Category: Sustainable World

How Gulf Oil Disruptions Threaten Australia and New Zealand’s Energy Security

The Global Context: A Crisis Without Precedent

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has created what the International Energy Agency calls “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” . Flows through the Strait—normally carrying 20 million barrels daily—have fallen to “a trickle,” with oil exports from Gulf producers dropping from approximately 20 million barrels per day to just 3.8 mb/d in early April .

This isn’t just about crude oil. The crisis has triggered unprecedented price spikes in refined products, with Singapore middle distillate prices reaching all-time highs above $290/barrel . For Australia and New Zealand—nations at the end of global supply chains—the implications are immediate and severe.

Price Forecasts: What to Expect by June 2026

Given that the war against Iran by Israel and the US is an existential one for Iran- i.e. Israel, and likely the US’s intent, is to destroy Iran as a cohesive state and break it into statelets who can no longer pose a threat to Israel’s Greater Israel project or disrupt future US control over Iranian oil, any peace agreement for Iran must include continued control over the State of Hormuz to ensure the state of Iran’s continued viability. It is unlikely that the US will concede to this in the short to medium term, especially given the control that Israel currently has over US foreign policy.

Additionally, should the US attempt further substantial attacks on Iranian infrastructure after the ceasefire likely ends on May 20th 2026, Iran has promised to destroy other Gulf States energy infrastructure.

If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed or severely constrained through June 2026 or longer, energy markets face a prolonged supply crisis with cascading price effects:

Crude Oil and Refined Product Prices

ProductCurrent/Recent PriceJune 2026 Forecast (Hormuz Closed)Source
Brent Crude~$103/bbl (March avg)$115+/bbl (EIA peak forecast for Q2 2026)
Singapore Gasoil (Diesel)$192/bbl (April)$200-250+/bbl (IEA alternative scenario)
Singapore Jet FuelSurged 114% since Feb 28$250-300+/bbl (record highs sustained)
VLSFO (Bunker Fuel)S$2.30/litre (Singapore)S$2.50-3.00+/litre (competing demand from refiners)
Australian Retail DieselAUD $3.20+/litreAUD $3.50-4.00+/litre (potential doubling if crisis persists)
Australian Retail Petrol~$2.20/litre (post-excise cut)AUD $2.50-3.00/litre
US Retail Diesel~$5.80/gallon (April peak)$6.00-7.00+/gallon

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has presented two scenarios: a base case assuming gradual resumption of Hormuz flows by mid-year, and an alternative “prolonged conflict” case where “energy markets and economies around the world need to brace for significant disruptions in the months to come”. Under the prolonged conflict scenario, physical crude prices could sustain levels near $150/bbl, with refined products trading at unprecedented premiums .

As of mid-April 2026, oil futures traders are maintaining an almost constant West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price per barrel of around $100 US, while real Dated oil prices hover around the $140 mark. Futures traders are for some reason responding to oft repeated wild claims by Trump that victory, a peace agreement or at least an opening of the Straits, is imminent.

The IEA estimates it will take 2 years for global oil supplies to return to their previous levels once the Strait is reopened because of the extensive damage to Gulf refineries, storage facilities and docks.

Key Price Drivers

  • Diesel shortage structural: The IEA estimates 3-4 million barrels per day of diesel supply loss (5-12% of global consumption) directly tied to Hormuz disruptions
  • Refinery capacity offline: Middle East and Asian refineries cut runs by ~6 mb/d in April, tightening global product markets
  • Brent-WTI spread widening: The spread reached $12/bbl in March and is projected to peak at $15/bbl in April, reflecting Asian supply anxiety

Australia: The Diesel Nation at Breaking Point

The Dependency Problem

Australia is perhaps the most vulnerable developed nation to a liquid fuel emergency. In FY2021, 91% of all fuel consumed in Australia was imported—including 68% as refined products and imported crude for our remaining refineries .

Over the past 20 years, Australia like many other Western countries has substantially reduced the number of oil refineries on shore, opting instead for those refineries to become solely storage facilities for distilled oil products; predominantly from Asia. Two active refineries remain in Australia with the smaller one recently impacted by a refinery fire.

Australia sits at the end of a complex supply chain stretching thousands of kilometers from Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan. While only a small fraction of their diesel imports come directly from the Middle East, almost half of the crude oil for production of that diesel originates in the Middle East when traced back through those Asian refineries.

The Diesel Consumption Profile

Australia’s economy runs on diesel. In 2025, the nation consumed approximately 35 billion litres of diesel—far exceeding the 15 billion litres of petrol and 10 billion litres of aviation fuel . The consumption breakdown reveals critical vulnerabilities:Table

SectorDiesel ShareAnnual ConsumptionVulnerability Level
Mining40% of total diesel~14 billion litresCRITICAL
Road Transport/Trucking24%~8.4 billion litresHIGH
Agriculture8%~2.8 billion litresHIGH
Manufacturing7%~2.5 billion litresMEDIUM
Marine/RailSignificant~3+ billion litresMEDIUM
Passenger Vehicles~25% of remainder~4+ billion litresMEDIUM

Australia has one of the highest per capita diesel demands in the world—7.4 barrels per person annually—far exceeding the US and other major economies .

The Refinery Crisis

Australia’s domestic refining capacity has collapsed. Five refineries closed over the last decade, leaving just two operational: Ampol’s Lytton refinery in Brisbane and Viva’s Geelong refinery in Victoria. These facilities were already struggling before the current crisis—and then came the April 2026 fire at Geelong.

The fire at Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery—built in the 1950s—shut down critical units. As analyst Kevin Morrison noted: “This creates the conditions for higher prices, as it pushes up international demand for refined products when supply is massively constrained. It could not happen at a worse time.” Victoria alone consumes 252,000 barrels of fuel daily—41% diesel, 22% jet fuel—and now faces sourcing these volumes from already-tight Asian markets.

The structural problem? Our remaining refineries are configured to produce mostly petrol rather than aviation fuel and diesel—precisely the fuels most critical for agriculture, road freight, mining, and defense .

Stockholding: The 90-Day Myth

Australia has been in breach of International Energy Agency (IEA) obligations since 2012. The IEA requires 90 days of net import coverage; Australia holds just 68 IEA days, and when measured against actual consumption, this equates to roughly 30-34 days of real fuel security .

The government counts “fuel in transit”—on foreign-flagged tankers in foreign ports—toward reserves. But as the Australia Institute notes: “In the event of a global emergency, there is no guarantee that the oil that Australia has been promised access to… would be practically accessible.” These ships are not Australian vessels; they sail under foreign flags and owe no allegiance to Australian fuel security.

With the Strait closed, Australia is now pulling diesel along some of the longest and most expensive trade routes in the world—13,000-mile journeys from the US Gulf Coast taking up to two months .

Mining Sector: The $4.5 Billion Diesel Addiction

The mining industry is Australia’s most diesel-exposed sector, consuming approximately 9.6 billion litres annually—roughly 40% of national diesel consumption and 10% of total national energy use . The sector operates more than 50,000 large diesel-powered trucks, each consuming approximately 900,000 litres annually .

Cost Impact Calculations:

  • At pre-crisis diesel prices (~AUD $1.75/litre), a large mine’s annual fuel bill for a 200hp tractor running 1,500 hours was ~$74,000
  • At current prices (~AUD $2.25-2.50/litre), that same operation costs $100,000-112,000 annually—a 35-50% increase
  • If prices reach $3.50-4.00/litre by June, costs could double from the original baseline

According to S&P Global and BMO estimates using Wood Mackenzie data, every 10% increase in oil prices drives mining cost increases of:

  • Iron ore: +4.2% mining costs
  • Copper: +3.5% mining costs
  • Gold: +2% mining costs

With crude oil potentially averaging $100+/bbl (47% above 2025 average), mining costs could rise 16-20% for bulk commodities .

Operational Risks: The mining industry faces a shutdown timeline measured in weeks if diesel supplies are interrupted:

  • Best-positioned mines: 4-8 weeks of operational capacity
  • Typical remote diesel-heavy mines: 2-6 weeks before curtailment
  • Weakest operations: Days to 2 weeks

The ASX Materials Index has already plunged 20.3% since the conflict began, with fund managers dumping stocks amid fears of fuel shortages forcing production cuts .

Agriculture: Harvest Season Crisis

Australian agriculture consumes approximately 2.5 billion litres of diesel annually, with diesel accounting for 84% of on-farm energy consumption . The crisis has hit at the worst possible time—during harvest season when fuel demand peaks .

Impact on Farm Economics:

  • A farm using 80,000 litres annually faced fuel costs of ~$140,000 at $1.75/litre pre-crisis
  • At current $2.25+/litre, costs have jumped to $180,000+ annually—a $40,000+ increase per farm
  • If diesel reaches $3.50/litre by June, that same farm faces $280,000 annual fuel costs—double pre-crisis levels

Farmers are already making critical decisions about whether to proceed with crops given uncertainty about diesel allocations later in the year . Adding diesel and freight costs means nearly 60% of farmers’ cost base is increasing rapidly .

