Conservation Comment: Draft Climate Change Strategy is a good start

We live in a flood zone: we need to think smarter. Photo / Giles Conley

OPINION

Thank you WDC councillors, especially Councillor Taylor, council staff and iwi advisers who all helped in writing WDC Draft Climate Change Strategy/Te Rautaki Huringa Ahuarangi.
This is great progress from five or so years ago when there seemed no recognition of this elephant in the room in any annual or 10 Year Plan.

Thanks also to the school students and community members who organised our local rallies and the citizens who joined them. The efforts of regular writers to our papers who have kept these concerns before us also need acknowledging.

Congratulations also to the brand-new Climate Change Commissioner for so quickly coming out with plans for a future NZ with less carbon, as well as planning ideas for a future with us using less carbon as we set up strategies for the emergencies a warmer, stormier world will bring us all.

However, please don't think we are there yet and that we've sorted all the carbon reduction or mitigated necessary for the adversities locked in with climate change issues.

How well we do will depend on all of us helping each other to go as far and as hard as possible to do these reductions and plan for these emergencies.

In Whanganui we live on a river delta, in an estuary, areas hit hard by flooding in times of sea surges and heavy rainfalls and we head to a stormier, damper warmer climate.

One thing we need to think about is where we can store this excess water we get in times of rain emergencies. We are concerned when we look at how areas that may accommodate some of this stormwater in the Mills/Mosston roads are being filled in with abandon.

We also need to reduce our carbon footprint with the agriculture sector. Taking animals off erosion prone land, reducing animal numbers through regenerative agriculture and permaculture practices will be worth seriously investigating. Most of us can reduce our meat intake and learn to grow and cook smarter.

The need to think smarter for with the future of humankind in mind is right now!
Rod Oram does not think the Climate Change Commissioner has gone hard or far enough in his suggestions to reduce our carbon footprint. Especially as the commissioner limits his thoughts to carbon issues and has not investigated the possibility of system change.

We may not be around to see the proof of the pudding so please consider suggested possibilities.

Do not be afraid to discuss with your neighbours, friends, family, whānau and colleagues. We are all in this waka together and need each other to successfully row it through the coming storms.

- Graham and Lyn Pearson are actively involved in Progress Castlecliff and the Sustainable Whanganui Trust