While not as dramatic as a tipping bucket of cold water over a fire, the effect over time is the same.

Greenpeace has to remember (and I’m not suggesting that you don’t) that for politicians being seen to be doing something (issue management) is often more important than actually doing something. They’d rather have you complaining about the details, and by adopting an approach that pays lip service to climate change and sustainability, remove your ability for confrontation and making them look bad.

My suggestion is to confront specific politicians, like you’re doing here. By personalising it, you make it much harder for them to duck and avoid the issue.

Once again New Zealanders are conned into believing that some sort of progress is being made regarding New Zealand’s reaction to climate change and once again urgently required legislation is riddled with holes to the effect that the legislation itself is pointless.

The result: slow death to environmental campaigns killed as a result of empty promises and who’s to blame?? The politicians who offer these ineffective pieces of legislation, or those who accept it as being ‘the best they can get’ despite the fact that the legislation won’t actually solve the problem.

This is an effective and commonly implemented tactic, used to stifle environmental, nimby and social justice campaigns alike.

time for a different approach?

This election, make sure you don’t throw all your eggs into the ‘government will fix Climate Change’ basket. Get Active: get out there in your community, wherever you live and collectively create mandates based on what is best for by yourself, your friends, your family, your neighbours and especially your children because they’re the ones who will be effected by all of this, not John Key and not the board of directors of Genesis energy.