The Fuel Tax Credits Scheme (FTCS)—which provides AU$4.5 billion annually to mining and AU$1.3 billion to agriculture—has become a critical but increasingly inadequate buffer .

Food Supply Chain: From Farm to Shelf

Australia’s food supply chain is diesel-dependent at every stage:

  • Production: Tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps
  • Processing: Generators, machinery
  • Distribution: Road trains, trucking (24% of national diesel consumption)

Higher diesel costs cascade through the food system:

  • Transport costs increase directly with fuel prices
  • Processing costs rise due to diesel-powered equipment
  • Retail prices must absorb these increases or face margin compression

The Australian Industry Group warns that disruption to fuel markets creates cascading supply chain impacts, with businesses already reporting fuel-related operational challenges .

Tourism and Aviation

The tourism sector faces a triple hit:

  1. Jet fuel costs: Singapore jet fuel surged 114% since February 28
  2. Airfare increases: AirAsia X has increased fares by up to 40% due to fuel costs
  3. Ground transport: Higher petrol and diesel costs affect rental cars, tour buses, and visitor travel patterns

Air New Zealand has already canceled 1,100 flights impacting over 44,000 passengers between March and early May due to fuel cost pressures .

The Australian Government Response

On March 30, 2026, the Australian National Cabinet activated the National Fuel Security Plan, currently at Level 2 (“Keeping Australia Moving”) . Measures include:

  • Halving fuel excise from 52.6 cents to 20.6 cents per litre for three months
  • Temporarily reducing minimum stockholding obligations by 20% for diesel and petrol
  • Amending fuel quality standards to allow higher sulfur levels, releasing ~100 million litres/month of additional petrol supply
  • Appointing a Fuel Security Taskforce Coordinator
  • Underwriting additional fuel cargoes and strategic reserves

However, energy analysts question whether the excise cut was optimally targeted. Macquarie University’s Lurion De Mello notes: “Petrol is not the pain point. Diesel is the pain point” . Deakin University’s Samantha Hepburn warns: “Any disruption in diesel supply or sustained high prices… will directly affect production capacity, increase operating costs and ultimately push up food prices” .

The Australia Institute recommends accelerating electric vehicle adoption to reduce petrol demand, thereby freeing refining capacity for diesel and jet fuel security .

New Zealand: The Marsden Point Gamble

The Refinery Closure Decision

New Zealand made a calculated bet in 2022—and now faces the consequences. The Marsden Point refinery, which produced half the country’s petrol, two-thirds of diesel, and most jet fuel, was converted to an import terminal. The rationale was economic: the refinery was inefficient by international standards, and importing refined products from mega-refineries in Asia was cheaper.

The government and industry argued this improved security: “Closing the refinery has actually improved our security of supply, as there is now more than twice as much fuel on the water to replenish domestic stocks than when we produced it locally.”

But this logic contains a fatal flaw. New Zealand no longer imports crude oil—but the Asian refineries we depend on do. In 2024, New Zealand’s top four source countries (Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan) sourced almost 80% of their crude oil imports from Persian Gulf countries .

As MFAT’s July 2025 analysis states: “In the event of disruption of Middle Eastern supply, Asian refineries would be forced to source crude product from elsewhere, pushing up the global price for oil” . New Zealand faces indirect but severe exposure to Gulf disruptions through our refined product suppliers.

Current stock levels provide approximately 47 days of diesel, 51 days of petrol, and 49 days of jet fuel coverage—better than Australia but still precarious if Asian refining capacity falters .

As of mid-April 2026, the New Zealand government’s sole strategy has been to monitor the volume and consequent days left of the various oil substrates in the country. The reality is that the risks to New Zealand’s economy are the combined factors of stocks available and the cost at the pump of those stocks New Zealand may well find that by June there are still tankers available to supply oil substrates to New Zealand but at a price that is unaffordable to the public.

Already truck operators are warning of hugely increased supermarket food prices in the pipeline because of the massively increased transport costs involved in supplying the supermarkets from New Zealand’s highly centralised grocery supply chain. Decentralisation of essential services across new Zealand is thus a very urgent priority.

Economic Impact Forecasts

ASB Bank has downgraded New Zealand’s growth outlook due to the fuel crisis, forecasting:

  • GDP growth slowing through 2026
  • Inflation rising toward 4% before easing in 2027
  • Households facing $4,000-6,000 annual hit if fuel prices stay elevated

Westpac identifies tourism as particularly vulnerable, forecasting that “the most direct impact of the shock on exports will likely show up in falling visitor numbers” due to flight disruptions, higher airfares, and consumer reluctance to travel internationally during heightened tensions .

Tourism Sector Impact

New Zealand’s tourism sector—still recovering from COVID-19—faces severe headwinds:

  • Flight cancellations and route reductions: Air New Zealand has already cut capacity
  • Higher airfares: Jet fuel costs have surged 114%, forcing ticket price increases
  • Reduced international visitor numbers: Westpac expects reversal of recent strong growth in arrivals
  • Domestic tourism pressure: Higher petrol prices reduce Kiwis’ willingness to travel domestically

Regional Variations: Regions dependent on self-drive tourism—West Coast, Tasman, Southland, Gisborne—face particular pressure. These areas already have disproportionate visitor spending on fuel, primarily because of a lack of local international airports, making them vulnerable to petrol price volatility .

Tourism Industry Aotearoa reports businesses are experiencing “sharp increase in business costs as a result of the leap in fuel prices” . The NZX50 fell nearly 6% in March 2026, with travel and tourism stocks—including Serko, Air New Zealand, Tourism Holdings, SkyCity Entertainment, and Auckland International Airport—among the hardest hit .

The Political Reckoning

The Marsden Point closure has become politically contentious. New Zealand First MP Shane Jones, now Associate Energy Minister, has called the previous government’s decision “reckless.” Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold has challenged critics: “Would you close it if it was open today?”

Reopening Marsden Point is likely impossible. The refinery was configured to process imported Middle Eastern crude—not New Zealand’s own light, sweet domestic production, which is entirely exported. Even if the infrastructure remained intact (it doesn’t), the facility couldn’t process local oil.

Government Response

New Zealand has activated its Fuel Response Plan 2026, currently in Phase 1: Watchful . The plan outlines four clear phases responding proportionately to fuel security risks, assessed separately for petrol, diesel, and jet fuel. The government is:

  • Monitoring fuel stocks and shipments
  • Publishing twice-weekly stock updates
  • Coordinating with international partners
  • Preparing demand reduction measures if needed

MBIE emphasizes: “There is no need to change how you purchase fuel. Sticking to your usual habits helps keep the system running smoothly” .

However this ‘plan” does not seem to acknowledge the high probability of both lack of, and high prices for diesel, jet fuel and bunker oil in the longer term. Strategies that prioritise and create backup storage now for essential fuel service issues such as food transportation and health and emergency services are sadly lacking.

Its also important to acknowledge that for New Zealand to continue to received international shipping and jet flights it needs to have adequate fuel storage for that transport to return to their original port.

The Bunker Fuel Dimension

Both Australia and New Zealand face parallel challenges with marine fuel. Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFO)—the 0.5% sulphur fuel required by IMO 2020 regulations—depends on specific low-sulphur crude grades that are now being competed for by refiners seeking diesel replacements.

Australian and New Zealand ports rely on Singapore and regional refineries for bunker fuel. As Vortexa analysis warns: with Hormuz disruptions, bunkering hubs like Singapore, Malaysia, and the Netherlands could face VLSFO supply shortages as refiners outbid bunker blenders for suitable crude grades .

This threatens not just commercial shipping but coastal trade, fishing fleets, and offshore industries that keep both economies functioning.

Strategic Implications & Recommendations

For Australia:

  1. Diesel is the vital risk: Agriculture, mining, and road freight depend on diesel. The BADSP program addresses storage but not supply diversity .
  2. Refining vulnerability: Two aging refineries cannot meet national demand. The Geelong fire demonstrates how quickly capacity can be lost .
  3. Transit risk: 21+ days of “reserves” exist only on paper—on foreign ships that may never arrive in a crisis .
  4. US Strategic Petroleum Reserve access: The 2020 agreement to access US reserves sounds reassuring, but fuel would take three weeks to reach Australia—and in a global crisis, American domestic needs would take precedence .
  5. Mining sector transition: Rio Tinto’s renewable diesel trials at Boron and Kennecott mines show potential, but these transitions were planned for 2030-2050—not 2026 .

For New Zealand:

  1. Refined product dependency: 100% reliance on Asian refineries creates single-point-of-failure risk .
  2. Indirect Gulf exposure: While NZ doesn’t import Gulf crude directly, our suppliers do—making us hostage to their sourcing challenges .
  3. Storage limitations: Current stock levels are adequate for normal operations but insufficient for prolonged disruption .
  4. No refining fallback: Unlike Australia, New Zealand has zero domestic refining capacity to fall back on .
  5. Tourism vulnerability: The sector’s recovery from COVID-19 faces reversal due to fuel costs and flight disruptions .

And let us also not forget the hugely significant global impacts of the loss of 20% of the world’s synthetic fertilisers, of sulphuric acid, and of LNG because of the Straits’ closure and the partial destruction of refining in the Gulf states.

