Guest essay by Eric Worrall
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who won a historic landslide victory in national elections a week ago on a deep green manifesto, is being urged to apply lessons learned achieving New Zealands’ near total victory over Covid-19 to addressing the climate crisis.
New Zealand PM Ardern urged to apply crisis skills to climate change
Environmentalists urge re-elected leader, who won praise for her handling of the pandemic, to double down on fossil fuel use and farming emissions.
New Zealand’s re-elected Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern should use the skills she honed in successfully crushing the threat of Covid-19 to focus on a green recovery and help farmers tackle climate change’s “nuclear-free moment”, environmentalists said.
Ardern, whose Labour Party won a landslide victory in the general election last weekend, made a name for herself by responding decisively to the coronavirus pandemic and healing the nation after the killing of Muslims by a white supremacist.
…
Amanda Larsson, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace in Auckland, said Ardern had shown she excelled at leading her nation through a crisis.
The prime minister now needs “to apply the skills that she’s developed from dealing with the unthinkable, to tackling the ongoing, known crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss”, Larsson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
…
Read more: https://www.eco-business.com/news/new-zealand-pm-ardern-urged-to-apply-crisis-skills-to-climate-change/
Ardern, who previously governed with the help of the Green Party and New Zealand First, now has the numbers to govern without coalition partners. But she seems keen to maintain cordial relations with her green partners.
New Zealanders vote for climate ambition of Jacinda Ardern and Greens
Published on 19/10/2020, 12:43pm
Jacinda Ardern won a second term as New Zealand leader with a landslide majority, in an endorsement of her government’s net zero emissions goal
By Joe Lo
New Zealand’s voters overwhelmingly endorsed the ambitious climate policies of Jacinda Ardern and her Green coalition partners, in a general election on Saturday.
Ardern’s Labour Party received nearly 50% of the vote and 53% of the seats in parliament, allowing her to govern for a second term without relying on other parties. However, she may still include the Greens in her next administration.
For the last three years, Labour has relied on the Greens and the populist New Zealand First to govern. While the Green Party increased its vote share from 6% to 8%, the climate-ambivalent New Zealand First lost all its seats.
…
Read more: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/10/19/new-zealanders-vote-climate-ambition-jacinda-ardern-greens/
It is anyone’s guess how Ardern’s commitment to ratchet up climate ambition will play out. There is no doubt she has a strong popular mandate for greater climate ambition.
The original Maori inhabitants’ name for New Zealand, Aotearoa, means “land of the long white cloud”. This is a fair description of New Zealand’s normal weather, especially during New Zealand’s long, cold winters, so solar power is probably a non starter.
New Zealand has some very windy places, and with all their tall mountain ranges New Zealand has potentially excellent hydroelectric sites which could be developed. In principle they could also develop their plentiful geothermal opportunities; like Iceland, New Zealand has some impressive volcano complexes, with plenty of strong heat sources accessibly close to the surface.
Of course all of this green development would take lots of money. Money New Zealand does not have. New Zealand might have achieved victory over Covid with their early, hard lockdown, but New Zealand’s economy is a mess.
However New Zealand’s national debt, though deteriorating rapidly, is still a manageable 48% of GDP. So in principle there is plenty of financial room for Ardern to borrow vast sums of money to fund New Zealand’s green transition, should she choose to do so.
I suspect if there is one place in the world where a full hearted “green Covid recovery” will be attempted, that nation is New Zealand.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Could this prove to be a pyrrhic victory? I do not wish ill on the people of NZ and have family there but I believe that her covid strategy is going to prove in time to be a very costly exercise in political folly. Her political policies also undermine the promotion of individual responsibility and independence.
Not far away. in AU, a Great Reset, usually called Bail-In is being prepared
The Great Reset fraud / March meltdown shows system on the brink
https://citizensparty.org.au/videos/citizensreport/20201023-citizensreport
Remember the last great bailout in Dublin, well ye ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Do not be blindsided by virae or the usual oligarchy’s games like BLM, windy turbines, global warming or whatever.
