That’s a very timely and interesting question (if you’ll excuse the pun).

While there is no golden rule about what you should tweet about, there are a lot of ways on how to get followers on twitter and increase the possibility of being noticed as a useful resource for potential followers. The more you are seen as being useful, the better your chance of people following you.

The most common way to become useful is using your tweets to connect with articles, images, or videos. Your choice of content depends on your interests and your objectives – and how interesting the sources are of course. As you traverse the Internet, look for interesting links and post them into your account. And you should be make sure you get updated on what you post. This is because other people’s comments or replies to your post might be interesting enough to open the opportunity to establish a longer term relationship. And of course it is important to reply to follower’s comments wherever possible so that they don’t see your posts as spam. Replying to your followers increases their loyalty – online readers need feedback.

How to get followers on Twitter … have you considered timeliness?

In the online world, not everyone is socialising. The topics you tweet about could be research related as far as your followers, or potential followers, are concerned. Other Twitter users may want to use your tweets for business purposes. Your tweeting can help people in these situations depending on your personal content, but your tweets can help people too, if you link topics that are informative and good resources, or if your information is timely (classic examples are the recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. Or the political changes in the Middle East).

Numbers and loyalty are important drivers when you are trying to figure out how to get followers on Twitter. To a large extent the number of followers you get depends on how many people are following your followers, and the loyalty of both sets of followers.

Loyalty goes both ways. Following your followers will help you find out how to get followers on twitter that you want to target. You cannot expect a loyal follower if you yourself are not loyal in return. It’s been said many times, “To lead is to follow”. So, you should follow your followers.

Obviously not every one of your follower’s tweets is going to be informative or useful. So, to spice things up, rather than just passively commenting on tweets, you could pose questions about what they are posting – and why they posting it. This lets them know that you really are reading their stories and following their tweets.

How to get followers on Twitter using a Twitter Management System

Viral Tweet Builder lets you find and follow new Twitter via search keywords. And it  lets you schedule tweets etc. It’s simple to integrate Viral Tweet Builder with affiliate programs. Viral Tweet Builder will save you time – and time is money!  Get it for free while you can.

These are just some basic ideas about how to get followers on twitter based on the experiences of Twitter users who have been using the Twitter social networking and micro-blogging platform for some time. Hopefully you have found the tips about how to get followers on Twitter useful.

Twitter may not be news to you these days, but ever since it was introduced in 2006, it has been changing the way we communicate and connect to other people. As technology advances, the way we communicate changes, and Twitter is one of THE drivers for the changes in the way we communicate.

Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last 5 years, in the social network named Twitter, your friends are called your followers and normally the more followers you have, the better. So, knowing how to get more followers on Twitter is important.

How to get more followers on Twitter easily

Viral Tweet Builder is a free Twitter Management System that lets you manage more than one Twitter account at a time from a simple dashboard. You can find and follow multiple Twitter users by matching them with keywords, pre-schedule tweets, and easily un-follow users.

To summarize:

• Shows you how to get more followers on Twitter
• Lets you quickly find new followers by matching them with keywords
• Makes it simple to integrate with affiliate network
• Makes life easy by letting you schedule future tweets

You can literally build an entire business with Viral Tweet Builder.  Get it for free while you still can.

How to get more followers on Twitter using “traditional” approaches

If a free Twitter Management System is not your cup of tea, we hope you find the following pointers and tips on how to get more followers on Twitter useful. The following tips should help you out by showing you how to get more followers on Twitter by following a few simple rules as you navigate the Twitter system.

1. Be grateful to everyone who follows you. Don’t do or say anything that will discourage them from following you -  just be grateful that they followed you. As they say first impression lasts.

2. Never send your followers unnecessary or uninformative tweets. If you have regular tweets of like 10 Tweets per day, it will increase the chance that followers will get bored with the tweets you are posting.

3. Try not to send many tweets in quick succession -  even if they are about different topics. For example, your posts may change from movie tweets to current events to what you are doing right now. But if you send too many Tweets each day, then your readers or followers will stop reading them. They will just ignore the tweets you send – no matter what the topic.

4. Keep the thrill. Instead of posting boring tweets, send something unusual and interesting i.e. topics your followers will want to talk about. Be creative.  Think about how to get more followers on Twitter slowly and carefully.

