Conservation comment: Cease crimes against planet

John Milnes

QUITE often when someone has broken the law and they are surprised at their sentence, there is often a comment from the judge to the effect that "They should have thought of that when they committed the crime".

Sometimes the offender hasn't the nous to follow through to the consequences of their actions, which were possibly done on a whim.

What about the crimes by the major contributors to climate change, the fossil fuel industries who have been shown to spend about $1 billion a year on a climate change counter movement succeeding in "institutionalising delay" (Robert Brulle, sociologist at Drexel University quoted in the Listener)? This is not the action of an ignorant offender but those of multinationals with a deliberate outcome in mind - business as usual and damn the consequences.

But those consequences are dire. The continued use of fossil fuels at the current rate creates a climate that will bring more weather like the droughts in Canterbury and California, and notably hurricane Patricia, which was graded a category 5 hurricane, with winds higher than 252km/h and is about 43km/h stronger than a category 4, but Patricia was 325km/h, 73km/h stronger.

In the last few months many leaders, notably the Pope, have voiced their concern about climate change. President Obama commented that "We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it... I believe there is such a thing as being too late."

Paris 21 in December is when all countries must commit to major reductions in carbon emissions. Economic studies have shown that it is less expensive to reduce our carbon emissions than to try and fix the disasters climate change will bring. To keep temperature rise to less than 2 degrees New Zealand needs to commit to 30 per cent less than 1990 levels, this National government is proposing only 30 per cent below 2005 levels, which is only 11 per cent less than 1990 levels and pathetic compared to the international average of 30 per cent below 1990 levels. The excuse that at 0.15 per cent of total global emissions we can't make a difference (a comment by John Key at this year's Pacific Islands Forum), has to be the most thoughtless excuse possible, as it could reasonably be used by any other 0.15 per cent of the world's population, such as Los Angeles or Cape Town and so on until the entire planet is excused.

It is time the governments of the world held the carbon-dealing multinationals responsible for their crimes. They know they are guilty of misrepresentation and must not be let off the hook.

At the end of November there will be marches held throughout the world, reminding governments to have the courage to do the right thing and act in the best interests of us all, to make the difference that will keep us within a manageable global warming.

The march in Wanganui is being held on November 28 to show the government they have our support to act.

- John Milnes describes himself as one of the generation hoping to make a change for a positive future.