Conservation Comment: Climate change is real. Deal with it

Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted ...

The premiers of New South Wales and South Australia have just declared a new policy of "Zero Emissions Economy". Britain has announced a ban on new cars that run on petrol or diesel from 2035.

Climate change must be regarded as a world emergency now.

When war was declared in September, 1939, Britain changed the output of factories immediately from domestic products to war machines. It was the Spitfire fighters made from collected saucepans that stopped Hitler invading Britain after Dunkirk. Hitler could not get air superiority, so attacked Russia instead — in winter.

At last, people are starting to accept the reality of it, from blazing wildfires, storms and floods to the shredded chaos of ruined houses, dead animals in devastated fields and empty forests. But still some presidents, ministers and councillors give priority to economies and jobs.

There could be many jobs in alternative energy which is, after all, owing to the subsidies given to oil and coal, actually cheaper to produce.

The pursuit of growth, always growth, by corporations and the wealthy must stop. The aim should be for self-sufficiency, and always PLANET EARTH FIRST.

This should apply to the farming of cattle, for instance (worldwide, 1.486 billion cattle for 7.5 billion people).

Fonterra and beef farmers must make immediate changes to return to smaller family farms with a varied output. We have been changing to industrial farming.

This change could not be more disastrous and more badly timed — and an open invitation to Mycoplasma bovis as well.

Instead, plant native bush, recycle, walk to shops, buy a bicycle, join neighbours in picking up rubbish, feed the wild birds and, if you control millions, donate half to alternative energy and organic market gardens, organic farms, inexpensive housing.

Maybe the world will not really change until we have Green governments in every nation.
It is your grandchildren, as well as mine, that may be swept away with fire, storm and floods.

Write letters to councils, MPs, banks, corporations, your neighbours, your newspaper.
We are caretakers of this planet. Not owners. It's above politics, it is beyond race or gender, or colour or class — it is just action now. Stop mining coal, stop mining oil, stop making plastic — now.

If you think I am too extreme, Google the science on climate.

For millennia the ppm (parts per million) of CO2 had not risen above 300. It is now 410 ppm. (Yes, if humans could get out of the way, the planet would just grow rainforests) .The global temperature rise from 1950 is now 1.6C The aim was for 1.5C. The forecast for 2100 is a rise of 3C to 5C.

Sara Dickon is a member of UNANZ, and NCWNZ, and Sustainable Whanganui