Climate change is close to home

It would have been great to read some reassuring research as my climate change reporting for this edition was given its final tweaks.

But, no, in the manner of all things climate in 2022, it was more bad news.

The subsidence of various bits of our coast will bring higher rises to sea levels, we’re told by SeaRise: Te Tai Pari O Aotearoa.

I haven’t travelled much in these past two COVID years, but I have seen collapsing sand banks close to houses on a Raglan beach. Nearby, farmers are selling off stock rather than keep waiting for rain for their parched pastures.

Near my now-home town, Matamata, I’ve also seen vast swathes of paddocks dependent on irrigation; in Waikato, formerly known throughout as lush, wet and green.

I notice the dry, dust-dispersing ploughed land and the fertiliser trucks. There is research indicating urban farms using few agrochemicals can get crop yields comparable to or higher than conventional farms. I note in passing that Waikato is New Zealand agriculture’s highest emitter of greenhouse gases.

I have tried to pack a lot of ideas from energised and interesting people into the many climate-related articles in these pages. Much of the factual material I’ve ploughed through didn’t end up in my writing, despite the many words I had at my disposal.

For example, actions to mitigate climate change are the very ones that help us get healthier as communities. You know the drill: walkways and cycleways tend to reduce emissions and get us fitter. Healthier foods – yes, plant-based – are better for us and the planet.

Insulated houses; living more closely together rather than adding suburbs with those horrible long commutes; getting rid of fossil fuel burning – eventually. All these will give us better health. The morbidity and mortality reductions will be there; detailed research backs it up.

I discovered the global economy is well short of investment in alternative solutions. We need to make available three to six times more money.

I read that at least 18 countries have successfully reduced their emissions. Sadly, New Zealand is not one of them.

Have you ever seen jazzy promos to boost public interest in reducing our carbon footprints? Me, neither. And the road-safety people have grabbed “road to zero” when we really need it for carbon zero.

I see that weather-related natural disasters globally are already taking 60,000 deaths a year.

I visit a hospital and actually see the medical waste I have read about. My mind boggles.

A few encouraging points. Since I last looked into the health sector’s response to climate change, in 2019, there has been an upsurge in interest, activity and strategy, as well as legislation and regulation.

It is heartening to see the international experts on climate change back “no till”, regenerative agriculture.

And I interviewed two doctors who run MedArk, provider of eco-friendly-only products. It’s great to hear about these pioneering efforts towards the cleaner future we all depend on. (“Story coming soon,” as I told the editor.)

And then there are the New Zealand scientists collaborating on disinfection and reuse of personal protective equipment. That’s heroic work.

Also, academics have started researching “degrowth”. Forever and a day, economies cannot keep growing, as Kevin Hague writes in a Viewpoint on page 15. Mr Hague, a former DHB chief executive, former Green Party MP, former chief executive of Forest & Bird and current deputy chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, identifies disease spread by new incursions of pests as a risk of warmer temperatures. Heavy rain, too, is really great for cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis.

In my reading, I saw reference to the “myriad” benefits of native reafforestation. As a Tokomaru Bay resident wisely told podcast The Detail, there is a link between the wide expanse of bare hills and pine-forest remnants in her area, and all the rain it is receiving these days.

Soil health is our health. Towns like Matamata that are biting off ever more land for housing are likely to be concreting over much of that precious resource, and increasing rainfall risk.

Your local councillor may be your most important employee (yes, you do pay them). There are local elections later this year.

Commentators from the world of health and medicine point more knowledgably than I to the state of play right now. I’m grateful for their time and insights.