Jacinda Ardern has just been been appointed a trustee of the Prince of Wales’ prestigious environment award, “The Earthshot Prize” created by Prince William to fund projects that aim to save the planet.
Prince William was effusive and glowing about the former New Zealand Prime Minister’s “life-long commitment to supporting sustainable and environmental solutions”.
And the former prime minister said she was “humbled and excited to be working with the Earthshot team”.
Prince William said Ms Ardern’s and her experience would “bring a rich infusion of new thinking to our mission”. Chair of the board of trustees Christiana Figueres said she was “thrilled” to welcome Jacinda Ardern and had long been inspired by her “work as a catalysing force in the effort to combat climate change”.
But examination of her track record as Primer Minister don’t bear out the ecstatic enraptured description or Jacinda Ardern as an environmentalist.
Dan Wooton writing in Australia’s “Daily Mail’” said he feared “William has made his first mistake as Prince of Wales by aligning himself so closely with one of the world’s more divisive politicians.”
Wooton based his horror at Ardern’s “Earth Planet” on her “brutally inhumane lockdown regime” around Covid describing the retired prime minister as “heartless.”
But I wish to leave Covid aside and focus on the relevance of Jacinda Ardern’s prestigious appointment to Prince William’s Earth Planet and her qualifications as an environmentalist.
There’s nothing in her academic qualifications – “Ardern attended the University of Waikato, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelor of Communication Studies in politics and public relations, a specialist three-year degree.”
So how did she fare environmentally in her six years as prime minister 2017 to 2023?
Not at all good – in fact badly.
Jacinda Ardern – As an environmentalist fails badly?
Contradictions
Looking at some issues, naturally climate change is one to focus on, which significantly has usurped the original name of global warming.
Her climate change commitments are a full of contradictions and hypocrisy. As one critic has said “Her climate change commitments are a joke.” She closed down coal mining in New Zealand and “then presided over the largest imports of coal we have ever seen, into a country that is sitting on huge coal reserves.”
Ardern’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is illogical, rejecting any vegetation under five metres in height for carbon sequestering assessment, when several dozen New Zealand native tree species are five metres or less. Her administration absurdly rejects the undeniable fact that all trees that are above five metres in height had for several years or more as juveniles, been under five metres in height. The wacky thinking similarly rejects farmers’ pasture in sequestering values.
Then in the next breath, her government has lambasted farmers for stock flatulence.
Government, presided over by Jacinda Ardern for six years, sees carbon credits as the solution, a sort of free market trading, wheeling and dealing whereby a major polluter can excuse its gross pollution by planting a monoculture of trees elsewhere. How one country or corporate company paying another for the right to continue polluting is supposed to save Planet Earth, escapes me.
Carbon Trading
The approach of the Ardern governments to the theoretical threat of climate change has been to open investment doors to foreign carbon trading “farming” speculators of the corporate kind.
Let me make it clear, I’m not anti-forestry. I think integrated, coordinated farm-forestry is excellent. But Jacinda Ardern’s carbon farming is futile and farcical and environmentally foolish.
Any farmer wishing to integrate trees on farms is commendable and deserves incentives. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and that’s good for both climate and environment to plant some forests in the right place.
The problem is if unchecked, uncoordinated carbon farming, gives rise to vast monocultures of trees that will probably never be harvested and used for timber.
As “Beef+Lamb New Zealand “says the NZ Government is economically incentivising wholesale land use change from pastoral-based farming into exotic trees – because the increasing price of carbon credits is distorting what land is worth and productive farmland is being sold for the future planting of trees – mainly exotic species such as pinus radiata.”
The Government carbon farming scheme is a mess. It has failed to set any target to reduce absolute emissions from fossil fuel use, and has not set any limits on how much offsetting of emissions can happen through the ETS to meet our climate change targets and therefore on how much land should be converted to forestry to create carbon credits for sale.