5. Do not tweet to a lot of people you do not know just because you can. It’s called spamming.

6. Even though we hope this post helps you find out how to get more followers on Twitter, remember that the quantity of followers does not equate to quality followers – even though getting more Twitter followers still is a top priority. 50 loyal twitter followers who is better than 500 twitter followers who do not share your interests.

7. Social networking sites are filled with advice on how to get more followers on twitter. Indeed you can send your tweets directly into social networking sites like Facebook which will make your Facebook friends realise you actually use Twitter. Directing your tweets directly and linking to them from Twitter provides you great free publicity – Once you are set up you may find you’ll be getting questions yourself about how to get more followers on Twitter.

The NZ Listener (12/12/09) ran a story on just how marginal the NZ dairy industry really is:

• 56% of income is spent on operating the average farm
• 28% of income is spent on interest
• 16% of income for depreciation, tax, capital expenditure, principal repayments, living expenses

Importantly, before the latest Fonterra payout increase “there was no money left at all for depreciation, tax, capital expenditure, principal repayments, and drawings” according to Tim Deane, Fonterra’s General Manager or Shareholder and Supplier Services.

To summarise (and this might sound like heresy), it appears the the NZ dairy farming industry is buggered and we need to use our land for something more profitable!

ADDITIONAL COSTS AND DAIRY FARMING SUBSIDIES

The numbers mentioned by Tim Deane are not the end of it because the numbers do not take account of direct/indirect subsidies to NZ farmers.

Environmental costs – Run-off is polluting many parts of NZ – for example, 70%+ of the the Waikato waterways are considered toxic.  Remediation of the Taranaki waterways is way behind schedule. Lake Rotorua is a settling pond. Lake Taupo is well on the way to becoming one. The Manawatu River is one of the most polluted Rivers in the world. So, aside from some notable exceptions, the dairy farmers are not paying to clean up the mess their cows make each day. The NZ taxpayers are! (To put this into perspective, NZ cows crap as much each day as 150m humans WITHOUT toilets).

Subsidised infrastructure – For example, in the South Waikato, Carter Holt (privately owned by NZ’s richest man, Graeme Hart), has turned 25% of Kinleith forests into farmland. Urban ratepayers are underwriting the additional roading etc required to service what are intensive, and arguably marginal, dairy farms.

NZers paying Overseas Prices for Dairy Products – NZers tend to pay more for dairy products that overseas customers – i.e. NZ-only shipping costs are way lower, but we pay the same prices as someone on the other side of the planet. (To be fair, the Dairy farmers are not the only ones – NZers have been been ripped off for decades by NZ exporters e.g. the Building Products industry. The practice is euphemistically called “marginal pricing”).

Image Costs – This is the cost of the world realising that NZ is not 100% Pure. The estimated costs – according to NZ Government estimates – we stand to lose 2/3 of agricultural export earnings and 3/4 of our tourism earnings – i.e. we could lose more than we gain from dairying. (From a risk mitigation perspective we should drop/change dairying – it’s risk profile is potentially catastrophic)

Free-Low Cost Water – Farmers get water for free or low cost. In modern times, it is arguable that a few well-connected farmers are taking the water from future generations of city dwellers (e.g. Canterbury farmers taking water from aquifers used by Christchurch). And of course the land that the few farmers are wanting to irrigate is not sustainable for dairying and dairying uses a heck of a lot more water than arable crops etc.

R&D Subsidies - The NZ Government invests millions of dollars each year on dairy related research. The traditional argument is that it will help make the country more money. Based on the numbers ex the Listener this argument does not hold water (excuse the pun). And now the NZ Government is spending, millions of taxpayer dollars on reducing the carbon footprint of dairying. Sure the intentions are good, but taking account of the marginal returns for dairying, would it not be more cost-effective to get rid of the cows and start growing crops and/or trees??? And the final comment regarding R&D – what other sector of the economy gets such a huge R&D subsidy – hi-tech industries don’t. And with the recent changes to NZ Trade and Enterprise programs, small NZ-owned businesses don’t.

MAKING REAL MONEY OUT OF MILK – PART #1 – GO ORGANIC

If you accept that dairying does not make any money, besides shooting all of the cows and turning NZ into a big garden,  the smartest first step is to turn our dairy industry into a 100% organic dairy industry.