The Path Forward

Both nations face the same fundamental challenge: they are price-takers in a volatile market, with limited ability to influence supply or substitute fuels in the short term.

Both Australia and New Zealand have optimised for economic efficiency (Just In Time processes) over energy security. In a world of renewed geopolitical conflict and supply chain fragility, that calculation desperately needs revision.

Increasing frequency and intensity of global weather events will undoubtedly and increasingly put severe pressure on global supply chains . Transitioning to a less oil dependant economy and one which is less dependant on global supply chains for all essential services, is vital.

Sources:

  • Australia Institute: “Over a Barrel: Addressing Australia’s Liquid Fuel Security”
  • Australian Government: National Fuel Security Plan
  • Australian Industry Group: “Fuel Supply and Supply Chain Watch”
  • ABC News: “Energy analysts raise concerns on fuel excise cut”
  • Commonwealth Bank: “How Aussie farmers are navigating fuel and fertiliser pressures”
  • Deloitte Access Economics via Financial Post: “Australian Fuel Supply to Get Even Tighter After Refinery Fire”
  • EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, April 2026
  • Fortune: “Oil prices may be falling, but for the wrong reason”
  • IEA Oil Market Report, April 2026
  • IEEFA: “Mining’s costly diesel addiction must be a budget priority”
  • Living More With Less: “Implications of the Iran war on Australia’s Fuel Supplies”
  • MFAT: “NZ economy not immune to conflict in the Middle East”
  • MBIE: “Middle East conflict and New Zealand’s fuel stocks”
  • Newsroom: “Economic growth forecasts downgraded as fuel price rise bites”
  • NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: “Understanding variability in tourism spend”
  • P2P Agri: “Iran Fuel Crisis and Australian Farm Costs”
  • RenewEconomy: “Diesel replacement: Australia’s billion-dollar opportunity”
  • The Oregon Group: “Strait of Hormuz diesel shock threatens mining industry”
  • Transporting NZ: “Energy security – was closing Marsden Point a mistake?”
  • Vortexa/IEA analysis on VLSFO supply and bunker fuel markets
  • Westpac IQ: “NZ business feedback on recent oil price moves”
  • World Socialist Web Site: “War-driven fuel crisis threatens recession in Australia”
  • https://energyandresilience.substack.com/p/the-limits-to-the-energy-transition

Racism and the Iran War

How White Supremacy Fuels the West’s Assault on Iran

From the 1953 Coup to the 2026 War—A Pattern of Racialized Resource Theft

The bombs falling on Iranian schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods in early 2026 are not merely acts of war. They are the violent expression of a centuries-old ideology: white supremacy. The United States and Israel’s assault on Iran represents the latest chapter in a colonial playbook where non-white nations are systematically dehumanized, their sovereignty violated, and their resources plundered—all under the guise of “democracy,” “security,” or “civilization.”

To understand the current conflict, we must strip away the propaganda and examine the racial and economic architecture that has driven Western policy toward Iran for over seven decades.

The Original Sin: 1953 and the Birth of Modern Iran Policy

The template was set in August 1953, when the CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. His crime? Nationalizing Iran’s oil industry to free his people from British Petroleum’s colonial extraction. The response from London and Washington was not diplomacy—it was regime change through terror.

Operation Ajax deployed “paid terrorists within Iran to stir up trouble,” as CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt arrived with suitcases of cash to bribe newspaper editors, manufacture protests, and create a sham communist threat . The Shah was restored, Savak (his brutal secret police) was trained by the CIA, and 40% of Iran’s oil fields were signed over to U.S. companies . Some 300 Iranians died in the streets so that white-controlled corporations could maintain their grip on Persian oil.

This was not about communism. It was about race and resources. As the Zinn Education Project notes, American textbooks still sanitize this history, claiming the CIA merely “backed” a coup rather than orchestrating a terrorist campaign against a democratic government .

The “Regime” Label: 47 Years of Racialized Delegitimization

Since the 1979 revolution, Western media has religiously referred to Iran’s government as a “regime”—a term rarely applied to Western allies like Saudi Arabia, despite its absolute monarchy and routine beheadings. This linguistic violence serves a purpose: it transforms a sovereign nation into a rogue entity requiring “management” by civilized (white) powers.

The double standard is stark. The Gulf States are “kingdoms” despite being hereditary dictatorships. Israel is a “democracy” despite maintaining an apartheid system over millions of Palestinians. But Iran—whose people have participated in more genuine electoral contests than most U.S. allies in the region—is perpetually a “regime.”

This vocabulary reflects what scholar Vijay Prashad calls “the darker nations” thesis: the global South exists in the Western imagination only as a problem to be solved, never as equals with legitimate interests.

The 2025-2026 Wars and School Children

The Twelve-Day War of June 2025 and the subsequent 2026 conflict have revealed the true character of Western-Israeli military doctrine. When Israeli and U.S. forces bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ Elementary School in Minab on February 28, 2026, killing at least 168 people including scores of children, they were continuing a tradition of racialized warfare .

Satellite imagery confirmed the strike was likely conducted by a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile. The Pentagon’s response? “We’re investigating.” President Trump suggested Iran bombed its own school. This is the logic of supremacy: brown children’s lives are collateral damage in a game where only white strategic interests matter .

The pattern is deliberate. DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now) documented scores of schools, health facilities, and fuel depots bombed by U.S. and Israeli forces, with white phosphorus dropped on civilian communities . These are not accidents. They are war crimes rooted in the belief that Iranian lives are expendable.

As DAWN’s Omar Shakir stated: “The international community’s failure to act when the most fundamental norms of international law are being challenged risks plunging the world further into a lawless era” . But this “lawlessness” is selective—it applies only when non-white nations assert sovereignty over their resources.

The Chosen People Narrative: Israel’s Racial Theology

Central to this conflict is Israel’s self-conception as “the chosen people”—a theological framework that has been weaponized into a license for ethnic cleansing. The “Greater Israel” project, stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile, requires the removal or subjugation of non-Jewish populations. This is not ancient history; it is current Israeli government policy. Israel is the only country in the world that does not have defined borders; since its inception in 1948, it has constantly expanded its borders in order to fulfil its founders’ messianistic dream of a Greater Israel

The genocidal attacks on Palestinians—documented by the UN Commission of Inquiry as war crimes and crimes against humanity—are the laboratory for techniques now being deployed against Iran . When Israeli forces disguised themselves as medical personnel to kill 41 civilians in Lebanon in March 2026, they were demonstrating that perfidy is permissible against non-white enemies .

The infantile belief in divine selection—used to justify the maiming, murder, and terrorizing of non-Israelis—finds its parallel in American exceptionalism. Both ideologies depend on the fundamental dehumanization of the Other. Both require the constant manufacturing of existential threats to maintain racial hierarchy.

The Real Target: Oil, Hormuz, and the Anxiety of White Decline

Strip away the rhetoric about Iranian nuclear weapons—despite Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against them—and the true object of Western aggression becomes visible: oil and strategic control.

Iran’s insistence on uranium enrichment is not about bombs; it is about energy sovereignty. The West Asian region contains the world’s most critical petroleum reserves, and the Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which global capitalism breathes. When Iran asserts control over its own energy destiny, it threatens the white-dominated global order.

The 1953 coup was about oil. The decades of sanctions are about oil. The current war is about oil. The “white supremacist view that these other non-white people are inferior” serves to legitimize the theft of their resources. As one analyst noted, even “precision warfare” against Iranian targets killed thousands of civilians—a “stark reminder” that technological sophistication does not erase racialized brutality .

The Complicity of the “International Community”

The West’s Gulf allies—Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar—play their assigned roles in this racialized hierarchy. These “kingdoms” (never “regimes”) provide cover for the assault on Iran, their own populations suppressed by the same security apparatuses supplied by Washington and London. They are the house managers of the white supremacist estate in West Asia.

Meanwhile, Western media continues its 47-year project of manufacturing consent. The war is framed as “defensive,” Iranian retaliation as “terrorism,” and civilian casualties as unfortunate necessities. When Iranian missiles strike military targets in Israel, it is an outrage; when U.S. missiles destroy Iranian schools, they are “tragic mistakes” .

Forty-seven years of Western and UN sanctions on Iran have also resulted in many Iranian deaths through loss of access to essential services and increasing poverty. The supposed rationale for the sanctions was that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon- something that Iran has consistently declared it was not going to do. It is abundantly clear that Iran, with its very sophisticated academic and industrial capacity, could have developed nuclear weapons decades ago if it had wished to.

This is the epistemic violence that accompanies physical violence—the systematic erasure of non-white agency, pain, and legitimate grievance.

Breaking the Cycle

The war on Iran is not an aberration. It is the continuation of a colonial modernity that divides the world into civilized (white/aligned) and barbaric (non-white/independent) nations. From the 1953 coup to the 2026 bombing of schoolchildren, the through-line is clear: the West will not tolerate resource sovereignty in the hands of non-white peoples.

