Cold nights in Summer New Zealand

 

Greetings from New Zealand- Aotearoa

I have been back in Nelson, NZ since mid-December. Its been nice to be back in the town where I grew up. It’s the first time I have stayed any length of time since my Dad passed away in 2014. But, coming back to Nelson while enjoyable, also has absences. Like that good old Joni Mitchell song ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone! My parents, many old friends, some buildings like my Dad’s shop and his unit at the retirement village, fields & gardens, many things no longer here or as they were. Times move on!

So, Nelson has changed big time with major population growth. House prices have doubled and, in many cases, tripled in just a few years. Blocks of new houses are popping up all over what was farmland. These generic cookie cutter style homes are selling for close to a million dollars! Things have changed fast and many people are now in more challenging situations than before.

The people who have large mortgages, people who now struggle to raise their deposit to buy a home, those who rent who are being squeezed by higher prices and fewer places and more people seeking out somewhere to live. I have heard stories of kiwis who had been in their home for a long time, now struggling to afford their rates, because their house has been valued so high that the rates have gone up dramatically. People who sell but must use all that value to buy another place. No one really benefits from this crisis except real estate people & banks.

I have returned to NZ regularly especially when my parents were alive. I moved to Australia in 1985 and at that time the population of NZ was just over 3 million. Now it is just over 5 million. That is quite an increase, and with more people comes a requirement for more housing and other resources. Both Australia & New Zealand have failed on that front as there has been massive shortage of property pushing up prices dramatically and causing rents to rise quickly as well as many people struggling to find a place to live. Both countries but especially New Zealand, have become a gravitational spot for many in the world. The internet & more people travelling has meant that many have sought out NZ as a place to live. Covid has caused many to move away from big cities to smaller places and it also caused many to review their situations and to move if they could. Many New Zealanders who lived in Australia and other countries have decided to return as they get towards retirement age. The Climate crisis and threat of a world war makes NZ a desired place to be. NZ is isolated and a fairly mild climate so hopefully able to cope with a warmer world better than countries that already have major heatwaves. There are many who have moved to NZ including many wealthy Americans.

More about the New Zealand climate situation towards the end of this blog.

As the population has grown and more people have homes with no garden, the vege shops on the outskirts of town become very busy places, catering to large numbers of customers. Prices go up especially with higher fuel costs. NZers are paying $2.60 NZD a litre, about 1.50 Euro. That has affected delivery prices on everything in store. So, kiwis are having to pay more for many things. Given that NZers have only recently seen the minimum wage go up substantially, there are many who were already struggling. There must be many doing it tough. But I think NZ culture being more reserved than Australian, tend to quietly put up with challenges & suffer. In Australia people would be shouting!

I was shocked when I went to the supermarkets here in Nelson. So many items were twice the price of what is the case in Australia. Costs did increase in Australia last year like all countries, but increases have been happening on a more regular basis over the last few years here in NZ. And the traffic! :-(

 

But despite these challenges, its still nice to return home. And having grown up here, I still know a few more quiet natural spots that some others are now discovering, but not everyone. Living in an area with a population creeping up towards 100,000, it is still amazing how you can find yourself one of a few or the only person in a natural space. Often walking or cycling, at the beach, by a river, or up a valley and almost no one else around or no one but you! That’s the great thing about New Zealand is the rugged terrain and the ability to find your own space away from the crowd.

And its always nice to see some familiar sites and catch up with a few friends who still live here.

As regards the climate crisis, New Zealand is seeing its fair share of weather events. Here in Nelson last August there was rainfall on a scale almost enough to flood the CBD. Many houses were flooded or destroyed. Many hillsides became unstable and houses had to be evacuated. Streets were washed away by raging rivers. Many people are on land close to sea level, on flood plains or live on hillsides, such is the terrain of New Zealand. What is happening with each storm that hits New Zealand, the scale of rain intensity or wind is record breaking or close to. There are many windy hilly roads in New Zealand that were a major achievement to build back in the day. Every few decades a big storm would seriously damage an area, roads & bridges would get washed out and then it would be rebuilt. These projects are becoming more expensive over time, and no sooner does a road get a serious repair that can take two years or more and wham! Another serious weather event destroys the hillside road again and its closed for more repairs. As you google floods in New Zealand, you find that the weather events being recorded world wide are now happening very regularly. We often hear little about other countries unless we search. But while each country is dealing with its climate challenges, others are too and with regular occurrence, challenge & expense.

New Zealand has always been seen as a place that might handle a hotter world more than many other locations, but it does not mean no impact. As the oceans gets warmer, the Pacific is producing more cyclones. Two major storms hit Auckland & the North Island within 3 weeks a month ago causing serious flooding, deaths & emergency situations in many places. Crops destroyed and many places under water with no electricity or communication. These severe storms or cyclones used to happen about once every 5 or 10 years in New Zealand, but now the regularity is challenging the NZ economy. The money required to relocate and rebuild is not in the budget. NZ will need to fund more in this area as will every country, but within a world capitalist economy, many countries have limited capacity to fund all this expense.

Weather events are intensifying in terms of challenge & destruction of property & all that kind of thing, but food supply is the biggest issue and is beginning to become a noticeable issue. Prices of food changed because of the Ukraine war with reductions in wheat supply & fuel price increases, but last years wheat production in the Northern hemisphere was seriously reduced by heatwaves. This will be an increasing challenge for the world. There will be those who separate off to protect their own survival, there will be those who believe in a global solution, but currently many globalists are failing to address a funding system to provide for all. Currently governments are paying for most of these projects, but they do not have enough wealth to fund such an effort. Building more resilient systems, repairing after weather events and dealing with increasing food insecurity will become bigger issues and more expensive. Either the 1% and major corporations fund it as they have the wealth, or large swathes of the planet will increasingly struggle to survive as they currently do, but on a more critical scale.

So, there are some serious issues ahead for all the world, New Zealand included.

The nights have been unusually cool especially for the middle of February which is usually the warmest month in NZ. Meanwhile the water temperature has been warm enough for swimming!

But despite all these warning bells, we make the most of now, prepare as we can, help others as we can, don’t bury our head in the sand but also try and find the good in any situation and stay focused on what is going well. And making sure to enjoy what is here right now. Not the warmest summer but not -30 like some of my friends in Canada reported recently! Or the UK about to experience another Arctic plunge! The tomatoes have taken a bit longer to ripen in this cool summer here, but they are beautiful. And the nashis picked from a friend’s tree are crisp & delicious. Swimming at the beach yesterday in nice tepid water with almost a deserted beach. The bread and cheese may have gone up in price, but such NZ staple foods are delicious and still bountiful!

I wish you all a great month 😊