It took ten years after the bailout for many in Dublin to get back to where they were before the collapse. Sadly I believe the huge damage of our foolish politicians and their medical advisors is going to set us back at least a generation.
With severely reduced income the government will possibly have to provide the same social and medical services with a reduction of income of 20% and more. People who have lost their jobs or seen their businesses collapse or had their salaries reduced are certainly in no position to pay more tax. The Greens will see their ambitions go up in smoke.
Our politicians, that are essentially fifty shades of left, have become obsessive deniers that they are in any way responsible for this economic tsunami. Already we see moves for them to claim that their draconian measures have been a great success – irrespective of the extent of economic devastation not to mention lockdown deaths over a decade.
“bonbon October 24, 2020 at 8:45 am”
I am fortunate that much of my superannuation funds are in another country, so the great AU bail-in won’t touch those funds. When the great “reset” happens in Aus many people are going to look foolish with multi-million dollar mortgages on worthless homes. Ahhh, but the Govn’t has that covered, import more migrants.
Time will prove you correct Michael ; we who this coming saw just hope that the experience causes the herd to recover their senses . . .slowly . .and one at a time.
“saw this coming”
Your first version better did I like 😀
I live in Chicago USA, where thousands of businesses have gone into bankruptcy due to the lockdowns. The economic devastation of these misguided policies will last for years, as once your business is dead, bringing it back to life requires a miracle.
So, my question is, who is responsible for this atrocity? Who decided it was a good idea to set up a lab in China to extract viruses from Bats? The virus did not come from fruit bats, also known as “flying foxes,” big enough to be good to eat. It came from tiny bats not sold at any “wet market.” Sure, let’s play around with viruses and try to make them more toxic, what could go wrong? “Gain-of-Function,” what a good idea. Greatest catastrophe in history short of WWII, if not actually worse.
Was it someone from France? Someone from the WHO? It has been suggested on this site that it was Fauci himself.
Who-Done-It? This person must be removed from any position of authority immediately if not sooner…
Who did Detroit? Then the did not have the virus idea to cover it .
Home grown.Or home grown establishment.
As Trump said that’s Biden’s mob, forever wars and globalization.
There is still a chance to vote.
“Who-Done-It?”
The work was done in a Chinese lab. The Chicoms allowed the Wuhan infection out of the nation while restricting travel internally.
The Chicoms done it. And they did it deliberately. Now they are attempting to capitalize on the chaos they have caused, and threatening war in all directions.
If the Chicoms want a war, they should just keep doing what they are doing, and they will get their war.
Peter Daszak
At least 17 years playing with “Gain-of-Function”. Worked with Wuhan. CBS tried to make him a hero because Trump cut funding.
I didn’t know there were beavers in New Zealand……
beng135,
Your post clearly invites a rather crude reply, but I refrain from going there.
Close as…
https://www.cruisemilfordnz.com/milford-sound-history/fiordlands-waitoreke/
. . . because, of course, no two things are more alike than COVID-19 and the climate crisis™.
/sarc off
yep… yet more proof that it’s not about the science… it’s all about $$$ and power.
Perhaps it is ballot harvesting like love lorn letters sent to the lonely with lip stick on it by prostitutes! For always a price.
Well, we all new this was coming. What can be more important than saving people? Saving the planet of course.
Chutzpah overlain with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
At the UN Climate Action Summit which was a City of London/Wall Street Anti-Industry Show, Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said their countries would complete these coal and nuclear “exits” even faster than Germany. Bloomberg tried to upstage them all.
Looks like Jacinda and Angela are in the final lap ….
The Swedish teen terror held theater, even Guterres seemed meek.
Then the bankers spoke, with UN Climate Finance advisor Mark Carney setting the tone.
Hmmmm . . . how best to go about shorting the economies of Finland and New Zealand?
Michael Every , an economist at Rabobank H.K. , has already called the big short on the Au .s and NZ dollars .
She really hasn’t thought things through. Germany can at least call on neighboring countries to prop up their failing power supply.
New Zealand is an island.
It’s three, most power is generated on Mainland, but I get your point.
