The aim was to have the three main political party's state their goals regarding Climate Change in front of a professional audience, so that we could obtain
a more coherent understanding of how NZ was going to face the growing climate crisis.
The meeting was run by the Environmental Defence Society, an aging group of baby boomers, who are either judges, ex judiciary, solicitors and lawyers,
who have been involved with legislation over the last 40 years to keep NZ as green as possible, from ... a 'blue green' perspective.
The three main parties were represented by Jeanette Fitzsimmonds of the NZ Greens, Nick Smith of the National Party and David Parker of the Labour
Party - the present Government Minister of Climate Change. Also as a moderator was Peter Nielsen of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable
Development.
This was the first time these three politicians had come together to discuss the challenges ahead.
What became very obvious, was the immaturity of the National and to a lesser degree the Labour party politician. Here was an audience wanting to know
how we as a united country can solve the impending challenges and we have petty political games and point scoring.
When we scrutinise the global environment, only the Greens have any insights to what are the escalating problems, with Labour, trying to catch up
and National, who have been mesmerised by the Republican party rhetoric out of the USA as well as to their conservative Australian cousins the Liberal
Australian government, in its continual denial of environmental degradation.
What I came away with, is that the Environmental Defence Society was looking for a consensus that all politicians will work together in a cross party
agreement, this is what the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development was pushing for and yet the sniping of National at Labour showed
that the two largest partys in NZ have a long way to go. Both of them do not see the peril that’s coming over the horizon and is actually here yet
they are all in the same House of Parliament, so why are they not talking to each other?
One of the largest causes of greenhouse gasses in NZ are related to our farming practices. These are very much built around “our sacred cows and sacrificial
lambs” a subject that conservative carnivores across all political persuasions are not willing to yet face. That includes the Green Party.
A fully multi partisan approach is very much needed. My prognosis from this date *is that by 2012 we will have a government of unity on this particular
issue, where with out collective backs to the wall, humanity in this sector of our planet will all recognise that on spaceship earth, we’ll ALL be
crew working diligently for the welfare of our collective survival and the survival of our ship.(kinship).
We are being forced into co-operation, because of our inability to see the results of previous unconscious actions.
What the politicians from the large partys are yet unable to see is that they all talk of technology being able to solve all our problems, when it
is 'consciousness' that will be the leader i.e. an a woe and alert citizenry. Until politicians understand that everything comes down to 'consciousness,'
to the subatomic level, to quantum level. The need to learn, to enlighten and communicate ... is via a consciousness understanding of how does a human
being live on a planet, in family and in community.
The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” Nikola Tesla.
When will it happen?
Come on you younger generation shake these guys up!
* May 2016 Post Script. Obviously I was to totally wrong with this statement. Though, I was not really aware that Prime Minister John Key in those
days would have no connection to the environment, global warming and climate change. The National Party in government have stonewalled on all things
ecological and upon their takeover from the previous Labour, 'Clark' administration - put out an interdepartmental memo to all Government Departments
asking that the word 'sustainable' be never used in an ecological context.
So like the US Republicans, the Conservative Australian Liberals, the NZ National Party too, are lock-stepped in their denial of increasing geophysical
and climatic events that are basically upon us.