Alan Liefting
2005-01-22 20:02:32 UTC
16 January 2005
The State of the Planet
It's good to be here on Waiheke with you, sharing what is at last a
traditional New Zealand summer: sun, sea, families, home-grown music, fun
and general goodwill. It's also good to be back in Green heartland. Waiheke
residents gave the Greens 21 percent of their party votes at the last
election, doing more than your bit to elect our nine MPs in 2002. I thank
you for trusting us to be your voice in Parliament.
As we enjoy our spectacular environment and privileged way of life, I know
we are all mourning for those who have lost everything - their homes, their
livelihoods, their families, and their lives - in the Boxing Day cataclysm.
We will remember them later this afternoon with memorial messages, a minute's
silence, and a collection for Oxfam's work helping rebuild their
communities. For now, I just want to express our sympathy to the people of
Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, as well as to the families and
friends of New Zealanders who have lost loved ones or are still waiting for
news.
I am proud of the generosity of New Zealanders in reacting to the tragedy.
It is forceful evidence that we relate to the rest of the world not
primarily as economic units of production and consumption but as caring
human beings. We have been moved by the personal stories of tragedy and
heartbreak to open our hearts and wallets and to volunteer our time and
efforts.
Even when it's not blighted by disaster, summer is a time for quiet
reflection, for taking stock, for asking ourselves how we feel about our
lives and the communities we live in. For political leaders, it is
traditionally a time to talk about the State of the Nation. However, for the
Greens, that is not enough. Everything we know about the world today -
whether ecological, sociological, or economic - tells us that humanity
survives, thrives, or subsides depending on the nature and quality of our
interconnections. If we are to cope with looming threats, and build a better
future for our children, we must talk about the state of the planet.
You have all seen the image on the posters today: that wonderful picture of
our planet, taken from space. After thirty years, it still catches our
imagination with its beauty, its subtle colours, and its roundness. At
ground level, this planet seems huge, indestructible. What that aerial
picture brought home was our isolation, our vulnerability, and our planet's
fragility.
Beneath the surface of that beautiful blue ocean is devastation. Tonnes of
fertilisers, pesticides, other chemicals and silt are poisoning and
smothering marine creatures. In many places, the ocean floor is barren,
where bottom trawling has clear felled ancient coral forests and unique
marine communities still unknown to science. Many species of fish and marine
mammals and birds are gone or rare. Ecologists worldwide are warning that we
face ecological collapse in the oceans, and that means the collapse of our
fishing industry too.
There are other changes too. Coral reefs have been bleached white as the
coral dies. Antarctic ice shelves are calving off into the sea. Arctic sea
ice is cracking and melting, revealing more ocean. These are just the most
visible signs of the greatest threat to our planet: global climate change.
While the tsunami was not the result of climate change, it does remind us of
some important truths about nature which we forget at our peril. It reminds
us that nature can unleash enormous forces relatively quickly; that no
matter how powerful our technology, we can never take it for granted. It
reminds us that humans are fragile and vulnerable in the face of natural
forces; that we need to have more humility in the face of nature, and work
with it rather than against it. It reminds us of the need for precaution.
While no-one could have prevented the tsunami, hindsight shows us that its
impact could have been lessened if there had been an early warning system in
place, and if homes had been built further from the shoreline. It is also
reported that where the coral reef and mangrove buffers were still intact,
the damage was less.
These are lessons which humankind needs to learn if we are to respond
effectively to the greatest threats to our existence: those posed by
ecological collapse, climate change and our reliance on oil.
Civilisations have come and gone over the millennia. Humans have grouped
together to build cities, develop technology, specialise their labour, and
create high culture. But all such civilisations have eventually expired:
some because they overused their resources; some weakened by war; some we
know not how.
Our civilisation is the first to be truly global. It is the first to reach
out to other planets, and to develop technologies to manipulate nature at
the sub-atomic and sub-genetic level. And it is the first to develop a level
of personal comfort that creates the illusion and the expectation that,
thanks to our civilisation and our technology, we can forever conquer cold,
hunger, pain, illness and eventually death itself.
We have done this thanks to the use of one substance: oil.
Ours is the only civilisation ever to be based on oil and it is the only one
there ever will be. Oil has enabled us to use unprecedented amounts of other
natural resources, mining huge quantities of minerals, vacuuming the oceans
of fish thousands of miles away, farming intensively till the soil is just
stuff you add chemicals to in order to grow mass-production food, felling
vast forests, and transporting all this stuff, and ourselves, around the
planet.
I recently came across a true story that symbolises to me what this
oil-based civilisation is about. Before Christmas, developers in Hong Kong
were about to demolish seven, forty-storey apartment towers, containing two
and a half thousand apartments with great views built for low-income folk.
