It ain’t easy being green

Truthfully, I’m not a committed green; like most, I pay lip service, perfectly happy to rely on others when it comes to personal inconvenience. But things may be changing: I shall definitely vote Green at the next opportunity and, if the tired old bones permit, join the next protest against the government-driven lunacy that threatens our basic assets.

As you’ve previously gathered, I live in NZ, a small, somewhat isolated country that should have the capacity to showcase environmental protection at its best, but by lack of will and poor leadership, we seem intent on ignoring the opportunities that still exist. Why on earth is it that smaller countries seek to elevate themselves to ‘world class’ status by adopting unbalanced societal structuring and unchecked consumerism?

The flick of a switch

Interesting, isn’t it, that some of the brightest minds on the planet spend time and billions developing gadgets that reduce the need for physical or mental effort? Thanks to them, we can now use a remote for all sorts of stuff that used to require thought and movement. I’m not suggesting we should adopt the Amish lifestyle, but surely we should be educating ourselves and our children about the problems posed by climate change and the proliferation of pointless gadgetry. Electricity was once regarded as an asset not to be wasted; failure to ‘switch off’ was considered serious and attracted dire threats concerning the consequences of waste and fire risk.

Home and dry

It amazes me that even ‘developed’ countries persist in maintaining a cavalier attitude when it comes to water conservation. Here we deplete river flows to irrigate overstocked farms, tolerate farm owners allowing their stock to use fresh water rivers as toilets, thus driving the demand for bottled water. If pure water is such an issue, why not educate and encourage people to boil it? Surely this would be a lot cheaper and a part solution to the growing problem of disposing of one-use glass and plastic containers. It can’t be beyond the abilities of the current talent pool to design a simple household system of recycling bath and laundry water. That, along with small solar power panels could be made compulsory for house construction; not much maybe, but at least a start.

For those of you unfortunate enough not to live in ‘Godzone Country’, do pop over, all sorts of interesting stuff’s happening: we will soon be able to have a takeaway pizza delivered by a ‘drone’, how’s that for progress? Meanwhile there are towns where the folk can’t drink the water because the cattle are peeing in the rivers. So I’m going green folks, not for lofty humanitarian ideals, I’d just like to think that at least I tried to leave my grandsons’ children something better than an ailing climate and a pile of indestructible junk.