To oppose this war requires more than anti-war activism. It requires the dismantling of the ideological architecture that makes such wars thinkable—the racial hierarchies, the exceptionalist theologies, the media frameworks that render some children worthy of mourning and others merely statistics.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz under international law, the breaking of international law by Israel and the U.S., the bombing of universities and hospitals—these are not separate issues. They are facets of a single system of domination that must be named, confronted, and dismantled.

The war is not about nuclear weapons. It is about who has the right to exist, to govern, and to benefit from the planet’s energy source. Until we confront the white supremacy at its core, the bombs will continue to fall.

For the children of Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School. For the memory of Mossadegh. For a world where sovereignty is not determined by skin color.

AI generated audio version of this post, below..

Resources

For accurate and largely dispassionate analyses of the Iran war and international affairs generally, try Youtube interviews with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Alastair Crooke, Prof. John Mearscheimer, Prof. Glenn Diesen, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, and Larry Johnson.

The Role of Racism in Western Colonialism: A Historical & Contemporary Analysis

Racism was not a side-effect of empire—it was its operating system. From the 15th-century “Age of Discovery” to 21st-century border regimes, racial hierarchies have justified land theft, slavery, resource extraction and permanent war.

We outline how racism powered colonialism—and why it still shapes our world, as we see in the large recent populist responses in Europe and the US to immigration from non-white countries.

I would argue that we are, as human beings, inherently racist. We cherish the human group we belong to; the way we look, the way our group behaves, the things that are important to us. Those that look, and/or behave differently to us are therefore not ‘one of us”- they are outsiders, a threat to us and our group’s safety and wellbeing. Who we are is ‘normal’ – those ‘others’ are not normal.

That defensiveness against ‘others’, I would argue, is the root of racism. While that fear response may be deeply imbedded in our psyche, it can, and must be rooted out with clear rationality and understanding for those ‘others’. If we are to be truly human, we must treat all other living things with the kindness and compassion we expect for ourselves.

Conquest Begins with Name-Calling: “Savage” as a Licence to Kill

Greek and Roman writers already labelled outsiders “barbarians”, but the Atlantic world turned prejudice into policy. English colonisers depicted the Gaelic Irish as dark-skinned degenerates; Spaniards painted Indigenous Americans as cannibals; Dutch and Portuguese traders recast West Africans as “beasts of burden”. Once economic incentives for plantation slavery exploded, stereotypes hardened: Africans were now naturally servile, sexually voracious, mentally inferior—and therefore made for slavery. The perjorative demeaning language used to describe non-whites by ‘white’ people across the world is no accident. Language defines..

In the 21st Century, non-white immigrants to Western countries are seen as a threat to European ‘values’ culture and economic wellbeing. Current immigrant levels to the US and Europe are a direct result of economic and safety destabilisations caused by earlier extractive colonial policies and the West’s immensely destructive wars in those countries. In addition, Western governments, as opposed to their ‘white’ populations, have welcomed these new cheap labour immigrants to bolster their GDPs.

“Scientific” Racism: Empire in a White Lab-Coat

19-century European universities measured skulls, mapped skin tones and coined terms like “Caucasoid” to give racism the veneer of objectivity. The Dawinian science of evolution was used to delineate some human ‘races’ as less genetically evolved, with of course the white races at the top! This absurd and unscientific use of evolution were used by many in the West and exploited in the eugenics movement, and in its extreme form by the Nazis, and latterly the Zionists.

3. Britain’s ‘Liberal’ Empire

“Violence was not a one-off occurrence… it was systemic and part and parcel of Britain’s liberal imperialism.”– ‘Legacy of Violence-
A History of the British Empire’ Caroline Elkins (2023)

In the 19th century, Medical journals warned that “negro lungs” were unfit for cold climates to help justify keeping indentured labourers on Caribbean sugar plantations. Anthropology museums displayed colonised peoples alongside fauna. These ‘scientific’ findings were incorporated into colonial legal codes: the 1885 Berlin Conference carved up Africa on the assumption that Whites could best steward African land and bodies. Britain’s ‘protectorates’ listed below are a ‘sublime’ example of the racist mentality of the British Foreign Office. Why these populations would need ‘protecting’ from themselves was never adequately explained…

TerritoryProtectorate proclaimedToday part of …
Malta1800Malta
Ionian Islands1815Greece
Mosquito Coast1838Nicaragua / Honduras
Aden (W. & E. Protectorates)1872Yemen
Cyprus1878Cyprus
Sultanate of Zanzibar1890Tanzania
Bechuanaland1885Botswana
British Somaliland1884Somalia
North Borneo1888Malaysia (Sabah)
Brunei1888Brunei
Sarawak1888Malaysia
Maldives1887Maldives
Sikkim1861India
Barotseland1900Zambia
East Africa Protectorate1895Kenya
Uganda Protectorate1894Uganda
Nyasaland1893Malawi
Northern Rhodesia1924Zambia
Swaziland1903Eswatini
Basutoland1868Lesotho
Gambia Protectorate1894The Gambia
Sierra Leone Protectorate1896Sierra Leone
Nigeria (N. & S. protectorates)1900Nigeria
Qatar1916Qatar
Bahrain1861Bahrain
Trucial Oman1887UAE
Cook Islands1888New Zealand (self-governing)
Niue1900New Zealand (self-governing)
Tokelau1889New Zealand
British Solomon Is.1893Solomon Islands
Gilbert & Ellice Is.1892Kiribati & Tuvalu
Tonga1879Tonga
Oman (Muscat & Oman)1800Oman
Bhutan1911Bhutan

From Kenya’s “Pipeline” detention camps to Malaya’s New Villages, London cast mass incarceration, forced labour and sexual violence as “rehabilitation” for racially suspect subjects. Files were then sealed for decades under the Colonial Papers Destruction Policy.

Comparative Brutality: France, Belgium, Germany


  • French Algeria: Settler colonialism embedded in the département system; with 1.5 million Algerians killed during the 1954-62 war of independence (Al-Jazeera retrospective).

  • Belgian Congo: Leopold II’s rubber regime caused an estimated 10 million deaths—A BBC investigation calls it “one of the greatest mass murders in history”.

  • German South-West Africa: 1904-08 extermination order against the Herero and Nama is now officially recognised by Germany as genocide.

British India: current scholarship puts the excess-mortality death toll attributable to British colonial policy in India between 1881-1920 alone at roughly 50–165 million people.

Racism after the Empires Recede

Decolonisation brought new flags, but not justice. The UN confirms that “colonialism lives on” in racial profiling, poverty and unequal trade. Former plantation economies still dominate global commodity chains, even while end-use processing for value addition to those raw commodities continues to happen in the Global North. France’s banlieues, Britain’s Windrush deportations, and the U.S. racial wealth gap all map precisely onto old imperial shipping routes.

Environment Impacts of Racism

The climate crisis is driven by the same extractive logic that cleared forests for sugar and cotton. Former colonies already suffer temperature increases twice the global average—a direct legacy of shipping carbon to Europe while deforesting the colonies’ natural environment- that same natural world many indigenous populations relied upon for their survival.

Towards Reparatory Justice

  • Unveiling the Truth: Ensure that all colonial archives are opened to the public and for research (UK still classifies this information under the “migrated archives” rule).
  • Reparations: From debt cancellation to technology transfers—see UN-DESA Policy Brief #96 along with fair funding reparations from ex colonial powers for their brutality and economic extraction.
  • Education: Develop truthful, accurate and non-ideologically driven curricula for each ex-colonial country and its coloniser which explains the rationales and impacts of racism and consequent colonialism from each side.

Palestine 2023-25: A Live-Streamed Genocide Enabled by Racialised Imperial Logic

The same racial logic that once classified Indigenous peoples as “savages” and Africans as “natural slaves” is now redeployed to portray Palestinians—especially in Gaza—as irredeemable terrorists whose lives are expendable. Western diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel’s 2023-25 assault is therefore not an aberration; it is the continuity of a 500-year-old pattern in which white-majority states licence settler violence against racialised “others” while declaring themselves civilised.

Genocide is apparently what “non-white” actors commit; white or white-allied states are presumed incapable of it. Western media highlights Israeli “security” and terrorists’ ‘hostages’ while Palestinian deaths are counted in opaque “casualty” statistics, stripped of names, faces, context, and their 70 + years living under Israeli colonisation completely ignored. Bizarrely, peaceful protesters against Israeli savagery in Gaza in France, Germany, Britain and the US, among many, have themselves been labelled as terrorists and arrested.


France banned pro-Palestine demonstrations within days; police invoked emergency powers against students wearing the keffiyeh. The UK Home Secretary equated Palestinian flags with “support for terrorism”. Germany’s Berlin Senate excluded Palestinian speakers under the IHRA definition. These measures show how racialised imperial violence abroad is coupled with shrinking anti-racist space at home.

Trump’s ‘War’ on Immigration

The role of racism in Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is not incidental—it is the engine. From his 2015 campaign launch to the executive orders signed on Day 1 of his second term, Trump has consistently racialised immigrants, fused white-nationalist grievance with policy, and leveraged state power to punish Black, Brown and Muslim communities. Bizarrely the United States economic growth has historically largely been fuelled by immigration- but only immigration from the ‘right’ places; from Western Europe.

