End of the oil and carbon age
Todd Muller – aspiring National Prime Minister – is saying National Party policy will open up the whole of New Zealand to oil and gas exploration. What!
He claims oil and gas are cheaper than solar and wind. Not so Mr Muller, if you take into consideration the funding given by many governments to fossil fuels. Once your solar or wind farms are built, you do not have to pay for sunshine or wind ...
With the closing of much of world travel, the blankets of pollution over many of the planet’s most crowded cities have disappeared. So it is obvious that the use of oil was causing the pollution! For the last three years, New Zealand has been in a drought of varying severity. We have had bush fires that are out of control for weeks. In Australia, where uncontrolled bushfires burned for months, it is estimated that 1 billion animals died, both domestic and wild.
And you want to continue to trash the planet! Many governments, like Germany and Australia, are proposing, like our present Labour Coalition Government, to support alternative power systems, which will also create jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led a consensus on national policy with the “Zero Carbon Bill” in 2019. This was heralded as this generation’s “nuclear moment”. Mr Muller, have you overlooked this too?
Tesla now has car batteries that last for 17 years and 1 million miles! This means that they can sell electric cars for much the same price as a petrol car. So the world’s economy will no longer depend on oil. Already, in some cities overseas, the sale of E-bikes and E-scooters is outstripping the sale of small cars.
So we can look forward to the Electric Age, and farewell at last to the age of Oil and Carbon!
SARA DICKON
Whanganui
A tale of two leaders
US President Donald Trump says he hopes Covid-19 will just “sort of disappear” and that his efforts to beat the virus are “a historic thing” (Chronicle, July 4). All of that from the leader of the world’s most prominent nation, while public health and health services in that country descend increasingly into chaos and potentially, disaster.
Jacinda Ardern and our Government have made some mistakes recently, in an overall delivery in dealing with this virus that has been esteemed worldwide. Her preparedness to acknowledge this is more indication of her very human approach to her role, that in itself has gained her stature in the eyes of other countries.
Donald Trump on the other hand, rarely, if ever acknowledges error on his part, while he is seemingly blissfully unaware, likely by choice, of the realities unfolding around him and in his country, described by the
administration’s health consultant Dr Fauci as a nation, “not going in the right direction” (Chronicle, July 4).
As disaster threatens in the US and elsewhere, we should remind ourselves that we are very fortunate in New Zealand to have the leader we do have, whilst not becoming complacent that we won’t be affected by the disarray in other countries if we let our guard down, particularly on our borders but also in relation to Covid-19 here. Which, if given a chance, will see us in a similar plight to much of the rest of the world.
PAUL BABER
Whanganui