My understanding is the Rockefeller Foundation targeted NZ as a model and the target site/country for their Agenda 21 promotion money because of it’s isolation, low population, and small government that would be easy to control/buy. Changes in NZ consistent with Agenda 21 have been going on for decades. When confronted with these facts denial sets in and conspiracy theory is claimed. It’s part of the Globalization and One World Government promoted by the UN.
That’s exactly how the thinking class in NZ sees it.
Unfortunately the herd has been spooked, and it will take some time for them to recover their wits. See the comment from Simple Simon below.
Absolutely witless.
There’s a saying in economics: “The solution to high prices is high prices”. Obviously, NZ hasn’t had enough of Liberalism yet. Another round, especially with a stronger dose, will probably (hopefully) do the trick. NZ isn’t the USA, where Libs can abandon a blue city or state they’ve destroyed and move to a red one.
there is always Australia where in normal times we each have pretty free rights to move and work. ANZCERTA is probably the most comprehensive FTA in the world.
Chanting hymns of triumph and virtue, urged forward by a fairy princess, New Zealand digs its own grave.
Pat Frank
“Chanting hymns of triumph and virtue, urged forward by a fairy princess……
You patronising old twat. Did you see the her the night she addressed the nation after 50 of the countries citizens were slaughters by a terorist (with a semi automatic rifle)? That was the speech of a leader, who at a time of horrific national trauma united the people when it most needed it. Can I suggest you stop wasting peoples time with your childish, vile, sexist comments and slink back to your slime hole.
Oh dear, Simple Simon has been triggered . Are you alright , snowflake?
Run to Princess , and she will make it all better.
And you can have your very own column on the media outlet that she bought especially for people like you (not because she needed to brainwash the sheeple) .
Reply to Simon.
I have never agreed with any thing that Simon has written untill this post.
I am a 4th generation New Zealander and I did not vote for the New Zealand Labour Party and I never have .
But the results of this election were never in doubt after the Christchurch Mosque shooting and then the Covid 19 response .
For months during our lockdown at 1PM most days of the week Jacinda was on National TV .
Millions watched and our death toll was 25 with somewhere around 1500 cases and slowly rising with returning citizens and Russian fishermen testing positive .
What a great re,election platform for any leader .
The New Zealand First party has been annihilated and Winston Peters is finished which is entirely his own fault as he has run with the hares and hunted with the hounds .
We have a system here called MMP which puts far to much power into minor parties and many voted for NZ First three years ago in the hope that they would form a government with the party with the most seats which was National but although he was originally a National Party MP he went with Labour ,and the Greens .
The Labour government will struggle from now on as they are short of members with life skills and are driven by ideology .
If these two events had never happened this Labour Government would have been a one term government as they were quite incompetent with the Green Party pushing them down the road of zero carbon .
Our Tourism has been decimated but people around the world need our food exports and for the record . NEW ZEALAND HAS NO SUBSIDIES ON AGRICULTURE
Our dairy and meat and wine are still sought after and I am sure our fruit will still be if we can get enough fruit pickers from overseas .
Logs and sawn timber are moving out of all ports .
My prediction is that New Zealanders will wake up ,and they already are that we need exports and that our farming , fruit growing ,wine making and forestry will help them get out of this hole that Covid 19 has created .
I cannot see this government getting reelected in three years unless they distance them selves from the Greens and moderate their stance on climate change and zero carbon .
Graham
Proud to still be farming feeding the world .
“… our farming , fruit growing ,wine making and forestry will help them get out of this hole that Covid 19 has created .”
You had better hope so. Destroying tourism will set the economy back severely.
Gwan
October 24, 2020 at 4:35 pm
Good comment Graham but I have to disagree that Jacinda and her lot will ever “distance them selves from the Greens and moderate their stance on climate change and zero carbon”. It would be nice but I don’t believe in the tooth fairy!
That was a pretty vile response Simon. No one in his right mind would deny the tragedy of that massacre.
But there was no terrorist attack, that simply suits your own political agenda. The man that committed this atrocity was and is mentally ill, not in his right mind.