Trump’s language about immigrants betrays the racist underpinnings of his anti-immigration policies -‘“These aren’t people. These are animals” (referring to Central-American migrants), “Shithole countries” (Jan 2018): Trump asked why the US admits people from Haiti, El Salvador or Africa instead of Norway..

Such statements activate what scholars call “demographobia”: the fear among whites that they are being “replaced” by higher-fertility non-white minorities.

The Great Replacement theory—the belief that elites are deliberately replacing whites with non-white immigrants—moved from far-right chatrooms to Trump’s 2025 National Emergency declaration, which frames migration as an “invasion” threatening “national character”.

Further Reading & Tools

All links open in a new tab. Bookmark this list for classroom or activist use.

Feel free to republish under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 with attribution to the author and a live link to this post.

When the Last Tree Falls

The vital importance of humans connecting to nature: for themselves and for the planet

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
—John Muir

Muir’s century-old observation now reads like a medical prescription. A growing body of research shows that regular contact with living, biodiverse ecosystems is a non-negotiable pillar of human health—and the fastest way to make people care about the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

This post unpacks (1) what happens to our bodies and minds when we lose everyday nature, (2) how collapsing ecosystems ricochet back on us, and (3) the personal and collective actions that turn concern into meaningful response.

As the world’s rapidly expanding human population increasingly no longer lives in proximity to our living world- but instead is surrounded by concrete, tar and walled environments, and enclosed within self-defined technological walls of social media, AI and self-selected ‘entertainment’, we are losing both our vital connection with the rest of the natural world we are intrinsically part of, along with our unconscious understanding of its importance to us.

In doing so, we become less and less aware how the natural world is shrinking inexorably year by year, decade by decade, day by day, and what that means for both ourselves and our world, in terms of our wellbeing and our very survival.

Each new generation of humans normalise a poorer natural baseline, lowering conservation ambition and stabilising acceptance of biodiversity loss as the ‘norm’. Along with those changes of what is ‘naturally normal’, cultural definitions of ‘nature’ shift over time ( e.g. Wordsworth’s early 19th century poems vs. today’s TikTok hiking videos).

Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in problematic supply.

As climate extremes intensify with climate change, the impacts of both floods and droughts are magnified from loss of tree cover.

The 30-Minute Cure: How Daily Green & Blue (aquatic)Time Rewires Us

DomainEvidence-Based Benefits of Frequent Nature Contact
PhysicalLower cortisol, heart-rate variability, blood pressure; stronger immunity (natural killer-cell activity up 50 % after a 3-day forest trip) .
MentalReduced risk of depression, anxiety and ADHD; restored “directed attention” capacity (Attention Restoration Theory) .
SocialHigher empathy, pro-social behavior, lower crime rates in neighborhoods with tree cover .
Spiritual / CulturalSense of identity and belonging, especially for Indigenous and rural communities tied to specific species and landscapes .

Dose–response sweet spot: Two hours per week in green or blue spaces (parks, coastlines, riverbanks) delivers optimal well-being gains .

The Flip Side: Nature-Deficit Disorder

When that contact disappears, we see the inverse—rising obesity, Type-2 diabetes, myopia in children, loneliness, and eco-anxiety. Urban populations already spend 90 % of their time indoors; in lower-income areas, unequal access to safe nature is a new axis of health inequity. Little data is available on the impact of nature deprivation in the Global South.

In countries where daily life is entangled with nature (smallholder farming, forest reliance), disconnection manifests differently—often as loss of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) rather than park visits.

What Biodiversity Loss Actually Costs Us

Biodiversity is the planet’s operating system. Every lost species is a deleted line of code.

Every living thing: every individual fish, every insect, every bird every mammal, has its own intrinsic worth. Its ‘value’ is simply in its existence.

A. Health & Medicine

  • 70 % of anti-cancer drugs are natural or bio-inspired; 60 % of all new infectious diseases are zoonotic and surge when habitat edges fragment .
  • Traditional medicine—used by 80 % of people in developing countries—depends on intact ecosystems .

B. Food & Water Security

  • Pollinator decline already threatens crops worth US $235 billion annually .
  • Wetlands loss (35 % since 1970) has left >2 billion people with declining water quality and rising water-borne disease .

C. Climate Stability

  • Forests, peatlands and mangroves store more carbon than all human emissions from 2009–2018 combined. When biodiversity unravels, these sinks flip to sources, accelerating extreme weather that in turn wipes out more species .

D. Positive Impacts of Human Skin Contact with Soil

Regular, safe skin contact with biodiverse, uncontaminated soil—gardening, barefoot walking, forest play etc, rewilds the human microbiome, trains the immune system and supports mental well-being.

1. Immune-System Maturation
Finnish daycare study: children playing on forest-floor (soil-rich) yards had more diverse skin & gut microbiota and stronger immune regulation two years later. Nature 2024
2. Anti-inflammatory Response
Urban adults handling microbially-rich indoor potting soil for one month showed ↑ plasma IL-10 (anti-inflammatory cytokine) and ↑ skin bacterial diversity (Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, etc.). Environment International 2024
3. Immediate Skin Microbiome Boost
Just two minutes of rubbing hands with soil & plant materials produced an instant increase in skin microbial richness (Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, etc.) that lasted several hours. Frontiers 2025
4. Gut Microbiome Support
Mice exposed to non-sterile soil developed higher gut microbial diversity than those on sterile soil, indicating that dermal/oral transfer of soil microbes reaches the intestine. NIH PMC 2019
5. Vaccine Response Enhancement
Adults with daily soil-moss skin contact mounted stronger cell-mediated responses to pneumococcal vaccine (higher IFN-γ, IL-17), suggesting soil exposure can improve vaccine efficacy.
Nature 2024
6. Mental-Health & Stress Reduction
Soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae triggers anti-neuroinflammatory pathways, lowers stress hormones and may improve mood via the gut-brain axis. New York Times 2024

E. Mental & Cultural Resilience

  • Coastal or forest communities displaced by fires, floods or coral bleaching lose livelihoods and ancestral stories, triggering inter-generational trauma .

Turning Contact into Commitment: The Feedback Loop That Matters

Every exposure to a thriving wild patch biophilically primes the brain. Here’s how to restore that effect:

Personal Practice

  1. Micro-dose daily: 10 minutes of exposure to tree canopy or moving water (even street trees count).
  2. Citizen science: Log birds, insects or plants on iNaturalist—data that feeds real conservation maps.
  3. Nature journaling: Sketching or photographing a leaf or shell deepens attention and memory encoding.

Community Action

  • Green prescriptions: Doctors in the U.K., New Zealand and Japan now write “green prescriptions” alongside statins . National pilots of green prescriptions in Scotland (2021) and Canada (2022).
  • Schoolyard biodiversity: Converting asphalt to mini-forests improves test scores and doubles local insect diversity within three years .
  • Urban rewilding: Pocket meadows, living walls and daylighted streams cool cities, cut AC demand and give residents daily wildlife encounters. Barcelona’s “Green Axes” programme is a great initiative.
  • Biodiverse botanic parks where people of all ages and ability can explore and learn about our natural green world.
  • Plant native trees in your own backyard- replace that lawn you mow!

Policy & Economy

Why the biodiversity decline matters for climate action

PathwayMechanismEvidence
Environmental behaviourHigher NCI (Nature Connection Index) predicts pro-environmental choices (diet, transport, donations).Martin et al., 2020, J. Environ. Psychol.
Biophilic policy supportIndividuals with strong nature connection are 2× more likely to back ambitious conservation funding.Mackay & Schmitt, 2019, Conserv. Lett.
Psychological resilienceNature connection buffers eco-anxiety; enables sustained activism.Whitburn et al., 2020, Climatic Change
Feedback loopShifting baseline syndrome: each generation normalises a poorer natural baseline, lowering conservation ambition.Papworth et al., 2009, Trends Ecol. Evol.

A Thought Experiment

Imagine the last dawn chorus on Earth: no birds, no insects, just human-made noise.
Now rewind the tape. Plant one native tree outside your window this month. Spend 30 undistracted minutes beside it each week. Listen.

Your nervous system will notice the difference within days.
Your neurons will start lobbying your choices.
And the planet will register one more caretaker.

When we experience how nature heals us, we finally understand that healing nature is self-defense.

References

Richardson, M., Dobson, J., Abson, D. J., Lumber, R., Hunt, A., & Young, R. (2020) Nature connectedness in decline: Evidence from 5000 English adults 2013-2019. People and Nature, 2(3), 821–835. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10146

Richardson, M., Hunt, A., Hinds, J., Bragg, R., Fido, D., Petronzi, D., … & White, M. P. (2019) A measure of nature connectedness for children and adults: Validation, reliability and associations with well-being. PLoS ONE, 14(7), e0218641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218641

7 Consequences of Biodiversity Loss for Humans: gaiacompany.io.

WWF: How does Biodiversity loss affect me and everyone else? Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular

Royal Society: What is the human impact on biodiversity? How do humans affect biodiversity? · Deforestation. · Habitat loss through pervasive, incremental encroachment such as that caused by urban sprawl.

thrivabilitymatters.org 2023/04/14: How do humans affect biodiversity? The Importance Of Contact With Nature For Well-Being. Spending time in nature, or mingling with a natural element has tremendous effects on physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness.

