Conservation Comment: The new normal will be different

Mars may be an option but give me planet Earth any day, says John Milnes. Photo / 123rf / NASA

When I look out my window, everything seems perfect climate-wise. But as we are aware, climate change is upon us and perhaps it’s seeing this “everything is normal” view that has us still ignoring what is actually happening.

If we needed a reminder that the new normal will be different, we should look locally at Ruapehu Alpine Lifts and note there will be fewer and fewer good ski seasons. No amount of wishing for normal will return to the seasons of 50 years ago.

At COP27 many of the wealthy countries seem to have ignored the fact that a third of Pakistan was under water, fires in Portugal and Greenland’s ice melting. So why are the delegates at COP27 arguing over compensation for the first and most innocent victims of climate change? We should be helping the countries the First World has put into this disastrous situation, but what has happened in Pakistan will happen increasingly around the world.

It should be obvious to us that we are all in this together and that none of us can claim we should be excused from doing what we can to minimise our CO2 contributions. The most galling excuse to avoid responsibility on behalf of New Zealand is that it is “only 0.17 per cent of world emissions”. The most recent proponent of this pathetic excuse came from a Groundswell spokesperson, apparently to excuse farmers from any meaningful greenhouse gas emissions responsibility. A little maths would tell us the world consists of about 588 groups of 0.17 per cent of the world’s population. What makes New Zealand’s group more important than any of the other 587 groups? One excuse given is that we produce food for the world. That may be so, but is the rural sector ignoring the fact the world will want our product less if it has a large carbon footprint? The world is finally becoming more climate conscious and the rural sector is ignoring this at our peril.

I think part of the problem is that farmers have been seduced by the misrepresentation of higher productivity and efficiency but which actually costs more in higher inputs such as fertilisers and creating greenhouse gas and pollution as byproducts. Canterbury factory farming is now showing the problems that come with intensification. It now produces more methane and polluted aquifers that were quite pure 50 years ago.

New Zealand, even at 0.17 per cent of global emissions, has responsibilities to the planet — and our children — to do our fair share to reduce our emissions.

At COP 27 everybody, apparently, recognised there is a climate crisis not just staring us in the face, but kicking us in the guts and threatening to maim us. But it was the fossil fuel industries that, at the end of discussions, managed to virtually carry on as normal, selling their death and destruction as part of normal. These companies — and their greedy shareholders — somehow imagine their increasing wealth will insulate them against the ravages of 3 or 4 degrees of climate change. Perhaps they hope their wealth will buy them a ticket to a new life on planet Mars.

Perhaps interesting in the short term, but give me planet Earth any day!

John Milnes was Green Party candidate for three elections, founder member of Sustainable Whanganui, parent and grandparent.