GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Jones Vs Nature

Exploitation vs Conservation.

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I intended to write something today about the arrogance of Shane Jones, his Trump- like name calling, and his cynical backflip on oil and gas exploration. Then I came across this photo. It tells me that Nature doesn’t care about Mr. Jones. It doesn’t care about any of us. Nature will take over and restore itself after we are gone.

When we talk about ‘saving the planet’ then, I think what we are really talking about is saving humankind from extinction and what Jones doesn’t understand, or chooses to ignore, is that he is betraying the future generations of his own family line by making his greed -driven decisions that sacrifice tomorrow on the altar of today.

Last Saturday more than 20,000 of us filled the length and breadth of Auckland’s Queen Street and thousands more gathered in other cities and towns throughout our country to say loudly and clearly to our right -wing Coalition government, that their destruction and exploitation of our natural environment is not “progress” and they do not do it in our name.

The jury is still out on how we humans became the dominant species on Earth. The development of our problem- solving brain power no doubt had much to do with it, which allowed us, amongst many of things, to our record the past and hand on knowledge so the next generation could learn from it. One the more sobering lessons being, of course, that our lives are short and death is certain.

For some, like Jones, the takeaway of all that is to “live for today” and let tomorrow look after itself. For others, like me, it’s the realisation that what we do today affects what life will be like for those who follow us tomorrow and that if we don’t care about Nature and take responsibility to preserve the animal and plant life on our planet, Nature won’t care about us.

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We know to our cost that human activity is causing our planet  to heat up and extreme weather events are becoming more common. Nature is warning us it has a way of getting rid of irritants like us and that we let people like Jones do whatever they want to our environment at our peril.

There is a lot of big stuff we need to do in order to fix what has become a nest of  world-wide climate related problems, but one small thing we can do in our own neck of the woods, is to make political life as difficult as we can for Minister Jones and his ilk over the next two and a half years, before we get rid of them at the next election.

 

 

Bryan Bruce is one of New Zealand’s most important and respected documentary makers. His work is available on bryanbruce.substack.com

17 COMMENTS

  1. Isn’t the real cause of environmental damage the basic greed of the average human for adequate food, clothing and a place to shelter in?
    And living as long as we do probably doesn’t help.

  2. Dr Pork will be getting his dose of nature sooner than he may think as it wond be long till the daisies and worms are feeding on his rotten carcase .Thats living with nature Porky old chap.

  3. Mars is natural. Venus is natural. The sun going red dwarf and swallowing the earth in a few billion years is natural.

    We’re basically living on a giant space ship with fragile bio/chemical systems sustaining a highly unlikely set of conditions improbably conducive to life, surrounded by people who believe it is a divine and immutable gift put here just for them to exploit.

    We’re fucked, and that’s just natural.

  4. Thanks Bruce for your sound actions for our future in these interesting times. While I have the view that the jury is decided on where we came from and our future just having influential people make the point that we need to put our common future ahead of private profits regarding the environment is appreciated

  5. We do need gas to support our energy needed for some time to come . OIL is not needed as the experts say by 2030 there will be an excess to the World’s needs so companies are unlikely to spend money on getting it out the ground especially if it is an expensive sea well . John’s is dreaming if he thinks oil companies will flock back

  6. If Mr Jones had taken the time to read the book ‘The Ends of the World’ by Peter Brannen, he would have realised the significant reality of your photo illustration at the head of your article.
    This planet of ours has already had all but the minimal vestiges of life ended five times in its 4.6 billion years of existence. Mass extinctions, they are called.
    And all the signs are that we are heading for a sixth mass extinction, after which life will start to evolve again, from ‘minimal vestiges of remining life’, for another very lengthy era before the same ‘end’ – in some form or another -will inevitably come – again!
    I picked up a copy of this book from my local library. It’s all there for anyone to read, including Mr Jones.

  7. Shane jones needs to be spoon fed Ecstasy powder. Luxon needs to be waxed. Oh, wait? seymour? My God what does seymour need that could be available on Earth? A personality? Empathy? Lips?
    Where’s peters? Has he gone back to float about in his bathtub full of embalming fluid with a nice glass of LSD infused absinthe.
    Our politicians are guarded, cautious, nervy, secretive, arrogant, aggressive and give off the impression that they know things that we mere mortals could never understand so shouldn’t be told about. In other words, they’re crooks. They have no interest in who we are or of how best to serve us, the ones who pay them massive sallaries. They just want to slide their drunken, farting, flabby are cheeks all over us because that would give them their elusive frissons of power and command.
    Shane jones looks like an old fat sneering owl without a tree to give a hoot up.

  8. And what will everyone do when there is not enough electricity to run our lives?
    Power cuts and a much reduced standard of living, given that electricity is a prime component in producing our food and daily needs.

    So what is our common future that “”everyone”” wants.
    A good affordable standard of living for us our families and their families in to the future.

    Is reducing energy availability(reduced electricity capacity, Natural Gas etc) the solution.
    Renewable energy will not supplant that in the near or even not so near future.
    To support Renewable energy at the moment requires a backup base load capacity.
    Is that planned or under construction at the moment?

    I dont think anyone supports destroying our environment.

    So what is the middle road?

    Ranting against Shane Jones might make you feel good, but its not a solution.

    • Ahh … the middle road, that elusive path we can all tread that offers hope of maintaining the status quo and pushes back against human aspirations for wealth, excessive consumption and environmental degradation.

  9. I rather like Shane Jones he says it like it is which is in sharp contrast to his Green adversaries who talk in riddles.

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