A fourteen page spread on Climate Change is a big investment for a metropolitan lifestyle magazine.  But what I want to applaud Simon Wilson, senior writer for Metro, on is his comprehensive review of a wide range of issues that interrelate. 

What will get the attention of Aucklanders initially will be the pictures though – thanks to Martin Thomas and Gareth Eyres. 

Downtown Auckland with a 20 metre sea rise … fascinating!   The roof of that wonderful historic ferry building is just visible and the top half of the Hilton Hotel looks like a ship anchored offshore. 

In the article, Two Degrees of Separation, Simon moves from property damage to agriculture and tourism implications, weather bombs and floods to drought and water shortages, mosquito vectors to public health.  Surely people are starting to get that its all connected! 

If you have ever been in a serious earthquake you know that its happened and then you deal with the results.  With Climate Change, we are in a process where the results will be felt long after the “rumble”.   So many people are not taking it seriously. Some don’t want to know.  If its not happening now, why worry? 

But I am heartened by what seems a fast evolution in thinking within business, communities and individually.    More and more people, almost daily, understand that they can make a difference.  Just by living their life differently.  In the UK a survey revealed that 74% of people believe that one person can make a difference.

The problem is that when people do take action, it is not immediately apparent that something positive has happened.  So people sometimes give up and go back to habits they know. 

And then there are the committed people.  In homes, communities, businesses, congregations, organizations and politics, where energy and action are two dangerously powerful weapons of mass survival.  These are not those “radical environmental activists” we have labeled environmentally responsible people in the past.  No.   When a Chief Executive of a major NZ business rides to work on a bike to save carbon emissions he is not being a “radical activist.”  He is acting responsibly and as a leader in his field, a fantastic role model.  Well, actually, maybe he is being a radical activist because he is living his values  … so activists are OK people, right?

Yes they are and thats what Mecology is all about.  Being responsible for our own personal ecosystem.    www.mecology.com