The redevelopment was intended to produce a smaller number of luxury
apartments. This was the tallest and largest building ever planned for
deliberate demolition, producing 200,000 tonnes of waste, to be dumped at
public expense. The punch line is that these apartments were brand-new,
fitted out, furnished, and just waiting for their first occupants.
Amazingly, the story has a happy ending. I learned just last week that
pressure from Green groups in Hong Kong has led to the demolition being
called off.
This is a story for our time. It shows how modern economics and cheap oil
encourage a massive waste of resources. It shows the extent to which the
widening gap between rich and poor denies those on low incomes not just the
things money can buy, but also the things it traditionally could not buy,
like a view.
It is oil that has enabled the global population and the ecological
footprint of our civilisation to grow so large that it threatens the
physical limits of the planet itself: its soils, forests, and fish, its
beautiful and unique living creatures, and the chemical and physical cycles
on which our lives depend. It is oil, along with coal and gas, that has
raised the carbon dioxide content of the whole planet's atmosphere by more
than a third since the start of the industrial revolution - a blink in time
in the history of the planet. It is oil, and other fossil fuels, that is
causing glaciers to melt worldwide; and that appears to be associated with a
marked increase in freak climatic events such as storms and floods and
heatwaves. It is oil and coal that risks raising the sea level into your
seaside homes; allowing tropical pests and diseases like malaria into New
Zealand; and extinguishing our threatened plants and animals because they
have nowhere else to go.
It is oil that makes it seem normal for two ships to pass in the Tasman Sea,
one carrying Griffin's biscuits and Tip Top ice cream from New Zealand to
Australia, the other carrying Arnott's biscuits and Streets ice cream from
Australia to New Zealand. And with a net effect of what, exactly?
Our oil consumption has been so extravagant that we have used up, in just
one century, around half of what the planet has to offer. When that half-way
point - known as "peak oil" - is reached, it becomes physically impossible
to increase production no matter how hard you pump it.
When we reach that peak, demand will continue to rise, not just from Western
societies that have used most of the oil so far, but also from countries,
such as China and India, trying to catch up with our level of motorisation
and industrialisation. There is no technology on the horizon that can
replace our present consumption of oil, though there are many that can make
a contribution. We cannot afford to turn to coal without causing run-away
climate change. The only answer is to learn to use energy much more
effectively.
The point at which demand outstrips the capacity of the wells to supply is
the point at which oil prices rise inexorably and countries at the end of
the supply line with little military power are likely to miss out. At first,
it will cost you three dollars a litre instead of one to fill up your car.
Later, there will be absolute shortages, no matter what you are prepared to
pay. The cost of farming, fishing, manufacturing and international trade
will skyrocket, and our international markets will no longer be able to
afford our butter.
No-one can say for sure when this peak will be reached. The Government has
picked 2037 as its best guess, based on what oil companies, the US
Government and the International Energy Agency are saying. To be frank, this
is day-dreaming. Discoveries of oil peaked in the 1960s. For many years, we
have been burning four times as much as we have been finding. When you look
beyond the oil companies to independent, experienced petroleum geologists,
you find a consensus that we may well have less than ten years before we
reach this terrible tipping point. The end of cheap oil is coming towards
us with the force of a tsunami and New Zealand is not ready. Only the
Greens are planning for how to cope.
If it is oil that has caused the growth of a consumer society that threatens
the physical limits of the planet, it is peak oil that is causing an
unprecedented attack on the human values that we have, until now, associated
with civilisation. History tells us that when civilisations are threatened,
empires get nasty. It should come as no surprise, then, that the United
States - an empire dependent on oil - is doing everything in its power to
secure the world's fast dwindling oil reserves, even though that means
trampling on the very freedoms it purports to uphold.
Peak oil is the reason for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Peak oil
is the reason for the war on terrorism, designed to make us so afraid of
being bombed by Islamic fundamentalists that we co-operate in the
destruction of our own freedoms. And peak oil is the reason our government,
in acquiescing to US fear-mongering over 9/11, has pursued legislation under
which you may be imprisoned without charge or fair trial, you may have your
assets seized without proof of guilt, and you may be denied information on
what you are even accused of, and denied a passport in your own country.
So, as I wish you the very best for 2005, I cannot disguise the enormity of
the task we face. It is no less than to transform our civilisation so it can
meet the challenges of peak oil, climate change and ecological collapse.
More than that, it is the challenge of meeting these threats without letting
go of the values of civilisation that New Zealanders so cherish: the values
of personal freedom, peace, and justice.
If there is anywhere on the planet that can do it, it is New Zealand. We
have a unique set of advantages, and so a unique responsibility.
