Why would I believe John Minto has any more of a clue about the planet's climate than he has about the planet's economics?

Have you considered, John, that regardless of what NZ does the effect will be the same as taing a damp piece of paper to fight a bushfire? We could stop emitting pollution completely and it would have practically no effect on a global scale. We're too small to matter.

I could boycott the local petrol station and it wouldn't care a jot, because 2,000 other people go there too. Without any of them also boycotting I've done nothing but feed my own over-inflated sense of importance.

And don't bother with the "but what if everyone did it?" rubbish, everyone won't. Without buy-in from Chine, Inda, the US and Russia there's no point in NZ trying to make a stand. THAT'S the problem, why sell the economy down the river for idealism?

"National and the the Maori Party traded their way closer to environmental catastrophe..."

Are you seriously suggesting that anything that NZ might do regarding 'climate change' will lead to catastrophe? Whatever NZ might do is no more than tokenism and it is absurd to suggest otherwise.

You naturally equate capitalism with despoiling the planet. I think it worth reminding you that the former East European socialist states were amongst the world's worst polluters. China, nominally a communist state, is hardly a shining beacon of environmentalism. I can't speak for North Korea but I believe they have done sterling work in the area by the simple expedient of starving the population.

You say climate change cannot be prevented under capitalism. Could you perhaps share your vision for us as to how climate change would be prevented under socialism or any other political system you care to mention? There is nothing you nor anyone else can do to prevent human beings from aspiring to an improved lifestyle, even if in the process they endanger the planet. I would suggest that capitalsm in fact offers the best hope, for providing the investment and inventiveness both to slow climate change and for better managing its effects.

"capitalism goes head to head with the life-support systems of the planet itself". John, you've always had a tenuous relationship with facts, but this is just blatantly ridiculous hyperbole. Climate change (and the probability of it being human-caused) is proven; exactly what its effects will be is not. The range of predictions is very wide, but in none of them does humanity (let alone all life) become extinct. In even the worst case scenarios of climate change the planetary "life-support system" is in no danger.

Those people arguing for a 40% emissions reduction like to talk about the consequences of not acting, but they need to actually look at what those consequences are. And equally importantly they need to look at what the consequences of a 40% emissions cut will be. Neither is known with certainty, but it is very possible (even likely) achieving a 40% emissions cut will do more harm to human health and standards of living than climate change will.

While capitalism is far from a good ideology, it isn't clear that you're providing any useful either. Can you suggest a better approach?

Judging from your past posts it would seem that there are the rich bastards and there are their victims and that the victims should be given everything they want. I fail to see how that is at all sustainable either. Getting something for nothing is not sustainable, economically or ecologically.

Those Native Americans that you think are so wise didn't have a welfare state. Come winter and the old and sick who could no longer provide useful services to the clan would be fed to the wolves.

It is only through exploitation of natural resources, including oil etc, that we have built up the excessive production that allows us to support unproductive people with food, housing and all the other services that we provide WINZ's "clients".

Blaming this all on capitalism is a folly. Communist countries have been as polluting, perhaps even more so, than capitalists. Find something else to blame: perhaps human greed.

It's not really Capitalism as such being head to head against humanity the last 300 years. It's the big Private banking network which has always been International in nature and has usually had megalomaniac ambitions. The big bankers don't just want to own everything ( eg the world )...they go past sheer greed and want to control everything ( eg the world ) as well.

That's why we've ended up with a world organisation for everything imaginable ( including John's beloved United Nations ) while National sovereignty is undermined. They also drove the Colonial expansions - notably from England and Holland and then via USA since 1944. Now they're changing the game - the new plan is Multi-polar with China as a big player as America gets wiped out. Free enterprise is fine - as long as the control of money supply, and banks, is public. Problem is the big monopolists who want to own governments etc....and the Earth.

And now their latest con - the Cap and Trade ETS type schemes - where big bankers will make fortunes trading the Carbon Credits...especially as they manipulate the world price of Carbon upwards. They recently manipulated the world price of Oil, via speculation - to silly levels - to create big price inflation around the world. And then there'll be the new powerful Emmissions Trading world bureaucracy, running us all off central computers, while the Emmissions Units default to a central currency - such as Euro. Or a new world one.

Have you realised yet that a giant pincer action has been created where they control both sides - the so called Right and Left ??!! The United Nations was actually set up by the bankers - notably Rockefellers. The Leftists think we're heading into a UN endorsed Green Utopia, when it will really be a terrible dictatorship - a World Corporate socialist state where big private players - banks and corps - dominate, and we all have to eat at KFC and McDonalds etc and there's no chance for a national rebellion because all our ports and assets have been sold. So national independence has been destroyed by stealth.... and greed.

John actually has one point I agree with, Capitalism doesn't require people to consider future generations. And to be honest, I don't know any system that does. But I do believe that Capitalism is the best we have, socialism definitely isn't. The idea of every country having their own ETS type schemes is going to have a neglegible effect on man made on global warming (if it exists).

For an effective scheme to work it has to be standard for the whole world, with every economy working under the same scheme. This would ensure that the worst pollutors paid, and would encourage the most ecologically friendly methods and areas of producing a product/service to be used. However as this require all economies to drop their protectionism, I don't see this happen.

So once again, we find that protectionism is damaging the world, but this time it is not only keeping poor countries poorer, it is damaing the world environment (providing man made global warming is real)

So The Maori didn't have enough time to become sustainable, but the Pakeha arrived with no intention of ever being sustainable. I find that a bit offensive. The Maori party have been pretty quick to sell out this time.

Can ANYONE give me decisive proof of "sea levels rising"? Because I don't see it & I live on the coast. Don't give me "Atoll" sea levels as evidence as this is total bunk! Due to the well known FACT that Atolls actually sink 3mm ever year (called Atoll Subsidence) once any volcanic activity has ceased which has been misinterpreted as rising sea levels when in actual fact the islands of these Atolls are sinking back into the ocean.

@ AJ No need to be offended, you have it completely wrong!