Baby Boomers were lucky enough to live under Governments who rebuilt their societies post World War Two with the lesson of what happened if citizens weren’t protected from the sharp boom and busts of capitalism foremost in their minds. Those Governments inoculated their citizens from Fascism and Communism with a Democratic Welfare State and investment into their hopes and aspirations.
The panel on a sustainable world at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand argued for major changes to address pressing environmental issues. Executive Director, Greenpeace NZ, and previous co-leader of the Green Party, Russel Norman, urged us to adopt the identity of global citizens.
It was simply bad luck for climate change deniers on the West Coast Regional Council that their submission was made public the same week that data revealed January 2019 as the hottest month since records began in 1909;
Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, stated that climate change was her generations ‘nuclear-free moment’, yet when we consider actual environmental policy to date, we can conclude that this ‘moment’ is little more than a feel good nuclear free bumper sticker. This criticism is not just levelled at our Government, the latest research shows it can be made against almost every Government.
Māori Climate Commissioner, Donna Awatere Huata, says the current heatwave that burnt Australia and is currently suffocating New Zealand is a grim view of our climate change future.
Not only is cheap tourism degrading our environment and our infrastructure, but it is also contributing to our appalling record over the past ten years of gas emissions increases when they were meant to be decreasing.
The truth is that the vested interests that create the pollution and economic framework that is making climate change the catastrophe that it is will not do anything meaningful to disrupt their interests.
The recent UN Climate talks in Poland have been hailed as some sort of ‘breakthrough’, it is nothing of the sort. Refusing to wean the planet off fossil fuels, no clear target for 2030 and what amounts to little more than vague promises to record existing emissions are not a ‘breakthrough’ and only a ‘step in the right direction’ if the alternative was to do nothing at all.
Have been asked a lot lately about how this Office was set up. So have written background piece –
This Office was set up as a result of the experiences of Tā Mark Solomon and Dame Tariana with climate change on their iwi.
It didn’t get much coverage on our TV News but an estimated 15,000 Aussie students staged a school strike last Friday to tell their politicians they had to do a lot more about Climate Change.