The Sunday Star Times says in an editorial that New Zealand is not clean & green. “That’s just an advertising slogan. New Zealanders already know this and now the world is catching on. The article in last week’s Guardian points out the gap between the slogan and the product itself and paints us as eco-hypocrites. There’s plenty of truth in the charge. After all, it’s only a few decades since we began telling the world we were pure and lovely. But our history up to that point was dirty and brown, like the history of most other countries. Even if they were green in everything we do now – and we are not – we would still live in a country polluted by its past.”
The Sunday Star Times editorial reacts to the London Guardian’s jab at New Zealand’s clean and green image and climate change performance. Environment Minister Nick Smith says
The rhetoric of New Zealand being a world leader on climate change has been at odds with a trebling in coalgenerated electricity, record felling of trees, and large increases in our gross emissions over the past decade. We have had to give New Zealand’s climate change policy a reality check. We are not claiming New Zealand can be a world leader in emissions cuts or the fi rst carbon-neutral country in the world. Our policy is for New Zealand to do its fair share and this will be challenging given our unique emission profi le dominated by agriculture. I will be providing information to The Guardian to ensure the full facts are known…However, the broad message of New Zealand having to be careful that our actions must match our words needs to be heard. (Inside Tourism)
Actually, one wonders if New Zealand could be the world’s first carbon-neutral country if we kick-started our forestry programme. With a million hectares of wasteland available for tree planting, wouldn’t that be great back up for our 100% Pure New Zealand claim? We would also have to prevent our Environment Court from rejecting further wind power initiatives like Project Hayes. A Green Brand New Zealand strategy is required folks to deal with all this from the top down.
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Tags: 100% Pure New Zealand, clean & green, clean & green NZ, Clean and Green, clean and green New Zealand, eco-hypocrite, Kaitiakitanga, 地球に優しい
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