Today, a major fire broke out on the Port Hills in Ōtutahi. Like its 2017 predecessors, it is almost certainly exacerbated by climate change. And it is still burning.
The present government did not start the fire. But they piled the tinder high last time they were in power, gutting the ETS, delaying action on agricultural emissions, encouraging fossil fuel development, and generally reversing policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And they're doing it again, killing the clean car discount, cutting the GIDI scheme to reduce industrial emissions, killing public transport, delaying action on agricultural emissions (again) and encouraging fossil fuel development (again). Today, in Parliament, they effectively admitted that their corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" resource consent legislation will be used to ram through new coal mines - in the middle of a climate crisis. While an actual fire is burning on the edge of the South Island's largest city, one change in wind direction away from devastation, they are metaphorically pouring petrol through the house. They are arsonists, pure and simple. The question is whether we'll be able to vote them out before we have our own version of Lahaina or Black Saturday - or whether their climate arson is going to have a bodycount.