Sure that strategy will annoy a lot of existing players – from the fertiliser companies to the chemical manufacturers – hell even Monsanto will probably lose money as a result. The pressure on the NZ Government will be immense – after all most of the people producing the pollutants we use in NZ are overseas owned corporates. And they will no doubt whine to their respective governments which will in turn do their best to play ducks and drakes with our lot in Wellington. (Some NZers will probably help our foreign competitors – remember Tony Gibbs of Turners and Growers having a go at Zespri)

The logic behind 100% Organic is clear:

• The world WANTS organic dairy products
• We can command better prices for organic products
• And organic products coupled with strong anti-dirty-dairying legislation, could head off what the Government already acknowledges could be a major disaster for NZ – the loss of 65% our agricultural earnings and 75% of our tourism earnings.

And the REALLY good news:

• Organic products earn a premium price per kg (Fonterra currently pays a 20% premium)
• NZ Dairy Farms could be 100% Organic within 5-10 years
• Organic dairy farms are less intensive (therefore better for the environment)
• Organic dairy farms make higher net profits than chemical-based dairy farms

MAKING REAL MONEY OUT OF MILK – PART #2 – NZ-OWNED MARKETING CHANNELS

From the outset NZ farmers have been production orientated rather than marketing orientated. For well over  a century we were England’s farm. What we grew, UK-owned companies like Vesteys distributed.

The Vestey relationship was not too different to the way the potato industry works in Australia. There, potato farmers get about $200 a tonne from processors. The processors (usually McCains or Simplot) retail their products at $9000 or more. (See http://users.intas.net.au/reshob/media/pot1.htm)

The problem here of course is that there is always downwards pressure on the prices NZ dairy farmers can command.  Perhaps not quite as bad as Tasmanian potato farmers, but it is there. And anyone that has done Marketing 101 knows that you have very little pricing flexibility when you are trying to sell an unbranded commodity.

At first glance, it looks like Fonterra has worked a bit smarter than the Aussies when it comes to capturing the downstream value of NZ dairy products. Fonterra is actively investing in processing. In some cases it has purchased existing operations from major customers like Nestle. In other deals it is entering joint ventures with companies like Nestle. And in other deals, Nestle is buying Fonterra processing capabilities.

So who does own the retail brands??

Well, in most cases it is NOT Fonterra. In fact from what I can make out, wherever Fonterra has a retail brand, someone else buys it (Nestle grabbed Fonterra’s Australian ice cream brands), or the brand (e.g. Anchor in the UK) becomes part of a processing joint venture. It seems that Fonterra has decided to be a production orientated price taker rather than a marketing orientated price maker.

Westland Milk Products does things differently. It sells it’s own branded products. It is a MARKETING company that sells milk products.

Westland provides about 1% of the world’s dairy products. Fonterra is over 30 times bigger.

Imagine what a hugely positive impact there would be on our economy if:

• Westland taught Fonterra how to market retail products rather than commodities
• All NZ Dairy products were 100% Organic and generated a 20% premium
• We secured futures for our non-dairy agricultural exports and tourism by eliminating dirty dairying

… not to mention better use of our water resources etc. (And imagine if the Fishing and Forestry sectors shifted their thinking from production to sustainable marketing models.)

SUMMARY

We urgently need to restructure NZ Dairying. In the next 10 years we need to:

• Make NZ Dairying 100% Organic
• Market NZ Dairy Products, not sell unbranded commodities

Right now, with a few notable exceptions, we are doing what we have always done – slavishly increasing production while offshore interests make the real money. If we keep on doing what we have always done, we cannot expect anything to improve.

Right now:

• 28% of NZ Dairy GROSS revenue goes to the banks – most of which are overseas owned.
• Any significant trading margins – i.e. the super profits – go to our offshore retail “partners”.
• If we double our production, we will not double our profits – but the offshore multinationals will.
• If we get nailed for dirty dairying, we will lose huge numbers of jobs in tourism and agriculture.

If things do not change, you can expect ongoing sales of NZ-owned land by foreign-owned banks to multinational corporations. Foreigners already own 75% of our share market – if we do not change what we are doing with NZ Dairying, within a few decades foreign corporations will probably own 75% of our farms.

And that, dear reader, means that if we do not change what we are doing, most of our grand children will end up as landless, and powerless, peasants.

I am amazed this irresponsible idea is even getting airtime.

Our “clean-green” image is already compromised.