We are a country with few people but many resources; an educated population
with advanced technology and knowledge. We have more renewable energy per
person than any country bar Iceland. We make our living closer to the earth
than many nations and we have not entirely lost our connection with it. The
ocean gives us some protection from neighbours. There is no doubt that we
can feed ourselves, even without oil, though our diet may change somewhat.
We are spared the extremes of climate some have to deal with.
Just as importantly, we have a tradition of democracy, freedom, community
action, and a welfare state. We have a tradition that says no one should
starve from misfortune, that everyone should have the opportunity of
education and health care. We must guard these values jealously because, if
we are to transform our civilisation to be less reliant on fossil fuels,
then only those values will allow us to do so in a humane, inclusive,
compassionate way.
However, there is only a narrow window of opportunity and we have to start
now. I'm asking you to think this year about what kind of future you want to
build, and who you think you can build it with. Sadly, there aren't too many
options.
The agenda of the four-headed monster positioned to the right of Labour is
as outdated as it is dangerous. What these four parties have in common is
that they seek to govern New Zealand divisively, by invoking fear and hatred
of, among others, Maori, the poor, criminals, immigrants, homosexuals, and
anyone who suggests that a culture of mass consumption cannot go on forever.
Don Brash belongs in another era. At a time when New Zealand faces
challenges requiring innovative, future-oriented thinking, all he can think
about is making more money for big business à la Roger Douglas and stirring
up race hate, à la Robert Muldoon, in a doomed attempt to be popular in
talkback land. At a time when New Zealand is imperilled by our dependence on
oil, National wants to build more motorways and bigger cars for the very
rich, and invest less in public transport for the rest of us; it wants less
government spending, but more foreign investment and ownership; and it wants
to withdraw from Kyoto, and burn as much coal as possible. When Don Brash
takes the podium at Orewa later this month, he will not be proposing any
solutions to the challenges of the 21st Century.
Act takes every opportunity in the House to poke fun at any suggestion of
reduced consumption. It promotes more waste to get more growth, and recently
accused the Greens of getting sustainability into every piece of
legislation! Act is now clearly an endangered species, but one we won't be
trying to save.
United Future exists mainly to ridicule the Green agenda. They are
implacably opposed to any kind of environmental protection. They support
damming and diverting our rivers for hydro, and are major fans of coal
burning. They have supported all the Government attacks on civil liberties
that we have opposed.
As for New Zealand First: well, this stuff is just not on its radar. Or if
it is, it's all just a plot by Asian immigrants or ungrateful Maori.
The vision these parties offer is of an increasingly divisive,
mean-spirited, and prejudiced nation. It is a New Zealand driven by fear,
governed by policies that have failed in the past. This monster would divide
New Zealanders on race; create prejudice with regards sexual orientation;
deal with crime through ever-harsher sentencing rather than tackling the
causes of crime and focusing on rehabilitation. But most damaging of all,
this beast would do nothing to dodge the tsunami that is approaching of oil
depletion, climate change, and ecological collapse.
So, what of the Labour Party? At the very least, it acknowledges that the
major challenges I have been talking about actually exist.
Labour has taken encouraging steps, prodded by the Greens, to reduce the
impacts of climate change and oil depletion, and for that they deserve
praise. They have signed Kyoto, announced a carbon tax for 2007, made
several new wind farms possible through carbon credits, recovered Kiwi
control of our rail system and committed $200 million to start fixing it up.
They have funded more public transport and we have worked with them to
create a new, more sustainable transport strategy. It has been very hard
work and involved tough negotiations, but we now have a legal framework that
will encourage a transport system that uses less oil. Labour is also the
only other party to acknowledge the fact of peak oil though it cannot afford
to acknowledge how close it is, for fear of scaring the markets.
Unfortunately, Labour has disappointed us in other policy areas. They have
underwritten a new gas-fired power station for which there is as yet no
fuel; they have given the coal industry very mixed messages about its
future; and they have given tax breaks to oil- and gas-exploration
companies. There have been a lot of dry holes drilled in New Zealand waters
recently, but Labour seems unwilling to admit that no amount of tax breaks
will get oil from a dry hole.
Labour shows no signs at all of applying the concept of peak oil or the
observance of basic human rights to their plans for trade, agriculture or
economic development. They still want to be part of a global system that
makes size the sole measure of the economy. They are prepared to give
preferential trade deals to Myanmar, one of the most brutal regimes in the
world. They will give up almost anything for the right to sell our dairy
products to the US, which doesn't want our butter or our milk anyway. They
are following the US military most places it wants to go. There were no Kiwi
troops to Iraq, and we have congratulated them many times for that, but they
went slavishly to Afghanistan and are supporting the war on terrorism even
to the point of taking away our own civil liberties and incarcerating a
foreign elected parliamentarian for two years without charge or trial.
