Climate Change: Unfit for office

National Party leader Simon Bridges was interviewed this morning on climate change. And in the process, he revealed that National are still deeply in denial about the the threat we face:

• He still thinks New Zealand should act "proportionately" to the rest of the world - which when National was in government, meant dragging their feet and doing as little as possible.
  
• He supports the oil and gas industries and will immediately restore oil and gas exploration if National gains power.
  
• He does not believe climate change "is an existential issue".
  

Bridges' preferred word is "nuance". But there is no nuance here. Climate change is an existential threat to human civilisation. It is a direct threat to the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. And Bridges' response to that is to say "fuck you", and espouse policies which would see the homes of those people flooded. This is not leadership. Instead, it is the opposite: a desperate attempt to cling to the past and pretend that there isn't really a problem, and certainly nothing that threatens the status quo or the interests of National's polluting donors. To pretend that nothing has to change. And when we have only twelve years to save the world, that's not just deeply stupid - its openly promoting crisis.

The upshot is that National is unfit for office. Face with the biggest crisis in the history of humanity, their response is to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it doesn't exist. No-one should vote for such a party. As for how they can ever demonstrate a change of heart, given their dirty history of climate change denial and foot-dragging, I'm not sure. But dumping Bridges would be a good start.