Little or No Benefit
I see no benefit from carbon trading. I once asked a professional forester his opinion of carbon trading. He described it as “a rort” on the country economically. It is worsened by the move by the Ardern administrations to ease any controls on foreign investment – or should it be intrusion – by carbon farming speculators from overseas. As my forester friend described, the economic angle with profits flowing offshore to foreign investor head offices, is a rort economically.
Also it is a rort environmentally.
As a long-time fly fisherman, I know one or two trout streams. I went to fish one last autumn and to my astonishment found the stream bed bone-dry, whereas the stream once flowed all year round even in dry, drought summers.
The reason was a monoculture of pines. Now pines have an unquenchable thirst for water and as they grow they thirst for more and more water. The thirst is insatiable. And this stream’s catchment was largely planted in a monoculture of pines in this case for production forestry.
But Ardern has presided over a mania for pine monocultures of the carbon farming type that threaten to overwhelm whole valleys as overseas speculators are welcomed and flood in.
Highly productive beef and sheep farms have succumbed to market values as they are converted to the mania of carbon farming.
Monocultures of pine forests are of dubious environmental value, particularly “carbon farming” – photo Tony Orman
Anti-Environment
Pine forests are of dubious environmental value. They induce acidification of soil and run-off with a loss of bio-diversity. Freshwater aquatic biodiversity is reduced as acid water means lower aquatic invertebrate populations, which means a loss of sporting fish species like trout and indigenous fish species.
The ill-effects cut deeper into the social fabric off rural New Zealand.
Converting productive farmland to pine plantations for carbon credits means depopulation as farmers leave. Farm employment drops or disappears and with further depopulation local contractors and businesses, schools and services essential to rural.
In August 2017 leading up to that year’s election, Jacinda Ardern pledged Labour would lead a nationwide effort to restore deteriorated rivers and lakes to a clean, swimmable state. By early 2020 little or nothing had been done. Greenpeace challenged PM Ardern with ”It’s time for the Prime Minister to make good on her (2017) promises to clean up our rivers.”
In 2020 Jacinda Ardern renewed her promise to clean up rivers. Months later the ABC reported “New Zealand’s clean, green image hides a dirty truth. Polluted by intensive dairy farming, its waterways are some of the most degraded in the world.”
Then it asked “will the Ardern government clean it up?”
To be fair, the origin of the state of rivers was nothing to do Jacinda Ardern-led governments.
Key Grilled
The deterioration started well before 2017.
In 2011 Prime Minister John Key and New Zealand’s environmental record were put under the spotlight in an interview on the BBC programme Hardtalk as BBC journalist Stephen Sackur grilled him about whether New Zealand really is as clean and green as the country’s tourism campaign claimed. Stephen Sackur cited Mike Joy, a leading environmental scientist at Massey University, who had said “we are delusional about how green and clean we are”.
Mike Joy made the comment while pointing out that many New Zealand species were facing extinction and more than half the countries lakes and low-land rivers are polluted.
Key denied it but Stephen Sackur pointed out that Mike Joy was a scientist and would have based his comments on research.
Nevertheless in 2017 and then again in 2020 prior to elections Jacinda Ardern promised to clean up the deteriorated rivers.
Dangerous Nitrate Levels
During the Ardern years, more emerged on the environmental state of New Zealand’s rivers. The NZ Federation of Freshwater Anglers, a rivers and trout and salmon advocacy, carried out nitrate testing which revealed excessive levels of the chemical mainly due to corporate dairying.
The high nitrate levels are toxic to aquatic life but also to human health with the Canterbury-South Canterbury people revealed as having bowel cancer levels among the highest in the world. A Danish study of 2.7 million people revealed a strong, undeniable link between high nitrate levels in drinking water and bowel cancer.
But the Ardern years have been compliant to other environmental failings. Native birds have suffered from widespread government use of indiscriminate toxins spread by air over public lands. Native bird numbers have suffered with some species such as the native kea parrot plummeting downwards to endangered status.
Corporate Domination
Sea fisheries dominated by a free market quota approach has seen corporate companies dominate the fisheries with government’s fisheries ministry seemingly compliant to commercial. Bottom trawling and dredging has been allowed to continue damaging seabed environments and upsetting saltwater ecosystems.
