Kevin Hester on Abrupt Climate Change and Surrounding Issues

Interviewed by Tim LynchNovember 25, 2015
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More slowly, rising seas will gradually erase whole nations, and droughts will kill many thousands, and even cause wars over resources.

Western governments, however, are making it clear which they think is the issue to worry about. Climate change is taking a back seat, even when there has been a cyclone (cyclone Haiyan) that killed 6300 people in 2013.

However in early December 2015 the largest UN summit of the decade is to take place in Paris. The big question is will the delegates get the message to keep fossil fuel in the ground and to finance a transition to renewable energy by 2050? This is the aim of 350.org. Even that seems too little too late.

For years the debate has been about whether climate change is manmade or natural?


Did the media push us into some black and white thinking, encouraged on the one side by the fossil fuel industry and on the other side by the nuclear industry?

This debate has wasted a lot of time while carbon and methane emissions have grown to serious proportions.

Climate Change Activist Kevin Hester has long been trying to wake people up to the man made aspect of climate change. The more we do to clean up our act, the less we fuel natural climate change. The more prepared we are, both physically and emotionally, the more we will cope with what is to confront us in the future. Kevin says we “must plan for the worst and hope for the best”.

Humans are the most destructive species on the planet, and the US military, as a single entity, is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses. War is extremely bad for climate change, and climate change may well be behind the start of wars in the future, as it was in Syria, where the unrest began with a serious drought.

Ocean acidification is very serious and Kevin explains how the sea is like a big battery and that works well when the CO2 levels are normal but as they are now, the sea is  now  becoming acidic. Kevin explains, “We are now in the first phase of abrupt climate change, with rapid CO2 emissions. Once this triggers the methane the next step can happen very quickly. In a recent National Academy of Sciences paper, “Evidence for a rapid release of carbon at the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum”, the authors concluded that huge amounts of carbon were released in the geologic blink of an eye."" ""This research showed that “Following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees centigrade – all in the space of about 13 years. Scientists previously thought this process happened over 10,000 years.” This exactly describes what we have done since 1800. We have doubled the CO2 level from 190 ppm to 400 today. ""

In the early 1980’s Kevin first became involved in the environmental movement in NZ, which at the time was heavily influenced by anti-nuclear activities which went on to have NZ declared nuclear free. He was once arrested on Auckland harbour with  Peter Wilcox, the skipper of the Green Peace Rainbow Warrior prior to it being bombed killing Fernando Pereira. Kevin was charged with obstructing a nuclear ship in the course of its passage.  He is very proud of the charge and  of beating the rap, yet saddened by the later triple melt down  at Fukushima Daiichi and the untold millions of radionuclides that is now pouring into the atmosphere and cascading into his beloved Pacific Ocean.

Kevin went on to become a private yacht skipper delivering yachts around the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. He has 16 oceans passages under his belt.

In recent years he has  reluctantly came to accept the inevitably  of the imminent collapse of the biosphere after initially noticing the oceans dying, with the first indicator being the loss of flying fish and sea birds on his latter ocean passages.

In recent times he has become heavily involved in organising the nationwide campaign against the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, as a member of the Auckland organising committee.

Here is last year’s interview with Dr Guy McPherson and Kevin Hester.

For details on a Climate Change march near you, go to 350.org

Building a global climate movement!

This programme is sponsored by The Awareness Party.

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Tim Lynch

Tim Lynch, is a New Zealander, who is fortunate in that he has whakapapa, or a bloodline that connects him to the Aotearoan Maori. He has been involved as an activist for over 40 years - within the ecological, educational, holistic, metaphysical, spiritual & nuclear free movements. He sees the urgency of the full spectrum challenges that are coming to meet us, and is putting his whole life into being an advocate for todays and tomorrows children. 'To Mobilise Consciousness.'

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