Conservation Comment: Radical shift by people can deny climate change culture

Philip McConkey Photo/File

I'm constantly reading about the issue of climate change. Pretty much every day I'm confronted with its reality - through newspapers, online communication from groups I'm part of, from books I read.

I could choose not to pay attention, of course, but to my mind there isn't anything of more importance for the future of humankind - including my children and grand-children. And the growing number of articles, which appear so frequently now in our newspapers and magazines, are all reinforcing that truth. Scientists everywhere are saying to us "this is not a maybe, a possibility. This is a stark reality, which is eventually going to affect us all in some pretty awful ways. And it has only just begun." In response, more international groups are joining the call for action.

Yesterday I read one such call from the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium. In the face of glacial melting, warming oceans, extreme weather events, or species extinction upsetting the ecological balance, more and more authorities are saying "We have to do something."

What do most of us do? Even if we pay attention at all, I imagine most of us say something like "What can I do? I've got my work to do, the kids to feed, my rugby team to coach. But I do recycle my rubbish." So our immediate concerns take precedence. But something else takes place as well, I think.

Led by our government ( like most around the world), which emphasises economic growth and personal wealth, we are encouraged to turn our attention away from nasty threats like climate change and attend to our immediate personal concerns. It is such a natural thing to do. It's a survival technique we humans have always adopted. Ignore it and maybe it'll go away.

Others take a more active approach. As has happened throughout history there are those who will question and challenge what is happening - "Climate change is a myth. There is lots of evidence showing that. Doing anything will cost too much. And anyway it's actually a vast socialist plot to destroy our way of life." Who of us wants to radically change their way of life (especially if it's personally rewarding)? ... we might want it to work better, and hopefully make us more money, but we don't want it to change too much. Rather than help us think about what is happening and what we will have to change, our government reassures us that we won't have to change anything and we'll all be all right. That's what most of us want, isn't it? If they tried to show us that we'll all have to work together to combat the effects of climate change, what would we do . . . maybe vote them out?

So what do we do. Nothing? Hope that someone else will do it? Another alternative this past week saw a successful challenge in a court in Holland over the Dutch government's carbon emissions policies not doing enough to protect its citizens from the effects of climate change. The court ordered the Government to increase its emissions reductions for the sake of the people. Imagine that happening in NZ.

That is a recent dramatic example of people power, but there are actually many other things we can do, and indeed are being done - even in Whanganui. What are you, the reader, doing? What might you do for your children and grandchildren?

-Philip McConkey has worked as a social worker, counsellor and family therapist. He is the father of three, grandfather of five and active in the Green Party because it accords with his values.