What stands out as opportunistic, is that people like you pull out a label for this man to make it about politics. You have turned the crime of a single man into an ‘us and them’ rhetoric. You deliberately imply that people of a different political opinion were not deeply moved by this tragedy, that their belief system is different to yours and somehow makes them complicit. How dare you.
I don’t deny that as the leader of her country Jacinda Ardern was compelled to reach out to the people of New Zealand. It was difficult to watch the aftermath unfold on MSM. I don’t doubt that Jacinda herself was deeply moved.
The one mistake that she made at that time, was that over a period of weeks after the event she chose to wear the hijab. Why would she do that? She is not a Muslim and this was a disingenuous thing to do. Not only that it was divisive, she implied that she aligned with the terrorist narrative. She insulted a large proportion of her population. She herself made it an ‘us and them’ scenario and she wanted to appear heroic.
The sympathy was most definitely appropriate, making it political was wrong.
Megs, “The one mistake that she made at that time, was that over a period of weeks after the event she chose to wear the hijab.”
I understand your dismay, Megs.
The hijab is a visible symbol of the subjugation of women. Islam is violently patriarchal in its warp and weft.
Even a Muslim woman who voluntarily wears a hijab in public is advertising that she is unfit to go bareheaded in the sight of (her) god. Girls are traumatized to think themselves unworthy, and it carries into their adulthood.
Secular women who wear the hijab to express solidarity with Muslims, instead signal their acceptance of the suppression of women and acquiescence in their own subjugation. Some women understand. Others are self-blinded. Jacinda Ardern seems of the latter sort.
For those who’d dispute that analysis, Ibn Warraq’s “Why I am Not a Muslim,”
MODS
Some of the words I used in response Simon may have triggered a review. I have a family member of 22 years originally from Pakistan, who is of the Islamic faith. I consider him to be a wonderful man.
Could you please consider my comment? It was only in response to Simon’s rhetoric.
Thanks Mods
Those of us with some critical facilities undamaged by the incessant assault on reason that typifies the chirping of this bird-brained incompetent posing as a leader, agree with you that we face a perilous situation.
The only reassurance we have is the fact that Jacinda’s government has proven itself totally incompetent ; it will likely fail in every one of its objectives.
We must be grateful for small mercies.
There were many movies of that ilk filmed in New Zealand Pat. A very fitting comment, she’s playing a role.
Thank-you, Megs, though I have no knowledge of the movie ilkness to which you refer. 🙂
I’ve met a few New Zealanders, and worked with one. They’re good folk. I’m just sorry to see climate insanity be their undoing.
I totally agree Pat, the same applies in most countries. Good people just wanting to live their lives. If you haven’t been to New Zealand, I recommend a visit if and of course when you can, the south island is particularly beautiful.
The movies I was referring to were The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I think that Cate Blanchett played a character in the second movie that Arden would aspire to be like.
No offence intended to my neighbors in NZ.
Wrong sex, Simon.
Isn’t it attentive of you to wax wroth over a massacre of Muslims, in response to a comment concerning the willful destruction of a civilization. I.e., the “ambitious climate policies of Jacinda Ardern and her Green coalition partners,”
Any connection between massacre and criticism of climate policy is only in your mind, Simon, where it is apparent that many monsters slither and co-mingle.
Ambitious climate policies analogous to those of Jacinda Ardern and her Green coalition partners, have already killed thousands per year in the UK, as excess Winter fuel poverty deaths.
Are you wroth over those deaths, too, Simon? Just as certainly the result of massacre. Or are you (much more likely) just opportunistically wroth?
I am continually reminded of George Orwell’s insight, on fighting in the Spanish civil war. He realized that if he were not as outraged over Communist atrocities as he was over Fascist atrocities, then it wasn’t the atrocities he was outraged about. One observes examples of that politically selective morality everywhere.
That’s you, Simon. Selective moralizing outrage to suit your politics.
Pat Frank
You don’t have to agree with Adern’s policies, but anyone with an ounce of political sense can see she is a strong and committed leader. In fact NZ has been blessed with three quaity leaders this century, which is why the country is in such a good place.
