The Country
  • The Country home
  • Latest news
  • Audio & podcasts
  • Opinion
  • Dairy farming
  • Sheep & beef farming
  • Rural business
  • Rural technology
  • Rural life
  • Listen on iHeart radio

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • Coast & Country News
  • Opinion
  • Dairy farming
  • Sheep & beef farming
  • Horticulture
  • Animal health
  • Rural business
  • Rural technology
  • Rural life

Media

  • Podcasts
  • Video

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whāngarei
  • Dargaville
  • Auckland
  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Hamilton
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Te Kuiti
  • Taumurunui
  • Taupō
  • Gisborne
  • New Plymouth
  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Whanganui
  • Palmerston North
  • Levin
  • Paraparaumu
  • Masterton
  • Wellington
  • Motueka
  • Nelson
  • Blenheim
  • Westport
  • Reefton
  • Kaikōura
  • Greymouth
  • Hokitika
  • Christchurch
  • Ashburton
  • Timaru
  • Wānaka
  • Oamaru
  • Queenstown
  • Dunedin
  • Gore
  • Invercargill

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / The Country / Opinion

Mike Hosking: Stupid climate solutions - people don't want to bike to work

Mike Hosking
By Mike Hosking
Mike Hosking is a breakfast host on Newstalk ZB.·NZ Herald·
5 Sep, 2018 06:58 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Mike's Minute: It's time to get real
Mike Hosking
Opinion by Mike Hosking
Mike Hosking has hosted his number one Breakfast show on Newstalk ZB since 2008. Listen live each weekday from 6am on Newstalk ZB.
Learn more

COMMENT: You have to admire the Productivity Commission.

If their job (at our expense) is to dream up ideas on how to make our lives more miserable, by cutting back in order to allegedly save the world, then they are doing an excellent job.

They have another report this week. This one has 77 recommendations, including taxing motor cars while making electric ones cheaper, and getting rid of a lot of farms and planting a lot of trees.

But here is the trouble with having an agency designed to come out with this sort of stuff: we don't seem to draw a line between theory and reality.

We don't differentiate between what we can do, or want to do, or are interested in doing, versus what's written down in yet another report.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

If we go back to the beginning, at the beginning is the simple truth that one, there is still much debate about climate, what to do, why to do it, and what sort of effect it would have.

And two, the fact we, in the grand scheme of things, don't make any significant contribution to the world's worries because we are so fantastically small.

And three, even if we want to make changes, at what point do we draw the line between the upheaval required and the shambles it would create to do so?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In simple terms, are we prepared to wreck our economy and therefore standard of living merely to be seen to be doing our part?

This is where people like Federated Farmers get so upset and call the Productivity Commission myopic.

And this is where these reports are so wanting - they're written from the viewpoint of having drunk the Kool-Aid.

The believers have the pens, it's not about whether we have upheaval, just how much. And the risk they take in that approach is that most of us aren't actually that convinced to start with.

You can't, in an agricultural country, just give up huge swathes of farming.

Discover more

Where will forest land come from?

04 Sep 11:44 PM
Agribusiness

Comment: Fighting climate change on the farm

06 Sep 12:00 AM

Listen: James Shaw on 'scaremongering' land use claims

06 Sep 02:45 AM

Farm to forest harder than it looks

06 Sep 04:00 AM

Why? Because we will go broke.

As one disciple put it on the news this week, there are lots of things we can do for ourselves to help save the planet, like bike to work.

And give up flying.

And she said that like it was the same as having one less coffee a day.

Most people, the majority of people, aren't, don't, and won't bike to work.

And no-one is giving up flying - part of the development of human kind is based on technological advancement, exploration, and expansion of knowledge.

Jumping on an aircraft has revolutionised the world. We're not just giving that up, the suggestions are stupid. And yet that sadly is where the debate is.

Extremists and nutters are writing the headlines and offering the so-called answers, the rest of us more interested in simply getting on with life, and have left the discussion having been driven out of the room by the extremity and madness.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from The Country

The Country

Beekeeper advocacy group comes under pressure

The Country

The Country: Luxon on coalition friction

The Country

Man lost wife and daughter in Waiuku triple-fatal


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from The Country

Beekeeper advocacy group comes under pressure
The Country

Beekeeper advocacy group comes under pressure

Rifts among industry groups, charities and agencies in the beekeeping industry.

16 Jul 03:00 AM
The Country: Luxon on coalition friction
The Country

The Country: Luxon on coalition friction

16 Jul 01:42 AM
Man lost wife and daughter in Waiuku triple-fatal
The Country

Man lost wife and daughter in Waiuku triple-fatal

16 Jul 12:37 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP