In July 2019 the Whangarei District Council (WDC) declared a Climate Change Emergency. Northland decided to move from talk to action.

End of July 2019 a group of us met a NorthTec for a Climate Change event. As a result we started to work on a climate change declaration and develop the framework for a climate action plan. Our target is to get over hundred Northland organisations (schools, local government/ council, businesses, clubs etc) and over five hundred individuals involved and acting to avert further, negative Climate Change impacts every day.

On 24. Sep 2019 the 16yr old Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg made the following passionate speech at the UN in New York. The secretary of the UN contributed climate change to us humans and suggested that humans need to live up to it and fix it. And on 27. Sep over 170,000 Kiwis took to the streets, over 500 in Whangarei alone, and demanded more action from the democratic elected leaders & bureaucrats. Globally over 7 million joined the Climate Change protests, making it the biggest internationally organised event in human history. However, protesting is not enough, each of us can and should take Climate Change Action now.

Here some references: check out this interesting CNN CC Quiz, the latest IPCC report and this excellent CC infographics in Nature.

Areas where each of us can make a contribution include:

• transport – walk, cycle, rather than take a 2.5 ton fossil fuel vehicle
• waste – avoid using plastic, reduce our food waste, recycle – best in closed loop systems
• food – buy seasonal, local food or even better grow food yourself. Also check out vertical farming.
• energy – don’t waste, but conserve energy; use renewable energy where you can
• housing – insulate your house for health reasons and energy saving (wouldn’t it be great to have a Northland designed, affordable house & build with Tai Tokerau materials)

Fig: Personal action to impact CC (Phys.org, 2017)

If each of us does something small every day, it will make a big difference. We all have a responsibility to our children, their children and generations to come. We don’t want to be know for the crash & burn, but the build-up, regneration – generation, don’t we?

Fig: IPCC farming CC mitigation options

Innovation will also have to play a role in mitigating the crisis we brought upon ourselves. This will include how to deal with

• growing pollution (our local Hatea River is deemed not swimmable)
• micro plastics (apparently all of us eat up to one credit card worth of plastic a week)
• deforestation (planting trees is one of the best strategies to offset Greenhouse Gas pollution. Every day humans log as many trees as the size of Tai Tokerau. That needs to stop NOW.)

If you like to upskill yourself on Climate Change, Global Warming, Sea Level Rise, I can recommend this free online resource by Professor Michael Mann from Penn State University. It covers the science and current state of the art, as well as mitigation strategies. Also note, that Italy is the first country which teaches CC in each school from this year.  In December 2019 the COP25 Climate Conference in Madrid is focussing on the Ocean. With the ninth biggest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) New Zealand and its Pacific Island neighbours will be some of the most impacted nations globally by sea level rise, changing weather patterns. We need to act TODAY. There is lots we can do – everyone of us, every day…

So, please help to make a positive difference every day and make our planet the most liveable planet again.

We need YOU

to help reverse Climate Change, reduce pollution and make Tai Tokerau the most sustainable region in the Southern Hemisphere by 2025.