hanrahan

The new scheme, which came into effect in April, removed English-language requirements and lowered the investment threshold for the “growth” visas to NZ$5mn (US$3mn). Applicants must spend just 21 days in the country to establish residency, down from three years. The application process has also been cut to 11 days, on average, according to the immigration department.

No poors !

Could be worse./s

Durham University’s Prof Chris Stokes, lead author of the study, said: “We’re starting to see some of the worst-case scenarios play out almost in front of us. At current warming of 1.2C, sea level rise is accelerating at rates that, if they continue, would become almost unmanageable before the end of this century, [which is] within the lifetime of our young people.”

The average global temperature hit 1.5C for the first time in 2024. But the international target is measured as the average over 20 years, so is not considered to have been broken yet.

Tens of millions of Americans are expected to be at risk of severe weather this weekend as many states brace for high winds and tornadoes.

According to the National Weather Service, a “very active and complex mid-May weather pattern” is set to bring about heavy rain, high winds and anomalous temperatures throughout the US this weekend and until at least next Tuesday.

Although triple-digit weather is common for the state during summers, this year’s early season heat is unusual, making Texas hotter than California’s Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth.

Leopards Ate My Face moment ?

The severe weather events across the US come amid a growing global climate crisis, largely due to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels. Last year was confirmed as the hottest year on record as carbon emissions hit an all-time high.

Yet, despite the increasing frequency of such severe weather events, Donald Trump’s administration has issued a wave of rollbacks on environmental regulations. In addition to widespread dismissals across federal agencies, federal websites have been purged of information pertaining to climate change and extreme weather events since Trump took office in January.

For the last three years, Wilson has been researching and writing a book on systems collapse, the first chapter of which is called Hope – about “how there is no hope, and we need to face this”.

Well,.yes :) as Nathan Rees opined, all we can do is endure

I thought tbis interesting

Wilson moved to Paris two years ago on an artist’s visa to work on her book. The topic of collapsology is one the French are “really on top of” – collapse experts there do morning TV, and books on the subject top bestseller charts, making it a more fitting place to get to work than Sydney. “It’s a topic that I would say Australians are just not alive to yet,” she sighs.

While this article is not tied to collpase per se, this excert.from Peggy is on point.

Mods can delete it if they think its too far off topic but we're not exacrly swamped with posts jere.

Climate change is going to cull us as a species. There won’t be any big bands and we won’t have any producers of guitar strings, so we’re going to have to rely on our own voices and make instruments out of whatever we can find. But we’ll always need music that expresses the hopes and dreams of the community.

Toxic pollution from wildfires has infiltrated the homes of more than a billion people a year over the last two decades, according to new research.

The climate crisis is driving up the risk of wildfires by increasing heatwaves and droughts, making the issue of wildfire smoke a “pressing global issue”, scientists said

The tiny particles produced by wildfires can travel thousands of miles and are known to be more toxic than urban air pollution, due to higher concentrations of chemicals that cause inflammation. Wildfire pollution has been linked to early deaths, worsened heart and breathing diseases and premature births..

What a debacle :(

We can't be in this situation where every couple of years we're facing crisis levels and people are scrambling," Berggren said. "It reinforces the need for a more robust, long-term and resilient set of guidelines for managing the river."

But that does seem the plan :)

I don’t know why we’re not talking about this more. We have a steep decline in fertility, a rapidly ageing population, and, out of Covid, we are seeing the rise and rise of departures,” says Massey University’s emeritus professor Paul Spoonley, a leading sociologist.

“Parts of New Zealand are beginning to empty out, they will suffer stagnation or are in decline. The question for me is – will the number of New Zealanders leaving the country begin to come back?” Spoonley say

I ended up buying on the Gold Coast becase NZ housing was too unaffordable, back just before Covid.

Covid saw NZ housing prices then go from ridiculous to statospheric, so now I am in Tassie. Not been looking since but interested in the exoerinxes of others.

I'm an Aussie's that spent some time in NZ and was looking to move there full time, so a different take I guess and keen to here from locals.

"If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50% of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990,"

The study assesses the contribution of the highest emitting groups within societies and finds that the top 1% of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly 1-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.

The research sheds new light on the links between income-based emissions inequality and climate injustice, illustrating how the consumption and investments of wealthy individuals have had disproportionate impacts on extreme weather events

Our study shows that extreme climate impacts are not just the result of abstract global emissions, instead we can directly link them to our lifestyle and investment choices, which in turn are linked to wealth,"

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21771540

If the car doesnt kill you, the highway will ?

There are no firm conclusions for why there has been a sudden increase in melioidosis cases in Far North Queensland.

But one theory — documented by Dr Smith and backed by other medical experts and scientists — centres around the staged Bruce Highway upgrade that runs almost 20 kilometres through the muddy plains south of Cairns.

The multi-billion-dollar project commenced in 2010, with more than a decade of construction works stirring up a clay-like soil believed to harbour the bacteria.

If the car doesnt kill you, the highway will ?

There are no firm conclusions for why there has been a sudden increase in melioidosis cases in Far North Queensland.

But one theory — documented by Dr Smith and backed by other medical experts and scientists — centres around the staged Bruce Highway upgrade that runs almost 20 kilometres through the muddy plains south of Cairns.

The multi-billion-dollar project commenced in 2010, with more than a decade of construction works stirring up a clay-like soil believed to harbour the bacteria.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21579593

The head of research at the fossil fuels campaign group Lock the Gate Alliance, Georgina Woods, said global heating caused by burning fossil fuels was “already affecting Australian businesses, community wellbeing, household bills and national security” and damaging “our extraordinary natural heritage”.

Gavan McFadzean, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the country’s thermal coal exports were an “appalling contribution” to the climate crisis and a “major handbrake” on global efforts to cut emissions. He said the major parties were running on a “unity ticket” of trying to get the Australian public thinking “there’s nothing to see here”.

As Thoreau pointed out long ago, what use a home with no livable planet. :(

Both major parties have argued that there remained a global market for fossil fuels and if Australia reduced its sales they would just be replaced by coal and gas from other countries in a way that would lead to no overall gain but would hurt parts of the local economy.

This is like arguing if we don't sell weapons to Russia, North Korea will and then being ok with that.

I get it's the "drug dealer problem" but neither the LNP or the ALP would suggest dealers are ok ?

Vote Green