PETTY, MUCK-MINDED JOURNALISTS, GET REAL

What was the lead story on Radio New Zealand news the other day, the day the ozone-layer over the country was the thinnest ever measured? Was it that terrible fact--something that affects everyone vitally? No, it was the latest instalment of a media beat-up about some bunch who tried to hire a private investigator to get the dirt on our repellent Prime Mince and her inept cabinet cronies--the gang who haven't done a single useful thing about global-overheating, and who have overseen a steady downgrading of the country's social fabric.

So nice to know that the media has the country's real interests at heart. They dissect an irrelevant microbe oicked from the armpit of politics and ignore the destruction of the planet. There should be an award in that, shouldn't there? Yay!

Putting political shennigans ahead of the planet was one of the bad habits that got us into this environmental mess in the first place. So why not keep up the good work, eh chaps? Let the brain-damaged media rule! Yay 2!!

Actually, that day was the saddest in New Zealand's history, because it marked the end of the beginning, the door slamming on life as this country has always known it, the first overt sign it has had that the planet will never be the same, that the climatic normality of the past 10,000 years has gone for ever. The ozone layer above New Zealand had been anorexic anyway, but that day, and for the next day or two, a gusty stratospheric wind tore the bottom off it. Which shows how little is needed, now that we have pushed the planet to the brink, for things to tip over and seriously threaten human health, even life.

And not just human health and life. We can stay indoors or use sun-block and protective gear to protect ourselves but what about the wild animals and the livestock? They, like us, can get cataracts, and suffer DNA damage. Plants, too, can be irrevocably damaged.

The gusts of change are upon us. But we, as always, are doing nothing.

Click to get to this BBC News page, where a British politician proves that he, at least, is saying some of the right things--'people should be scared...'