Waatea News Column: Where is the climate Crisis Debate this Election?

The Washington Post reports that there have been so many hurricanes and tropical storms this year that we have run out of alphabet to name the storms with and will need to start using the Greek alphabet.

This comes on top of massive forest fires in California, massive forest fires in Siberia, record-breaking temperatures globally and record-breaking ice melt throughout the Arctic and Antarctica.

Around the planet, we are seeing an acceleration of climate crisis events and they are being felt in NZ with intense droughts and rainfall.

The Covid pandemic we are currently facing is a symptom of global warming because species jumping virus are created by the same overpopulation and habitat destruction that powers climate change.

As the planet rapidly warms, where is the debate about how New Zealand will protect the environment we have that includes a Māori perspective which is more needed than ever before?

We are not seeing the reality for a radical redefinition of what protecting our environment requires in the future.

This election’s almost as if climate change isn’t happening!

There’s little point rebuilding from the pandemic if that rebuild isn’t preparing us for the next wave of external events that will start hitting our shores.

First published on Waatea News.