* Lake Rotorua is a cesspool.
* 70%+ of the Waikato waterways are unfit for animals to drink.
* Taranaki waterways remediation is way behind schedule.
* Manawatu River was the most polluted river in a recent study of comparable countries.
* not to mention old sawmill sites and so on..

The bottom line is that demand will dry up for something like 2/3 of our tourism and 1/2 of our agricultural products when our shameful treatment of our environment is made known worldwide (NZ Government official estimates).

And it will be made known – nothing is surer.

And no amount of glossy “100% Pure” propaganda will recover our position – or our job losses.

Only our actions will. Starting today.

Today we can tell the vandals who want to battery-farm 18000 cows in the McKenzie Country to bugger off.

If we do not, the cow factories could be the final nail in the coffin for this country’s “green” image.

Come on NZ, do the right thing!

So when the Brash report says “an average New Zealand family of four is worse off than their Australian counterpart by around $64,000 per annum”, but a Government-calculated “median household income” shows the gap is NZ$8908 (exchange rate fluctuations aside), that means the report has inflated the alleged family income gap by about 700 percent.

Even worse, based on these numbers, the report then goes on to make 30+ major recommendations to change the direction of New Zealand’s economy – effectively endorsing the failed policies of the ACT Party, which last election got less than 4 % of the vote.

What would any company do if its Chief Financial Officer was 700 percent wrong in his last year’s accounts and then used those numbers to redefine the company strategy?

Would any government continue to appoint a Reserve Bank Governor who was so wrong?

And what would the electorate do to a Government that introduced such badly formed policies?

The exact phrase “New Zealand” gets 18000 searches a day on Google. The exact phrase “Lord of the Rings” gets 27000 searches a day – 50% more. (There are 164,000 searches a day that contain the words “lord of the rings” (i.e. in no particular order).

I reckon we should re-brand The Waikato River Trail “The Hobbit Trail” and extend it from Hobbiton (near Matamata) to Mt Pohaturoa (Mount Doom) near Atiamuri.

Fill the trail with dead Orcs and arrows etc (made out of fibreglass), create houses/huts with round doors at convenient spots (along with other creature comforts), hide easily “discoverable” trinkets and treasures along the track, and set up Tokoroa / Putaruru / Tirau / Arapuni / Mangakino / Whakamaru / Atiamuri as related destinations (for people who don’t want to walk/bike the trail).

Then promote the hell out of it in time for the release of “The Hobbit” movie.

Given that about 60m people are year are searching for SOMETHING to do with Lord of the Rings, in time “The Hobbit Trail” could surpass Queenstown as NZ’s top destination. (NZ total incoming tourists numbers are about 2.5m per year. Queenstown gets about 1.2m tourists a year).

Of course we probably need to clean up the Waikato waterways first – 70% of them are not fit for animals to drink from according to Environment Waikato.

Nevertheless, there is a sustainable tourist market on our doorstep.

See: http://www.waikatorivertrails.com/ for more details.

The bonehead climate change strategy that is nothing short of enforced economic suicide. The law that will force taxpayers to subsidise farmers and large corporations that want to continue polluting the planet. (As if we haven’t done enough harm already. CO2 was at 380 ppm in 2007. The highest count in the previous 400,000 years was 300ppm.)

Maybe Dr. Smith and his mates think that we have plenty of time to bugger about. That they can get away with policies that belong in the 18th Century for as long as they like. That NZ’s export customers will tolerate dirty dairying and rudderless right-wing payback politics forever. That the effects of climate change are way down the track.

If their thinking reflects these ideas, they are wrong. Dead wrong. And they will cripple our country.

Things might get really bad, really fast. Maybe not “The Day After Tomorrow” fast – but within years – rather than decades or centuries.

Here’s why…

ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

In the last 110,000 years there have been at least 20 abrupt climate changes. (Abrupt means in less than 10 years and climate changes means sudden warming or cooling of 15°F/8°C or more.)

It’s only in the last 11,000 years that the climate has been “stable”. For the 100,000 years before that our planet has had sudden climate extremes – on again/off again – as if someone was playing with the accelerator of your car.

Melting ice from Greenland and the North Pole seems to be the key driver for sudden climate change. Massive amounts of fresh water being released via ice melt screw about with ocean currents and start slowing down the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean.

The 2007 IPCC Report says it is 90%+ certain that the ocean current slowdown will happen this century. But – because they do not have enough scientific proof – the same scientists say that this will NOT trigger massive and abrupt climate change during this century.

