I’ve been enjoying watching the New Zealand stock market fall over the last two weeks. It’s been really quite a pleasure to watch the NZX50 drop just a bit more every day, refreshing my browser every so often. And today I had the pleasure to watch the sharemarket plummet by as much as 4% at one point.
In just 3 weeks the NZX50 has dropped almost 600 points, partly as a result of the credit collapse and the price of oil. The latter, of course, will shortly (in the next 5 years) be past the point of return and be rising irrevocably in price, and declining in supply, likely triggering a global recession without end.
To be honest, I can’t wait. It’s gonna be absolutely terrible, of course. And I imagine New Zealand will slip from the margins of first world status to third world, and most of us here will be pretty screwed (cost of food, especially). But the sad thing is, I’d rather that than this perpetual continuation of the status quo, which is at least as destructive. At least a break in the status quo opens up fissures.
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January 29, 2008 at 10:33 am
Tim
Hey torrance, long time no posting.
‘And I imagine New Zealand will slip from the margins of first world status to third world, and most of us here will be pretty screwed (cost of food, especially)’
maybe initially but there is so much good open land in new zealand and so much knowledge and expertise that even a city like auckland with its ubiquitous 1/4 sections can be transferred over to self sustainability in a matter of years. its not all doom and gloom and the people who have the skills, experience and expertise in urban sustainablity are generally positive about the decline of cheap energy. I have a friend who cosntantly rambles about the coming imminent ‘collapse’, once you read into it the argument is pretty weak, especially when applied to NZ.
January 29, 2008 at 11:48 am
anarchafairy
I suppose it depends on to what use the land is put – if it’s anything like the Irish potato famine, NZ farmers will probably be exporting overseas on hugely inflated food prices.
I wish I knew more about the effects declining energy will have – it will require a massive shift in food production and lifestyle, obviously, and I wonder how long that shift will take? I imagine large-scale infrastructure, roads, business areas and cities will all suffer. And all that complexity theory stuff suggests there’ll be a threshold in declining energy that will have massive flow-on effects, but that’s just the theory and I don’t know how well it applies in this situation. All the studies I’ve seen, though, seem really quite unrealistic – they assume that the most rational solutions will be implemented, rather than the more likely struggle for resources/energy and likely war between nations to shore up resource access.
Do you know of any good studies worth reading?
February 1, 2008 at 3:13 pm
john
The declining stock market has provided quite a lot of entertainment, I dont know how close we are to a major tipping point towards relocalisation though. There has been some interesting discussion at the oil drum as higher oil prices may initially strengthen industrial agriculture and increase profits. New Zealand farmers may well benefit from higher commodity prices for quite a while yet. Farmers profiting from farming will not willingly hand land over to the working class.
I think the prospects for suburbia are pretty gloomy, soil fertility is generally low, tools and seeds are sparse and knowledge about growing and storing food is limited. While its not difficult to grow 5 or 10% of your food on a anything more is difficult. New suburbs are partiularly worrying, these have very little bare land, soil is generally compacted and devoid of organic matter. Perhaps houses will be knocked down and roads dug up to grow food? I can’t see much food coming out of botany downs or any of the subdivisions and infill housing built over the past 15 years. Any move towards growing significant amounts of food in the city or moving people out into the coutryside will be very difficult and will take a long time. Jumps in the price of food and shortages in oil could occur very rapidly on the other hand.
Interesting articles on the oil drum http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3481
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3554
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2431#more
February 3, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Stephen Whittington
http://sites3.barchart.com/pl/vsn/quote.asp?sym=CLZ0
There’s a list of oil futures. I’m afraid that oil will not increase as rapidly as you “hope.” But if you’re sure it will, then you should buy up some of the contracts, make a lot of money, and donate it, or use it to spread the message of anarchism.
February 24, 2008 at 5:28 am
greenguerilla
there is a nz site that is a real odd miz of right and leftwing, pro organic etc but the name ‘fortress nz’ gives away its anti imigrant, nationalist etc dark side. there is a book under the name and a website http://www.fortressnewzealand.com
which has lots of info from NIWA and other organisations on climate change and things happening in New Zealand or predicted to.
Cuba took a year to transition to organic urban agriculture/permiculture. there was party (mainly) from the embargo and an oil shortage, one comment i heard was that the organic part was also because they didn’t want pesticides being used in their cities.
nz like most modern nations is reliant on oil, for food, transport, housing and most things, presumably a lot of it could be sustituted with coal or biofuel. coal would massily increase co2 emissions and cause many problems, biofuel would potentially clash with food production as it has in mexico.
new zealand has a large landbase, so could grow lots of food. at current 90% of diary is for export, it is water and energy intensive, very polluting and a massive contributor (50% of nz’s greenhouse gas emissions) to climate change.
so we’d need farming/growing methods etc that didnt deplete the soil and was set to the local condiditons. droughts are a problem in parts of nz, so drought resistant crops maybe in them.. etc. there is heaps of info on nz conditions, the greens, permiculture nz, landcare research, niwa and so on have lots of info.
energywise we have a dilapidated grid that needs upgrading, lots of hydro, a relitivly small amount of gas and coal. and wind is being the largest new energy source (tidal is 10-15 years away).
likely threats/problems etc, would be an invasion so people could use nz’s landbase to grow food, extract resources and expand their landbase etc, there will likely be a free trade deal with china and america, meanind less local control, possible mergers with australia, meaning potentially large amounts of australian and australian buisnesses and industries etc.
a danger with any nuclear being built in australia would be that if it crashed the nuclear fallout would blow over to nz. larger problems could be breakdown of parts of the eco system here, depletion of certain fish species and so on. pests getting out of control and disease becoming more common as the climate warms.
threats will be the damage done to other countries, populations and places, like flooding of coastal mega cities, the destruction of water supplies, extreme weather events and good shortages from droughts and flood, increased pests and diseases from a warmer climate and instability from climate events.
there will be a mass increase of climate refugees and people from sinking pacific islands needing new homes.
for good studies there is heaps available, depends whether you want climate, security, energy or environmental..
cheers to auckland’s burning for most of these:
(sorry in advance for spelling etc, spellcheck is bad on this comp and im tired)
—————-
jeff vale – a theory of power -http://www.jeffvail.net/
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/
Networked tribes, infrastructure disruption, and the emerging bazaar of violence. An open notebook on the first epochal war of the 21st Century
Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
and permiculture expert and teacher david holmgren http://www.holmgren.com.au/
and also
A frequently updated UK weblog about things of interest to climate change activists.
climatechangeaction.blogspot.com