Fight climate change: reduce your whinging footprint

Now that we have seen some of the impacts of climate change for real, perhaps we could start taking this carbon-emissions thing more seriously.

The three things most people suggest you can do to help reduce emissions are:

1. Eat less meat and dairy

2. Cut back on flying

3. Drive less

I would suggest a fourth: stop whinging. Stop whinging about changes to streets that slightly inconvenience motorists. How else are we going to get people to drive less if we don’t make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists and reserve space for public transport to make it faster and more reliable?

Stop whinging about density done well. Modern, dense, well-engineered developments like Hobsonville Point and Stonefields house thousands; yet they can easily handle what were previously known as “100-year” floods.

Stop whinging about roadworks. How do you think the stormwater is going to be fixed without civil works?

Stop whinging about paying taxes and rates. Who’s going to pay for this if it’s not the people who can afford to?

Stop whinge voting. Don’t vote for people who promise to magically fix everything without spending anything. All they do is defer capital works, reduce maintenance and cut budgets for “non-essentials” like emergency management.

Get off Facebook and go for a ride or take a walk – you might enjoy it.

Chris Werry