Well, I’m sure anything but measures that hurt their own lives
New Zealand readers say ‘everything’ must be prioritised in battle against climate change
After prime minister Jacinda Ardern declared a climate emergency this month, we asked you what New Zealand should prioritise to meet its climate change goals.
The responses varied widely, although there was broad consensus that more needed to be done to reduce emissions from agriculture and transport. Some of you argued for better urban design, while others advocated the introduction of a carbon tax, investment in renewable energy and more sustainable housing, efforts to reduce plastic waste and an increase in the planting of native trees.
Many of you also urged Ardern to exhibit the same leadership she showed during the Covid-19 crisis, to be brave in making decisions and honest with New Zealanders about the changes required to meet her government’s goals.
Here is a selection of your answers:
Most of the answers are about Government needs to do something, not about “hey, I’ll happily give up my own use of fossil fuels and make my life carbon neutral. Sure, I’m good with paying a lot more for energy and all goods and services. Sure, I’m good with rolling blackouts. Yes, I think we should stop all fossil fueled flights from coming to New Zealand with vacationers and goods. Sure, we should stop all fossil fueled ships that bring goods to New Zealand.”
Like the rest of the world it [NZ’s climate response] needs to do everything. Climate change is complex and there’s no easy fix. The solution is to reduce emissions across the board, and that means moving away from a lifestyle based on individual “success†to one based on collective wellbeing. That means bigger government, with more regulation and a stronger influence on what people and businesses do. It means a fairer distribution of wealth, better education, better public facilities (including transport), more emphasis on quality of life and less on material wealth, less “development†and more “conservationâ€. To put it simply, less greed and more sharing. It means changing society, and you can’t do that by focusing on one or two things.

Early on, when I started blogging, plus yapping on chat boards, people said I was crazy for saying that ‘climate change’ had little to do with science and everything to do with far left politics. I’ve told skeptical scientists and such that their focus on disproving the crazy science of the Cult of Climastrology was a waste, because this isn’t about science, and no matter what, Warmists will find a way. This is about politics.
Read: New Zealanders Are Up For Anything Goes To Stop ‘Climate Change’ »

California has had some of the toughest restrictions in the country to combat the coronavirus, from a complete ban on restaurant dining to travel quarantines and indoor gym closures.
President-elect Joe Biden has made no secret that tackling climate change will be one of his top priorities. But to enact his platform to reduce global warming he may find an unexpected ally: Republicans.
With early voting well underway and both sides expecting extremely close races, record amounts of money continue to pour into Georgia’s twin Senate runoff campaigns, including a large chunk of cash from donors in California, new Federal Election Commission filings show.
Santa is not the only one giving out coal this year. Climate activists like Johnny Sanchez and Sonja Birthisel in Portland, Maine, recently sent their utility company an envelope of coal instead of payment towards their electric bill. This symbolic act of defiance, organized by the No Coal No Gas coalition, is part of a broad New England consumer strike against utility payments to protest the continued burning of coal.
With unexpectedly cold weather in the forecast and pandemic-related curfews in some places, Florida is about to have a Christmas unlike any other in recent memory, and it may involve falling iguanas.
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