Despite these difficulties, the Greens will work with Labour after the next
election. If New Zealanders give us the numbers in September, we will use
our influence to support the steps Labour is taking to protect our country
from these threats and build a sustainable future. We will stand between
Labour and their worst attacks on our civil liberties, and encourage them to
join with us in pushing further and faster towards a world that is
future-oriented, humane and sustainable.
What would that future look like?
In a Green future, we will comprehensively rethink our way of life to reduce
and then eventually eliminate our consumption of oil. We will double the
efficiency of our car fleet over the next ten years. We will send
long-distance freight by rail or ship not truck, and we'll use buses, trains
and ferries to get to work in cities and towns. We'll get on with repairing
and extending the rail track, and investing in new buses.
We will no longer trade low-value goods in bulk around the world. We will
trade less and do more for ourselves. We will use air less and high-tech
wind-assisted shipping more. We will abandon the free-trade agreements we
are seeking and develop fair-trading relationships for those products we
really need.
Our food production will be more local, and use less petroleum-based
fertiliser and pesticide and more integrated pest management strategies. An
organic farming strategy will keep production up and increase quality while
reducing oil inputs. We'll have more training courses on low-energy,
sustainable farming and invest in more soil science. We'll maintain New
Zealand's GE-free status.
The diminishing yields of distant, high seas fishing will not pay for its
fuel costs. Pressure on coastal fisheries will increase, so we better get
some marine reserves in place to sustain a marine ecosystem that will
replenish the fishery. We'll place controls on fishing technology so we don't
trash the other creatures in the sea.
Forestry will thrive as long as it is not dependent on long-transport
distances. We'll grow a much wider variety of higher-quality timbers, which
can be sustainably managed and don't need treatment. Wood wastes and
low-quality fast-grown logs will become an important fuel source for
industry and even transport.
Used resources will be prized and recovered for further use. Products will
be designed for reuse, repair and refabrication.
Our tourism industry will learn to attract fewer tourists but persuade them
to stay longer and to spend more on higher-quality experiences.
The arts, culture and sport will thrive so long as they can also adapt to
using less transport. After all, the physical limits of the planet place no
limit at all on human ingenuity, imagination, creativity and love.
We will encourage our best and brightest to come home and help with this
effort, by reducing the student loan burden. We will work to heal the rifts
between Maori and Pakeha, which have been widened by the Foreshore and
Seabed Act and by false claims of preferential treatment. We will include
tangata whenua as equal partners in the transformation of our society.
In a Green future, we will do all these things not because the Green Party
thinks it is a nice idea, but because it is the only route to a vibrant,
prosperous and humane way of life that can be supported with much less
energy.
Out of this crisis could come a new sense of national identity, new business
opportunities, less material junk and more time to do the things that
matter. As individuals, we can plan to grow more food, make our homes more
energy-efficient, find a local source of firewood, get a bicycle, get to
know the people in our local community, live closer to work. But while we
can do a lot for ourselves, we can't survive as a nation except in
partnership with a government that is also pursuing the right policies.
Therefore, the key decision we will make this year, as a nation, is who will
form that government.
There are three basic options. The first one, a National-led coalition,
would take us backwards socially and economically and straight into the arms
of US foreign policy, complete with nuclear fission and GE foods. A cursory
look at the polls suggests that this possibility can be dismissed out of
hand. The other two options are around what kind of Labour-led government
can be formed.
A Labour government formed either by Labour alone or with the support of
United Future or New Zealand First will not address the crucial issues I
have described this afternoon. It will muddle along with some positive steps
but with policies that contradict one other. Labour will talk about
sustainability but their overriding goal will be a bigger economy, not a
better one. And if Labour has to rely on either United or New Zealand First,
they will be taken even closer to National's authoritarianism and
intolerance.
Which leaves us with the third, and most heartening option: a Labour-led
government supported and influenced by those New Zealanders who believe in a
sustainable, humane future for our country.
There is only one party for the planet. There is only one party that is
committed to maintaining a democratic, humane, free, fair society in the
face of severe threats from climate change, peak oil and environmental
destruction, and to tackling those threats as though they were serious. That
party is the Greens.
If you believe in our agenda, we need your help. It's not enough just to
vote, though that helps. You can be part of the movement, spreading the word
to others, helping plan the campaign, adding to the thousands who are
already enthusiastically working for a Green future. You can become part of
the solution.
To achieve that solution, we have to work with Labour. We have to encourage
them in their infant steps to sustainability, convince them of the urgency
of the energy issue, oppose them strongly when they panic and slip back to
authoritarian and unsustainable ways. We will lose some of the battles. But
we are asking you to give us the numbers and the power this year to give New
Zealand, and the planet, a future.
