Kia Rite: How would life look if we flipped our usual perspective?

NIWA scientists have said that climate change contributed between 20-30 per cent more rain to Cyclone Gabrielle and heavy rain is 3-4 times more common in the region since pre-industrial times. The cyclone caused devastating destruction to the region. Pictured is a house submerged by silt in Rissington. Photo / Warren Buckland

OPINION

I recently learnt two things about intermediate school cricket. One: it’s a very, very long game, and two: you can finish on a negative score. Last Saturday my son’s team played boys who looked like they’d been born in cricket whites and cable knit and they had some incredible bowlers.

Each time one of my son’s teammates got bowled or caught out in the first over, the player got to stay in, but five points were deducted. Golden ducks were flying left, right and centre.

Anyway, this cricket rule got me thinking – long hours on the cricket sideline help here – about a book I read a few years ago. In The Infinite Game, Nikki Harré, a community psychology professor at the University of Auckland, compares international cricket to a game of beach cricket. The twin aims of international cricket are to accumulate as many points as possible as quickly as possible, and to prevent others from accumulating points. Win and make others lose.

On the other hand, the aims of beach cricket (especially when your nan, your visiting Euro mate who’s never heard of cricket before, and the kid-from-the-bach-down-the-road are playing) are pretty different. It’s about keeping everyone, in all their diversity, playing for as long as possible before they go for a swim or a sundowner. Enjoying the moment together and sometimes even adapting the rules to suit who’s batting at the time.

Nikki’s book asks us: “How would life look if we flipped our usual perspective … and considered instead what we really truly value and how to keep that in play?”

As I look beyond the cricket pitch to the rolling green hills where Te Mata Peak/Rongokako lies, life looks peaceful, bucolic even, until I notice the brown fingernail-like scratches in the landscape left after Gabrielle’s heavy rain.

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary report came out and there are 195 governments, ours included, who’ve rung deafening alarm bells. They’ve shown us what human life looks like if we keep on a path of increasing emissions and increasing climate destabilisation.

They’ve also shown us what to do. The global impact of converting to solar, reducing conversion of natural ecosystems, sequestering carbon through agriculture, efficient buildings and switching fuels is there.

Multiple journalists and scientists have spent hours summarising and graphically representing this information in full colour so we can take it in during a coffee break scroll.

Also last week, NIWA scientists were on the news telling us that climate change contributed between 20-30 per cent more rain to Gabrielle and heavy rain is 3-4 times more common in the region since pre-industrial times.

Since last year, councils must consider climate change adaptation and emissions reduction in our spatial plans.

The Government is considering a bill that would mean climate change hazards appear on land information memoranda (LIMs). We’re making progress in providing communities with up-to-date and essential information to keep them safe.

In our regional recovery, we can build these considerations in too. The threat of nuclear war in the 1970s led to the international peace movement. Will the threat of climate change destruction in Hawke’s Bay lead to collective action for ecological and human flourishing?

We can consider what a “just transition” looks like where everyone gets to stay in to play for as long as they can.

There’s still a place for rules-based competitive cricket and McLean Park one-dayers will always be a special part of the summer calendar. But when it comes to how we want to live and how future generations might live, an infinite game of cricket on the beach sounds pretty good to me. Useful links: https://www.ipcc.ch www.stuff.co.nz/climate

Get in touch: climateaction@hbrc.govt.nz

Pippa McKelvie Sebileau is Climate Action Ambassador HBRC