I can’t understand why they have come to that conclusion…

• Sudden change has happened at least 20 times because of ocean current slowdown – how can the scientists are say that it is unlikely to happen this time?
• Greenland and North Pole icecap melt rates are way ahead of the 2007 IPCC Report predictions. Which means that the key driver of sudden climate change is out of control.

The predicted effects of sudden climate change include:

• Annual average temperatures drop 5°-6°F in most of the Northern Hemisphere
• Annual average temperatures warm up by about 4°F in many parts of the Southern Hemisphere

The downstream results – worldwide famine due to food and water shortages. See Also: Water Wars and especially “The Science of Abrupt Climate Change”

WHY IS THIS SO HARD?

What the hell is going on in Wellington? Are they being lazy? Is this just about their egos? Are they asleep at the wheel?  We elected these people (duh!) and we are paying them good money to make intelligent decisions on our collective behalf. But in my opinion, they are failing us – and the planet – badly.

Why?

They must know that NZ is going to be totally embarrassed at the Copenhagen conference by this ETS shambles.

They certainly know that the demise of our “clean-green” image could mean:

• the ruin of our tourism industry. A ruined tourism industry would EASILY double our unemployment rate.
• lower prices for Fonterra members. Lower milk prices would mean large numbers of farm sales at low rates and would very likely result in MASSIVE overseas ownership of NZ farms.  (Foreigners already own 75% of the NZ sharemarket – why not flick off the land too! We need some beads and blankets – sorry – that was a couple of hundred years ago – now it is cars and plasma TV sets.)

One theory that fits the facts is that a bunch of right-wing “Disaster Capitalism” nut jobs are engineering a crisis for NZ along the lines of the Shock Doctrine!

Don’t cringe at the thought of another conspiracy theory. And don’t think “it can’t happen here”. It can.

Here’s how:

We are borrowing so much money ($250m a week – $12b a year), that very soon the IMF and/or the World Bank is very likely to front up and tell NZ what they want us to do – just like they have done in a number of countries around the world. Our only option will be to ask how high to jump. (Read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine to see how ugly things can get).

[An aside, a quick overview of the "morality" of the World Bank, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank_Group.  Here's a summary from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080810173158AADA1Fh "The World Bank - IMF is owned and controlled by NM Rothschild and 30 to 40 of the wealthiest people in the world. For over 150 years they have planned to take the world over through money. The former chief economist of the World Bank, Joe Stiglitz, was fired recently. He pointed out to top executives that every country the IMF/World Bank got involved in ended up with a crashed economy, a destroyed government, and sometimes in flames with riots. Jim Wolfensen, the president of the World Bank would not comment on his dismissal."]

But I digress…

NZ is already living beyond it’s means. And our current rate of borrowing is forecast to DOUBLE our Government debt in the next 5 years. So, the way these things work, NZ will be a prime takeover target for the IMF/World Bank jackals within 5 years

But what’s left for them to take over….???

In a word – OIL!

Here’s a quick backgrounder…

1) On 18/11/2009, Gerry Brownlee started pushing the Great Southern Basis as the “silver bullet” for our economy. (“By 2025 we could be earning over $30 billion per annum in export receipts from petroleum“) at oil industry conference.

2) Earlier estimates suggest that the Southern Basin is worth at least US$800b/NZ$1285b (i.e over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS).

3) Exploration kicked off in 2007 – one of the two successful bidders was ExxonMobil. (The original rights were withdrawn from Bounty Oil by Government agency Crown Minerals after a court case involving ExxonMobil. Interestingly, Rob Muldoon originally negotiated a 50% royalty back to NZ for the Southern Basin. The Labour Government – for some reason – dropped the royalty to 25%. God knows why – whose side are they on???)

4) Additional exploration around NZ is under way this coming summer. One “Overseas Expert” reckons NZ is on the verge of an “oil bonanza bigger than that of Britain’s North Sea oil boom“.

5) We’re even getting a fast track deal with the USA on a free trade agreement!! I doubt VERY much that it is because of our cows!

The stakes are very high in a world running out of oil. A floundering NZ would be a great prize for the people who make money out of oil-rich countries every else around the globe at the expense of the locals.

So don’t dismiss this post out of hand. A “Sleeping Dogs” scenario (or worse) could easily be with us by 2025 – and the $30b a year from oil and gas could be a mirage – if we fall asleep at the wheel.

