Opinion by Paul Revere

Comment:- Recently, former ACT M.P. Muriel Newman on her NZCPR website wrote:-

” While we are essentially clean and green — a tiny country surrounded by ocean sitting at the bottom of the world — in true Orwellian fashion, we too have become captive to an extremist climate narrative. Pushed by an elitist cabal that includes politicians, journalists, and academics, they claim New Zealand is causing so much harm to the planet that drastic action is needed – even though the measures they are proposing will decimate our farming sector.”

Response:-

I am not questioning the “climate change” propaganda because I hate the planet.
It would be a great idea to practice conservation by reducing the waste of our natural resources.

I would like to see less interference with pollution and destruction of ecosystems. Conservation and pollution could be improved if our culture and economy was not so obsessed with consumption of goods and services that most of us do not need and cannot really afford.

The global climate has, is and will always be changing. Our human activities have some influence. CO2 and Methane are real gases.

What no-one mentions is how much real influence what we do or do not in New Zealand, has on the global climate?

Facts and Figures

• We are 5 Million of the almost 8 Billion people in the world.
• We are 0.0625% of the people in the world.
• Our cows and other farmed animals are also a tiny percentage of the global number.
• We have very few polluting industries.
• Our production of electricity by burning fossil fuels is a tiny percentage of the global average.
• Our consumption of consumer products is miniscule.
• The total emissions of all our vehicles is probably insignificant.

I was tempted to buy a new, cool Tesla. However, the environmental cost of accessing the materials and manufacturing that vehicle would have been greater than all the fuel I would likely use in over 10 years. 

Keeping my current old vehicle is more environmentally friendly than buying that cool new Tesla and more financially practical as well.

Stop Self-Delusion

If someone did the math properly, they would know that what we do or do not do in New Zealand cannot top deluding ourselves and impoverishing our nation to try to achieve something we cannot do.

What we can and should do is care for our own environment by reducing consumption, conserving our natural resources and limiting the pollution of our ecosystems with toxic chemicals and the rubbish we dispose of when we buy new stuff to replace things that are still useful.

People in the Labour and Green parties talk about “aspirations” but lack the practical knowledge and common sense to figure out whether their “aspirations” are necessary, achievable, affordable, beneficial or detrimental for our small nation and its people.

The costs of pretending to save the planet from a problem we are not causing, are harming New Zealand’s people and nation so that a few political celebrities can “virtue signal” for their own social, political and economic benefits at the expense of everyone else.