Even Colin James admits it ain’t getting any better

Good to see even a father of the establishment like Colin James coming out and pointing out that the sky is falling, in todays column he acknowledges some of the very real threats we are facing. My beef with a lot of the mainstream dialogue is that there is a culture of self censoring denial about how bad things are getting without a major shift in our thinking. I love how John Key wants to reduce tax on petrol, mate what do you think cars put into the atmosphere as pollution? What do you think that pollution is doing to our agricultural cycle and in turn is doing to crop failure? What is it with Politicians shielding polluters from the true cost of their pollution?

Colin James: Third World resentment on 'things to be afraid of' list
Take your pick of frights: climate change, water wrangles, the scramble for fuel and metals, high food prices starving the poor. Here's another - bad food. Climate change has inspired apocalyptic predictions of sudden tipping points, sea level rises, famines, extinction of species, including us, and worse. Industries have grown up to study, warn about, respond to and challenge it. Water is a more proximate challenge. Aquifers are plundered in India and northern China (and mid-Canterbury), huge waterworks in China control and divert water, affecting surrounding countries. Control of Tibet's Himalayan headwaters is part of that. Water problems will affect food production and industrial development and may unsettle relations between nations. Right now prices for oil, coal and raw materials have gone wild as China bids to secure its industrial future (including bids for coal here) and as rich countries try to maintain lifestyles. This has made Australia the Middle East of minerals.