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With the world in rāhui, you'd be forgiven for expecting an unprecedented reduction in carbon emissions. I did. If you did too, you'd be half right.
We have seen the largest drop in emissions in recent history. But they're only projected to drop by 5.5%.
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We have seen the largest drop in emissions in recent history. But they're only projected to drop by 5.5%.
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This tells us that the steps we have to take moving forward are far more radical than the ones we've taken so far.
Solving the climate crisis will take the strength we've found within ourselves over the past month. We'll need to work together, as a team of almost 8 billion.
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Solving the climate crisis will take the strength we've found within ourselves over the past month. We'll need to work together, as a team of almost 8 billion.
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We'll need to value the things that are real: like people, and the planet, and the fundamental laws of nature. And we'll need to rethink the things we've created, like the economy and our political and social systems.
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These systems exist to serve us. When they fail, it is our responsibility to dismantle them. I've been thinking less about the systems lately, which can be hard to explain, and instead about the tangible changes that our systems must deliver. Coming out of lockdown:
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1. I'd like to live in a climate-friendly home (and neighbourhood, and city). 40% of the world's emissions are expended to produce heating and electricity. New Zealand is not a particularly cold country, and our terrible housing contributes to our need for energy.
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We could live in homes designed for our climate. Homes that remain cool in the hot and warm in the cold, and allow our children to grow up safe and healthy.
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2. I'd like to work closer to home. Every day I've worked from home this lockdown, I've been gifted 3 extra hours. That's 15 hours a week I've spent growing and making and learning and loving.
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I dream of co-working spaces where we work near where we live. We could share childcare in the very same building, and all be home minutes after leaving work. We'd work with our neighbours and our children's friends parents, and we'd rebuild our communities every single day.
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3. I'd like to never worry about money again. Over the last month, homelessness was eradicated in New Zealand. This demonstrated that poverty is a policy choice. Not a choice made by parents or families, but one made by politicians, and by voters.
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As we come out of this, we have a choice to let people struggle or to give them and their children the best chance at a meaningful life. This involves redistributing the wealth in New Zealand, taking it from those to whom it means a yacht or 51st rental property, and
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giving it instead to folks struggling to make ends meet.
4. Finally, I'd like to stop worrying about the end of the world. I'd like to be excited about the future and surrounded by people and things I love.
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4. Finally, I'd like to stop worrying about the end of the world. I'd like to be excited about the future and surrounded by people and things I love.
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I'd like to never again have to work a job that feels like it was made up, or made difficult, just to keep me busy. I'd like to believe that if we can do the unprecedented once, we can do it again. We just all have to decide that it's time. Because it's time.
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