The State of the Planet
It's good to be here on Waiheke with you, sharing what is at last a
traditional New Zealand summer: sun, sea, families, home-grown music, fun
and general goodwill. It's also good to be back in Green heartland. Waiheke
residents gave the Greens 21 percent of their party votes at the last
election, doing more than your bit to elect our nine MPs in 2002. I thank
you for trusting us to be your voice in Parliament.
As we enjoy our spectacular environment and privileged way of life, I know
we are all mourning for those who have lost everything - their homes, their
livelihoods, their families, and their lives - in the Boxing Day cataclysm.
We will remember them later this afternoon with memorial messages, a minute's
silence, and a collection for Oxfam's work helping rebuild their
communities. For now, I just want to express our sympathy to the people of
Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, as well as to the families and
friends of New Zealanders who have lost loved ones or are still waiting for
news.
I am proud of the generosity of New Zealanders in reacting to the tragedy.
It is forceful evidence that we relate to the rest of the world not
primarily as economic units of production and consumption but as caring
human beings. We have been moved by the personal stories of tragedy and
heartbreak to open our hearts and wallets and to volunteer our time and
efforts.
Even when it's not blighted by disaster, summer is a time for quiet
reflection, for taking stock, for asking ourselves how we feel about our
lives and the communities we live in. For political leaders, it is
traditionally a time to talk about the State of the Nation. However, for the
Greens, that is not enough. Everything we know about the world today -
whether ecological, sociological, or economic - tells us that humanity
survives, thrives, or subsides depending on the nature and quality of our
interconnections. If we are to cope with looming threats, and build a better
future for our children, we must talk about the state of the planet.
You have all seen the image on the posters today: that wonderful picture of
our planet, taken from space. After thirty years, it still catches our
imagination with its beauty, its subtle colours, and its roundness. At
ground level, this planet seems huge, indestructible. What that aerial
picture brought home was our isolation, our vulnerability, and our planet's
fragility.
Beneath the surface of that beautiful blue ocean is devastation. Tonnes of
fertilisers, pesticides, other chemicals and silt are poisoning and
smothering marine creatures. In many places, the ocean floor is barren,
where bottom trawling has clear felled ancient coral forests and unique
marine communities still unknown to science. Many species of fish and marine
mammals and birds are gone or rare. Ecologists worldwide are warning that we
face ecological collapse in the oceans, and that means the collapse of our
fishing industry too.
There are other changes too. Coral reefs have been bleached white as the
coral dies. Antarctic ice shelves are calving off into the sea. Arctic sea
ice is cracking and melting, revealing more ocean. These are just the most
visible signs of the greatest threat to our planet: global climate change.
While the tsunami was not the result of climate change, it does remind us of
some important truths about nature which we forget at our peril. It reminds
us that nature can unleash enormous forces relatively quickly; that no
matter how powerful our technology, we can never take it for granted. It
reminds us that humans are fragile and vulnerable in the face of natural
forces; that we need to have more humility in the face of nature, and work
with it rather than against it. It reminds us of the need for precaution.
While no-one could have prevented the tsunami, hindsight shows us that its
impact could have been lessened if there had been an early warning system in
place, and if homes had been built further from the shoreline. It is also
reported that where the coral reef and mangrove buffers were still intact,
the damage was less.
These are lessons which humankind needs to learn if we are to respond
effectively to the greatest threats to our existence: those posed by
ecological collapse, climate change and our reliance on oil.
Civilisations have come and gone over the millennia. Humans have grouped
together to build cities, develop technology, specialise their labour, and
create high culture. But all such civilisations have eventually expired:
some because they overused their resources; some weakened by war; some we
know not how.
Our civilisation is the first to be truly global. It is the first to reach
out to other planets, and to develop technologies to manipulate nature at
the sub-atomic and sub-genetic level. And it is the first to develop a level
of personal comfort that creates the illusion and the expectation that,
thanks to our civilisation and our technology, we can forever conquer cold,
hunger, pain, illness and eventually death itself.
We have done this thanks to the use of one substance: oil.
Ours is the only civilisation ever to be based on oil and it is the only one
there ever will be. Oil has enabled us to use unprecedented amounts of other
natural resources, mining huge quantities of minerals, vacuuming the oceans
of fish thousands of miles away, farming intensively till the soil is just
stuff you add chemicals to in order to grow mass-production food, felling
vast forests, and transporting all this stuff, and ourselves, around the
planet.
I recently came across a true story that symbolises to me what this
oil-based civilisation is about. Before Christmas, developers in Hong Kong
were about to demolish seven, forty-storey apartment towers, containing two
and a half thousand apartments with great views built for low-income folk.