Forewarned is forearmed. Read and understand Shock Doctrine.

And remember, THE PRICE OF FREEDOM IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE.

———————————————————————–

Important Footnote: APN News – the overseas owned company that owns the NZ Herald – has effectively been castrated by it’s owners according to Radio NZ’s Media Watch. Editors have apparently been told they have do not have a legal budget to defend themselves against defamation cases. They have been told not to annoy the rich and powerful. If you prefer to read rather than listen, check out these links:

http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2009/11/apn-chicken-out.html

http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2009/11/herald-clucks-on-spin-cycle.html

If you were out to kill democracy in NZ this back door strategy could be quite a clever (albeit cynical) move really – much smarter than Frank Bainimarama in Fiji

There are two types:

LOCALISED WATER WARS

Two examples:

1) The “Bolivian Water Wars“. (In Bolivia civil disobedience prevented Bechtel from privatizing the water supply. Yes that’s right – Bechtel – the same company that partnered with McConnell Dowell to work with Meridian Energy on the now failed $750m Project Aqua hydroelectricity project on the Waitaki River in NZ. As an aside I wonder whether the current ETS rules means we will be subsidsing Bechtel in NZ??).

2) Nestle’s Water Battles in Michigan – Where Nestle took advantage of the “rule of capture.” According this law, “ground water is the private property of the owner of the overlying land” and they “have the right to capture the ground water beneath their land.” It is also known as the ‘law of the biggest pump’ because the landowner with the largest pumping capacity “can dry up the adjoining landowner’s well.” (Isn’t it comforting to know more about how one of Fonterra’s biggest customers operates in other parts of the world. And a great example for Canterbury to follow – hell who needs a public debate!)

INTERNATIONAL WATER WARS

Two examples:

1) Pakistan and India – Melting glaciers coupled with historical differences are raising tensions. Both countries maintain arsenals of nuclear weapons. (I’ll leave you to come to your own conclusions about what is possible / likely there).

2) Israel, Palestine and Jordan – Israel, Jordan, Palestine Syria and Lebanon share the waters of the Jordan River and its source tributaries. Attempts to use the water for different projects by different countries have resulted in constant friction.

For more information check out:

Blue Gold: World Water Wars – Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today, as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive. Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?

Flow: for love of water – Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. ‘Flow’ confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause.

<RANT> I reckon the Kyoto rort is actually worse than it looks.

FARMERS

1. 15000 or so diary farmers will get subsidised to continue polluting our water and our air. It’s already beyond being a disaster – 70%+ of the Waikato waterways are deemed too toxic for humans OR animals to drink from! (Thank you for our extra payout this season Fonterra – why don’t you spend the extra money cleaning up after your members?).

2. It’s official – NZ is now being run by lobby groups – not via transparent democracy or the concept of a sustinable free market. The ‘free market’ mantra is out the door – the NZ taxpayer is subsidising farmers again – just like we did under Muldoon. (If it ain’t sustainable we are pouring money down thedrain – when will the folks in Wellie get with the program??)

3. The farmer’s subsidy means lower prices to Fonterra’s customer – including Nestle. In other words the subsidy we are giving the farmers goes offshore to multinational companies – many of which have very dubious records – even in the USA (e.g. Nestle grabbing water – see  http://www.savemiwater.org/ or Google “nestle water michigan”).

And what do we get back in return – bugger-all. We still get stiffed top dollar for milk and cheese and our food prices rise faster than anywhere else in the world except for South Korea! And we are supposed to be a food producer. Something is VERY wrong with this picture…

CORPORATES

To add insult to injury, 75% of NZ’s major industrial companies are overseas owned. So about 75% of the net effect of the subsidy being enjoyed by the corporate sector eventually goes offshore. A lot of it to a country that has 5% of the world’s population but uses 25% of the world’s energy – the USA! How stupid is that? (Remind me – so why do we want a free trade agreement with the USA – do they need more of our subsidies???)

Seems to me that this policy is one of the dumbest to come out of Wellington in a long time – unless you are a farmer or a multinational corporate.

Roll on the next election. Then the 99% of voters who make up the rest of the population get to have a say!
</RANT>

Some estimates suggest that that we are looking at a 100m rise within 100-200 years.

But this post is not about a 100m rise. It deals with a rise of just 14m.

