She suggests that: “Part of the reason for the inaction and apathy is that India has never been a revolutionary culture – it has been a culture that quietly hums along, taking everything that has been thrown in its way – accepting rather than rebelling. This has been ingrained in its peoples’ psyche so deeply that it will take much more than threats of climate change to spur this mighty elephant into action."

Akhila’s comments about the Indian response to the threats of global warming prompted me to reflect on New Zealand’s response.  As in India, I would say that the proportion of people truly concerned about the threat of global warming and climate change is very small, perhaps less than 5% of the total population.  This is even though many farmers can describe changes that have happened to their pasture and farm management due to climate change within the past 10 years.  Many people I have spoken to this winter have said they can’t remember a winter as cold as this since childhood. 

Just as Akhila mentions India’s cultural history of ‘accepting rather than rebelling’, it seems to me that one element of the Kiwi reaction to global warming and climate change is the belief: ‘We’ll cope with it if it happens’.  I think that New Zealand culture has a very strong tradition of practical pragmatism which goes with the No.8 wire tradition of solving problems as they come.  It’s an attitude which despises melodrama and takes pride in practical solutions.  Kiwis are generous and warm-hearted when people face tragedy.  One can think of countless examples of deep kindness shown by people for families of communities who experience disaster such as flood, drought, fire, or life-threatening illness

But I do worry about how we will cope with the slow impoverishment of repeated drought, storm or flood damage; as more people get older and retire from the workforce, leaving fewer young to pay taxes; as petrol prices rise and energy becomes more expensive; as economic conditions continue to create a cost-price squeeze where we pay more and more for imported fertilizer and machinery and receive less for our exported food and fibre.  Will we ignore or punish the misfits, the disabled and the dysfunctional?  Will we continue to call for longer prison terms and tougher benefit criteria? 

In this troubled scenario of our future, I see district and regional councils as having a key role in helping to hold us together as a decent and civil society.  Planners will need to be more and more conscious of the social and cultural elements of sustainability, no less than economic and environmental.  Our future plans are going to have to integrate LTCCPs under the Local Government Act and RMA district and regional plans along with energy and transport plans.