Jury and Fiona Clark live in the Tikorangi, Taranaki. Their story will probably surprise you. The arguments that a reduction of extraction here will cause an increase in emissions elsewhere implies that practices locally are somehow cleaner. Yet we frack, land farm, and have open flare pits. It also seems likely that there is some deep well injection going on. Monitoring and testing for fugitive emissions seem cursory at best and
oil money seems to flow into every part of the local community to ease things along. Welcome to the sacrificial zone.
Welcome to gaslands.

(Note from Abbie – deep well injection is happening. It is a consented, permitted and admitted activity which is taking place all the time now).

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Motu is a charitable trust, founded in 2000 with the aim of to promoting well informed and reasoned debate on public policy issues relevant to New Zealand decision making.

The institute aims to be fully independent, with no expressed ideology or political position. Their research reports include such areas as innovation and productivity, climate change, emissions trading, well being and housing affordability.

Motu was named the top climate think tank in Oceania 2015 by the International Centre for Climate goverenance. It has been named one of the top ten global economic think tanks by the Research Papers in Economics website.

Suzi Kerr is a Senior fellow at Motu and has worked on climate change since graduating from Harvard in 1995 with a Phd in Economics. She is also a member of New Zealand’s climate change commission. Note that she does not speak for the commission in this discussion.

I came to see her at Motu’s offices in Cuba Street and we tried imagining a future where emissions are finally under control.

01:34 Motu's approach and the space they occupy
03:35 The urgency graph since 1995
04:18 Acticely choosing optimism
05:40 Rapid change and Electric cars
07:20 We are small, but everywhere is small
08:14 Inducing responses from others
09:10 The high level negotiations work in the same way as the small ones
11:34 The painful formal process
12:40 The democracy you can touch
14:04 The sea change - open sourcing politics and policy
15:30 Preparing for the moment when the political and social climate is ready
17:18 Our role in the world
18:00 Its safe for you to say "I care too"
19:00 Comparing to the open source revolution
20:55 The way to shift a large complex system
22:00 What can you as part of this complex system
23:00 How could you enable EVs?
24:50 What is the one single change you want the most?
26:40 Agricultural emissions
28:30 The two basics of methane
30:45 Are we already geoengineering?
31:25 Fifty years on: the collaboration required
35:20 Fifty years on: what it will look like
38:20 Decarbonising over the last 100 years
40:10 How do you know when reductions are lucky accident
43:10 The momentum of the last four years
46:30 CNG and retrofitting cars - solutions from the sidelines
52:20 The thinking needs to pervade everything
54:15 When its not your day job
58:10 The importance of getting the right stories

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I’ve known Nicky Hager for a few years now and we’ve rarely talked shop. I tend to gush a little over my guests on this podcast, and for that reason I’ll keep this intro short. He is extraordinary, John Pilger and Seymour Hersh can tell you that. He has spoken truth to power fearlessly for more than forty years. In the last week the Labour government announced an end to offshore oil exploration; the culmination of seven years of work by individuals and organisations committed to addressing climate change in a meaningful way. In the same week Attorney-General David Parker announced a government inquiry into Operation Burnham; the 2010 SAS raid in Afghanistan that was the subject of the book he co-authored with Jon Stephenson, Hit and Run.

We talked about the chemistry of change: why it’s hard to get, and why people work for it.

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Lyndon Devantier and Catherine Cheung are ocean scientists and activists living on the side of Mount Taranaki, just down the road from Parihaka.
They came to Taranaki in 2009 and became aware of the deep roots the region has in oil and gas extraction.

They also live in the place where non violent resistance was born.

http://pukeariki.com/Learning-Research/Taranaki-Research-Centre/Taranaki-Stories/Taranaki-Story/id/334/title/pacifist-of-parihaka-te-whiti-o-rongomai

 

Lyndon and Catherine and now deep into the biggest fight you could have in Taranaki, and they will be involved in the Climate Summit alongside Oil free Wellington and a raft of other activists in the next couple of weeks.

I say this all the time – I was overwhelmed by the courage and warmth of my guests. When you are ready to enter this fray you will find yourself in finest company there is. Thank you again, Lyndon and Catherine, for your time, and see you again soon.

Sunday the 25th 10 to 5 at the Dowse in Lower Hutt for information on moving on from Oil and Gas this weekend.

02:09 - Lyndon's story - discovering the extraction in the energy province
08:14 - Catherine's story - joining Climate Justice Taranaki and learning about fracking in NZ
12:09 - Taranaki's deep investments in fossil fuels and dairy.
14:20 - Food security and self reliance.
16:46 - Models and current trends in ocean temperatures
17:42 - Picking the right trees
20:04 - Motunui - Gas to gasoline.
21:19 - The methanol industry, fracking, fugitive emissions and urea
22:43 - Gas as a transition fuel and other myths
24:60 - Intergenerational Inequity
25:56 - Adam Smith and protecting the common people from the industrialists
26:46 - Separation of powers lost and secret meetings with the oil industry
28:27 - Taranaki regional council monitoring reports and consents to discharges contaminants into air and rivers
31:45 - Recent drought and climate change affects on the farm
37:30 - Key pieces of legislation that prevent us considering climate change
39:44 - Lawyers and the Pacific Ocean Climate Change conference
41:44 - The other activists - Gen Zero and 350
42:37 - The need for policy and legislation changes to reflect reality
43:43 - Government agencies participating in the search for minable methane clathrate - the smoking gun of mass extinction
48:24 - Climate rally in Wellington
52:14 - Industry, denial and muddying the waters
54:17 - GeoEngineering proposals and particulates from burning fuels - the double curse
58:02 - Growing awareness, district council to join global convenant
59:32 - Local governments now having to deal with consequences
01:01:46 - What would you most like to see happen now
01:02:34 - Taranaki Energy watch taking council to Environment Court - needing financial support
01:07:15 - Petroleum conference - saying no to more block offers
01:08:24 - EPA currently going after Mike Joy
01:11:46 - Legislation change required to stop these groups from being hamstrung 
01:13:39 - Onshore drilling and mining - landowners learning they can lock the gate
01:19:46 - Many climate change skeptics now quietly rescinding their views 
01:21:06 - Last thoughts - come to the rally - get involved.

This episode was recorded in Okato, New Zealand.

Next episode I hope to talk with Amanda Thomas, lecturer at the school of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria university. We’ll be taking a look at activism and violence, looking at a paper she co-authored about a 350.org event in Dunedin – we’ll also be discussing the outcome of the Wellington Oil Summit.

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