The redevelopment was intended to produce a smaller number of luxury
apartments. This was the tallest and largest building ever planned for
deliberate demolition, producing 200,000 tonnes of waste, to be dumped at
public expense. The punch line is that these apartments were brand-new,
fitted out, furnished, and just waiting for their first occupants.
Amazingly, the story has a happy ending. I learned just last week that
pressure from Green groups in Hong Kong has led to the demolition being
called off.
This is a story for our time. It shows how modern economics and cheap oil
encourage a massive waste of resources. It shows the extent to which the
widening gap between rich and poor denies those on low incomes not just the
things money can buy, but also the things it traditionally could not buy,
like a view.
It is oil that has enabled the global population and the ecological
footprint of our civilisation to grow so large that it threatens the
physical limits of the planet itself: its soils, forests, and fish, its
beautiful and unique living creatures, and the chemical and physical cycles
on which our lives depend. It is oil, along with coal and gas, that has
raised the carbon dioxide content of the whole planet's atmosphere by more
than a third since the start of the industrial revolution - a blink in time
in the history of the planet. It is oil, and other fossil fuels, that is
causing glaciers to melt worldwide; and that appears to be associated with a
marked increase in freak climatic events such as storms and floods and
heatwaves. It is oil and coal that risks raising the sea level into your
seaside homes; allowing tropical pests and diseases like malaria into New
Zealand; and extinguishing our threatened plants and animals because they
have nowhere else to go.
It is oil that makes it seem normal for two ships to pass in the Tasman Sea,
one carrying Griffin's biscuits and Tip Top ice cream from New Zealand to
Australia, the other carrying Arnott's biscuits and Streets ice cream from
Australia to New Zealand. And with a net effect of what, exactly?
Our oil consumption has been so extravagant that we have used up, in just
one century, around half of what the planet has to offer. When that half-way
point - known as "peak oil" - is reached, it becomes physically impossible
to increase production no matter how hard you pump it.
When we reach that peak, demand will continue to rise, not just from Western
societies that have used most of the oil so far, but also from countries,
such as China and India, trying to catch up with our level of motorisation
and industrialisation. There is no technology on the horizon that can
replace our present consumption of oil, though there are many that can make
a contribution. We cannot afford to turn to coal without causing run-away
climate change. The only answer is to learn to use energy much more
effectively.
The point at which demand outstrips the capacity of the wells to supply is
the point at which oil prices rise inexorably and countries at the end of
the supply line with little military power are likely to miss out. At first,
it will cost you three dollars a litre instead of one to fill up your car.
Later, there will be absolute shortages, no matter what you are prepared to
pay. The cost of farming, fishing, manufacturing and international trade
will skyrocket, and our international markets will no longer be able to
afford our butter.
No-one can say for sure when this peak will be reached. The Government has
picked 2037 as its best guess, based on what oil companies, the US
Government and the International Energy Agency are saying. To be frank, this
is day-dreaming. Discoveries of oil peaked in the 1960s. For many years, we
have been burning four times as much as we have been finding. When you look
beyond the oil companies to independent, experienced petroleum geologists,
you find a consensus that we may well have less than ten years before we
reach this terrible tipping point. The end of cheap oil is coming towards
us with the force of a tsunami and New Zealand is not ready. Only the
Greens are planning for how to cope.
If it is oil that has caused the growth of a consumer society that threatens
the physical limits of the planet, it is peak oil that is causing an
unprecedented attack on the human values that we have, until now, associated
with civilisation. History tells us that when civilisations are threatened,
empires get nasty. It should come as no surprise, then, that the United
States - an empire dependent on oil - is doing everything in its power to
secure the world's fast dwindling oil reserves, even though that means
trampling on the very freedoms it purports to uphold.
Peak oil is the reason for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Peak oil
is the reason for the war on terrorism, designed to make us so afraid of
being bombed by Islamic fundamentalists that we co-operate in the
destruction of our own freedoms. And peak oil is the reason our government,
in acquiescing to US fear-mongering over 9/11, has pursued legislation under
which you may be imprisoned without charge or fair trial, you may have your
assets seized without proof of guilt, and you may be denied information on
what you are even accused of, and denied a passport in your own country.
So, as I wish you the very best for 2005, I cannot disguise the enormity of
the task we face. It is no less than to transform our civilisation so it can
meet the challenges of peak oil, climate change and ecological collapse.
More than that, it is the challenge of meeting these threats without letting
go of the values of civilisation that New Zealanders so cherish: the values
of personal freedom, peace, and justice.
If there is anywhere on the planet that can do it, it is New Zealand. We
have a unique set of advantages, and so a unique responsibility.