United Nations Foundation 2023/05/18: How Biodiversity Loss Harms Human Health. A higher risk of infectious outbreaks is just one of the many repercussions of biodiversity loss on human health.

Biodiversity loss can have significant direct health impacts if ecosystem services no longer meet societal needs.

World Health Organization (WHO) 2023/10/12: Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes.

Mental Health Foundation(U.K.): How connecting with nature benefits our mental health. Research shows that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile.

US EPA impacts to human health: Climate Change; City of Chicago: Overview – Temperature Impacts – Air Quality Impacts – Extreme Events – Vector-borne Diseases – Water-Related Illnesses – Food Safety and Nutrition – Mental Health – Populations of Concern – Other Health Impacts.

American Psychological Association 2020/04/01: Nurtured by nature. Exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, & reduced risk of psychiatric disorders.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Climate Change and Human Health | US EPA: This includes increasing the risk of extreme heat events and heavy storms, increasing the risk of asthma attacks and changing the spread of certain diseases .

LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: THE BURGEONING THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH: O Adebayo · 2019 · Mencionado — the loss of biological biodiversity appears to affect significantly human health.

Impact of Contact With Nature on the Wellbeing and Nature Connectedness Indicators After a Desertic Outdoor Experience on Isla Del Tiburon by G Garza-Terán · 2022 · Cited by 23 — Results show that both wellbeing and Nature Connectedness are positively influenced by performing activities out in the natural environment.nih.gov2024/05/24

Climate change impacts on health across the life course: The climate crisis results in new disorders such as eco-anxiety and solastalgia. Older people also experience adverse brain effects

Effects of Climate Change on Health – CDC: The health effects of these disruptions include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injuries and premature deaths related to extreme weather .

UC Davis Health2023/05/03: 3 ways getting outside into nature helps improve your health. Research continues to show that being outside and experiencing nature can improve our mental health and increase our ability to focus.

Arizona Health Sciences2023/04/03: A look at the cost of climate change on human health. The evidence is clear – climate change is having a negative effect on our physical and mental health.

ScienceDirect: Natural environments improve parent-child communication by T Cameron-Faulkner · 2018 · Cited by 84 — In this study, natural environments influenced social interactions between parents and children by increasing connected, responsive communication.

The global human impact on biodiversity F Keck · 2025 · Mencionado por 37 — We show that human pressures distinctly shift community composition and decrease local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Benefits for emotional regulation of contact with nature by ML Ríos-Rodríguez · 2024 · Cited by 15 — Exposure to natural environments, such as parks, forests, and green areas, is often linked to a decrease in stress, anxiety and depression.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Climate change impacts –

Climate change impacts our society in many different ways. Drought can harm food production and human health. Flooding can lead to spread of disease, death, …

Universidad Veracruzana: Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. The impacts of diversity loss on ecological processes might be sufficiently large to rival the impacts of many other global drivers of environmental change.

Friends of the Earth2020/09/23Importance of nature. For children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity – an amazing list ..

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Climate Change Impacts on Health | US EPA Climate change can disrupt access to health care services, threaten infrastructure, and pose physical and mental health risks.

United Nations: Five ways the climate crisis impacts human security

United Nations University2024/05/16: Understanding Humanity’s Role in Biodiversity Loss Losing species threatens our well-being. As we lose species, our ecosystems also lose genetic diversity.

Science Mission Directorate2024/10/23: The Causes of Climate Change – NASA Science. The greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space.

ScienceDirect: Modelling human influences on biodiversity at a global scale–A human ecology perspective M Cepic · 2022 · Mencionado — Globalised human interventions cause most biodiversity losses.

gaiacompany.io

7 Consequences of Biodiversity Loss for Humans – Gaia

1. Food Insecurity · 2. Health Impacts · 3. Loss of Medicinal Resources · 4. Reduced Ecosystem Services · 5. Economic Losses · 6. Climate Instability.WWFHow does Biodiversity loss affect me and everyone else?Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular …Royal SocietyWhat is the human impact on biodiversity?How do humans affect biodiversity? · Deforestation. · Habitat loss through pervasive, incremental encroachment such as that caused by urban sprawl · Pollution such …thrivabilitymatters.org2023/04/14The Importance Of Contact With Nature For Well-BeingSpending time in nature, or mingling with a natural element has tremendous effects on physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness.United Nations Foundation2023/05/18How Biodiversity Loss Harms Human HealthA higher risk of infectious outbreaks is just one of the many repercussions of biodiversity loss on human health. By disrupting the delicate …WHO2025/02/18BiodiversityBiodiversity loss can have significant direct health impacts if ecosystem services no longer meet societal needs. Changes in ecosystems can …WHO2023/10/12Climate change – World Health Organization (WHO)Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes and …Mental Health FoundationNature: How connecting with nature benefits our mental healthResearch shows that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile.US EPAimpacts to human health – Climate Change – City of ChicagoOn This Page: – Overview – Temperature Impacts – Air Quality Impacts – Extreme Events – Vectorborne Diseases – Water-Related Illnesses – Food Safety and Nutrition – Mental Health – Populations of Concern – Other Health Impacts — Overview The impacts of climate change include warming temperatures, changes in precipitation, increases in the frequency or intensity of some extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. These impacts threaten our health by affecting the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience. The severity of these health risks will depend on the ability of public health and safety systems to address or prepare for these changing threats, as well as factors such as an individual’s behavior, age, gender, and economic status. Impacts will vary based on a where a person lives, how sensitive they are to health threats, how much they are exposed to climate change impacts, and how well they andAmerican Psychological Association2020/04/01Nurtured by natureExposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and …U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyClimate Change and Human Health | US EPAThis includes increasing the risk of extreme heat events and heavy storms, increasing the risk of asthma attacks and changing the spread of certain diseases …nih.govLOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: THE BURGEONING THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTHpor O Adebayo · 2019 · Mencionado por 28 — While the loss of biological biodiversity appears to affect significantly human health, it has also been opined to be a significant threat to the attainment of …nih.govImpact of Contact With Nature on the Wellbeing and Nature Connectedness Indicators After a Desertic Outdoor Experience on Isla Del Tiburonby G Garza-Terán · 2022 · Cited by 23 — Results show that both wellbeing and Nature Connectedness are positively influenced by performing activities out in the natural environment.nih.gov2024/05/24Climate change impacts on health across the life course – PMCThe climate crisis results in new disorders such as eco-anxiety and solastalgia. Older people also experience adverse brain effects from the …CDC2024/02/29Effects of Climate Change on Health – CDCThe health effects of these disruptions include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injuries and premature deaths related to extreme weather …UC Davis Health2023/05/033 ways getting outside into nature helps improve your healthResearch continues to show that being outside and experiencing nature can improve our mental health and increase our ability to focus.UArizona Health Sciences2023/04/03A look at the cost of climate change on human healthThe evidence is clear – climate change is having a negative effect on our physical and mental health. The scale of the impact is vast, with …ScienceDirectNatural environments improve parent-child communicationby T Cameron-Faulkner · 2018 · Cited by 84 — In this study, natural environments influenced social interactions between parents and children by increasing connected, responsive communication. These …NatureThe global human impact on biodiversitypor F Keck · 2025 · Mencionado por 37 — We show that human pressures distinctly shift community composition and decrease local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.nih.govBenefits for emotional regulation of contact with natureby ML Ríos-Rodríguez · 2024 · Cited by 15 — Exposure to natural environments, such as parks, forests, and green areas, is often linked to a decrease in stress, anxiety and depression.National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationClimate change impacts – NOAAClimate change impacts our society in many different ways. Drought can harm food production and human health. Flooding can lead to spread of disease, death, …Universidad VeracruzanaBiodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature PDFThe impacts of diversity loss on ecological processes might be sufficiently large to rival the impacts of many other global drivers of environmental change.Friends of the Earth2020/09/23Importance of natureFor children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity – an amazing list …U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyClimate Change Impacts on Health | US EPAClimate change can disrupt access to health care services, threaten infrastructure, and pose physical and mental health risks.Naciones UnidasFive ways the climate crisis impacts human security | United Nations1. Climate change intensifies competition over land and water · 2. Climate change affects food production and drives up hunger · 3. Climate change forces people …United Nations University2024/05/16Understanding Humanity’s Role in Biodiversity LossLosing species threatens our well-being. As we lose species, our ecosystems also lose genetic diversity. This often negatively impacts the …Science Mission Directorate2024/10/23The Causes of Climate Change – NASA ScienceThe greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space.ScienceDirectModelling human influences on biodiversity at a global scale–A human ecology perspectivepor M Cepic · 2022 · Mencionado por 62 — Globalised human interventions cause most biodiversity losses.

Biocentrism (Kaitiakitanga): the only future we have

Bill Mollison , the brilliant developer of the concepts and actions of permaculture once said; “We are not superior to other life-forms; all living things are an expression of Life. If we could see that truth, we would see that everything we do to other life-forms we also do to ourselves. A culture which understands this does not, without absolute necessity, destroy any living thing” .