Calling her a “fairy princess” is the kind of sexist and patronising comment that says more about you as a person, than her as a political figure.
Simon. She is good at getting up in front of the cameras and flapping her gums which the females loved but apart from that she has achieved very little.
If it hadn’t been for the two crises and the Greens the election would have been a totally different story. National were very weak too.
Simon, thank-you for toning down your rhetoric. You now have me merely sexist and patronizing, rather than an intimate female body part.
Your Jacinda Ardern is living in a green fantasy land. Doing so makes her a fairy princess. You don’t like it, but the description is contextually appropriate.
Her preferred green energy policies, if imposed, will be the ruination of New Zealand. You’ll find neither comfort nor praiseworthiness there.
I enjoyed the irony of you calling me a sexist, when it is you who employed an intimate female body part as a pejorative. That is the classical sexism of the irredeemable patriarch. Just ask any feminist.
And you indulged age prejudice to boot. It’s your personal traits on display here, Simon, not mine.
You’re a kettle fit to call no pot black, Simon.
The writer of the article shows how truth can be so badly distorted.
The election result was not an endorsement of her green policies at all.
It was obvious to most that National was not going to make it and so a large number of national voters voted for labour in order to keep out the loony greens. This has been borne out by subsequent analysis of the voting patterns.
If she comes to any formal agreement with the Greens or as any green ministers then those votes will turn against her at the next election.
Thanks Peter. I was waiting for someone from NZ to bring this up. Early analysis of how people placed their party vote in our MMP system suggested that with the polls suggesting a swing away from the poor performing National Party who had been in charge for 9 years up to 2017, that many former National Party voters went with Labour, even in rural electorates, just to keep the loony Greens out of government! Only time will tell if this Labour Govt. will risk cossying up to the Greens, even if they aren’t sitting at the cabinet table! If rural NZ really did vote that way for that reason then they are bigger gamblers than I thought. NZ has a history of landslide swings at General Election times, especially in the period 1972-1984. That was when we had the “First Past the Post” system. That period was probably a driver in NZ opting for MMP in the mid 1990’s!
Hun, if you follow that advice, you stand a good chance of finding your pretty head upon a spike…
Why……
The cops have had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54672947
People have had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-54674924
Business has had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54369809
The environment has had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54057799
Local councils, kids & media have had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-54669888
Even Sputnik has had enough
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54672691
(I would not trust NASA to babysit a bunny-rabbit – let alone be any sort of authority on science, or even anti-science AKA Climate Change Theory
Just from the last few days on the Beeb.
Somewhere in that hideous morass of Grauniad Regurgitation/vomit, there is a report saying that local/regional councils are in some sort of bizarre competition with each other to lay down the most draconian and stoooopid Pythonesque restrictions.
what a mess
Where will they get the money? That’s the whole point of climate alarmism, because with debt based currency, the banks always need to generate more debt in order to create the money to pay off the old debt. The new debt has to be created by some means for some reason. So in the absence of war time debt generation, even with a perfectly efficient economic system in place, everything has to be torn up and replaced with something else. How else to you rationalize a massive borrowing and spending program. There’s already so much debt in the world that anything much over zero percent interest and you bankrupt the whole thing. They’re talking about permanent bonds to pay for it all, as in, not 10 year bonds, not 30 year bonds, they now will run to infinity. So all the future generations will be making interest payments on decisions made today for all of eternity.
They are going to do that, in any case, Chris. Whether you structure it as a perpetuity (consol) or roll over the debt periodically to new bonds.
The fundamental exchange mechanism of humanity is barter, i.e. trade of goods and/or services. That is the basis for real economics. Higher productivity results in prosperity. Money is a human invention that makes barter or trade more convenient. Printing more of it dilutes the buying power of existing money and does nothing for prosperity
Lock up the unions and the economy so we can all watch.
