Submit to the Committee!

(crossposted from my normal blog...)

Okay, it's not the climate change committee, its the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee. But those terms of reference mean those in denial about climate change will be out in force, trying to convince the committee not to do anything rash because, after all, people who think anthropogenic climate change is real are just crazy religious fanatics really.

That's why it's a good idea to submit. You don't need to have the kind of detailed opinions about the relative merits of carbon tax vs. ETS that, say, Idiot/Savant or Gareth Renowden might muster. All you need is a conviction that something should be done. There will be lots of submitters following Rodney's lead with cranky claims that we should sit back and let things go on their merry way; for a good result in this committee, we have to match that with ordinary Kiwi voices saying "Oi! We need to sort this!"

I just posted my submission off ten minutes ago, and now I get home and find (via NRT) they've pushed the deadline out another two weeks.

So that means you can do something too. My main points were:
* get it done. John Key has promised it'll have a scheme in place by Jan 2010; stick to this deadline.
* risk management common sense is that we should be prudent in the face of uncertainty, i.e. we need to be working with negative scenarios, not best-case scenarios;
* don't get too focused on NZ's economy and competitive situation, because climate change will shake everything up; a global frame is required.

Take a few minutes to tap a few lines, print, put in envelope, send. Postage is free to Parliament, remember. There'll be two weeks worth of extra crank letters; consider being part of the two weeks of extra sanity.