by Gareth Hughes
I spent a lot of my summer at the beach, which might sound a bit lazy for an MP in election year, but I was in it for more than the surf and sunburn. I was meeting with Kiwis concerned about deep sea oil.
Up and down the beautiful coasts of Aotearoa, people came out in their hundreds and thousands to take a stand against foreign oil companies drilling in our waters. School kids, surfers, swimmers, business people, tourism operators, fishermen, kayakers – all these people had looked at what the National Government and oil drilling companies like Anadarko are offering and said “no thanks”.
I promised those people I’d bring their concerns to Parliament, and today I did that, delivering thousands of anti-drilling messages to Energy Minister Simon Bridges.
I was joined by about 40 people who are adamant that dirty oil is not the future we want for New Zealand.
The choice for New Zealand is a stark one, and to demonstrate this, we created a 7 metre long vision of a cleaner, smarter future for New Zealand.
As the National Government gags New Zealanders’ ability to fight deep sea drilling by limiting the right to protest at sea, and to have a say on proposals for exploratory wells, the Green Party is listening to the thousands of New Zealanders who want a safer, cleaner, greener future. I was proud to represent them today.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Thu, March 20th, 2014
Tags: Anadarko, clean energy, deep sea drilling, Simon Bridges
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Gareth – Remember that the STRONG message is that we already have enough PROVEN reserves to destroy our environment.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21577097-either-governments-are-not-serious-about-climate-change-or-fossil-fuel-firms-are
http://math.350.org/
http://www.carbontracker.org/wastedcapital
The message is simple. What the f**k are we thinking, looking for more?
This is MARKET FAILURE! pure and simple, and it ends abruptly if any reasonable price is put on the emission of CO2.
“Reasonable” has to be put in the context of what is being risked. Here is a simple version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__-ZN9YQ4ms
Much longer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U#t=21
So not only are we looking for MORE stuff we cannot afford to burn, we’re doing it in the most expensive and most risky places on the planet.
There IS a cure for stupid. It is called death. or extinction.
Stopping the drilling is damned important, but it isn’t simply a matter of the risk to the beach!
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I agree. Though the clean/dirty meme has demonstrated effectiveness with the Green base, we must expand our tent beyond those persuadable with the time honored messaging.
But to be fair to Gareth, he is pursuing this line of attack BjChip. In Q&A with Simon Bridges the other day, Gareth did bring up one of your points:
I would add the following: “And endangering New Zealand’s long term economic health.”
What this does is turn the tables on National. We use their perceived strength against them and thereby alter perceptions of who the Greens are and whether they would be good stewards of NZ’s economy. We accuse them of economic mismanagement.
In an earlier question, Bridges attempted the same sort of ploy, attempting to challenge popular conceptions and portray National as strongest on renewables! Make National play defense by going at the economic message of the dire economic consequences of climate change, and the short term profiteering of National sponsorship of crony capitalism.
Let them get mired playing defense, trying to wash that oil slick off them.
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The party monitors the blog and one of Gareth’s staffers will undoubtedly be reading these comments at some point… and this argument was brought up last year in the context of Fracking. It is a hellishly strong argument.
If you come up with something useful here, it can be available to the caucus within the day.
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The elite. The people National caters to. The people who run the propaganda mill….
http://www.policymic.com/articles/85541/nasa-study-concludes-when-civilization-will-end-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us
They are going to kill everything.
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