Lax foreign ownership controls has allowed corporates to ease in and gain control such as Chinese acquisition of vertically integrated dairying from farm to processing to supply.
Counter Productive Law
Then there were other issues like Jacinda Ardern’s panicked law following the 2019 mosque shooting by an Australian terrorist. The rushed law targeted the lawful firearm owning public and left the gangs and criminals better armed. New Zealand is a land of outdoor pursuits amongst it hunting. But under an inept Department iof Conservation, surely a misnomer in title, animals such as the world rare Himalayan tahr are slaughtered by government programmes. Game management is virtually unknown.
Therefore is it any wonder that many New Zealanders are puzzled and some aghast at Jacinda Ardern’s appointment as a trustee to Prince William’s Planet Earth concept.
It seems Prince William’s researchers failed to do their homework.
Footnote: Tony Orman is an angler, hunter and a conservationist who was involved in “Save Manapouri” battle around 1970 and has been a forthright environmental advocate ever since.
“To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”― Theodore Roosevelt. But politicians don’t understand this. They are mostly insincere, seeing only votes in pretending to be an environmentalist.
As the writer says Prince William has made an error of judgement
Ardern like most of her ilk simply “manages the story”.
As the writer suggests our natural environment is for sale to the highest (global) bidder.
F&G are having to ration what’s left of our once envied fisheries.
We can’t even manage our drinking water.
David Parker tried and failed as Minister for the Environment.
The rest of Arden’s government simply failed.
The only thing to be relied upon with politicians is the evasion of truth, if it is not to their liking, and the practice of deceit.
Farmers and others on the land or are dependant on it tend not to vote Labour. Driving people off the land and into the cities makes sense for the far left. The far left has always wanted an unarmed society, except for their own thugs. The Christchurch shoot-up gave her the opportunity to clamp down on gun owners. She took it with both hands. We might well ask why Tarrant got a licence without going through the normal procedures. Who greased the path for him and why? Is he in prison here or living a quiet life in the Australian backcountry? Pine forests podzolise the soil, essentially destroying it for generations. Apparently river flow is reduced too. But for the far left “Screw the forest, the countryside and the rivers”. There are no votes for us there. The pines must go, to be replaced by hazel nuts and oaks with their roots providing an environment for black truffles. Walnuts will produce a crop of value and, after many years timber worth far more than that of Pinus radiata. These broadleaf deciduous trees will not destroy the soil. Give the foreign pine forestry companies the immediate bums’ rush without compensation and use the money that they spent to repair the land. Roger Dewhurst
A very good and timely reminder of what New Zealand’s “iconic” PM really was like. It is a trait of kiwis that we don’t like to put the boot in when someone is down, or in the case of Jascinda down and out (literally). But we need to be reminded exactly what she did to this country.
History has still to show if we will escape a future of tribalist-woke totalitarianism by rejecting the neo-Labour-iwi taniwha in the next election. BUT articles such as this will help voters to keep rosy faux-memories from blossoming. Tony Orman, and a growing number of good journalists, run the risk of being treated as iconoclasts, but instead should be thanked for doing what the “Fourth Estate” has so shamefully not bothered to do: be objective and table facts for others to assess. “Wiremu te Toa”
Regardless of our differences of opinion about man made climte change and our ability to control the global climate, most people might agree that the natural resources of our planet are finite and precious.
Our disrespect for and excessive exploitation of these natural resources might not destoy the planet but it could definitely be a threat to the survival of our species and others.
The climate change narrative emphasizes our reliance on the use of fossil fuels to generate energy and the release of Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Perhaps we ought ask ourselves why we need to produce so much energy, what we are doing with it and whether we need to or not?
Our species seems to have an insatiable desire for more and more comfort, convenience and consumer products that we beleve improve our lives.
Our consciousness and inventive curiosity enables us to invent new products and services that require the exploitation of more natural resources and the generation of more energy to produce, transport, use and then dispose of what we consume.
