NORMALLY, I tend to be in favour of following due process and obeying the laws necessary for the smooth running of society.
I think the Government does a fairly good job of running our country in fairly challenging times and I doubt any other potpourri of (mostly) men and (some) women could do much better.
But this week, when four nimble Greenpeace protesters scaled the walls of Parliament in a bid to put pressure on the Government to take climate change more seriously, I was stoked.
I know as a country we are doing a lot more than others to address what is almost certainly the biggest crisis facing our planet, but we are still a very long way from doing enough.
Ever since David Lange insouciantly gave the US a verbal one-fingered salute with his speech on the moral indefensibility of nuclear weapons in 1985, New Zealand has had a reputation as a small but significant voice on environmentalism. We are a nation that proudly punches well above its weight on the issue. But for how long can we ride that historical wave, especially when it seems increasingly difficult to ignore the inconvenient reality that the waves are apparently set to be washing away those of us on island nations living too close to the edge?