Climate Change: A look at our future

Climate change seems like a very abstract problem. Sure, emissions are out of control, our governments seem intent on doing nothing about it for fear of offending the fossil fuel industry, and the effects are all vague and general and very far away anyway. So the met service has decided to make the problem a little more concrete with a weather report from 2050:

A mock weather report looking 35 years into the future has painted a stark picture of a wintry New Zealand, ravaged by extreme conditions including both drought and flooding.

Just days before world leaders meet in Paris to discuss a global climate change deal, a futuristic fake MetService forecast for August 14, 2050 has appeared on social media.

TV meteorologist Chester Lampkin shows that winter temperatures that day ranging from 12C to 20C -- up to 3C warmer than normal for a winter's day.

It shows showers and thunderstorms across Northland, Auckland, and Hamilton, with 70-90mm daily rainfall causing flooding and closures to an "underwater" Northern Motorway, North-Western Motorway, and Tamaki Drive.

Coastal flood warnings are in effect for Auckland's coastline.

Most of Canterbury, meanwhile, is parched and under a fire risk.

If you're planning to be alive in 35 years, this is what you're looking at. John Key and Bill English don't care - they'll be dead, so why act? But the rest of us should care - and should force the government to do something about it.