We are a country with few people but many resources; an educated population
with advanced technology and knowledge. We have more renewable energy per
person than any country bar Iceland. We make our living closer to the earth
than many nations and we have not entirely lost our connection with it. The
ocean gives us some protection from neighbours. There is no doubt that we
can feed ourselves, even without oil, though our diet may change somewhat.
We are spared the extremes of climate some have to deal with.
Just as importantly, we have a tradition of democracy, freedom, community
action, and a welfare state. We have a tradition that says no one should
starve from misfortune, that everyone should have the opportunity of
education and health care. We must guard these values jealously because, if
we are to transform our civilisation to be less reliant on fossil fuels,
then only those values will allow us to do so in a humane, inclusive,
compassionate way.
However, there is only a narrow window of opportunity and we have to start
now. I'm asking you to think this year about what kind of future you want to
build, and who you think you can build it with. Sadly, there aren't too many
options.
The agenda of the four-headed monster positioned to the right of Labour is
as outdated as it is dangerous. What these four parties have in common is
that they seek to govern New Zealand divisively, by invoking fear and hatred
of, among others, Maori, the poor, criminals, immigrants, homosexuals, and
anyone who suggests that a culture of mass consumption cannot go on forever.
Don Brash belongs in another era. At a time when New Zealand faces
challenges requiring innovative, future-oriented thinking, all he can think
about is making more money for big business à la Roger Douglas and stirring
up race hate, à la Robert Muldoon, in a doomed attempt to be popular in
talkback land. At a time when New Zealand is imperilled by our dependence on
oil, National wants to build more motorways and bigger cars for the very
rich, and invest less in public transport for the rest of us; it wants less
government spending, but more foreign investment and ownership; and it wants
to withdraw from Kyoto, and burn as much coal as possible. When Don Brash
takes the podium at Orewa later this month, he will not be proposing any
solutions to the challenges of the 21st Century.
Act takes every opportunity in the House to poke fun at any suggestion of
reduced consumption. It promotes more waste to get more growth, and recently
accused the Greens of getting sustainability into every piece of
legislation! Act is now clearly an endangered species, but one we won't be
trying to save.
United Future exists mainly to ridicule the Green agenda. They are
implacably opposed to any kind of environmental protection. They support
damming and diverting our rivers for hydro, and are major fans of coal
burning. They have supported all the Government attacks on civil liberties
that we have opposed.
As for New Zealand First: well, this stuff is just not on its radar. Or if
it is, it's all just a plot by Asian immigrants or ungrateful Maori.
The vision these parties offer is of an increasingly divisive,
mean-spirited, and prejudiced nation. It is a New Zealand driven by fear,
governed by policies that have failed in the past. This monster would divide
New Zealanders on race; create prejudice with regards sexual orientation;
deal with crime through ever-harsher sentencing rather than tackling the
causes of crime and focusing on rehabilitation. But most damaging of all,
this beast would do nothing to dodge the tsunami that is approaching of oil
depletion, climate change, and ecological collapse.
So, what of the Labour Party? At the very least, it acknowledges that the
major challenges I have been talking about actually exist.
Labour has taken encouraging steps, prodded by the Greens, to reduce the
impacts of climate change and oil depletion, and for that they deserve
praise. They have signed Kyoto, announced a carbon tax for 2007, made
several new wind farms possible through carbon credits, recovered Kiwi
control of our rail system and committed $200 million to start fixing it up.
They have funded more public transport and we have worked with them to
create a new, more sustainable transport strategy. It has been very hard
work and involved tough negotiations, but we now have a legal framework that
will encourage a transport system that uses less oil. Labour is also the
only other party to acknowledge the fact of peak oil though it cannot afford
to acknowledge how close it is, for fear of scaring the markets.
Unfortunately, Labour has disappointed us in other policy areas. They have
underwritten a new gas-fired power station for which there is as yet no
fuel; they have given the coal industry very mixed messages about its
future; and they have given tax breaks to oil- and gas-exploration
companies. There have been a lot of dry holes drilled in New Zealand waters
recently, but Labour seems unwilling to admit that no amount of tax breaks
will get oil from a dry hole.
Labour shows no signs at all of applying the concept of peak oil or the
observance of basic human rights to their plans for trade, agriculture or
economic development. They still want to be part of a global system that
makes size the sole measure of the economy. They are prepared to give
preferential trade deals to Myanmar, one of the most brutal regimes in the
world. They will give up almost anything for the right to sell our dairy
products to the US, which doesn't want our butter or our milk anyway. They
are following the US military most places it wants to go. There were no Kiwi
troops to Iraq, and we have congratulated them many times for that, but they
went slavishly to Afghanistan and are supporting the war on terrorism even
to the point of taking away our own civil liberties and incarcerating a
foreign elected parliamentarian for two years without charge or trial.
