Ward Mike: General Debates 
Ward Mike: General Debates 
[Volume:618;Page:13857] 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 Climate change is happening. While a tiny minority of scientific opinion may dispute whether the build-up of greenhouse gases and the overheating of our planet are our fault overwhelmingly the evidence is clear—it is us. It is the behaviour of people like us that has been responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million prior to the industrial revolution to around 375 parts per million now. Globally the future is bleak. Unless we can effect an enormous and a rapid shift in human behaviour global warming and energy water and food shortages combined with burgeoning populations will pose unprecedented threats to world peace and political stability as well as cataclysmic environmental consequences. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Ha ha! 
MIKE WARD 
: The member may laugh about it. Here at the bottom of the Pacific we may be better placed to survive global warming than people elsewhere in the world but it will not be possible to isolate ourselves from the global consequences of it. The local climatic consequences are already evident and inescapable. 
The last time I spoke about these issues in the House it was clear some members thought I was overstating the case. I said then and I repeat now that wishful thinking—and I add blind faith in a merciful God or in human ingenuity—is no substitute for hard evidence. Nobody can be sure of the exact consequences of climate change but we need only to look at the consequences to date and extrapolate from there. If a 30 percent increase in carbon dioxide has resulted in the planet experiencing since 1990 the 10 warmest years on record—June July and August 2003 being the hottest months in Western and Central Europe and the UK alone experiencing for the first time temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit—then one does not have to be terribly imaginative to work out that something like a doubling in carbon dioxide levels in this century will present unimaginable consequences. The floods the droughts the desertification and the extreme weather events are likely to overwhelm us. 
What must we do? If ever there was a time for a cross-party accord—the equivalent of an all-Parliament wartime-type Cabinet—now is that time. There has never been such a need for cooperation in this place. If we are serious about our commitment to preserving peace and tranquillity—and we talk about it every time we come into this Chamber—then we need most urgently to begin to work together. To date we have focused on perpetuating the unsustainable and the absurd. We have spent vast fortunes on enabling people to live too far from where they need to be to access food and stuff from all over the planet and to bury my children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance in expensive holes in the ground. We are destroying our future and undermining the quality of our present. Our global responsibilities and our local needs are one and the same. We must put in place the infrastructure to enable a rapid reduction in our fossil fuel use. Passive solar energy for heating our spaces and our water would result in more comfortable houses and more efficient industry and would lower our energy bills. Investment in rail and in a marketing campaign to persuade people to live closer to the places where they work play shop and go to school and to source their needs locally could dramatically reduce our energy demands avoid some of the impacts of burgeoning fuel prices begin to meet our Kyoto commitments and create safer and healthier communities. 
In short consumerism is killing us. We have never worked longer or harder. Although some of us have no jobs and suffer the worst kind of poverty—that is poverty in the midst of plenty—too many of us have too much and work too hard. New Zealanders do not need to produce or consume more but we do need to share the work and the time and we do need to make sure that we spend more of our money on the things we really need. We need to make sure that those things are made to last and made by the people around us so that we restore the welfare of our community and reduce the energy component of our possessions and our food. We need to change our behaviour not by creating new rules but by persuading people that the choice is between learning to live within the capacity of the planet to sustain or consuming away our children’s future. 
I like to think that this country and its people have the ability to demonstrate a different way of doing things. We can wait until the consequences of our behaviour are inescapable and irreversible and the population is baying for our blood or we can demonstrate a new measure of integrity and leadership.