Biocentrism in environmental ethics emphasizes that all living things have intrinsic value and moral standing. It extends moral consideration beyond human beings to encompass the entire biosphere. This perspective suggests that every living organism, whether sentient or not, possesses a right to exist and be protected. 

Such a human culture, is able to live, sustainably alongside its fellow species. Able to acknowledge that all species are part of the web of life that also supports humans. Without that web, humanity, and most other current species, will inevitably die.

Anthropocentrism: the belief that human beings have superiority over nature has driven 6000 years of human’s ecological destruction, biodiversity loss, and now climate crises. This worldview contrasts sharply with Indigenous perspectives (like kaitiakitanga) and emerging ecological ethics that argue for biocentrism (all life has intrinsic value) or ecocentrism (whole ecosystems matter).

Anthropocentrism’s drivers appear to be derived from humanity’s view that the attributes that humans have- particularly the capacity to manipulate his/her environment, make humans a superior being to all other species on the planet. Our self-defined view of what is superior is derived from our own attributes; rather like an elephant determining that it is superior to all other species because it can reach high places with its trunk.

However our “superior” capacity to manipulate our environment is also our downfall; through 4000 years of manipulation of the natural world around us we have progressively destroyed the living world we rely on to survive.

Many like to think that if we did not have capitalism, we would somehow return to a world where humans could co-habitat in sustainable peace with other species – however it is clear that capitalism is simply one of many manifestations of anthropocentrism. Our belief in our inherent superiority allows us to consider capitalism and the pursuit of ‘wealth” by exploiting and destroying other living things as though that had no cost, as a sane objective.

6000 years ago, humanity’s anthroprocentric view of the world did not impact on the rest of the natural world as it does now. There were perhaps 7 million humans in the world, mainly hunter/gatherers who made use of the environment around them, but whose capacity to create systemic damage to the living world was limited in scale. As our capacity increased to not only defend ourselves against more ‘naturally’ efficient predators but also to kill and destroy other living things, so did the human population. Within two thousand years , the global human population had exploded to 160 million. In 2025 the global human population is estimated at around 8.2 billion people. Most humans now live in towns and cities ( what the Romans called ‘civis” – or ‘civilisation’). Surrounded by an inanimate world of asphalt and concrete we have lost our link with the rest of nature. We do not see its value because we cannot see it- except perhaps to see it as ‘entertainment on a hiking trip in the ‘wilds’.

Many of the world’s religions, particularly but not exclusively, the Abrahamaic religions of Judea, Christ and Mecca instruct their followers to believe in humanity as superior beings before their god.

Perhaps part of that wanton destruction has been because humans not only do not understand the inter-relationships between living things, but are also largely oblivious to the living things around us- the insects, the microbes, the fungi, the birds and mammals that help sustain our lives. We do not see how we are ourselves inextricably woven into that intricate web of life.

This sense of superiority has also led humans to become largely compassion-less for the suffering of others- except perhaps for those people and other animals that we focus our attention on and value for whatever reason. e.g. Cats, dogs, dolphins, whales are somehow living things to be valued- but sheep cattle, rats mice can be killed mercilessly; they do not suit our purposes. Or, as in New Zealand, humans may decide that this living animal is to be exterminated because we value this other living species – it is perhaps cuter, more indigenous, more suitable, more useful for exploitation.

Like most other species on earth, humans do not have the capacity to view the world long-term. We are oblivious to the ever encroaching tide year by year of concrete and asphalt into the living world, or of the one more old growth tree cut down to make way for ‘progress’. We cannot see what we have so tragically lost and the many lives we have destroyed.

If we are to save this planet from ourselves, we must re-learn how to value ALL living things; to see their beauty, their intrinsic value , their importance- and to act with compassion to all living things.

Without that compassion, we may continue to find fine and ultimately futile ways to lower our carbon footprint while we continue to destroy the rest of the living world, but we are nevertheless simply hastening our species’ (and many others) demise.

We can start now. Instead of our media pushing us to buy more and more ‘things’, or to travel here or there-we need our media to begin displaying how it is to become interlinked with our world. To grow trees in every back garden and park, to teach young people that they do not need to be ‘somebody’ important- but instead to be kind and caring to all, to learn how to be at ease with what we have; to ‘need’ less.

Politicians need to understand that GDP is a meaningless piece of garbage that does nothing to improve human’s quality of life and certainaly nothing to sustain our living world.

Politicians also need to be educated to understand the vital importance of bringing an end to anthroprocentrism; that given the destruction we have caused, we must now become true guardians of the natural world or ‘kaitiaki’ as New Zealand’s Maori say. We must make more and more of our living world legislatively sacred -that all of nature itself has rights or ‘personhood’, like the sacred Whanganui River in New Zealand.

Links

Introduction to Permaculture Bill Mollison Tagari Publications Tasmania, (2011) Page 1

Understanding Our Collapsing World- https://open.substack.com/pub/predicament/p/understanding-our-collapsing-world

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/14/rights-of-nature-laws-gaining-momentum

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/intrinsic-value-ecology-and-conservation-25815400/

https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-319-09483-0_41

The Sacredness of Life

Life on our planet is a complex and often invisible intertwining of organisms; each  one dependant on many others for its survival.

The World Wildlife Fund states that half the planet’s wildlife population has vanished since 1970 as a result of human activity.   52 percent of Earth’s mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish disappeared over those 50 years, 40% of all insects species and 60% of birds are declining globally.

And those figures do not take into account the total populations of the different species of birds, insects and wild mammals that are being killed off or starved from lack of natural habitat. When did the moths last bang themselves against your lighted nightime windows?- when did the smashed insects last cover your windscreen with their bodies on that last holiday in the natural world?- when did you last see the huge flocks of birds that used to be everywhere?

That absence may seem of no  consequence (or even a relief!) to many humans (especially those who live in  urban spaces) but in  fact  we are all reliant on the multiplicity of other species for our survival-whether it be for pollination for our food, the birds that spread the seeds of life, the Mycorrhizal fungi  that  ensure plants and trees grow healthily, or the many predators and ‘pests” who keep life in  balance.

We need to  revive our lost understanding of our linkage to all other life on this planet. Not just  the species that humans ‘like’; our native fauna and flora and our pets, but ALL life. We must begin again to look and listen with respect and compassion to the living world around us and help  rebuild the natural  world that  sustains us. We are perilously close to cutting the remaining  threads that bind us to life on Earth.

Acknowledging that human ‘growth’ is in fact creating more dead spaces, (more concrete sealing over the soil, more trees felled, and fewer wild spaces to name just a few of our nature destruction options) . Planting trees, reviving diverse habitats and nurturing all other species  with compassion are just some of our key steps towards a better and sustainable world.

‘Cant Find My Way Home’

The heading for this post comes from one of the great compositions by Stevie Winwood and the UK band ‘Blind Faith’ in 1969.

It perhaps symbolises in 2024, the journey this human world is travelling and its likely future…

A world where pointless and savage wars in West Asia, Ukraine and Africa are spurred on by the quest for power and profit and where infantile ideologies predominate.

And a world where climate change continues its seemingly inexorable march towards a planet destroyed through the pure blind stupidity and ignorance of our ‘world leaders’.

Never before have we all been able to witness the savage brutality of a war of genocide in technicolour- never before have we seen Western media and politicians proselytising so blatantly for that inhumanity. An oh so stark reminder of the difference between Western weasel words about ‘freedom and democracy’ and their support of mass-murder when it profits them.

A reminder too that this has been the Western theme for 500 years of colonial exploitation of more vulnerable populations- that these centuries of exploitation are, in the immortal words in 2022 of EU’s blatantly racist and furiously stupid foreign policy chief Josep Borrell,  the reason why Europe and the West is a garden and the rest of the world (in his view), a jungle.

To support this meme, our Western mainstream media continues to idolise the fiction of Western supremacy in all things. As the evidence that this is no longer the case continues to pile up, Western media have resorted to ever greater contortions and lies to support that meme. The recent violence in Amsterdam between Israeli and Dutch football fans – characterised as ‘antisemitism’ is just one of many examples.

Time and time again we have seen European (and U.S. ) political leaders make decisions based on an outdated and irrelevant ideology which ignores all rationality and the reality of the situation.

The most telling, and likely deadly, example of this, is their farcical contortions to prove to their electorates that they doing something about climate change when they are in fact doing worse than nothing. There are no reductions in CO2 emissions, and the hype about the electrification of energy and transport is just that- electrification is not substituting for coal or oil, it comes as an addition to the continuing use of high rates of coal and oil burning.

Our ‘civilisation;’ is locked into endless ‘growth’ (an awful word given that economic ‘growth’ is the total opposite of true organic living growth) – a paradigm that is destroying the planet, but from which we apparently have no wish to escape from.

