Peter Bromhead: Benefits of 'positive ageing'

Cartoon / Peter Bromhead

Having recently received a letter on the benefits of "positive ageing", explaining my entitlements as a senior citizen, I thought I should check my bank statements to make sure I'm receiving my share of the dividends.

I'm pleased to report that the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation are astutely looking after my entitlements, in the best traditions of a soberly-run corporation.

In turn, I can cheerfully assure them that I'm wisely re-investing my returns in Lotto, in an effort to improve my "positive ageing" status.

The cornucopia delivering my pension obviously drips down from many investment streams and is far too complicated for a dozy newspaper hack to understand.

However, as a public-spirited superannuitant, I'm determined to show some financial interest in the judicious decisions the guardians make on my behalf.

Fumbling through the corporation's portfolios led me to something called the IGCC.

There, in the membership list, right under Goldman Sachs, are the guardians of my superannuation.

IGCC stands for Investor Group on Climate Change, and I too could become a funding partner for $25,000 or an in-kind payment. (How many cartoons would that be?)

There are some heavy hitters in the cluster, including insurance companies and banks, as well as the usual suspects in climate matters, like the Carbon Market Institute. Naturally, the IGCC has an image of a crumbling Arctic ice shelf on its website to remind us that we're living in uncertain times.

Unsurprisingly, the IGCC has partnership links with a company called Generation - this being the London and New York investment group co-founded in 2004 by Al Gore and David Blood.

By coincidence, I've received another dinner invitation to listen to that company's credo when former Vice-President Gore, no less, drops in to Auckland next week.

The caregiver suggests that with my newfound knowledge on the IGCC and its links to Al, I can now ask the visitor a non-embarrassing after-dinner question like, "What are the problems of embedding sustainability into mainstream capital markets?"

That's instead of needling him over past woolly statements like "The sun heats the Arctic Ocean," when factually, it's the atmosphere that warms the ocean, as Lord Monckton once dryly reminded him.

Still, I suppose when you're making zillions as a harbinger of uncertainty, who cares if you don't understand the elementary physics of radioactive transfer?