Our social and economic culture has become one of CONSUMERISM in which we have all been manipulated by marketing and adversising propaganda to believe that health and happiness are achieved by having more material possessions.
Biologically, the purchase, ownership and use of products and services generates the production of PLEASURE HORMONES (Dopamine, serotonin and endorphones) that make us feel good for a while.
Unfortunately, this effect is brief and also addictive so that the behaviour of consumption needs to be repeated and increased to achieve the desired result.
We have been indoctrinated to believe that pleasure = happiness but that is a false belief because the persuit of pleasure is actually an addiction that leads to unhappiness and depression unless the production of those hormones is constantly stimulated.
IMO, the proposed responses to the dangers of climate change have more to do with perpetuating our depencency on consumerism and the increasing wealth of the finacially elite than conserving and protecting the endangered resources of our planet.
The privilieged and well connected political and financial elites will not benefit from a reduction in the consumption of goods and services so they will promote more to increase their wealth, authority and prestige.
The ordinary working people, on the other hand, suffer the detrimental consequences of increased living costs, taxation, debt, poverty, social dysfunction, illness and unhappiness related to the persuit of happiness through excessive consumption.
Regulations that would help to protedct and preserve our precious natural resources are proposed and publicized but are never administered to reduce the exploitation and destruction because that would impair the economic system based on excessive consumption.
Relying on Ms Ardern and the other global elites to “save the planet” is illogical because it is not really in their best interests to limit the consumption that is the real source of the problem.
No, as ususal, our glorious leaders will promise and pontificate but do nothing of consequence, so it is up to ourselves to change our addiction to consumption and stop buying and then disposing of things we do not need with money we do not have.
Pleasure is not happiness.
Excessive consumption of goods and services is not beneficial for us or the planet.
More is not necessarily better.
Addiction to pleasure hormones is not healthy.
Debt is slavery.
edited ~mod
The only reason that [Jacinda] got this ” bolt hole” was because her
fellow Klaus Shwab trained “marxist” Tony Blair got her the hiddyhole for her to
avoid the coming Numemberg #2 court hearings which are not far away.
It IS interesting that the royal family seem to be protecting her too. Sort of
kills any loyalty I ever had for the British Crown. Maybe the rumours about the
Royal perversity have some truth????
[Jacinda] & her cronies WILL face justice for their crimes in the very near future!!!!
As with all things Ardern, there are two narratives .. the first written by Ardern herself, her supporters, and her spin doctors .. which always depicts her in a favourable light.
From this source, we get Ardern The Kind, and Ardern The Empathetic.
Then there is the narrative which comes from the actual experiences of those on the receiving end of Ardern’s policies.
From this source, we Get Ardern The Evil, Ardern The Callous, and Ardern The Inhumane.
There is no prospect of any reconciliation between the two.
Those who have suffered at the hands of Ardern will, however, never forget …
Princes William is going to be very disappointed as most New Zealanders have been in the Ardern Gov’t —a lot of talk and no do. So she/he will still talk a lot and William will be so pleased but there will be nothing done and after he dissolves the Royal hierarchy there will be a lot of cold seats. All that is needed is time and the situation will do full circle when the people control the narrative. This time is very near. Just today we hear on the news that Lake Omapere is dying and so are the fish and this is just a small lake .
We must take control of our environment before it is totally destroyed and allowing foreign investors to control great areas of our land is certainly not beneficial to New Zealanders. Time to wake up
All I can say is god help Prince William.
Let’s make no mistake:
Ardern’s contribution to environment is less than nil.
At her instructions to the Dept of Conservation was to form a Working party,”Group” to prepare the paper work to hand over the Entire Conservation Estate to wealthy moadi tribes which will then control all public water & resources for profit. She has also paved the way to handing over all land to moedis which will be rezoned as tribal land in ownership, kind of nationalizing to moedis all land based assets.So yes Lew, god help the prince.
Ardern has nothing but a negative ledger& should be behind bars for treason.
Prince William should fire the advisors who prompted him to appoint that ghastly failure to his trust. He really should have done his own research.