Posted by John Monro
on November 2, 2009, 8:24 pm
Just to let you antipodeans know what is happening up here in Kiwiland, this oh-so-clean-and-green island paradise, proudly moored and resplendent as it is in its shallow ocean of humbug.
The first item on the news today was a report from the NZ Institute of Economic Research, which strongly supported the idea that as New Zealand produces only 0.2% of the world's CO2 emissions, that we ignore climate change in setting our economic and environmental policies.
The institute says reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be the lowest priority, because climate change is largely out of New Zealand's control and any action will have a high cost on the economy.
It says programmes to reduce waste have run their course and there is little more to be gained.
The fact that of any group of four million people, New Zealanders are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions far in excess of any other group of four million people, except perhaps Australians and North Americans, seems to have escaped this institute's attention.
We now have in New Zealand a very right wing government who have, in their first year in office, abandoned or emasculated almost every environmental and global warming commitment made by the previous Labour administration, and these were hardly revolutionary or onerous.
The last thing NZ, and the planet needs, is the self-serving and destructive arguments of this NZIER think-tank, but they will be taken up by this government and all the other climate-ignorant, pro-business and growth power cliques in the country, and you will be able, for the next few years at least, to truthfully regard New Zealand as a pariah nation in regard to its ethical commitment to our children's future on this planet.
There has been the odd occasion I despair of my adopted home, this is one of them.
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