WE SAY, YOU SAY

WE SAY

Poll: Should we be taking more action on climate change? With torrential rain and flooding caused by an ‘‘atmospheric river’’, should this event convince us all that climate change is real and we need to be taking action?

YOU SAY:

Absolutely time for Aotearoa to act. Best protection is risk reduction – rapidly reducing all emissions, especially methane as a powerful gas, to keep within 1.5C warming. Make the climatehealthy choices, the easy choices, especially for those of us on limited incomes. Co-solve and grow better health, housing and jobs. Take te Tiriti seriously and work together. Aotearoa’s fair share as a well-off high-emitting global citizen means reaching net zero as soon as we can during 2030s – not a generation later mid-century. And that’s largely by cutting our own emissions here in this country. Imagine the relief of knowing we’ve stabilised climate changes, that within a couple of decades, we’re managing OK, and we’ve built a fairer world together. Our WW2 grandparents and our grandchildren will be so proud.

– Liz from Berhampore

We do need to make changes, but what, where, when, how, who? It’s a good question, but like many important questions such as this, it’s goes no further than here, or other groups, websites. We (humans) began this negative change centuries ago.

With all these houses going up all around us, what are we to do? It’s the ones holding the power, the money that can make significant change.

Signing a petition is going to do ‘‘Jack’’.

– Ana from Papatoetoe

Come on people. I can’t believe there are still so many climate deniers out there. It’s not whether or not Queen St was flooded in the 1930s or Wairarapa had more floods a decade ago, or even the fact that our infrastructure isn’t up to it. It’s the fact that 99% of all climate scientists agree that our incessant burning of fossil fuels has negatively affected our planet’s climate for every species we share it with. We are leaving our offspring with an increasingly poisoned planet because we are too lazy to change and too ready to believe the crap we are told by the likes of ExxonMobils of this world, whose own scientists came to this conclusion back in the 70s – only for the corporate arm to bury the research. I’m all for questioning what we are told but when such an overwhelming majority of experts all agree AND we can see with our own eyes the increasing amount of severe weather, sea-level rise, Arctic sea ice all but disappearing, then there is something wrong with our values.

– Victor from Seatoun

It’s not climate change, it’s called weather – nothing has changed we have always had floods , droughts, wind and so on for as long as records have been kept. The only difference is now we build houses in the wrong place and they get flooded. It’s the new subdivisions that get flooded not the older housing areas

– Trevor from Fernside

Whether or not you believe in climate change, we are making policies to our own economic detriment, which will have negligible impact on the climate. If you are in the camp that believes in human-caused climate change, any impact that New Zealand has achieved to date has been well and truly wiped out by other countries’ global activities, which we have no control over. Take Putin’s war on Ukraine. How much has that contributed to emissions? What we can control is our infrastructure, where we build, and how we look after our infrastructure and properties. This is where our focus needs to be.

– Simonne from Tor Bay

As a global citizen, I agree that we should be seen to be doing more. But in the grand scheme of things, little we do is going to make much difference to the rest of the world. After all, before we overpopulated the world and started squandering its resources like there was no tomorrow, there were far more large animals belching biogases on the planet. Its the burning of stored carbon (oil, coal, lignite and other carbon stored) and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that causes problems. Converting our vehicle fleet to run on battery or biogas, not leaving masses of slash timber lying on hillsides to wash into rivers, drains and onto beaches would do a lot to reduce storm damage. Why not collect and process the slash into fuel for wood fires instead of letting it rot where it lies?

– Charlotte from Khandallah

We certainly need to throw a lot more into improving our infrastructure. Not just here in Auckland but nationwide. We can’t expect plumbing from a century ago to keep up with these kinds of events.

Limiting our impact might be a boat that has already sailed, but being proactively responsive moving forward needs to be a priority.

– Haim from Westmere

I believe Mother Nature is fighting back due to the damage we have caused. We are lucky to have small disasters compared to other countries. My children and moko are safe and blessed for life. Sometimes it’s safe to stay home if you are not affected yet.

– Mereana from Onehunga