Laura Henderson
gisborneherald.co.nz
People talk about their concern for future generations but as one of the future generation most likely to be affected by a “warming” planet, the current political response concerns me more.
The recently-released report from the government-sponsored Climate Change Commission would be laughable if the implications weren’t so severe and serious. Applauded by Labour and the Greens as achievable, feasible and a great step forward, it outlines how to bankrupt New Zealand environmentally, socially and economically within a decade or two at most.
The fact our Government supports it shows utter contempt for hard-working New Zealanders, their lack of reality with the working-class base who voted them in, and their utter ignorance and lack of understanding of basic science, social structure and economics.
New Zealand contributes just 0.2 per cent of all global emissions. This goal to be “carbon neutral” or “zero emissions” is all for 0.2 per cent! That is minuscule and would not be noticed anywhere. Ever.
The Government is woefully ignorant about giving credit to emissions already stored on farms in grass, wool and native plantings and ignores animals do not produce more carbon than they uptake; it is a natural cycle. They ignore harvested pine trees are burned in China after one use as concrete boxing, thus releasing all their “stored” carbon dioxide.
This report reeks of feel-good, virtue signalling yet still leaves other countries to do the dirty work. Has anyone looked at the conditions of cobalt or lithium mines to get the minerals to make the electric vehicle batteries? What about the child slave labour to mine it? New Zealand cannot produce or store enough electricity through wind, hydro or solar for everything — cars, trucks, trains, houses, businesses etc — to be 100 percent electric. We lack the capacity by miles, and heavy-duty electric trucks have yet to be invented.
The encouragement of pine forestry would see most of New Zealand’s farms covered in trees, either native or pine. Natives have a poor survival success rate and the seldom-reported side effect of pines is their destruction of the soil as needles are acidic, so soil acidity increases over time.
While we may have relatively few farmers, a large percentage of the national workforce is tied up in farming directly or indirectly. The mass unemployment that would result from virtually no farming leaves tens of thousands unemployed as fencers and shearers are out of work, as are hay contractors, rural trucking firms, rural farm suppliers, freezing workers rural doctors/nurses/teachers, vets, fertiliser companies, farm consultants, various government departments.
Yet the Government’s plans would see them all out of work and in the cities. Cities which already face one of the largest housing shortages ever seen, and already have high unemployment.
The commission assured New Zealanders that many people who would lose their jobs would be highly trained to take new jobs. As what? Fencers building a fence around Parliament to block out the starving, angry masses? Shearers shearing the people who are so blind they just follow like sheep? Diesel mechanics doing what? Farmers growing what? What would our GDP consist of?
You can’t have that level of unemployment and sustain it through the dole as the number of unemployed would be greater than the number employed. Social collapse would be inevitable as people leave homes of generations seeking whatever they can find in cities.
Wake up to what the real costs are because the poorest and middle working class are always hardest hit. The future generation depends on it.
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