While climate and environmental scientists have long been steadily ratcheting up their estimations of the devastating impacts of global warming and biodiversity to the living fabric of our world, it is only now that economists from the ‘Network for Greening the Financial System’ are beginning to estimate the true fiscal costs to climate warming- something that could and should have been done 50 years ago, as it would have provided some leverage for real change in this money obsessed world. In the latest estimates economists estimate that global GDP will contract by 33% by 2100 from a 3C rise in global average surface temperatures. That 33% reduction in global GDP is almost certainly a huge underestimation of the real fiscal costs of global warming.

That ‘canary in the coalmine’ early warning system for economies, the cost of insurance, is already rising rapidly as a result of the rapidly increasing unpredictability of our climate systems.

We still do not know for certain what is going to happen to global sea currents and sea level rise as a result of ice melt , but early indications are that there will be a complete collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) within a few decades. When that collapse occurs, not only will much of the Northern Hemisphere become much colder, but the Southern Hemisphere will warm much much faster.

If that’s not enough, the 1972 bestseller Limits to Growth (LtG) authors (70 years ago) concluded that, if global society kept pursuing economic growth, it would experience a decline in food production, industrial output, and ultimately population, within this century. Recent remodelling of that study indicate ‘a halt in welfare, food, and industrial production over the next decade or so, which puts into question the suitability of continuous economic growth as humanity’s goal in the twenty-first century.’

And then we can go to the annual farce of the COP global conferences: the pretence that global leaders are in fact doing something about climate change, when in fact they are doing less than nothing- actively promoting more oil and gas exploration and consumption because endless ‘growth’ on a finite planet is a logical and sensible thing to do -isn’t it?

To hold everything together, so that we don’t lose our trajectory and deviate from accelerating over the climate change cliff, our mainstream and social media incessantly promotes consumption and the vital importance of the constant expansion of each country’s mythical GDP.

Have we completely forgotten our way home?

_______________________________________

References

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/08/climate-breakdown-will-hit-global-growth-by-a-third-say-central-banks

Click to access climate-emergency-final-report.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.13084

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/editorial-cop29-climate-summit-is-indeed-like-a-dark-joke-given-the-lack-of-buy-in-from-world-leaders/a131893267.html

Sustainable Communities and Climate Change

As global  supply chains are increasingly threatened by  sea level rise and unpredictable weather,  insurance costs  will rise exponentially  and we will inevitably be forced to produce as much  food and essential  items locally as possible.

The sooner we begin  to develop sustainable  communities, the greater opportunity we have to mitigate those inevitable risks and keep  people and our environment protected. The strengthening of community  communication, connections and skills is a key aspect  of those changes.

While  communities will  gain  much from  greatly strengthened community and local  skills, we will  need to shed much of our current consumerist ‘growth’  mindset- a mindset  that  says our towns, businesses,  GDP and exploitation of the natural world, needs to  constantly increase. The  project  ‘Take the Jump’ provides excellent advice on reducing our footprint.

We know we live on  a finite planet  which is already exploited beyond its limits. As climate change accelerates, we will  be forced to get off the treadmill  of  ‘ growth’  and consumerism.

We need to  change the paradigm now from the god of ‘growth’,  to a respect  for all  living things-to  acknowledge that  we are inescapably  and thankfully part of nature and have to live within  its means.

A Few Little Pieces of Gold and Silver

A Revised Letter to the Editor to a local New Zealand newspaper:

The current New Zealand government has, in  a  few short months, proposed a Fast Track  Bill to permit friendly quick-rich developers to effortlessly destroy  our natural  environment  which  we  all rely upon, not just for our wellbeing, but for our survival. 

Similarly  the proposed revisions to  the Resource Management Act  not only assist in this quick-rich process by stopping Councils from  designating  for at  least  3 years  Significant Natural  Areas, but also permit farmers to  resume ‘mud-farming’ and other farm process  that not only destroy water quality  but significantly impact on the wellbeing  of farm animals.

But perhaps the pinnacle of achievement of this government to date in putting cash before humanity, is its proposal  to  resume Livestock Export by Sea. Thousands of cattle spend weeks at sea in pens wading in their own faeces horrific and terrifying conditions – but it makes lots of money!

The mark of a good human being is one who  treats all other living beings with kindness, compassion and respect.I find it extraordinary  that supposedly educated government ministers put money that they  and their mates dont really need  more of, before our long term  survival and our humanity.

I would therefore respectfully suggest  that  Prime Minister Luxon  and his Cabinet  Ministers, spend a month  at  sea in a livestock  transport  ship  wallowing in  their faeces as a learning experience.

____________________________________

Links

https://eds.org.nz/resources/documents/media-releases/2024/make-a-submission-on-the-fast-track-approvals-bill-using-edss-template/

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514993/government-reveals-first-changes-to-resource-management-act

Mud farming
Live export trade in New Zealand

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/511689/government-drops-need-for-councils-to-comply-with-significant-natural-areas-provisions

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2407/S00001/live-exports-a-global-animal-welfare-crisis.htm

The Beginning of a Journey into the Unknown

The famous Chinese ‘Book of Changes’, the I Ching; which provides guidance on becoming a wise person, notes in Hexagram 56 “The Wanderer” that “We are all wanderers in the Unknown. Those who travel beside the Sage are unharmed’.

Increasingly for people in the West particularly, there is a strong sense of the uncertainties that lie ahead of us. What was solid before: our economies, our climate, our status in the world, our future in general -are no longer certainties. And increasingly it is made apparent that we are being led by the blind- our ‘leaders’ who choose not to see, to look beyond their own immediate needs and greed and who ignore all the impending warning signs of a very different world ahead, and who choose not to implement plans for that new world ahead.

Israel’s genocidal attack on the people of Gaza has been enthusiastically supported by parties on the ‘left’ and right in the Western world, and Western mainstream media has carefully followed that line while pretending to be impartial.

We now have the spectre of elections in both the U.K and US where the choices in each case are between political leaders who demonstrate no morality and even less intelligence and who display minimal differences in their unconditional support of the already rich and powerful and mesmerisingly stupid foreign policy decisions. And with the further spectre of the Ukraine war being inexorably won by Russia with the soft backing of China and the global south, these Western ‘leaders’ see their power and illgotten wealth slipping away: there is panic.

Once again (for the hundredth time over the past two centuries) the ridiculous argument that “The Russians are coming!” is being promoted in MSM media to scare the bejeesus out of naive Western populations. Not only do the politicians agree on their brain-dead racist assumptions about Russia and China and the Global South, but their advisors are also in lock-step! The quality of decision-making in the West has (hopefully) reached rock-bottom!

Much of Africa has taken the opportunity of the West’s dissaray to rid themselves of the incredible exploitation by the last of the African colonisers- the French. Now, once again the indigenous Kanaks of New Caledonia are rising up against their colonialist French masters- but President Macron is holding firm- there is too much money to be gained from the nickel mine in New Caledonia.

A recent Canadian piece of analysis characterised one of the major risks to its population is ‘disinformation’ (otherwise known as perspectives on the world that are not aligned to the official perspective). It had previously been accepted in the West that expressing alternative views on the world was a key element of democracy (provided that it didnt actually change the power structure!)-but no longer…Diversity of opinion and knowledge is one the key factors that can help ensure humans’ evolution does not come to a sticky and dead end sooner rather than later.

Now, young people who express their opposition to Israel’s appalling genocide can be arrested as agitators and ‘antisemites’ and those who oppose the West’s involvement in the Ukraine war are ‘Putin’s puppets’. Rational analytical thinking is not permitted.

That Canadian analysis also points to climate change as a major threat to Canada’s (and the world’s ) wellbeing , but nowhere in any state’s manifesto across the globe are we informed that one of the key rational ways to address climate change and loss of biodiversity is de-growth. Economic “Growth” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is our true God. Everything is measured against the ‘God of Growth’ who knows nothing and cares for nobody.

The only little problem with the fiscal measurement process called GDP is that it cannot measure the health and living viability of the planet nor the wellbeing of the multitude of species who inhabit it, and on whom human beings are totally reliant upon for our survival.

In my own little part of the world, our new New Zealand coalition of right wing zealots have in a remarkably short time, slashed 5000 government jobs, (or ‘red tape’ as they prefer to call it!), made access to government welfare that much harder, attacked the core premises of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (our founding document), enhanced payments to rich landlords and promised tax breaks which will inevitably only benefit the wealthy. To add to the flavour they are currently working on a “Fast Track Act’ with their big business ‘colleagues’, to ensure that ‘development’ is not stifled or delayed by foolish issues such as environmental protection. Short term greed must always out-weigh long term human wellbeing and environmental protection.

Sadly New Zealand’s politicians , like so many Western politicians, seem to be progressively dumbing down to the point of becoming brain-dead zombies mesmerised by dollar signs, and where honesty, compassion and an understanding of the complexity and fragility of the living world and our total dependancy upon it, are things of the past..

And all the while, climate change pushes all living things on the planet ever more rapidly into a totally unrecognissable and unpredictable new world..

____________________________

Links

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report

Climate ‘poses systemic financial risks’ (theecologist.org)

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/18/refuge-of-the-last-dreamers-luang-prabang-a-city-suspended-in-time

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/last-dance-at-the-vampire-ball-west

SOME THOUGHTS ON  FISCAL  IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS FOR NEW ZEALAND (and others)