Our (NZCOVID policy just defers the problem, doesn’t solve it at all. Jacinda has done 2 lockdowns with apparent success, with Winston (her previous coalition partner) getting her to end the lockdowns at the conclusion when others were still wanting them to continue. Jacinda will do longer & harder lockdowns in future because it’s all she knows and no-one will hold her back next time.
We do have hydro power for 70% of our needs but NZ gets complacent and doesn’t build any more. Care of our electric grid was not on the agenda in the election just concluded.
New Zealand might have achieved victory over Covid with their early, hard lockdown
This Is STUNNING: Mandates (incl Masks) CAUSE Deaths
Japan never locked down. Nor did they ever impose a mask mandate (there is no legal authority to do it.) They’ve recorded 95,138 cases and 1,694 deaths across a population of 126 million people.
We know a few things about Japan; first and foremost, they’re an incredibly hygienic population by “Western” standards, and miles ahead of any of the “turd world” nations. Bidets are common in Japanese homes. There has been a significant “second wave” of cases in Japan starting early July, mirroring what we are seeing in other temperature climates worldwide.
But — while there has been some death it’s remarkably small.
It would be interesting to see comparative blood work of an average sample of inhabitants from say Taiwan, Japan, NZ compared to some of the countries with very high Covid19 death rates. Of course ease of quarantining with Islands would be part of the equation but the Island diets with a high intake of seafood would ensure adequate mineral intake. High Selenium blood level is protective against Ebola and HIV and other viruses for instance, and Zinc keeps cropping up in preventive measures for corona viruses in general.
Once again proving that to the left, politics solves everything. After that, when politics doesn’t solve the crisis, it just means the wrong person was in charge, and poof! goes the nice lady.
‘Bye ‘bye, New Zealand. You had a good run while it lasted.
The Chinese will enjoy the nice country you left them.
The rot started in NZ after it lost ties to the mother country, the UK, in the 70’s. I guarantee you most of those who voted Labour were on some sort of benefit. But then again, the candidates for National were pretty weak.
I wish the worst for them. Another country I’ll never care to visit. Pretty I hear, but there is HD vid to view that. Idiots all.
Everyone in New Zealand was nice to us when we visited. You can skip the politics and enjoy the view, if they ever re-open their border.
THAT IS A VERY UNKIND COMMENT tom s we don’t need you here.
NZers don’t seem to learn. Muldoon, Clark and now Ardern.
I Live in the Deep South of New Zealand, the main problem we got here is climate refugees from England and South Africa coming in and buying up our homes, as a result its very difficult to find rented accommodation any more.
We used to have a lot of Asian and Afghan Refugees but its too cold down here for them.
The main comment you will get from the Imports is , is it always this cold down here? As the closest place to Antarctica the Answer is YES dumb ass, during the equinox its really windy all the time (Trees Blown Over Windy) during the winter its either Raining or Snowing and always cold, then theres the Floods.
Summer sees days where it can hit 30 Degs, but thats rare, mostly stays in the 20s remember its Celsius here.
If your thinking of emigrating to NZ DONT, it wasnt so long ago that the natives ate people and they still look like Cannibals, and its not called the Shaky Isles for nothing, frequent earth quakes are a major hazard, along with an Active Volcanic North Island.
Then theres the Dumb ass Green Labor Governed Capital City Auckland, congested, polluted and A Socialist
Hellhole, as a South Islander (Mainlander) I dont go there, it sucks big Time.
Banning Automatic weapons has led to a steep increase in Gang related gun crime, The Aussies deported all the Gang bangers here and they now roam the highways pushing drugs and having shoot outs on the high ways killing innocent civilians and cops in the cross fire.
Basically they try to treat us as the English treated them back in the 18th century, of course they still cant beat us in sports, hence the bitterness and spite they pore upon us constantly, oh well if i lived in a snake infected, constantly burning desert with out reliable power supplies id probably hate us too.
Conclusion, DONT MOVE HERE, when food supplies start running out we will definitely eat you first.
Very entertaining Rick! 🙂
Several locked down states in Australia have opened up borders to NZers. There will be an influx of NZers arriving in Aus over the next couple of years. Why? I have no idea as it’s just as bad here, might be slightly better job options, but they don’t pay the wages you need to buy small homes for over AU$1mil.