Personally I think there is less than a 50% chance of the sea level rising 14m by 2050, but I am certain that the sea level will rise at least 14m by 2100. (For reasons why, see Rising Sea Levels.)

As you will read below, a 14m rise in sea levels is catastrophic – even without considering related issues like ocean acidification due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide.

(Click on each highlighted place name to see what is under water after a sea level rise of 14m).

NORTH ISLAND

Kaitaia-Northland – Kaitaia is the shoreline. Main road to the Far North is under water. It is quite possible that the Far North becomes an island.

Whangarei-Dargaville – Dargaville – under water. Most of downtown Whangarei and Port Whangarei, under water. Marsden Point Refinery, under water. Highway 14, under water.

Helensville-Omaha – Helensville, under water. Omaha under water. Much of Orewa under water. SH1 and SH16 under water in places.

Auckland-South Auckland – North Western Motorway, under water. Approaches to Auckland Harbour Bridge, under water. North Western Motorway, under water. Ports of Auckland, under water. Southern Motorway, under water in several places. Otahuhu, under water. South Western Motorway, under water. Auckland Airport, under water. Clevedon, under water. Glenbrook Steel Mill, under water.

Waikato-Thames – SH1 under water in many places. Huntly is the new Waikato shoreline . Thames, under water. Paeroa under water. SH26 and SH27 both under water in several places. Te Aroha is the new Thames Valley shoreline.

Tauranga-Mount Maunganui – Downtown Tauranga, under water. Ports of Tauranga, under water. Mt Maunganui, under water. Tauranga Airport, under water. Papamoa, under water. Te Puke, under water.

Whakatane-Opotiki – Matata, under water. Whakatane, under water. Edgecumbe, under water. Opotiki, under water.

Gisborne – Gisborne, under water.

Wairoa-Mahia – Wairoa, under water. Mahia Peninsula becomes an island.

Napier-Hastings – Napier, under water. Hastings, under water.

Wairarapa – Lake Wairarapa becomes a bay. Beach is at Martinborough.

Wellington-Lower Hutt – Downtown Wellington, under water. Te Papa under water. Wellington Port, under water. Wellington Airport, under water. SH1 out of Wellington, under water. Lower Hutt, under water. Beach is at Avalon.

Raumati-Foxton – Raumati/Waikanae, under water. Much of SH1 north, under water. Levin is shoreline. Foxton, under water. Shannon, under water.

Palmerston North-Wanganui – All main roads to the est of the Tararuas, under water. Beach is at Palmerston North. Downtown Wanganui, under water.

SOUTH ISLAND

Blenheim – Blenheim, under water. SH1, under water.

Nelson-Motueka – Most of Nelson, under water. Motueka, under water.

Takaka-Golden Bay – Takaka, under water. SH60, under water in several places.

Karamea – Karamea, under water.

Westport – Westport, under water. SH67, under water.

Greymouth – Greymouth, under water. SH6 and SH7, both under water in several places.

Hokitika – Hokitika, under water. SH6 underwater.

Invercargill – Invercargill, under water. Bluff, under water. Bluff Smelter, under water.

Balclutha – Balclutha, under water.

Taieri Plains – Taieri Plains, under water. Dunedin Airport, under water.

Dunedin – Downtown Dunedin and Dunedin South, under water. Otago Peninsula becomes an island. Port Chalmers, under water.

Oamaru – Northern Oamaru, under water. SH1 under water.

Timaru – Downtown Timaru, under water. SH1 (north and south), under water.

Christchurch – Lake Ellesmere becomes a bay. Christchurch City, under water. Kaiapoi, under water. Banks Peninisula becomes an island.

Kaikoura – Downtown Kaikoura, under water. SH1 (north and south), under water.

Where to from here?

This all sounds like a hell of a mess – and it is.

There is little, if anything we can do to prevent rising sea levels. And it is likely that the effects of global warming will last for several hundred years – irrespective of how quickly we humans reduce our carbon footprint.

Notwithstanding this dismal outlook we have a better than average chance of surviving, but we need to start acting now and assume that rising sea levels are a certainty.

The only question is how fast the oceans will rise.

So, our policies and coping strategies must assume the worst, while we hope for the best.

Bottom line:

The NZ Government should only invest in infrastructure that is 100m (or higher) above sea level. (This may be impractical in the short term, but it is a starting point for long term policy).

More on planning for our long term survival in another post.

Comments welcome.