Of late, the news bulletins have been carrying alarming images of extreme flooding in parts of Asia, and extreme drought across Europe. Pakistan has 7,000 glaciers, the largest number in any country outside the polar regions. Those glaciers are melting, which is one reason (along with a particularly wet summer monsoon season) that one third of a country that 225 million people call home is now reportedly under water. In Pakistan, the weather impact has been amplified by the dire effects of rampant de-forestation.

Elsewhere… Europe is going through what is reportedly its worst period of drought in half a millennium. Both these extremes can be attributed in part to the onward march of global warming. Besides the impact on people and on economic life, the droughts are also having weird side effects, as the (paywalled) Washington Post daily newsletter recently indicated:

….The receding water levels in a Serbian stretch of the Danube, Europe’s second-largest river, surfaced a flotilla of Nazi-era German warships that were still packed with ammunition and unexploded ordnance.

And moreover:

A submerged 1st century A.D. Roman bridge possibly constructed under the orders of Emperor Nero emerged from the Tiber River last month; further to the north, out of the depths of Italy’s tourist-clogged Lake Como, emerged a 100,000-year-old skull of a deer and the ancient remains of lions, hyenas and rhinos.

And in addition :

Scorching high temperatures left the Iberian Peninsula drier than any time in the last 1,200 years. In Spain, parched riverbeds and shrinking reservoirs have exposed a Neolithic monument known as the Spanish Stonehenge, a Roman fortress, a medieval church, and a number of more recent “ghost towns” that had been abandoned and flooded following 20th century dam projects.

And still creepier yet:

Europe’s rivers are turning up bleak omens — the receding waters in parts of central Europe have revealed old “hunger stones,” markers placed along riverbeds that locals centuries prior left as guides to earlier droughts. One stone that emerged out of the Elbe read: “When this goes under, life will become more colourful again.”

This is apocalyptic. Yet there’s a final twist. The droughts being fed by global warming are eroding one of the key renewable forms of energy – hydro power – likely to save us from further global warming. To make up for the energy shortfalls, coal production is being cranked back into service, even though we all know the links between King Coal and global warming. Alas, none of that is stopping the Australians:

The controversial Adani Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland has ramped up to commercial production just as surging coal and power prices send earnings soaring for the ASX’s energy sector….

Shipments of Carmichael coal to international markets have become a regular occurrence…as the mine safely and efficiently ramps up to its constructed level of production…The Carmichael Mine is ramping up to export in the order of 10 million tonnes per annum…

The same story has been unfolding for months in Europe. The coal industry is not only a beneficiary of the drought conditions, but of the war in Ukraine as well:

….Plans include relying more on operational coal and lignite units, bringing mothballed coal plants back into service for emergencies, and converting retired gas units to run on coal. The measures are deemed temporary, but some [European] governments warn they could last a few years.

Supposedly, the rise in coal production will only be a temporary resurrection:

Brussels…insists that greater short-term reliance on coal won't compromise the longer-term EU goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030 and going net-zero by 2050.

Hmmm. At this point in the struggle against global warming, can we really afford to take a few backward steps and still hope to catch up later? Hardly.

Bad Week Rising

As Labour’s no good, very bad week grinds to a close – Thank God It's Friday !– it is stunning to see how much of the carnage was self-inflicted. All of it, in fact. The Great Kiwibank GST Fees Fiasco wasted a golden opportunity to put the government onside with the public and with small Kiwisaver providers - and against the big, freeloading Aussie owned bank providers and their National party accomplices. Yet thanks to a fatal combination of political timidity and over-cleverness, Labour managed to make itself appear to be a predator, preying on the nest eggs of ordinary Kiwis. How on earth did the People’s Champion end up looking like Scrooge McDuck?

If that hellish 24 hour policy U turn on Kiwisaver fees wasn’t bad enough the ghost of Poto Williams’ stint as Police Minister has also returned to haunt Labour. It appears that the $6 million compensation fund for dairy owners hit by raid victims (and touted by Williams in May) still remains stuck at the starting gate.

Reportedly, there have no payouts from the fund as yet. Reason being, the Police are the middle men in a repair and compensation process, and their resources are stretched. The obvious solution would be to allow dairy ran raid victims to apply directly to the fund. Currently, that doesn’t appear to be an option.

Chile votes

On Sunday, Chile will vote to accept or reject a draft constitution that bids to bury the last vestiges of the Pinochet era. Next week, Werewolf will be reporting on how this inspiring exercise in grassroots collective action came into existence. Win or lose on Sunday, the process has been remarkable, and it will not end on Sunday.

Currently… While the gap has been closing in recent days, the polls are still indicating that the majority of the population will vote to reject the draft constitution. However, even if this particular draft fails on Sunday… The past week’s political polls have been indicating that a clear majority of Chileans are also in favour of reviewing and rewriting the current constitution.

Despite the recent election of a centre left government in Chile. The current constitution remains as a relic of the neo-liberal economic policies that worked hand in hand with the Pinochet dictatorship. Instead, the new draft is focussed on social and indigenous rights, the environment and gender parity. But more about this next week.

Werewolf Playlist 21

For weekend listening, here’s a playlist of random new tracks, plus a handful of older cuts. Starting with the older cuts…”Lucklucky” by the veteran Vancouver performance artist Veda Hille, was first released in 2008. As she says in the lyrics, we build personal webs of memory from the places we live.. and if we’re lucky, these physical and psychological maps have started to give us a sense of direction by the time we hit 30.

Earlier this week, Rolling Stone magazine published its list of the 100 Best Country albums. Number 18 on that list is the Out of Hand album by the doomed honkytonk singer, Gary Stewart. Werewolf has written about Gary Stewart before, and this playlist features a Rodney Crowell song that fits Stewart like a glove. The next track – a country waltz called “ Abilene” - is by Plains, a side project of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield.

The new stuff – almost all the rest of the playlist has been released only in the past month - tends to be on the quiet and intense side, although the playlist does include “Pivot Signal” one of Kaitlyn Aurerlia Smith’s more accessible tracks. It comes from Smith’s new album Lets Turn It Into Sound, which is a great place to start on her work. …

The EDM track ”Sharevari” offers a re-interpretation of the early 1980s dance hit by A Number of Names, an electro disco group from Detroit. As for November Ultra..she lives in Paris, has a Spanish mother, aPortuguese father, and is a big fan of Frank Ocean. The lovely” Come Into My Arms” is from her Bedroom Walls debut album. Ela Minus is a Colombian electronic musician who now lives in New York.

Hayden Durham, the non-binary artist who performs as Hyd, is maybe known to some as the avatar for the QT conceptual art project that they created in collaboration with A. G. Cook, (who is the creative director for Charli XCX) and with the late, much lamented music producer known as SOPHIE.

Katie Bejsiuk used to be the driving force behind Free Cake For Every Creature, but she is now using her own name, and the excellent “Feels Right” track is from her

The Woman On The Moon

album…The playlist kicks off with a track by Tatyla Parx. She’s an actor/vocalist who has co-written tracks for Ariana Grande (“Thank U Next”) Panic at the Disco ( “High Hopes”) and Justin Bieber. Here’s the playlist:

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