Despite these difficulties, the Greens will work with Labour after the next
election. If New Zealanders give us the numbers in September, we will use
our influence to support the steps Labour is taking to protect our country
from these threats and build a sustainable future. We will stand between
Labour and their worst attacks on our civil liberties, and encourage them to
join with us in pushing further and faster towards a world that is
future-oriented, humane and sustainable.
What would that future look like?
In a Green future, we will comprehensively rethink our way of life to reduce
and then eventually eliminate our consumption of oil. We will double the
efficiency of our car fleet over the next ten years. We will send
long-distance freight by rail or ship not truck, and we'll use buses, trains
and ferries to get to work in cities and towns. We'll get on with repairing
and extending the rail track, and investing in new buses.
We will no longer trade low-value goods in bulk around the world. We will
trade less and do more for ourselves. We will use air less and high-tech
wind-assisted shipping more. We will abandon the free-trade agreements we
are seeking and develop fair-trading relationships for those products we
really need.
Our food production will be more local, and use less petroleum-based
fertiliser and pesticide and more integrated pest management strategies. An
organic farming strategy will keep production up and increase quality while
reducing oil inputs. We'll have more training courses on low-energy,
sustainable farming and invest in more soil science. We'll maintain New
Zealand's GE-free status.
The diminishing yields of distant, high seas fishing will not pay for its
fuel costs. Pressure on coastal fisheries will increase, so we better get
some marine reserves in place to sustain a marine ecosystem that will
replenish the fishery. We'll place controls on fishing technology so we don't
trash the other creatures in the sea.
Forestry will thrive as long as it is not dependent on long-transport
distances. We'll grow a much wider variety of higher-quality timbers, which
can be sustainably managed and don't need treatment. Wood wastes and
low-quality fast-grown logs will become an important fuel source for
industry and even transport.
Used resources will be prized and recovered for further use. Products will
be designed for reuse, repair and refabrication.
Our tourism industry will learn to attract fewer tourists but persuade them
to stay longer and to spend more on higher-quality experiences.
The arts, culture and sport will thrive so long as they can also adapt to
using less transport. After all, the physical limits of the planet place no
limit at all on human ingenuity, imagination, creativity and love.
We will encourage our best and brightest to come home and help with this
effort, by reducing the student loan burden. We will work to heal the rifts
between Maori and Pakeha, which have been widened by the Foreshore and
Seabed Act and by false claims of preferential treatment. We will include
tangata whenua as equal partners in the transformation of our society.
In a Green future, we will do all these things not because the Green Party
thinks it is a nice idea, but because it is the only route to a vibrant,
prosperous and humane way of life that can be supported with much less
energy.
Out of this crisis could come a new sense of national identity, new business
opportunities, less material junk and more time to do the things that
matter. As individuals, we can plan to grow more food, make our homes more
energy-efficient, find a local source of firewood, get a bicycle, get to
know the people in our local community, live closer to work. But while we
can do a lot for ourselves, we can't survive as a nation except in
partnership with a government that is also pursuing the right policies.
Therefore, the key decision we will make this year, as a nation, is who will
form that government.
There are three basic options. The first one, a National-led coalition,
would take us backwards socially and economically and straight into the arms
of US foreign policy, complete with nuclear fission and GE foods. A cursory
look at the polls suggests that this possibility can be dismissed out of
hand. The other two options are around what kind of Labour-led government
can be formed.
A Labour government formed either by Labour alone or with the support of
United Future or New Zealand First will not address the crucial issues I
have described this afternoon. It will muddle along with some positive steps
but with policies that contradict one other. Labour will talk about
sustainability but their overriding goal will be a bigger economy, not a
better one. And if Labour has to rely on either United or New Zealand First,
they will be taken even closer to National's authoritarianism and
intolerance.
Which leaves us with the third, and most heartening option: a Labour-led
government supported and influenced by those New Zealanders who believe in a
sustainable, humane future for our country.
There is only one party for the planet. There is only one party that is
committed to maintaining a democratic, humane, free, fair society in the
face of severe threats from climate change, peak oil and environmental
destruction, and to tackling those threats as though they were serious. That
party is the Greens.
If you believe in our agenda, we need your help. It's not enough just to
vote, though that helps. You can be part of the movement, spreading the word
to others, helping plan the campaign, adding to the thousands who are
already enthusiastically working for a Green future. You can become part of
the solution.
To achieve that solution, we have to work with Labour. We have to encourage
them in their infant steps to sustainability, convince them of the urgency
of the energy issue, oppose them strongly when they panic and slip back to
authoritarian and unsustainable ways. We will lose some of the battles. But
we are asking you to give us the numbers and the power this year to give New
Zealand, and the planet, a future.