Climate change | Deirdre Kent

Peak oil and climate change. Which do we worry about most?

About 15 years ago I was co-founded Otaki Transition Town, part of a movement that focussed on both climate change and peak oil. We were predicting dire warnings of a fall off the cliff and reading books like “Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller” by economist Jeff Rubin and “The End of Growth” and “The Party’s Over” by Richard Heinberg. Then when US discovered they could frack for oil and did so with great success, people forgot about peak oil and focussed their energies on climate change.
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Welcome to a baby born at 416ppm CO2 and overshoot

Welcome to a baby born at 416 ppm CO2 on the day of COP26 in Glasgow. This is the last chance to turn around runaway climate change. Mind you they said that last time and the time before.

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Renewables – can we ever get there – when energy and climate clash

Hydrolakes in Aotearoa/New Zealand have had many years of low rainfall, but it is now happening more frequently. In dry years we revert to coal generation, making the transition to renewables harder.

When New Zealand hydroelectric power stations ran low last summer, we beefed up electricity generation with another coal fired unit in Huntly. Environmentalists were shocked. How was New Zealand going to meet its climate targets now?
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Our Climate Shituation

Despite the alarming global environmental emergency, I am so looking forward to pohutukawas in full bloom in New Zealand

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Sustainability and Money

Sustainability and money Deirdre Kent Nov 2020

A few months ago I gave this presentation to a climate change group. Hope you enjoy it. Well it’s not actually enjoyable to know that energy use and economic growth are so closely linked. As Naomi Klein said “The economy is at war with the climate”. We are going to need all our collective intelligence to downshift without chaos. Can we manage an energy descent without it being haphazard and dangerous socially? Continue reading “Sustainability and Money”

Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) – Rationing that works

Some years ago I read about Tradable Energy Quotas as a method of ensuring everyone has access by right to their fair share of what fossil fuels are left and high energy users could buy units from low energy users. Then, being aware that our country, and indeed the whole world, was not make the necessary cuts to emissions in time to have a liveable climate, I thought to revisit the idea. Continue reading “Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) – Rationing that works”

Kate Raworth’s “Doughnut Economics” is a great starting point for new thinkers

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To get the next economic system we need to find the assumptions of this one

Banks Peninsula fires after drought Feb 2017

Many are asking if we have to sit around waiting for the current system to collapse. If we have only 3 years to turn around the emissions pattern as the UN has said, we had better get on with designing the next system. Continue reading “To get the next economic system we need to find the assumptions of this one”

The price of petrol and climate action

Climate change groups were noticeably absent from the recent public discussion about the rising price of petrol. Nobody was saying publicly that if we are to turn emissions around, we have to make it more expensive to drive. Not the Greens, not Generation Zero or 350.0rg. Nobody. It had been a unanimous outcry of pain against high petrol prices. Why? Surely lower petrol prices would clog up our roads, get people off public transport and adversely impact our emissions? Continue reading “The price of petrol and climate action”

Sarah vs the Govt – thoughts after first day in court on climate targets

Sarah Thomson poses for media outside Wellington High Court. She is taking the Government to court on their climate change targets

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