Living for today kills tomorrow

Brian Fallow and Matthew Hooton make grim reading. Will we really turn our backs on the existential threat of catastrophic climate change and leave it to future generations (our own children and grandchildren) to try to adapt to a much hotter planet? And in NZ will we use the excuse that our contribution to global CO2 emissions is so tiny as to be irrelevant, to preserve the comfort and convenience of modern life in the short term?

There is a good chance that the “Big Four” emitters’ current leaders will be gone in a decade, and new inspirational politicians, the likes of Ardern, Macron and Trudeau, will be empowered to deliver the transformation of energy and food production systems around the world. But that enormous change has to be embraced starting now, motivated here perhaps by burdensome petrol prices and falling dairy revenue.

B Darragh, Auckland Central.

Familiar warnings

Reading comment on the IPCC’s recent release, their cries of disaster had a familiar ring.

Remember 2005, when unless there was immediate action by 2010 we would have 50 million climate refugees as rising seas submerged island states?

Their disaster calls are not about climate but about swindling Western democracies out of $100 billion-plus a year.

As Ottmar Edenhofer, German economist and IPCC official, said: “But one must say clearly that we redistribute the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy any more.” Today’s UN aims to take over the world.

Maureen Coxhead, Goodwood Heights.

Small but of consequence

Machiavellian — Collins Dictionary: Scheming, amoral. crafty, cunning, cynical, designing, perfidious, unscrupulous and more . . .

Ask people around the world which leader the word would best describe and a good proportion would name a certain yellow-haired scoundrel and his friends and supporters.

Can this small country influence the populous, distant, powerful country? Difficult, but maybe not impossible. Think of the influence we had on South Africa’s racist policies. Diane Percy, Sandringham.

Political obscenity

It takes a journalist vanishing under sinister circumstances from a Saudi embassy in Turkey to elicit comment from Donald Trump on his ally, Saudi Arabia.

Not enough to stall arms sales to the kingdom, or comment on the slaughter such arms inflict on thousands of Yemeni civilians. Such is the banality of his violent support for an anti-democratic, patriarchal theocracy. The British and US supply of arms to Saudi Arabia is one of the great political obscenities of our age.

David Torrance, Laingholm.

Caught on hop

Kangaroos, 24. Kiwis, 26. Won(derful)! Ross Harvey, Remuera.

Preserving life

To infer doctors and specialists would deliberately not resuscitate a premature baby due to its skin colour or ethnicity is disgraceful.

Ma¯ ori and Pacific Islanders have long experienced chronic medical conditions disproportionate to our European population: diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and kidney disease, for example. Diet, smoking and alcohol are factors affecting their health, not helped by many families in these ethnic groups having many children that keep them impoverished.

Complexity features in all resuscitation decisions, including quality of life and the risk of serious complications created as the result of a premature baby being saved. The cost to the health system of events such as stroke, seizure, and lung disease is great. It is right that medical professionals take a broad, holistic approach to the suitability of resuscitation.

With global warming, food scarcity and the fight for resources, we will need to exercise increased intelligence and thoughtfulness in approaches to the saving and preserving of life, like it or not. Government would do well to place emphasis on education, personal responsibility, and environmental protection in its policy development.

Sam Clements, Hauraki.

Talk to the trees

How are things going to be weighed at the checkout if we all bring different-sized containers? Will they supply paper gloves to the people who use their hands to grab food instead of the supplied tongs?

Instead of worrying what the turtles and the sealife think, should we be asking trees how they feel about all the use of paper and cardboard? There’s nothing super about supermarkets any more.

Craig Forsberg, Northpark.

Protecting freedoms

I agree with Peter Cooke’s letter of the week, that it is time to boycott religious intolerance as suffered by Christian girl Aasia Bibi in Pakistan.

One of New Zealand’s core values has been freedom of religion. Another value which until recently had been sacrosanct was freedom of speech, until the Auckland Mayor and Massey University Vice-Chancellor thought it was not important. In consequence the Freedom of Speech Coalition was hastily formed.

Winston Peters and NZ First list MP Clayton Mitchell may be on to something with their Respecting New Zealand Values bill. Australia, Canada and Germany already have similar declarations.

If New Zealand does not jealously guard its freedoms, they will evaporate and we will end up like some other unenlightened countries.

Pauline Alexander, Waiatarua.

Planning lacking

People complain about nimbys, but all we know for sure is what we see every day in our backyard. In Millwater, near Silverdale, a lack of advance planning means Fulton Hogan is putting in pipes for sewage under roads (now closed) and in front of houses with underground boring machines to a new development the other side of the highway (unoriginally called Milldale). They will monitor any house movement for us and presumably rebuild our houses for us if they are shaken to bits!

Meanwhile, opposite us on Arran Point, developers have built the hill up high and steep for over three years, so that their houses can have multimillion-dollar views of the Hauraki Gulf, but every time we have heavy rain, the earth slips down the side. Sometimes the side of the hill looks like condensation running down a window pane. The developers must be in despair on how to fix it. We buy overpriced houses, then the developers come along, with council blessing, and stuff them up. Patrick Deane, Silverdale.

ABs should kick themselves

Great rugby sides like Ireland and South Africa have learned that to beat the All Blacks you must first starve them of ball.

The rules allow them to do that: lengthy pick-and-go, lengthy scrummages, mauls and slow return to lineouts and injuries all do that, and instead of returning in kind (starving them of ball), the All Blacks employ a poor kicking game from the No 10, such as chip kicks, poor kicks to the opposition from their own 22, missed line kicks, out on the full kicks, bad passes and misjudged kicks to the wingers, plus misjudged kick-offs. This gives the ball straight back to the opposition.

As long as the All Blacks continue to allow opposing sides to have so much ball this way, their demise is inevitable.

Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.

Left-leaning academia

The op-ed from Alex Davis complaining academia is biased to the left was perplexing. Why would he be surprised that educated people tend to be progressive? An education opens your mind and provides inspiration to realise we all need to care about our planet and its inhabitants. Until the right wing picks up on that incredibly simple concept there is only one side to be on.

Paul Axford, Napier.

Synthetic cannabis tragedy

All the resplendent beauty of spring is in stark contrast to the recent Herald feature highlighting the ugly image and the scourge of synthetic cannabis, afflicting tragic souls with addiction, often premature death, minds oblivious, deprived of the visions and wonderment of nature that surrounds them.

It is so traumatic for families and those at the forefront of healthcare and social services confronting this stigma. The purveyors of this misery must be held to account.

A contradiction exists, the issue conflicting with the possible relaxation of cannabis law. Was that initial flirtation with cannabis the precursor to the sad events we witness today?

P.J. Edmondson, Tauranga.

Cartons for groceries

Every day great quantities of goods get delivered to supermarkets in cartons. Presumably the cartons are broken down and recycled.

Maybe the supermarkets could make these cartons freely available to customers to take their groceries home in. Brian Marshall, Mt Eden.