Here in NZ I’m not sure there is even one party we could vote for that hasn’t swallowed the climate change Koolaid. The most ‘reasonable’ party on this issue would be ACT, and even they think we need to toss away $1.4bn each year (Paris agreement obligation) because other countries expect us to. Sigh.
Given the result of the election (increased vote for the Greens and Labour), it seems that a large number of the public have drunk it too.
It seems we’re going to have to learn the hard way.
New Zealand is beautiful country. It is a shame to to see it blighted by all that visual pollution.
Visual pollution? Are you talking about the windmills around Wellington?
Yes, wind turbines anywhere. I hate the things.
KT66
I too find them an abomination; an insult to my attempt to enjoy the natural scenery.
Last time I was there there was only one visible from Mt. Victoria.
Living in NZ for 77 years I can safely say that 1 in 10 of the comments above show some understanding of NZ the rest should be disregarded.
We have one major problem as regards Climate and the the Green agenda. Ninety seven percent of the population is mathematically, scientifically, economically and engineering illiterate at the level need to understand what is happening and what the implications will be. The political classes of all parties in NZ are 100% illiterate in the knowledge required to form policy (should it be needed to solve any problem) not just Climate.
The coalition of Leftists, Greens and NZF over the past 3 years have achieved nothing, they couldn’t even build houses let alone solve an imagined climate problem. Their solution to the so called climate problem was to copy the UK model (God help us) with an ETS scheme and Zero Carbon Act. Economically these policies are the exact opposite to what is required for an economic recovery from the “lock down” debt crisis we face.
Our share of the Paris Agreement to change the temperature of the earth by policy means is 5/100,000th of a degree C over the next 10 years. Please Jacinda tell me what the increase in poverty in New Zealand will be for you to achieve this over your next 3 years of governance.
New Zealanders are very resourceful and resilient, we will cope, but we don’t need ideologically driven governance by show ponies on the international stage . We need soundly growth based scientific and economic management that minimises the cost of debt recovery for the poor and middle class. Anything less is unacceptable.
How many times do we have to experiment with command and control Socialism before we realise that while Capitalism is not perfect Socialism has and will always be a failure. Our left voting youth weren’t born when the Berlin wall fell and capitalist West Germany was left to deal with the economic and environmental mess in East Germany. Let that be a lesson. History is about to repeat itself under our new socialist Government. I wish for my grandchildren’s sake it weren’t true but I fear it will be, because egos get in way of changing direction when the facts change.
Very well written Kevin.
100% in agreement with what you have portrayed .
We get numerous news reports of the under privileged and the number of people in poverty are increasing here in New Zealand.
A government should have policies in place that help every one of their citizens achieve education ,work and housing .
The last thing on their agenda should be things like the Paris agreement which will only make New Zealanders poorer (or any countries citizens that go down that road ).
New Zealand has a very large amount of electricity generated by renewables and our emissions from fossil fuels are very low per capita.
Can any of you educated people explain how enteric methane from farmed livestock and log and timber exports can and are counted as New Zealands GHG emissions ?
Take time to think and look at this in a fair manner and you will understand what I am saying.
The theory of global warming is that we are extracting fossil fuel that has been locked up beneath the ground for millions of years .
Enteric methane is a closed cycle and all fodder that animals consume has absorbed CO2 and the tiny amount of methane released during digestion breaks down in 8 to 10 years into CO2 and water vapour. Plantation forestry absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere over 28 to 30 years and it could take up to 100 years untill all the timber is burnt to return it to the atmosphere , it is a cycle and cannot and can never increase the level of CO2 or methane in the atmosphere .
Some how the Greens classify all logging as New Zealands emissions even though 70% of our harvest is exported as logs or sawn timber .
Does Saudi Arabia export oil and count that as their emissions ?
Of course not ,this whole GHG emissions makes absolutely no sense but the UN could not care less as this is just an excuse to push for world government and the destruction of capitalism .
Graham