Paul Little: Consumerism is killing the planet - and we're failing to understand it

COMMENT

According to a BBC report, scientists have found the ultimate limit of human endurance.

They say once we are operating at 2.5 times our resting metabolic rate we can't keep going for long at all. Well, it's all relative isn't' it? One person's walk to the fridge is another person's ultra-marathon.

And the scientists obviously hadn't seen what's been happening around the world lately, when the international intelligence deficit index reached a record high for the umpteenth week in a row. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

In entertainment news, for instance, this was an actual headline that appeared on an actual news website: "Keanu Reeves praised for what he does with his hands when taking photos with fans".

And CNN, the global 24-hour news network, ran a story speculating that Ariana Grande may have cut off her ponytail.

Closer to home Auckland Council abandoned plans to impose a levy on super yachts and other vessels longer than 40 metres when anchoring here. Emirates Team New Zealand, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and New Zealand Marine Industry Association ganged up to, in the only slightly menacing words of the latter's executive director Peter Busfield, "help council appreciate just how much of a deterrent a daily anchoring fee would have been". The gas guzzling juggernauts would no doubt have been scared straight back to Capri with its reasonable $US4000 a day mooring fees.

This was within roughly the same news cycle that we learnt council had declared a climate emergency and backed it up with a lot of mission-statement mantras and not very much in practical terms.

Fortunately, there was the distraction of the announcement that yet another international retail giant is setting up shop here. If you thought Ikea was the ultimate in consumerist tat, then you haven't heard about Costco, which aims to sell pretty much anything and everything under one roof. It's notorious for stocking items that are bizarre even by US standards. It remains to be seen whether its local incarnation will include its signature 10 kilo bucket of macaroni cheese with a one-year use-by date.

What is clear is that the message that consumerism is killing the planet - or at least our souls – continues to go unheard.

Oranga Tamariki, an organisation charged with safeguarding the welfare of children did nothing to improve its tarnished image when it was revealed to be continuing its at best questionable practice of separating babies from their mothers in dubious circumstances.

It ties as current front runner for this year's cruellest irony award with Globug customers. Globug is a power provider that lets people who can't get credit prepay their bills so they can stay warm and see in the dark. Consumer New Zealand reports that many end up paying more for their power and one third have had to borrow money to pay their Globug bills.

A looming dementia epidemic, the unintended consequence of medical achievements in extending lifespan, continues to go unaddressed. This is despite warning signs such as the news that 20 per cent of missing persons searches undertaken by emergency services are for cognitively impaired folk who've wandered off.

A daunting 23 people have declared themselves in the running to be the Democratic candidate in the next US presidential election.

Incredibly, polling showed that only six of them would defeat Donald Trump in a head to head presidential contest. It remains unconfirmed that one of the six was a piece of wood with a smiley face painted on it, although that is all too plausible.

Brexit continues, to the bewilderment of the rest of the world. It was perhaps best described by UK writer Caitlin Moran as what happens when a dog farts and then barks at its own arse.

I don't know how much more of this we can be expected to endure, but surely we are close to the limit.