GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Jones Vs Nature
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Dharleen Tana will reverse all of Jones’s folly and get us all on E-bikes!!
You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to
be actually something which I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me.
I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang
of it!
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